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On the sell side, we have this.

I'll let others comment on the buy side.

-XXcompressedRefs is your solution to the memory usage delta.

As a result, I've lost hundreds of hours in code reviews because some pedant was more interested in picking nits over whitespace than actually reviewing my algorithms.

The places where I worked used a simple guide line: the author has to clean up trivial issues before submitting an item for review. In case of code, this means ensuring style conventions.

Which in practice is trivial for reasonably popular programming languages:

First, you rarely have to invent your own style conventions. Instead, use existing standards. For instance, there are standard coding conventions for Java and Python.

If some guide lines do not make sense for your shop, simply change them to fit your needs. For example, PEP8 recommends a maximum line width of 79 characters. However, all our developers work a horizontal resolution of 1920, so we allow 132 characters. We also changed naming conventions from the loud and baroque SOME_CONSTANT to the calm SomeConstant.

Next, there are tools to check these conventions such as CheckStyle and flake8. Often you can even find tools to reformat source code consistently or automatically fix trivial issues like missing blanks, for example autopep8.

Some shops inject these tools in the commit hook of their version management and make it reject any code that does not conform. Baring that, the review moderator is required to run the style checks on the review item. If it turns out that the author still left style issues in the code, the moderator returns the item to the author and requests to clean it up.

That way, the reviewers always get tidy code and can focus on comprehensibility, maintainability and algorithms.

.

Well, you're not easy to talk to either. ;-) I'm talking about ONE database on MULTIPLE LVMs. (or, in the old days, on multiple RAIDs)

For example, with Oracle you can put different tables OF THE SAME DATABASE. into different table spaces, on completely different storage devices. For example, put some not-often accessed tables OF THE SAME DATABASE on one LV with a few big big and not so fast SATA disks, and put other tables OF THE SAME DATABASE on a lot of smaller, faster, fibre channel disks on a different LV. And/Or separate data and redo/undo table spaces that way. And definetly put different Online Redo logs on different physical disks / LVs like recommended here.

I don't blame any volume management that it's not possible to do consistent snapshots for those scenarios (in fact it's not possible with ANY volume management that I now of, though I don't now ZFS at all.), I just wanted to point out that it is indeed impossible do do consistent snapshots in that regard purely on the LVM level.

With a "small" database, that can be put on one single LV I can just do a snapshot of the LV, copy the content, and start the DB on another machine without a hitch. With a "big" database that is spread over multipe LVs I have to put the Database into some sort of online backup mode, do snapshots of all LVs one after the other, copy the content, and then do a database recovery when I start up the copy to iron out the "discrepancies" between the snapshots.

that was fast

They have a different one up now?

We're sorry, the page you requested was not found ??? link not found

For those running CentOS 6 you can get the latest BTRFS code by installing one of Oracle's mainline kernel packages from here: http://public-yum.oracle.com/repo/OracleLinux/OL6/playground/latest/x86_64/. I know I could compile my own kernel but there is no point when Oracle did the work for me. I am no fan of Oracle but what they are doing with the "playground" yum repository is pretty neat.

it looks like you just told someone how to do something that you have never done yourself.

Yes, but hopefully it's enough to lead him towards the solution, and I think the response to this article has established that /. readers (commenters?) don't need handholding.

The first Google result is this: https://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=833167

... assertions and/or JUnit tests I would say. Then also use both exceptions and return values when and where necessary.

In Java (and C++ I believe?), runtime exceptions do not have to be caught. So you never have to do return values and/or exception catching for null pointers, bad arguments, etc. as long as you test adequately. The problem is that no one has the time and/or is able to test every scenario adequately. Also, in Java there is the UncaughtExceptionHandler, which again I believe is also in C++ (I haven't used C++ in a few years).

What we need is a fourth option, but we also need cars to run on water, a way to duplicate food, etc....

I think the key is really just good logging and testing. And as long as you have a dedicated team to QA, you'll be fine in most scenarios.

Why not btrfs and backups?

BTRFS is not stable! I just lost my /home and all it's snapshots, two days ago.

"You should keep and test backups of your data, and be prepared to use them."

