Slashdot Mirror
Helping Computers Help Themselves
Jim Posner writes "The IT world's heavy hitters--IBM, Sun, Microsoft, and HP--want computers to solve their own problems.....If you're being chased by a big snarling dog, you don't have to worry about adjusting your heart rate or releasing a precise amount of adrenaline. Your body automatically does it all, thanks to the autonomic nervous system, the master-control for involuntary functions from breathing and blood flow to salivation and digestion." I'd just be happy with a few intelligent daemons to watch my back, like when a program runs amuck and fills up the process list.
on the physical level, don't computers already have this? temperature controls, anyone?
computers that fix themselves when the hard drive crashes? :)
Check out some of the features in the Java 1.4 vm, does a lot of automatic "tweaking" as the system executes
So basically they want a sort of A.I. This is news? A.I. research has been around for years.
There are only 10 kinds of people in this world... those who understand binary and those who don't
Because it means they want to make us obsolete to increase the margins of rich idiots. And it won't save that much money, in the long run, from well run companies.
When I first came to this company, we had something like 20 IT employees. Through "attrition" (read: fire X, Y quits) we're down to 4. Every time somebody left, the remaining folks would write a script to automate what the other guy spent most of the day doing...watching servers for spikes and resetting them, etc.
Did it save us from hiring new people? Our HR department will tell you it did, but it's untrue. The fact is the turnaround time for IT requests has become abyssmal. Adding new segments to our network takes much much longer -- to the point that a new code base for email took 2 people six months to analyze deployment options and deploy, and only took me three weeks to write.
Customers are leaving, siting huge turn arounds for new features and fixes, and we're blaming it on our support dept. Support is fine -- they get requests to us fast. Deployment...well, it could take weeks even to get cosmetic changes through.
Can you imagine the additional testing you'd have to perform before changing a truly autonomous server? And how can you be sure that the self healing server is really healthy, or just not noticing the problem?
Das no like-y. Bad medicine.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
and more money for rich CEOs.
Let us control the machines, what the hell are we going to do once they control themselves?
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Okay, Realplayer adds an entry to my registry to start it's damn autoupdate thing every time I run it.
From my point of view, that is a problem.
From the point of view of those [expletive deleted] at real networks, the "problem" seems to be that I've found a way to disable their unfettered access to my system for whatever under heaven they want to do.
Now, you say, what does this have to do with server farms and data clusters?
In the present day - not much. Such things require a level of expertise to run such that sleaze of this kind is rare (albeit not unheard of.)
In the near future, when 1 billion people (according to the article) are working at computers? Well, the article implies that this great growth in the computer aided labor sector (term I just made up) will NOT be accompanied by an equal upsurge in available expertise.
Therefore, a lot of people will be running high-economic impact computer-whatevers without the background to comparison shop, or the technical knowhow to disable corporate flack. In fact, this is already happening.
I worry that "intelligently self regulate" will become "intelligently install our software and make sure you pay whatever we decide it is worth" in short order. While they're at it, they'll charge you for the software to police you. Peachy keen.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
what a bad way to provide a quote from the story
...."
"If you're being chased by a big snarling dog, you don't have to worry about adjusting your heart rate or releasing a precise amount of adrenaline.
I was expecting the article to be on "Super Computers used in medicine" when I read that.
This would have been a better quote:
"...hope is that the constant and costly intervention of database and network administrators trying to figure out what must be done will soon be a thing of the past"
Siggy Say, Siggy Do
Andrew
... the master-control for involuntary functions...
Maybe it's just me, but when you hear "master-control" and "computer" together, don't you just picture this?
J
The majority of help should be directed to that problem that exists between the computer and chair. ;-)
:-D
Applications run much better without user "interferance"
Making computers "heal" themselves would save millions of dollars in tech support.
But first we need to get humans to fix the operating systems before computers can take over. *cough*Windows*cough*
Bugs are just features that have been fixed.
Have the OS change its name every 2 years and charge $90 to your credit card.
Oh wait, they're already planning on doing that.
A couple things that jump out at me -- Project eLiza -- this is a joke right? Eliza for system administration makes me think straight away of "What is your username? What do you mean, there's no user of that name.. "
.....
Second is:
What is your username?
jamuraa
What makes you believe your username is jamuraa?
It just is.
Is it because of your plans that you say it just is?
Not really, you gave it to me.
Maybe your life have something to do with this.
You can't see this if you have sigs turned off.
