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Partial classes: He explains it better than me. http://www.whattofix.com/blog/archives/2006/05/partial_classes.php [whattofix.com]

There's not a single mention of the phrase "code generation" in that post (or even "generation"). Which means that the guy has completely missed the point, and has nothing useful to say on the topic.

Have you ever dealt with build-time code generation in an OO language? If you think it's limited to UI designers, you are missing on a great many things...

structs: open your project and change a class to a struct - recompile. Everything is fine except YOUR APP IS NOW TOTALLY BROKEN.

Open your Java project and change all mentions of int to a float, and recompile. Everything is fine, except your app is now likely quite broken.

Why the hell would you just randomly change something from a class to a struct? They are different semantically - classes have object identity, structs don't - and, correspondingly, they are used to model very different things.

In C# Foo is just as expensive as GetFoo() - that fact is just hidden from you. ... See the difference?

No, I don't see the difference, because there isn't any. In Java, you never access fields on other objects directly, and therefore your code will always have something like foo.getTotal() - and there's no way to tell whether it's expensive or not - and any mention of getTotal() can be expensive if the guy who wrote it was an idiot. Similarly, in C#, you never access fields on other objects directly, and therefore your code will always use property accessors, like foo.Total - and there is no way to tell whether it's expensive or not - and any mention of Total can be expensive if the guy who wrote it was an idiot. So in both cases you hope for the best, but remain prepared for the worst.

The only real difference is that C# version is shorter, and that properties are distinct entities on type info / Reflection level, with enforced uniformity - as opposed to Java's defined-by-convention bean properties.

Except that it's abused when this is used for non numeric purposes like er, Microsoft does with event handling code.

For one thing, operators + and - on delegates and events are not introduced by operator overloading - they're part of the language itself, just like + for strings. If you want an actual example where the standard library uses operator overloading, it's System.Decimal.

For another, speaking of strings, why aren't you objecting to + being used for "non-numeric" purposes in that case? Java does it just the same, and so do most languages. That ship has sailed a long time ago. So, then, if + concatenates strings, why shouldn't it also union delegates?

Partial classes: He explains it better than me. http://www.whattofix.com/blog/archives/2006/05/partial_classes.php

structs: open your project and change a class to a struct - recompile. Everything is fine except YOUR APP IS NOW TOTALLY BROKEN.

"And the difference with explicit getX/setX calls is?.. "

In C# Foo is just as expensive as GetFoo() - that fact is just hidden from you.

It's obvious to see where performance deficits lie in code like this:

for (int j=0; j getTotal(); j++) {
}

rather than
for (int j=0; j Total; j++) {
}

See the difference?

"Indeed - writing a.multiply(b.divide(c)).negate() is so much more convenient than -a*b/c when you're working with something like BigInteger - right?"

Except that it's abused when this is used for non numeric purposes like er, Microsoft does with event handling code. I agree that bigint should have an overloaded operator - as long as operators are not definable by the dev.

Elf -- I'd like to continue the conversation, or at least take apart your last response, which I found most interesting.

Not sure if writing comments 27 levels deep on /. is the right place for it. I suggest continuing this discussion over on my blog.

Actually, below are some pictures of Marfa lights and if anyone still thinks these are car lights then he has his own problems :)

http://www.whattofix.com/blog/archives/2005/07/giv e_up_trying.php
http://www.rense.com/general45/excel.htm
http://taskboy.com/lectures/UFOlogy/02_Pre-1946/sl ide_03.html

Also am I the only one who read the pdf? I didn't see anything about any lasers. All they did was pure statistics; # of lights appeared at given time vs # of cars that drove on the 67th highway. This could be pure coninsidence.

"...You claim patents are needed because they encourage innovation. You also state that, despite having gone through the entire process, the patent provided you with nothing significant to encourage your innovation..." Au Contraire. There is a difference between reward and monetary reward, which I was talking about. I feel very satisfied with the results of my patent journey. I learned a lot, and now I am more wise about the issues involved. Hopefully I can share my experiences with others. I also feel more like using the patent system in the future.