Yes I know about the latest tools. In the end I had to do a btrfs-restore.

https://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Restore

Stable or not, Oracle Linux has already declared Btrfs "production-ready" https://emeapressoffice.oracle.com/Press-Releases/Oracle-Announces-Production-Release-of-Unbreakable-Enterprise-Kernel-Release-2-for-Oracle-Linux-29ab.aspx

As far as I can tell, the primary motivation for Windows 8 was to try and regain some traction in the mobile device market along with Microsoft's new best friend Nokia. This announcement reinforces my belief that Microsoft doesn't see the desktop as a profitable investment, nor thay they care as much about the enterprise as they did either. Then there is the Surface which could compete quite effectively in the tablet market and, with the detachable keyboard, in the netbook/laptop segment. In these markets direct sales to consumers are the driving force.

That leaves the question of where the enterprise will be heading over the next decade. Cloud services do not have much appeal; corporate data needs to be on internal servers. Most companies will stick with Windows, of course, but the opportunity for new entrants is opening up. I wouldn't be surprised to see Oracle start competing for desktops with an end-to-end solution based on its Sun servers, the Oracle database, and Oracle Linux on the desktop. Canonical is also focused on consumers, RedHat doesn't have the clout that Oracle does, and Novell is so 90's.

As far as I can tell, the primary motivation for Windows 8 was to try and regain some traction in the mobile device market along with Microsoft's new best friend Nokia. This announcement reinforces my belief that Microsoft doesn't see the desktop as a profitable investment, nor thay they care as much about the enterprise as they did either. Then there is the Surface which could compete quite effectively in the tablet market and, with the detachable keyboard, in the netbook/laptop segment. In these markets direct sales to consumers are the driving force.

That leaves the question of where the enterprise will be heading over the next decade. Cloud services do not have much appeal; corporate data needs to be on internal servers. Most companies will stick with Windows, of course, but the opportunity for new entrants is opening up. I wouldn't be surprised to see Oracle start competing for desktops with an end-to-end solution based on its Sun servers, the Oracle database, and Oracle Linux on the desktop. Canonical is also focused on consumers, RedHat doesn't have the clout that Oracle does, and Novell is so 90's.

Nowadays, with the speed of CPUs, any financial application should use immutable arbitrary-precision integers (or floats). I worked for many banks and it was funny how either they found out by themselves before I got there or when I I had to tell them about it. Either way, they had to modify existing applications.

There is no limit to the number one can express that way, put apart memory constraints. Just restraint input to some number equals to the estimated number of atoms in the universe and you should be fine memory wise ;-)

In java :

http://docs.oracle.com/javase/1.4.2/docs/api/java/math/BigInteger.html

http://docs.oracle.com/javase/1.4.2/docs/api/java/math/BigDecimal.html

Now, I hope anybody coding financial or accounting apps will get the picture...

That's all for now.

Nowadays, with the speed of CPUs, any financial application should use immutable arbitrary-precision integers (or floats). I worked for many banks and it was funny how either they found out by themselves before I got there or when I I had to tell them about it. Either way, they had to modify existing applications.

There is no limit to the number one can express that way, put apart memory constraints. Just restraint input to some number equals to the estimated number of atoms in the universe and you should be fine memory wise ;-)

In java :

http://docs.oracle.com/javase/1.4.2/docs/api/java/math/BigInteger.html

http://docs.oracle.com/javase/1.4.2/docs/api/java/math/BigDecimal.html

Now, I hope anybody coding financial or accounting apps will get the picture...

That's all for now.

I think you're mistaken about error rates. It probably depends a lot on the environment and external factors, but I haven't had a single error in about 6 months.

Although this article seems to have some contradictions, overall Google's data shows that really good memory still has more errors than you would suspect. Here you can see more raw data.

Even using the best numbers from manufacturers, 32GB of RAM will have a bit error every 3 years. With the wide range listed on that page, you don't even have to get close to the worst numbers to get errors every couple of weeks. Those errors may not result in a major problem, or they could happen inside something like an MP3 file, where the error just gets converted to silence for a millisecond, so they could go completely undetected.

And, there's always anecdotal evidence. As for mine, I only see one correctable error in 60GB of total RAM (15x4GB) in the past year.

It also seems contradictory to overclock a system with ECC, because overclocking reduces the safety margins in the CPU.