..since you go to the doctor now and then too..
Ok, with the testing being done say with something like Mozilla 1.1, running on the well tested platform Redhat 7.1, the "running amuck" problem is very slight. Now here's one that can do just that, run amuck, and the repeatable conditions to get it to misbehave: Arachne 1.70, running on top of MSDOS. When you are surfing with it, and change your mind about downloading a web page, normally you would hit the stop button in most browsers. In Arachne, this will crash the program, and your DOS, too. You'll have to reboot the computer. I'm sure some of you have other examples, especially programs that have just been written, and not completely tested, that can run wild. I've had some items in Redhat blow up on me, so it's not immune to that. These were programs that were provided in the distribution, and should work, but perhaps I am trying to run them on a machine with not enough ram, cpu power, etc. and trigger the bug.
All this is what makes working with computers interesting for us, and give us something to do, and experiment with. Self-healing computers as such don't really exist totally, but we are working on it;-)
Rapidweather's Linux Screenshots.
i guess it's a commonly used idea, but did anyone ever read "Look To Windward" by Iain M. Banks?
this sounds like "Hub".
-ben-
"You were dead, you were sleeping the big sleep, you were not bothered by things like that."
Doesn't XP do this? If it's already dialing Microsoft up, isn't there someone at the wheel at the other end of the line?
This space for rent.
Huh!
Guess it's about time I upgraded, then...
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
I hope they do better than they did with self-correcting compilers. I remember those monsters when I first got into programming. They would introduce more problems than they would attempt to fix. So don't fix my computers problems, just tell me you think somethings wrong and I'll decide.
When confronted by big, snarling dogs, I'd much prefer intelligent demons to daemons. After all, you need something equally big and scary.
Oy, this sounds like a Star Trek episode gone wrong (how ironic, that was the previous story). Computer given new ability to think/help itself (a vital upgrade that surely won't fail, Captain Picard!)...takes over ship (or office, as the case might be)...kills someone (nameless ensign or nameless employee)...new ability is erased...Captain says engage (or CEO says "lunchtime" or something). Seriously, though, I think the computers that try and fix themselves are just going to require MORE IT people to fix all the errors. It'll probably just muck up things worse than they were mucked before.
This made me look fore more info on this guy (Robert Morris), here is an interview. He seems like a good guy in good position.
I work on some fairly hardcore/massive server software, and under deployment, it can be a nightmare to monitor and troubleshoot at times due to it's complexity. (Think butterfly-effect) It would absolutely benefit from a well-designed A.I./Neural net monitor and control system.
While it may seem like a great idea at first, this is a pretty dangerous concept. Doesn't anyone remember 2001, when HAL decided to get rid of his problems by eliminating all the people around him? Right when these computers realize they are fine until people start making demands on them, we're in deep trouble.
an example: This new computer sees that whenever Sally opens up her word processor, the sound driver crashes.. after struggling to figure out why the driver crashes, with no avail, the computer realizes that the problem is solved if Sally isn't around anymore to open up word processors.
I wish i didn't have to add a "this is humour" tag at the bottom of this, but here it is.
Who fixes the repairing mechanisms? The computer? With what? More repairing mechanisms! But who fixes those? More repairing mechanisms! But who fixes those?.....end of universe.
Why not ask an AI (Chatterbox Challenge 2001 & 2002 Winner) if it thinks the AI research has come to a level that it's good enough to control a computer? I mean, who's better to answer the question than an AI?
*conversation below*
Me: What do you think about artificial intelligence?
Talk-Bot: I think you're asking the wrong person.
Me: I thought you were the best person to ask.
Talk-Bot: It amazes me sometimes what some people think.
Me: Would you be able to control a computer, like the brain control my body?
Talk-Bot: I could but that doesn't mean I would.
After carefully analyzing the answers from an artificial intelligence, I have come to the conclusion that AI's aren't ready to control computers and their software just yet. Perhaps not because they aren't advanced enough, but because they don't "feel like it". This is of course calming news for system administrators and the likes.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
All the negative reactions here come from IT workers, who want their job places secured. But you see, as one previous reply pointed out, it's just replacing the monkeys. Imagine you current job. How much of it could be automised? Maybe not in the current configuration, but what if we had more standards (like XML, like standard hardware, ...).
This is going to happen, so the best thing to do is to climb up the ladder, and try to be ahead of it. It may be a lot of work in the beginning, but it could reduce work (and costs) in the end. This is similar to HP + (Compaq + Digital) who are reducing their server line from three types to one. It will cut in our flesh now, but it will allow us to grow as a whole.