A patent should not be a guarantee of profits. The act of inventing, or teaching a new solution to a problem, is completely different than the (also) very difficult process of taking solutions to market. I can certainly believe in the system to some extent without having to receive monetary rewards myself. It's two different concepts. There is nothing wooly-headed about this at all.

I hear your example about your friend, and I agree that some major changes are necessary. But like I have said, please do not over-reach in your conclusions. A free society should encourage invention as a separate concept than running a business. There are lots of ways to do this.

As for your example of your friend, there is no guarantee of anything from this process. If you want guarantees, do not take risks like getting patents. I would certainly not spend all my time for two years just to work on a patent -- I kept consulting and doing other work while working on the patent in my spare time. And yes, it was a heckuva lot of work to go through. Especially for really nothing but a piece of paper on the wall.

But that is what I learned to expect. 97% of all patents amount to nothing. Worldwide rights are almost impossible to get. Claims can be narrowed to the point they are useless. Extensions can be made to work around patent rights. Patent holders have to pay for their own infringement cases which tilts the scales towards big corporations. A realistic definition of obviousness is desperately needed. "Time has come" is one of those things that always works in hindsight imo. That doesn't mean the system is useless, it means it is complex and broken in places.

There is a great disconnect between what you read in the press (and on places like /.) and what the law really says. Instead of "let's go fix simultaneous invention" we hear "tear it all down!" -- which I don't think helps anybody. In general, though, I believe we agree more than we disagree.

My Blog

As a software process expert, I can give you the secret three best practices that every programmer must follow:
1) Find someone to blame for failure. Usually it's the new guy. Keep him stupid and drop hints to the project manager that he might be messing up the code
2) Try to make your programming complicated. Hey, if anybody can do it they are liable to hire some Indians to do it at three bucks an hour. Try using ancient Egyptian for your comments. Name all your variables something like A1 and A2. Catch and throw away your errors -- you don't make mistakes anyway. Let the calling code bomb, not yours
3) Get a week ahead on your status reports. What did you accomplish this week? Put that as your goals for next week. Every week you'll hit your targets dead on. The other guys will flail. Try to be sympathetic to them. Offer to help out with their programming.

This is my blog

This confusion in terms drives me nuts. P2P is technology, not crime, and darknets are simply ways of communicating with your peers that some other person doesn't know about.
Should everything you do at work be inspectable by your boss? Normally the answer would be "no" -- you certainly can write a political protest letter during your lunch hour. But with the ways the courts have been ruling, it seems the assumption is that corporations have to know everything you are doing, if it involves a computer. This is completely unenforceable, in my opinion, and will go the way of the Dred Scott decision.

This is my blog

I had two A-1000s when they first came out. I remember writing AD&D character generators and dungeon programs using that Microsoft Basic that came with them.
The Amiga was an awesome box. Too bad Commodore wasn't able to keep innovating. They had a real shot at long-term market share, and blew it. The accompanying article is a great lesson on how NOT to run a technology business.

Tougher Rules Needed For Airpsace Incursions?

This is the old "push versus pull" marketing discussion. Are people tired of push communications, where their email inboxes fill up with garbage? Absolutely. But the real question is how to enact a "pull" distribution system that also sells stuff. The author seems to make the point for directly replacing newsletters and other corporate communications with RSS feeds. sounds good, but I don't think it's the complete picture. The basic problem is one of personality -- most corporate communications are about as personable as a TV commercial. Impersonal works great when you're mass-distributing the message, but from a pull standpoint I think the format and method of content creation will need to change, not just the technology. My two cents.

Robot Soccer Champions by 2050?

I'm not sure what the point is. Sure, people read stuff and feel like they have it. The same thing has been happening to doctors for decades. Regular people too -- only in small batches. Now that there is more stuff for people to read, there is more stuff to believe. Assuming that doctors aren't some highly evolved lifeform from the planet Xerox, I think people will get along just fine, just like the docs.
After all, isn't this really about education? I mean, do you really fight something like smoking by making it illegal, moaning about how stupid people are to buy into the "cool factor", or by education? Seems to me that as long as you have an "Urban Legends" site, you teach somebody to go there and boom! No more email hoaxes. Same for medicine, right? We just need to have authoritative sources and tell people about them. Interestingly enough, this is also a problem of the MSM, which tends to exaggerate things in order to get ratings. People buy into the "panick of the week" mentality.