Not with current Intel CPUs, and some of the AMDs. 25% overclock is almost child's play, and as long as you can keep the temperature reasonable, 50% isn't out of the question with no risk at all. This is assuming all you change is the multiplier. If you start messing around with the base clock, that can cause subtle yet serious instability. But, kicking up the multiplier of only the CPU doesn't change RAM access at all. Since most RAM also has a lot of unused performance, as long as you use stock settings for it, you're not going to get any instability there.

Oh, it's all HP's fault. Check this out.

1) Autonomy tried to sell to Oracle for $6billion, which Oracle rejected as overpriced.
2) Autonomy CEO denied ever trying to sell to Oracle, said Oracle didn't know anything about Autonomy's financials.
3) Oracle called the Autonomy CEO a LIAR, publicly, and shared his presentation with the whole world to prove it.

They put all the info on a page called, "Please Buy Autonomy." You can read it now yourself and decide if you would have bought autonomy in 2011. I've always thought Oracle would be a miserable place to work, but now I see some people are definitely having fun, just not programmers.

"Java Life" Rap

Where are Oracle's testicles? Larry has a pussy? Oracle is sinking lower and lower? Normally someone stands up for the benefits which are given to them. In this case small-ball Larry or any of his sons appears to have abused their undersized gifts; it is known that small men with small penises tend to overdo their fits. The father of the chickens children with small-sized genitals should amend and rather help out - RedHat is no large enemy; it is not the Red Army. Microsoft is. Apple may become, and currently with far larger pockets than RedHat or Microsoft.

Spending corporate money on this? Oh, so let us read what they have say, shall we? At https://blogs.oracle.com/ksplice/entry/introducing_redpatch we can read:

"To understand why we've created this project we'll need a little history. In early 2011, Red Hat changed how they released their kernel source, going from a tarball that had individual patch files to shipping the kernel source as one giant tarball with a single patch for all Red Hat-introduced changes. For most people who work in the kernel this is merely an inconvenience; driver developers and other out-of-kernel module developers can see the end result to make sure their module still performs as expected."

Well, so they keep using RedHat's work, as all other do too, btw. But now, they break it out and make it more readily available to others. So, maybe the Larriones do have some pubertal indications after all.

Still, what does Oracle to for Linux, which makes them exempt for common courtesy?

Here is an two month old article http://www.linuxfoundation.org/news-media/blogs/browse/2012/08/oracle-leading-linux-then-and-now

which argues that Oracle does a lot of things for Linux. Hmmm... Maybe there are more than five inches after all?

Still, at http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/oracles-new-kernel-rhel-clone-real-truth
we can read:

"Don't get me wrong, Oracle does contribute to kernel and other open source development. In fact, Oracle was one of the top 20 employers by kernel contributions from the 2.6.33 kernel (as measured by Greg Kroah-Hartman). Specifically, Oracle was responsible for about 1.3% of the changesets in 2.6.33, just after AMD with 1.6%, and kernel heavyweights Texas Instruments and Fujitsu (1.9% each), and Nokia (3.0%). It's far, far behind Red Hat's 11.6% and even IBM's 4.8%."

Ok, more than five, but not by much... Still, the backing is definitely supported by Larry Ellison - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4-5z5l2HjA

So, in summary, RedHat was at that time doing a lot more of changes, but pushed them out as solid patches, with little or effort to ease it for other users; and it appears to have been an effort to stall competitors like Oracle.

Where are Oracle's testicles? Between Larry's and his sons legs. Larry has a pussy? No.

This is business. Show me yours, I'll show you mine. Code, of course.

Based on the job Oracle does maintaining their Tech Stacks, they would destroy the kernel. Case in point, the huge security issue with Java that Oracle feels best to be fixed in February. http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/topics/security/javacpuoct2012-1515924.html#PatchTable Just because you can, doesn't mean you should republish source code developed and collimated at considerable expense by someone else. Responsibility? http://blog.mozilla.org/security/2012/08/28/protecting-users-against-java-security-vulnerability/ ?? Wait till February. Anonymous's best friend.

Just grab IntelliJIDEA, the Android SDK, the JDK, and DroidDraw and you have a free software stack for writing GUI-driven android applications - perfect for business apps (think barcode readers and form automation).

Note - when setting up IntelliJIDEA, use forward slashes in your JAVA_HOME environment variable or it can't find the JDK on x64 Windows.

Siebel is owned by Oracle.