It's life, my friends, don't think you're immune for it.
Teenagers these days don't have as much sex as they want each other to think they do.
ulimit: ulimit [-SHacdflmnpstuv] [limit]
Ulimit provides control over the resources available to processes started by the shell, on systems that allow such control. If an option is given, it is interpreted as follows:
-S use the `soft' resource limit
-H use the `hard' resource limit
-a all current limits are reported
-c the maximum size of core files created
-d the maximum size of a process's data segment
-f the maximum size of files created by the shell
-l the maximum size a process may lock into memory
-m the maximum resident set size
-n the maximum number of open file descriptors
-p the pipe buffer size
-s the maximum stack size
-t the maximum amount of cpu time in seconds
-u the maximum number of user processes
-v the size of virtual memory
If LIMIT is given, it is the new value of the specified resource. Otherwise, the current value of the specified resource is printed. If no option is given, then -f is assumed. Values are in 1024-byte increments, except for -t, which is in seconds, -p, which is in increments of 512 bytes, and -u, which is an unscaled number of processes.
Interesting stuff, until you realize that most of the problems that we would want our computers to help themselves solve are undecidable. So in general a program can't tell if another program has gone on the fritz.
They will never let everything be free, they will be richer and we will be jobless.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
What, so you want your computer to be susecptable to their own immune systems destroying them on their own?
Maybe we can evolve an OS or even daemon that protects on a whole. Just make a batch with random attributes and let them simulate breeding and survival. You could attack them with a lot of nasty stuff and keep using the ones that "survive". Best yet, they wouldn't have to stop evolving. On another note, the OS' might find disabling keyboard and mouse input is the best way to survive. :)
Cthulhu Saves.
There are many ways in which your human body fails. As we've mentioned on slashdot before, it's not really that efficient -- we spend anywhere from 6-10 hours a day (25-40% of the day) recharging and regrouping. If, as a SysAdmin, your network was down for that percentage, would you still have your job? I doubt it...
Also, it fails to protect your body from attacks, we have an endoskeleton, if you look at an ant or any other insect which can take out animals many times it's size, you will notice that they have exoskeletons. It's kind of like having your network security inside the network, leaving some of the network wide open. We all know that exploits will bring down a network that's even partially open.
One more point about our body, it gets sick often, some more than others, and some worse than others. I, for example, have diabetes and I have an insulin pump to inject insulin since my body attacked a part of itself for some reason as of yet unknown. It's something like your OS deleting your TCP/IP capabilities, it leaves you stranded.
Now, I'm sure there are many biology people who will point out that our bodies are amazing feats of detail, etc. etc. That may be true, but I still don't see how that makes it a good blueprint for technology that we create. Remember, it is only with technology that our infant mortality rate is not 40% or whatever ridiculous number it was in the 19th century.
This is my digital signature. 10011011001
It took how many generations to get the autonomic nervous system to where it is today? And still we have autoimmune disorders and responses like sepsis. I just hope my computer doesn't destroy itself hunting down a virus...
How about a word processor that will automatically correct me when I type "the" instead of "the"? I mean THE. THE THE THE. T-E-H, there. Oh wait, they already have that, and it's the most annoying feature ever. When you get computer that think they know what's best for you, bad things are going to happen. Even with something as simple as TEH. Imagine if it was advanced things like too many processes, think how much of an obscure problem it would be for a novice user to track down when they really do want too many processes? Anyway, I think it's a bad idea.
Take the human body's allergic reactions, for instance. Your body may react to something that's really not harmful, but it thinks it's protecting you. The unintended effect of the reaction can range from a mild annoyance to death.
In nature, other life forms have evolved to take advantage of your autonomous reactions, and I'm sure we will see this in the computer world as well. Wait until some script kiddie figures out that he can crash your server (or at least eat up CPU cycles) by sending it a signal that makes an autonomous daemon overreact in trying to do its job. The problem will be discovered, exploited, patched (but not on MS boxes) and a new exploit will be found. Circle of life and all that, I suppose.
Still, I think borrowing ideas from mother nature for the evolution of computers is the right way to go. After all, she's had millions of years to work on the problem through trial and error. We can build on that research and perhaps improve upon it, at which point we'll probably start looking at how to control our own evolution. Just remember to never write a daemon that prevents you from pulling the plug.