Shuttlecraft For Sale, Buy Today!

This is a machine that has everything stripped out of it, including service releases and associated security patches, networking code, etc.
As Gates knows so well, feature competition on new systems is just as much related to security as bells-and-whistles. As long as hackers are breaking OSs, you'll need more and more code to plug the leaks. In fact, you'll probably end up with ten times as much security code as feature code. It shouldn't be that way, but there it is.

Politics: More Annoying Than Commercials?

Surely you jest, man. Ethanol is most certainly a worthwhile endeavor. How else would ulgy people...

Oh. You mean Ethanol energy production. Yes. Of course.

Plastic Rabbit, New Gizmo?

While the article was a nice feature comparison of the two, it really didn't get into the "format war" question at the top of the page here.
Besides industry support, my only question would be "which one is growing?" Which of these formats is expected to get a new version number sometime soon?
If you ask me, that is why Microsoft is talking about adding "extensions" to RSS -- by growing and adapting the standard, it gets more bells and whistles, more application support, and more momentum in the development community.

Oracle: More Complicated Pricing Model Needed?

Let's see, IE7, SQL Server, Longhorn, new versin of .NET, etc -- we developers have a lot to prepare for.
It's a wonder we can get any work done. Looks like we'll just spend all of our time getting ready for 27 new versions of Microsoft products.

HP To Lay Off 15,000 Workers

Keep in mind that when it comes to friends and family, 'informative' is a relative term. Although you might find it very 'informative' to know that your wife left the lights on in the living room three out of four nights last week, she will probably not think so. I've found it better to save my geek points for things like "honey, don't you think we should have a raid server?"

Free? I'm paying over a hundred bucks a year for a print subscription.
Thanks for the info -- BTW, I like about 20% of your output, which isn't a bad ratio for the business you're in.

Chickens: Smarter Than We Thought"

Don't listen to that man, he's obviously line!

Chicken Mind Reading Study Concludes

"simultaneous acquisition of accurate three-dimensional and two-dimensional human faces."

I think the U.N. should get involved in all aspects of the internet. After all, aren't these the same guys who want more regulation of cell phones?
After all, that's what we elected these people to do, right? Oh wait a minute. nobody elected the UN, it's a treaty organization.
I'm not trying to sound reactionary, but this sounds like a solution in search of a problem. The internet is fine the way it is. If the U.S. Congress has managed to keep its hands off it so far, the U.N. should follow suit, imo. The more politicians we get involved in managing the net, the worse it will perform for everybody.

Being Your Own Customer

I think the U.N. should get involved in all aspects of the internet. After all, aren't these the same guys who want more regulation of cell phones?
After all, that's what we elected these people to do, right? Oh wait a minute. nobody elected the UN, it's a treaty organization.
I'm not trying to sound reactionary, but this sounds like a solution in search of a problem. The internet is fine the way it is. If the U.S. Congress has managed to keep its hands off it so far, the U.N. should follow suit, imo. The more politicians we get involved in managing the net, the worse it will perform for everybody.

Being Your Own Customer

In another example, Vass received a mysterious note that a major system had been disabled and had stopped production on a hardware chip. Although Vass had no knowledge of this, he soon discovered the system in question was in fact the desktop machine of an engineer who had recently left the company. The desktop had been reformatted following his departure, cutting off 600 users who had over the last three years depended on it for network services.

Sounds like a good book. Build systems are often overlooked by the development community, in favor of "sexier" topics like technologies and standards. It's important to scale the build process with the complexity of the team and project, however -- I'm sure the author covers that. A mention of TOAD would have been nice, as well, especially when talking about DB source control.
Integration into larger enterprise architectures would also be a critical subject, as most of us develop in some kind of larger environment that has it's own tools, standards, and processes. In other words, I get the feeling from the review that the book is more "blank sheet" build control than "big corporate" build control. There's a difference.

Giant Bathroom Sponge Found Orbiting Saturn! Film at Eleven

What with booting from CDs and ubiquitous internet access, the old "sneakernet" has long gone the way of the dinosaur. I use computers all the time, and haven't touched a floppy in a couple years.
Heck, now that we've working on fingernail hard drives, maybe even those USB drives will be outdated.