Exceptions are intended to be used when a program hits unexpected or fatal issues which cannot be handled locally

According to whom? I see exceptions being used for correctable errors all the time; here, for example, is an exception that is thrown for a correctable error, in Java:

http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/io/SyncFailedException.html

Yes, this is a correctable error: if you can ask the user to fix this problem, you can continue from some point defined by the thrower of the exception (perhaps retrying the sync operation). Of course, Java does not support such a thing; however, this is a thread about language deficiencies!

If I'm just copying a large directory structure then I can reasonably expect to not be able to open a few files due to permissions and, while I'll likely want to log these and display them, treating it as an exception wouldn't be suitable

Why is that not suitable? I'll have my exception handler log the exception, then I will try to open the next file in the list. You do not even require restarts here; in Java, this amounts to placing a try...catch in the body of a loop.

Ultimately though for this type of 'It could be serious, it could be nothing' then the decision should be left to the client code rather than the library.

You forgot, "This is serious, but it can be corrected." Running out of space on a hard drive, a thumb drive being removed while it is being read, etc. Without a good exception/restart system (or continuations if you want to be more functional), your client code winds up being far more complex (think about how you would deal with a thumb drive being removed while some records are being written if you do not have a restart mechanism -- now imagine if your catch block could say, "Retry the operation" and if the exception is not thrown again, your code continues as if no exception was ever thrown).

The problem with exceptions in most of today's popular languages is that they do not merely signal an error; they also destroy the entire call stack from where the exception was thrown to where it is caught. A better approach, at least in my opinion, is for the exception propagation to leave the stack intact until the end of the exception handler. This would allow the exception handler to invoke a restart, which can be viewed as a "dual" of an exception: a restart would cause control flow to switch to some point defined by the thrower, and would invalidate the stack of the exception handler (and the program can then continue as if there had never been an exception, except for whatever side effects the exception handler has).

I have to agree with you. This is one of the best demos of ZFS around :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGIwg6ye1gE

ZFS solves 3 problems by taking a wholistic approach:

* Volume Management
* File System
* Data Integrity

Instead of fragmenting the problem into 3 layers which only have limited access and knowledge by using a unified layer you have more meta-information available to make smarter decisions.

Some interesting essays:

https://blogs.oracle.com/bonwick/entry/raid_z
https://blogs.oracle.com/bonwick/en_US/entry/rampant_layering_violation

I have to agree with you. This is one of the best demos of ZFS around :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGIwg6ye1gE

ZFS solves 3 problems by taking a wholistic approach:

* Volume Management
* File System
* Data Integrity

Instead of fragmenting the problem into 3 layers which only have limited access and knowledge by using a unified layer you have more meta-information available to make smarter decisions.

Some interesting essays:

https://blogs.oracle.com/bonwick/entry/raid_z
https://blogs.oracle.com/bonwick/en_US/entry/rampant_layering_violation

There's no such thing as a Linq driver for Oracle. Linq is not a database technology. It's a *DATA* technology.

You need a database technology for Linq to do database work, such as Linq to Sql or Linq to Entities.

I assume you mean you needed an Entity Framework driver for Oracle, and Oracle does provide one... However it's only been available for about 2 years.

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/topics/dotnet/index-085163.html

Before that, Microsoft had a "sample" that you could compile to access Oracle through EF. But, it's really not MS's job to provide drivers for every database out there, and technically, wouldn't you want a driver from Oracle rather than whatever Microsoft thinks is good enough?

SPARC isn't gone? Where is it, then?

Living in Larry's house. x86 did displace it from the "engineering workstation" market.

They've a right to ensure that people enjoy using their site, and their site would be less enjoyable if I had to wade through a bunch of content that is otherwise very easy to find on the rest of the web.

Good lord, have you seen some of the crap in the Kindle store? Lots of poorly written stuff that badly needs an editor. And there are titles carefully chosen to make people buy them by mistake.

This is not about content quality. They just don't want people selling content that they can get for free elsewhere — bad customer relations.

(Or is it? Back in 2006, I co-wrote a book for Sun Microsystems. I was well-paid for this work, and I wasn't expecting royalties, but for some strange reason I got them, showing that the book sold reasonably well, despite being available online before the book came out.)