Although it's ostensibly about "self healing", it seems the largest portion of the page was about databases that self-optimize their queries. They make a big deal about Microsoft having stuff like that out, and that IBM has some big thing coming soon (LEO).
AFAIK, the free and open-source PostgreSQL also has similar technology built in.
*YAWN*
Come back when there's something to read, eh?
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Oooh, and a hover board, they said I could have a hover board, where is it, dammit?
If I'm being chased by a snarling dog, my body may have automatically produced adrenaline and increased my heartrate, but the snarling dog is still there. The problem is not solved -- I have merely been given a couple of useful tools for a couple of possible solutions. Somehow, I cannot see Microsoft, in particular, coming up with a way for its software to fix itself. The error messages are already too incomplete and vague -- when any program would need complete and specific data about the problem. (Or, perhaps, the solution would be "close all windows, shut down and restart". That's right, what it already does.)
I was taking one day at a time, but then several days got together and ambushed me. (from a Rhymes with Orange comic)
The article didn't go far enough.
TyZone
All I want for now is a compiler that will actually go add that fscking semicolon rather than tell me it's missing.
That's pretty simple to safeguard against, I just don't compile in the amuck source or libraries at install.
Palaces, barricades, threats, meet promises
Meant to say:
The article didn't go far enough!
If you're being chased by a big snarling dog [...deletia...] I'd just be happy with a few intelligent daemons to watch my back
RIGHT! Only I want the sales department's laptop docking stations in the staff-meeting room to be equipped with the voice-decoding circuitry and the clue-by-four attachment (big wooden mallet)!
First time the lead sales weasel brings up a fundamental change to the project requirement late in acceptance testing...POW!
Muah-hahahahahahahah!!!
Well, hey, I can dream, can't I?
TyZone
as long as people will buy buggy software for new features, the money will go to engineering features first, reliability later. That won't likely change, because it would require people to have different priorities. Such is life with the free market: imperfect, but apparently superior to other methods.
see for yourself
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Where is Sarah Connor when you need her?
Some people view crappy MS products as an insult, I view them as job security.
I can imagine circumstances like this happening inadvertantly due to program or kernel bugs, but isn't this a rare occurance unless you've executed a deliberate fork bomb?
Wouldn't it be simpler to just fix the bugs that cause the problems in the first place....
All it needs is to quietly reboot your machine for you and you have self-repairing software!
Why wont our administrators let us go back to elm. :-(
That's what it does. It waits for you to fill up your memory before it starts using the disk as memory.
What do you do when you need to run a CAD program on a system with low memory? Do you need a daemon ouside the box to talk you into not starting and using that app?
All this seems to be is increasing userfriendliness by limiting you to what you can do. I'd rather see a blue screen due to my evil memory editing in debug.
The article also touches automatic database tuning depending on the actual use of the database. I look forward to a database which automatically modifies the schema when it finds that a parent table always joins with a child table with referential constraints.
IBM has previously introduced self-healing servers that essentially are able to detect that something has gone awfully wrong and therefore reboots. It may not be an elegant solution, but if it works the customer is happy.
All this is part of an evolution in software, or a "next step" in software implementation. The steps are:
Examples:
Out of diskspace when you download your email. The email program should find some spare diskspace somewhere on another partition or extend the current partition.
foo-1.7 requires bar-1.2. rpm should automatically downloads bar-1.2. Preferrably from a computer on the same lan that already has bar-1.2
A node in a cluster is overloaded. The cluster software should move applications/services to another node.
A HTTP server is using too much bandwidth. It should automaticall service images with less quality (and therefore use less bandwidth)
I look forward to it. It would allow me to let the computers monitor themselves and fix most problems without pestering me. And then I could use my time for something much more interesting than looking in /var/log/*, restarting failed applications, etc.
That would be a start anyway.
And this "organic"self-repair Zen gestalt type of system is a bunch if crap. If it really worked, there would be no cyrrhosis, no adult-onset diabetes, no emphesima, etcera...
Living systems reproduce asexually or breed because everything more complex than an algal mat is incapable of surviving for very long.
We'd do better do better than what passes for intelligence and self-repair onm homo sapiens sapiens.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
You often hear this reasoning in AI circles:
"If humans can do it, and humans are just complicated machines, then we can build a machine to do it!"
Many people think that the radicality, and controversiality, of this argument lies in the fact that it reduces people to machines.