Don't ride the bus? Get sued!

Downloading movies seems like a lot of bits to push over the average consumer's pipe. Tie in a pre-constructed box for it (and who exactly wants to buy yet another home appliance when the computer will do?) and it sounds like an infrastructure mess.
I wonder if consumers will be happy waiting for hours while their movie is delivered? Especially if the Blockbuster is just around the corner. Of course, it beats going out, but at what price? Something about the business model just doesn't add up to me.

Night Of The Living Parrots

I know it matters to technical people. The last cell phone I bought had Windows CE on it so I could write programs for it. But to the average consumer, are they really going to look at a list of OS qualities like that and make a purchase decision?
It was one thing when the OS was the product -- like in a PDA. But not now. Now the OS is just an add-on. What with these OSs in cars, phones, refrigerators, etc -- is the average consumer not going to buy a Lexus because of concerns with the OS?

Surf's Up, Dude

But he's definitely no politician. People want to believe that you can get something for nothing. He sounded a little on the abrasive side.
I found it interesting that he distinguishes between different types of software, implying that there would be vastly different business models for each -- "don't try this at home" I would have liked to have seen the interviewer nail him down on this a little more -- I think there is some good stuff there but without the details its hard to know whether he knows what he's talking about or not.

What's spaghetti got to do with hurricanes?

In addition to the comet mission, they are going to build their fourth space launch center , and they've also announced plans to militarize their space program.
I wonder, when they finally land someone on the moon, will they say "We came in peace for all mankind"?

New Star Trek Film Planned by Fans

Fundable.org leaves it up to the project initiator to make sure all the contributors are satisfied. "You can't really make sure someone is going to do what they're supposed to do," Pratt says. "We're working on a feedback system, but for now we let people post a link to their eBay profile and ratings, thereby implementing a degree of trustworthiness."

...allegedly wrecked Delta Airlines' systems in Atlanta for seven hours, leading to the cancellation of 40 flights. Around the world, the Australian Railcorp trains stopped running because computer problems caused by Sasser made it impossible for drivers to talk to signalmen. In Taiwan, more than 400 branches of the post office were forced to use pen and paper because Sasser crashed desktop computers...

Six years ago, I was contacted by a stock brokerage company in New York. They were looking for ways to track the computer use (of their developers, I believe. I think they were concerned about Internet Surfing) Like a dummy, I rambled off some ideas that could help them track usage without the employees noticing it. At the time, I thought it was a very strange call! Why would anybody secretly want to know what their employees were doing? Didn't they trust them? I never heard back from the people, and I always thought that I had "given away too much" by specifiying the programming during the interview.
Now that weird scenario has become all too commonplace, and it's just as secret as I feared. FTA, "When the employee discovered that he had been monitored, he lodged a complaint with Alberta's information and privacy commissioner."
The guy didn't even know the software was there. Now it's one thing to tell people "We're watching you. This will go on your evaluation" It's another thing entirely to do it secretly.
In the present day, clients are modeling their business practices more and more, and would like a way to track metrics. I'm all for it: if I were a businessperson or employee, I wouldn't have a problem with my boss measuring how long it took to do my work. Where I surfed during my lunch hour? Forget it. But my productivity? Sure.


Welcome To My World

I downloaded my first program with BitTorrent a few weeks ago -- a TV show that my VCR failed to record. While doing that, I accidentally clicked on a certain part of the web page. Bingo slammo, my system was infected with spyware, this nasty Aurora and nail.exe
Being a technical guy, familar with the registry, COM, and how windows works, I went about trying to kill this pesky snake. A few hours later, after saying some words I won't repeat here, I decided to wipe the machine and start over (it was a lighly loaded box, so no major loss)
I could have gotten SoftIce and gone into kernal mode to trap this bastard, but it was way beyond my effort vs. reward tolerence level. Spyware has gotten so complicated and sneaky nowadays: to me it is worse of a threat than virsuses ever were.
Now I run double anti-spyware programs in addition to my A/V and firewall. I think that we technical people are also misunderestimating the danger posed by this junk to our own machines.