Now, Amazon has every right to do this. But that's just the problem: the Kindle platform is another walled garden. Just as I don't like Steve Jobs telling me I can't have lame iPhone apps, I don't like Jeff Bezos telling me I can't buy lame books. The fact that the app or book is lame is besides the point. The central control is the problem.

If I ever become a sufficiently popular author so that people want to by ebooks written by me (unlikely, alas) I will make sure they're available in portable formats, such as EPub/Adobe. I won't try to prevent them from being available in Kindle format, but I won't stand for an exclusive release,.

Unless, of course, the Kindle starts supporting open formats.

The only real advantage to "Hardware RAID" is the battery backed cache.

Hardware RAID has many advantages. Persistent cache, while important to performance, is but one. Far better management infrastructure is another. Many RAID vendors offer a single web management console which can control all RAID devices across a network from a single console. Try that with mdadm. Then you have superior alerting and monitoring, etc. Most RAID vendors have had excellent easy to setup/use snmp capability for over a decade. mdadm is still lacking here as is the inbuilt Microsoft RAID (does anyone actually use it?).

Hardware RAID comes with the disadvantage of a whole other operating system "firmware" with its own bugs and often proprietary disk layout.

All hardware comes with firmware, even the SATA controller and NIC on your consumer mobo, and everyone has bugs to fix on occasion, including software RAID. This is why a good administrator reads release notes. Also note that most hardware RAID controller (PCIe card) vendors have been moving to the SNIA on disk layout metadata standards. That said, you won't find me swapping out an LSI RAID with an Adaptec, or with software RAID any time soon, simply because they all use the same metadata format and thus it should "just work". That's just not smart due to all other kinds of issues.

Parity calculations are nothing for current CPUs, so the onboard processor is not so useful.

Spoken as I'd expect from an individual with no real hardware RAID experience/knowledge. Parity work is a tiny fraction of the operations peformed by a RAID ASIC. And in fact most enterprises don't even use parity RAID due to the huge performance penalty of RMW and the unacceptable rebuild times of parity arrays. The bulk of the work done by a RAID ASIC today is IO request processing and cache management. So no, it doesn't matter on what chip XOR calculation are performed, because those with real workloads aren't using parity RAID. If you're using Linux mdraid your parity calculations are limited to a single core per array, so if one must use parity RAID they're likely better off with a good dual core RAID card.

Advanced filesystems such as ZFS or BTRFS need direct access to the disks.

You really need to educate yourself. Oracle sells hardware SAN RAID arrays. ZFS doesn't have direct disk access with these.
http://www.oracle.com/us/products/servers-storage/storage/san/pillar/pillar-axiom-600/features/index.html

I'd like to see drives and/or controllers with battery backed cache. Until then, I rely on my UPS.

A UPS is not a substitute for persistent RAID cache. Persistent cache saves you from kernel panics and other crash scenarios that could corrupt your filesystem journal and/or filesystem proper, as well as saves you from power outage. A UPS only saves you from power outage.

Stop regurgitating the misinformation you read on the Wikipedia RAID page. Expend some effort and do your own research. Just about everything you've stated here is incorrect. In fact, don't do any research. Just simply keep quiet since you obviously don't use RAID and have no experience with it.

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/topics/security/alert-cve-2012-4681-1835715.html It effects Java 6 u34 and below but the impact is not as severe. I believe malicious code can still change the value of private fields but the Java 6 version of the sandbox is implemented differently, so the list of permissions can't be replaced with "AllPermissions"

According to the risk matrix at the bottom of the page, the problem of vulnerability under Java 6 u34 and below is identified as CVE-2012-0547 - which is exactly what Apple's fix fixes as said in TFS. IOW TFA is still uninformed at best.

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/topics/security/alert-cve-2012-4681-1835715.html It effects Java 6 u34 and below but the impact is not as severe. I believe malicious code can still change the value of private fields but the Java 6 version of the sandbox is implemented differently, so the list of permissions can't be replaced with "AllPermissions"

This has been called out repeatedly, also in previous stories on this, but the debunked claim about Mac not being affected still gets repeated so frequently it almost seems like a GOP talking point.

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/topics/security/alert-cve-2012-4681-1835715.html It effects Java 6 u34 and below but the impact is not as severe. I believe malicious code can still change the value of private fields but the Java 6 version of the sandbox is implemented differently, so the list of permissions can't be replaced with "AllPermissions"

You can't take advantage of the vulnerability if you can't run any applets

Not true.