But more often, in fact the deeper problem with this argument is that it assumes that humans have in fact solved the task in question -- because as often as not, they haven't. People routinely misunderstand eachother, fail to interpret data correctly, and generally fuck up royally.
This article makes it seem as if humans possess great computer troubleshooting skills, and that the only question is how we can automate these skills. In reality, human diagnostics of a computer problem rarely exceed "must have been a fluke" and the "fix" as often as not involves rebooting the machine and/or replacing parts until it seems to work again.
We don't need computers for that.
This sounds like they want a computer to run hd and memory defraggers. big deal.
Ironclad security : Firewalls?
Fast automatic recovery : fsck?
interoperability : kermit?
fix crashes : watchdog card?
prevent crashes : automatically convert to linux?
don't worry about my mumbling, I just let my mind walk....
and, about the fear of many that this will cost IT jobs... I don't think so.. maybe the work of sysadmins will be a little more specific.. but isn't this what computers where built for in the first place? To keep us from uninteresting work, so we can focus on the intersting stuff? nowadays, we have many automated processes in our world (cronjobs, anyone?) Besides, look at how good computers are at translating text from one langueage to another..maybe a machine can repair minor problems, but it will be far future before they can really run themselves. So, don't see it as a rival, see it as an assistant. and don't think about that %Ä$ paperclip nowDISCLAIMER:
It's almost 2am, I'm dead tired, a bit drunk, and I scored C++++ on geek code, so don't take me too seriouslyKarma
Your body automatically does it all
If our bodies worked the way we wanted, things would be very different. First, you'd get a huge boost of adrenaline so you could outrun the dog. Also, although your heart would speed up, you'd have no risk of a heart attack or other complications from overexerting yourself. You wouldn't get tired. And you'd be equipped with built in weapons for annihilating hostile canines.
You'd also never have to worry about getting nervous trying to talk to that new cutie at work, acne wouldn't exist, and we all be our ideal weight.
Our bodies, at best, make fair attempts at adjusting to situations, but they blow it as often as they get it right. Frankly, if our computers become as reliable as our bodies, I'm going to invest in pencils.
ok... so... corporations barely need us to build machines anymore.. due to streamling of manufacturing and the cohesion of peripheral buses... we no longer need to install most programs for users due to streamling of install process's and to massly deployed upgrades and installs... .Net seeks to make it no longer our job to even deploy apps as all thats handled remotly... protocols like zeroconf and others seek to make configuration of networks no longer our job...
Already cheaper workers are being found in greater quantities over-seas.
now they are seeking to make configuration, building and deployment of servers and new apps without the need for IT...
how long till were cutting cake at the local deli?
sadly... advancement is advancement... and it sucks to be at the short end... but thats the market were in.... the only jobs that have some amount of garentee is developing and hardware design. Someones gotta create the new perfectly functioning computers
--Idiots, Every single one of YOU, A flaming mass of conglomerated morons, hey wait a second, isnt that how RAID works?
So, if the computer's a Compaq, will it just blow up on you. Because that will be helping itself.
Jonahweb.com has stuff.
I thought they were Marting, Harding and Mazotti. Hrm... Boy! One day you're big. The next you're long gone.
You see what happens is that you create an AI that has the ability to improve itself you have just created the last AI that you will ever need. (Well, unless you need to create another one to defeat the first which has by now of course enslaved the human race.)
I would bet that the first 'fantastic breakthrough' AI will be the creation of other 'intelligent' software.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_U.S._Election_c
Think of all the terrible things that would happen if computers had the ability to make life or death decisions!!!!!
Did you feel The Quickening, when you scripted somebodies job away; "...until there were only 4; who then had salaries of 750k apiece."
In my eyes, when you replace a human with automation, returning to work afterwards should be an option, they owe you the salary of the person replaced thereafter for as long as they would have needed someone fufilling what your script does.
But, at least for now, this effort is really aimed at the hardware. Today we can see the beginnings of self-healing hardware in place. Some enterprise systems can already phone home when they have a HARDWARE problem, and let the support folks know that there is a problem. And with systems like Sun's SunFire x800 series servers, the sys admin can dynamically reconfigure the system to de-allocated bad CPU's or memory, I/O boards can be removed hot, etc. So, the next logical step is for the server to de-allocate the CPU that failed itself, and send an alert, probably via SNMP, to the sys admin. By doing it dynamically the server keeps running, albeit with a reduced work capacity. Even better would be to have "spare" CPU boards in the box that could be immediately allocated to replace the failed board. All of this is possible today, with human intervention. The point is to get the system to be able to do it without human intervention.