Run With the Bulls, Swim With the Sharks

Ok. So the anti-spyware program lets the spyware continue operating without flagging it, because it has become spyware itself by association? So now we obviously need to develop an anti-anti spyware program, to fix the problems caused by the anti-spyware, right? That is, until the anti-spyware people declare our anti-anti-spyware to be spyware, in which case we'll have to develop anti-anti-anti-spyware?
This makes my head hurt.

The nature of the complaint sounds awful, and AMD certainly has a very competitive product that Intel is trying to quash. I can't help but wonder, though, at how difficult it is going to be to prove the charges AMD makes, and even if they are proved, by the time years have passed and the judgement is made, the market will be way down the road. Look at the Microsoft browser case: while there was relief granted, did it really make a difference by the time it was given?
In addition, the sheer volume of paperwork requested (38 companies) indicates that this is going to be huge and take time to prosecute. While that's great for the lawyers, I'm not so sure it serves the interests of their client. Aside from a insignificant (relatively speaking) award and the lawyers getting paid, I can't remember one tech company suing another and actually coming out on top of the market years later. Perhaps they are doing this for deterrence purposes? ie, to keep Intel from continuing its practices during the trial?

Easy For You to Say

The spec calls for a sequence number in the block. Vendors aren't checking it. There are a lot of technical details about how TCP connections can be slowed down by a ICMP attack, but if the vendors checked the sequence number it would make it almost impossible to implement these attacks.
Researcher found the bugs, tried to work with major vendors. Lawyers got involved, turns out Cisco had been working on a fix for years (so they say). Seems like vendors are more concerned about getting credit than fixing the bugs.
Reading between the lines, I take it the major vendors have patched their stacks and life is good. Linux implemented all the fixes for all the errors, but addressing the sequence number should be enough for now.
Makes me wonder: what did the guys writing the code back in the 80s think about the sequence number, anyway? It was obviously there for some reason. I guess because it wasn't part of the "official" spec it was ignored? Shame, that. That was back in the day when people probably didn't think of ICMP being used as a cyber attack vector.

Smart Identification Of Cost Savings, One Key to Program Management

The big American companies line up to sell to the vast Chinese market -- Microsoft, Google, E-bay, all mentioned in the accompanying article.
Is the problem the cost of displays? Seems like the cost of cheap displays should be approaching the competitve point with TV-PCs. For instance, I thought with the MIT $100 PC would be competitive with this Shanda idea -- which, according to the article, will not be released, identified, or priced!
It seems there are several technologies converging on third-world markets. I wonder if those will find their way into China and compete with this product?

Tzhe Disease Of IT

I don't think there is a defense for Microsoft. In the same week that Microsoft writes a big check to IBM, they get slapped with another suit. Draw your own conclusions about the merits of GO.
But the long and short of it is that it's going to be impossible for Microsoft to prevent these kinds of suits. They have something like sixty thousand employees, for cripes sake, how could they possibly make sure that each and every employee isn't infringing in some way on somebody's IP?
In a way, it's poetic justice. Microsoft has led the war on patenting the universe, now they're getting a little of their own medicine.

What Part Of Software Development is Outsourcable?

Things to think about:
Girls break a nail, loose last month's vacation pictures!
Would you back up some of your nails on others? Perhaps you could use your toenails as "offline storage"
Sounds like fingernail polish would "erase" the storage. So then could you write to them again? Are nails only WORMs?
What would the readers look like? Would you stick your hand inside your computer? Gee. Hope there isn't any moisture in there.

Long Distance Tax Overturned. You May Be Due a Refund. But Good Luck Getting It.

So it's 3-D characters, interacting in real-time with what your 3-D character does and says, right?
But haven't we already been playing games like this for a while?
Maybe it's better at drama, by which I take it that the characters say dramatic things to each other, but is that really such a great improvement in game play? "Here's your sword" is just as dramatic to me as "Somewhere in the house, there is a killer" -- depends on why I'm playing the game to start with.
So it may be evolutionary for sure, next generation MYST perhaps, but it doesn't sound revolutionary.
More hype than hope -- but definitely a new market niche for the genre.
Beer Kills Memories Of Ugly People?