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/tech/index-jsp-136112.html

Actually, between 1987 and 2007 Sun changed GUIs at least twice. When I first worked for them in 1997-98, Open Look was just getting phased out in favor of CDE. (And Sun employees who didn't want to switch were less than happy about it.) Not that either was a all that impressive. Actually, I came to loathe CDE.

Then when I returned in 2005-06, they'd switched to Java Desktop, which was just a Sun branded version of GNOME. (And which had no connection with Java, beyond the branding.) An improvement over CDE, but non-developers like me had to run it on big servers via Sun Rays.That meant all configuration had to be handled by IT, which was horribly conservative about it.

Eventually didn't matter to me. My next step was to move from the Java group to x64 West (basically a mash-up of two acquisitions, Cobalt Networks and Kealia) and get hired as a regular employee. Windows laptops had become more and more prevalent since they revoked the "Big Rule" forbidding employee use of Microsoft products, but at x64 west, Thinkpads were standard issue, along with Sun Rays. I eventually gave up on Sun Rays and Java Desktop and did all my Solaris stuff by running Cygwin/X on my laptop (along with two external monitors when I was at my desk).

OK, not an impressive history of GUIs. But if you're not asleep yet, I'll just point out that all this GUI stuff is pretty much a sideshow. Despite their workstations (which had almost disappeared by the time I left) and the Sun Rays, most of Sun's income came from selling servers. Oracle bought them for the servers. Sun software was at best a sideline.

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/jre7u7-downloads-1836441.html

Fact: Java 6 isn't vulnerable to this attack.

Wrong, Java 6 is affected. From the "Security Alert":

Affected product releases and versions:
JDK and JRE 7 Update 6 and before
JDK and JRE 6 Update 34 and before

But it appears Oracle did not provide a patch for Java 6 yesterday.

Coincidentally Java 6 update 35 was also released at the same time. The release notes cite a security fix. All CVE entries and info I could find only describe this issue as a Java 7 vulnerability. I had not see any confirmation yet that it also applied to Java 6 other than the brand new update.

I know they are referring to an open source Java Machine.. but using a term like "open source VM" is kind of unclear. Especially when oracle has both Virtualbox and a product called "Oracle VM" http://www.oracle.com/us/technologies/virtualization/overview/index.html?origref=http://duckduckgo.com/post2.html

We could have gotten some meaningful benchmarks. According tho this Register arcticle

When you add it all up, the single-engine performance of a z12 chip is about 25 per cent higher than on the z11 that preceded it. IBM has not released official MIPS ratings (a throwback to the days when IBM actually counted the millions of instructions per second that a machine could process) for the z12 engines, but given that the top-end core in a z11 processor delivered 1,200 MIPS, that puts the z12 core at around 1,600 MIPS.

Back when TurboHercules was still around, in 2009, Tom Lehmann claimed

By the by, we can run a reasonably sized load (800MIPS with our standard package). If the machine in question is larger than that, we can scale to 1600MIPS with our quad Nehalem based package and we have been promised an 8 way Nehalem EX based machine early next year that should take us to the 3200MIPS mark. Anything bigger than that is replicated by a collection of systems.

On the other hand, if your old and creaky code can't be divvied up among a multiplicity of cores, the existence of a far cheaper 64 core, 8 way Nehelem EX machine (or its current equivalent) that's almost as fast as a single zEC12 core doesn't much matter.

Seriously though, they don't have out-of-schedule updates for critical security bugs?

Well, it's Oracle, so I expect they do, they just cost extra. I mean, you are up to date on your Oracle Certified Java Security Support, right?

(Note: I'm joking. The actual service is called Oracle Premier Support for the Java SE Platform and you only need it to get security patches for "old" versions of Java.)

Not any more. Oracle is providing Java 7 and later for Mac. http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/jre7-downloads-1637588.html

At least not as bad as Oracle's "Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel", IMHO.

about that...

They could have killed MySQL long ago by revoking the InnoDB license (we all know MyISAM is shit).

And let's not forget that Oracle didn't buy MySQL, they bought Sun. I work or a company that uses Oracle DBs and I can assure you - they were after the hardware assets. ExaData is INSANELY expensive (like > $500,000 expensive).

