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The headline for the Dobbs article is "Wi-Fi Phone Buyer's Guide" which, for something that discusses the technology and its advantages and disadvantages, is about right. It doesn't really review the phones though. You could pretty much write the article without ever having touched one! And, unfortunately, that's a very big difference. As far as I know they're all very much Version 1.0 products with some pretty serious problems.

I liked the concept and bought a Belkin Wi-Fi Phone, but ultimately I was pretty disappointed. It's currently back with Belkin being replaced.

I wrote an article on my website about this.

That was a while ago though! I'd also second the recommendation for Pragmatic Programmer and I think Extreme Programming Explained (also reviewed on my website!) is worth reading even if you don't like XP.

--> Stephen

I have the SliMP3, the wired precursor to the Squeezebox and reviewed it on mywebsite.

In summary, I think it's great. My main complaint when I got it was the price, but the Squeezebox now costs less than the SliMP3.

Assuming that 'quality' takes more time is wrong. Taking steps to make sure that code is 'correct' first time is actually much quicker than doing it badly and repeatedly fixing it. There are loads of studies showing this, and it matches my own experience (from my website).

It just takes confidence that this is true and a view of the big picture, which is much easier said than done. The XP refactoring thing sounds great in theory, but I remain to be convinced that it'd work well in practice.

It depends on what "nice and pretty code" is. If you mean that every algorithm is optimal, that the design of every part of it is elegant then you're right: the software is seriously over-engineered.

However, I believe there is a minimal set of standards of code 'cleanliness' that should be used regardless of timescales. My main problem is with badly formatted code. What excuse is there for that? You'd only have bad formatting if you didn't understand your own code, which should trigger some warning bells somewhere!

I wrote a longer piece about this here.

quote: The FDL does preserve the "viral" nature of the GPL in a couple of ways.

GPL

quote: Tom Christiansen has noted the GPL could be called "viral".

is

quote: The way it does this is by insisting that the code and anything
derived from it is also released with the GPL licence. In some senses
it is 'viral' in nature and it is this that is central to many
people's objections.

Also, it's worth noting that the word 'derived' is a little too vague.
Does a library linked to a GPL'd program need to be GPL'd also? Does
a program running on a free operating system need to be GPL'd?

There's no clear, obvious answer for either of these with the current
version of the GPL. The new version (3) is intended to fix some of
these shortcomings, but it's viral nature will remain.

a

quote: Despite the meaning "virus" normally connotes, the viral aspect of the GNU General Public License -- known formally as "copyleft" -- is a tremendous benefit to free software developers and the community they support.

viral

quote: And the licence is "viral", preventing the combination of copyleft and proprietary code.

license!!!!!

quote: This is the 'viral clause' of GPL -- it compels anyone releasing software that incorporates copylefted code to use the GPL in their new release. The Free Software Foundation says: "you must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program [any program covered by this license] or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this license."16

The technical advantages of Oracle over Postgress are not as significant as Larry might like to think. However, what it does have is a proven ability to perform.

I'm sure that there is no technical reason why Postgress can't handle multi-terabyte databases but I know Oracle can manage because I've seen it and because there are plenty of other customers who have too. The same goes for clustering, stored procedures, etc. If you're trying to reduce technical risk it's pragmatic to choose a solution you know will work.

Also in Oracle's favour is that it's much easier to recruit Oracle people than Postgress people. Databases are complex beasts, so it's important that you have qualified people supporting it.

I've not really used DB2, but I think that it has similar advantages over Postgres as Oracle. And finally, I am slightly biased. I don't work for Oracle but I did write the Oracle 8i on Linux Howto.