Load up the cannons -- here's the perfect slashdot story: programming art or science?
That's like a story that's titled, "Chocolate Ice Cream, better than Vanilla?"
Art is subjective. If you believe that some part of science is subjective as well, then you understand that there is no easy answer to the question posed. If you think science has no subjectivity, then welcome to the food fight!

Quality: It's a Numbers Game

In related news, China will continue to be the world's leading supplier of hacked DVDs and CDS, they're just promising not to pester you about buying them.

Screensavers as Corporate Message Boards?

Yeah. I know that -- p/q and all that. Didn't mean to imply that the numbers were irrational in the other sense of the word. Honestly, I don't know if that's true or not. I do know we're talking about the same latin root, ratio. The derivatives mean "to think" or more recently "to calculate" -- so it might be close enough for government work. For a nice history of the term, try this site Also try this site.

Marketing in RSS? Heavens To Betsy!

This sounds like a demeaning, brutal job. Almost like a factory for addition. Can you imagine what these folks talked about when they went home at night?
"Had a bunch of sevens at the plant today. Thought we never add them all up."
There's a slide-rule connection here. Oddly enough, numbers that couldn't be computed on a slide rule were deemed irrational. For those interested in slide rules, Here's a short history of the slide rule and here's a guy's collection of slide rules

Microsoft Taken To Task On Hiring Practices

"I think Amazon's biggest challenge is itself. They've really raised the bar for the entire industry," said Kurt Peters, editor of Internet Retailer, a monthly magazine covers the business.

Hey. I saw this episode on Star Trek. The same thing kept happening over and over again until Data finally kept the ship from blowing up.
That's what's happening on /. Now we need to repeat all of our original posts, while sending a message with tachyon beams back to our original selves...

Blog's Up!

If I were this guy, instead of posting the directions on the blog, I'd be making little kits to sell on E-bay or something. This could be a useful little widget for all those new millions of Skype customers out there.
I'm not sure about product liability though -- I wonder if it's possible to completely disclaim any possible harm that could be caused to your phone or computer. Maybe a big red sticker that says, "You're an idiot if you plug this up! Warning!"

NASA blows up comet, gets sued for $300 million

This is a really neat product, especially the instant-on, waterproof characteristics, and the 20GB HD. But at $700, I couldn't help wonder where the market niche was supposed to be? It's significantly more than a PDA, yet it doesn't look to price-compete against low-end notebooks (perhaps it does?). It's definitely way cheaper than tablets, but then again tablets have a lot more input features. So I'm not sure where it's supposed to compete in the market. Am I supposed to buy it instead of my PDA? Or my notebook?

Things NOT to look for in your staff

I know when the same technique is used to compromise web sites with SQL in the back end it's called SQL injection. I guess this would be XML Injection? Or perhaps PHP Injection and XML is only the wrapper. XML Injection sounds cooler.

New wireless technology called XMax?

Ray has got it nailed. It's interesting how much agreement there is anymore on future technology predictions. Only a few decades ago, predictions were all over the place: flying cars, nuclear power plants in every home, etc. But lately it seems that most people agree on the basics: man and machine will merge in some fashion, biotech will begin to cure aging, etc. The details are still very fuzzy, but it's interesting that Ray can bring these pieces together in a way that is not that far away from mainstream thought.

What's the Other Slashdot Effect?

I've struggled with the same question as a computer consultant -- do images always convey anything useful just because they are based on scientific data? I've created a lot of really cool graphs and 3-D animations, but as far as analyzing the data, most times the computer is a lot better at processing multi-dimensional data than our old Mark-1 eyeball.
But there is a cool factor involved with a lot of imaging. You can't deny that.
Probably more disturbing is when images appear to convey data when they really don't. The use of false color is a great tool to bring out detail in astonomical images, but many times is misleading to the casual observer who may not understand that the images are "doped"

Is BitTorrent Next?

With all that outgassing, you would think a comet's surface would be a lot more sharp -- full of crevasses and ridges (like it was on Deep Impact) But this one seemed almost smooth, like an asteroid. I wonder if this will change the theory of how comets are constructed?

Ugliest Dog I Ever Saw