They probably keep MySQL alive so that they can still gouge customers who can't afford Oracle-grade gouging. (Oracle is $17,500, MySQL is only $5,000)

Hopefully the pies that hit Oracle's lawyers will have hand grenades in them.

Fire one at the submitter and "editor" of TFA. That's a deceptive headline.

Oracle was forced to acknowledge paying Florian Mueller, and also stated:
 

"Certain Oracle employees may have blogged about issues relating to the case. See, e.g., https://blogs.oracle.com/hinkmond/ (blogging about Java ME). Oracle did not ask or approve any of its employees to write about the case and does not track employee bloggers."

Note that Oracle's Social Media policy contradicts the statement:
 

Make Sure Your Management Approves

  Please be aware that Oracle may choose to restrict social media activities that relate to your employment or Oracle’s business.

Remember that you are not an official spokesperson for Oracle. Make it clear that your opinions are your own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the corporation. See Policy Regarding Communications with Press and Analysts.

For this reason, Oracle employees with personal blogs that discuss Oracle’s business, products, employees, customers, partners, or competitors should include the following disclaimer in a visually prominent place on their blog:

"The views expressed on this [blog; Web site] are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Oracle."

By contrast, this is Google's statement:

“Our reply to the court is clear,” Google said, “no one on our side paid journalists, bloggers, or other commentators to write about this case.”

Look at the added java.io.PrintStream.printf() method that uses a variable argument list. Someone had to be a special kind of asshole to adulterate a strongly-typed OO-language with that bullshit when the obvious OO solution is an array for a second argument. That's the kind of modification made when someone is making a political point, not a design improvement.

Say wha huh? Variable arguments *are* arrays in Java. You're complaining about a syntactic shortcut that in no way compromises OO design - at least not anymore than if the method explicitly took Object[].

Look at the added java.io.PrintStream.printf() method that uses a variable argument list. Someone had to be a special kind of asshole to adulterate a strongly-typed OO-language with that bullshit when the obvious OO solution is an array for a second argument. That's the kind of modification made when someone is making a political point, not a design improvement.

I can't tell, are you arguing that's a good idea or bad idea? (That Java method takes an array of objects as its second argument; it just effectively annotates the source to say that the compiler should also convert all the arguments after the first into an array, with appropriate value boxing. That gives the effect of varargs while remaining safe, and you can pass an array in that you built yourself if you really want to. But whether you knew that or would have thought that it was good if you did know, I genuinely can't tell.)

I've never understood the hostility towards OOP. I've always seen it as nothing more than another great tool to use, but so many posters act as if OOP is some false god brainwashing the masses. My theory is they're taking the act of embracing OOP as synonymous with insulting C.

Look at the added java.io.PrintStream.printf() method that uses a variable argument list. Someone had to be a special kind of asshole to adulterate a strongly-typed OO-language with that bullshit when the obvious OO solution is an array for a second argument. That's the kind of modification made when someone is making a political point, not a design improvement.

Ah, it seems a common case. Some brands of device and networks appliances seem to have used Java applets for management in the first half of 2000 (or programmed like they were stuck at that age) and then didn't keep with technology advances. Somewhat more modern Java versions let the programmer specify the Java version in the applet tag allowing each applet use different java versions.
I wonder if it is possible to use some browser plugin like monkeygrease (for firefox) to change the applet tag dinamically allowing the use of this method in your case?

StorageTek
http://www.oracle.com/us/products/servers-storage/storage/tape-storage/sl8500-modular-library-system/overview/index.html

We have several different configurations of the older SL500 libraries. StorageTek ownership has changed a lot of the years (now Oracle and was Sun in the recent past) but they are still around.

I'm a little skeptical of mashing all of this into the file system level, but I'm not sure my fears are rational

Far more than performance, they are concerned with the "write hole". Raid is inherently risky because of this.

Speaking of making things more difficult than they should be, the ISO images for installation are not readily available for download. There is a heinous registration form but no promise of the ISOs even if you fill in the form (with either fake data or real). If Oracle is going to be serious about establishing a distro, it has got to be available at all the usual download sites along site CentOS, Debian and the other established distros.

Yeah, like you can download RHEL without having to buy a subscription, and without having to register or anything, and its a full version, not some crappy evaluation version. Oh, wait.....