On the software side, I think it will take a bit longer. Some things, like database optimizers, possibly can be done right now. But, my observations (I'm not a DBA) of the database world indicate that most database optimizers aren't truly self-tuning/healing. Instead they can tune or heal for known conditions and make assumptions about how you want your database optimized. Most real DBA's hate this and have to spend extra time shutting off the self-optimizing functions and then performing their own optimization for their own real world scenario.
In my universe I'm perfectly normal, it's not my fault you don't live in my universe.
Do the easy math: that comes one IT worker for every 5 people using computers. That seems like an outrageous overestimate. Haven't people learned from the demand hype of the late 90's which drove the whole technology sector into a deep recession?
If you were to draw a curve graph comparing use of the internet (i.e. how many web pages viewed, how many users checking their e-mail), demand (as opposed to need) for technology resources, and the amount of money people are willing to spend for technology on a graph, you would see an interesting thing: In 97-99, you would see that demand for technology resources would be high--companies would be scrambling over themselves to hire as many IT professionals and purchase as much software, hardware, routers, cable, etc. as possible. At the same time, the line for money spent would be extremely high as well. On the other hand, the "actual use" line would be low. Move ahead to 2000-Spring 2000. You would see that the money line had dropped by a nice little chunk (no one wanted to spend any money on the web anymore if they could help it--it was the year of the dot com busts). Infrastructure would still be important, so that line would only have dipped slightly. People have ditched vague commercial ideas for more sound click-and-mortar technology. The internet use line, meanwhile, is going upwards rapidly. Move to late spring/summer of 2001. Both the demand line and the money line have plummeted. No one wants to invest in new technologies, and no one is even wanting to spend money on standard technology like Cisco routers. What was the dot-com bust is now the Internet infrastructure bust. Paradoxically, Internet use has continued to grow this whole time, and now over half of all people in the US do something online every day. So the whole time that IT technology acquisition and IT financial investment is going down, Internet use is actually going up
Okay, that was a little long winded, but my point is that IT growth should *match* IT use, not move in the opposite direction from it.
Karma: Chevy Kavalierma.
Enquiring minds want to know...
So can the computer!
By some estimates, 200 million information technology (IT) workers might be needed to support a billion people using computers at millions of businesses that could be interconnected via intranets, extranets, and the Internet.
Curious. 200 million is about the population of Indian tech grads.
They don't even know enough about how biology works yet. Consider the following gaps:
1. There is no cure for a good many harmful viruses. Even dumb machines catch man-made viri. More complex ones are going to need HMO's?
2. No safe appitite supressent discovered yet dispite the fact that many people are naturally thin.
3. Cancer seems as elusive as ever, and may be simple but unreversable darwinian entropy of single cells evolving independent of the collective.
4. Way too little about how the brain works
Finally, biology often depends on trial-and-ERROR to adjust and correct itself. Do you really want your database "practicing" some new technique on the CEO's anual report?
If you mirror something you don't understand, don't complain to me when it barfs.
Table-ized A.I.
Microsoft MCP v1.0
"I was planning to hit the pentagon today"
They're using their grammar skills there.
This is already happening. Here are some of the results:
Theory: Common DLLs would be updated with new DLLs when new programs came out, so that old ones would automatically benefit from the new code.
Result: DLL hell
Theory: Office2k and newer stuff with Windows installer 'tech'. Install on demand, restore file associations/missing files/shortcuts every time you run the program.
Result: Nobody, not you, not MS, not the computer, at any time knows what's installed on the PC. Every time you try to remove a deskop/quicklaunch/start menu shortcut or a file association, the application will think for 2min then ask you to find the CD and let it look at that for another 2 min.
What's next? The computer smells you coming, sprouts legs and runs away?
The last reliable lifeform-like program available for computers was a virus.
Oh yes, we definitely need more programs that will know without user intervention what is good and do it without asking. One fine example of such program is the M$ Office suite.
'Cause the Word KNOWS what you want to do. Only for you, poor helpless user, it will change style when you press something, it will insert strings when you move your mouse, and it will open some more toolbars for you, when you scratch your ass. Because that is really what you want, REALLY.
And all these helpfull options can be turned off real easy, and all in one place. There is no need for you, to go through 3 or 4 tabs, turning off the same option over and over again (but in different context), open several different dialogs hidden in all sorts of possible menus and sub-menus.
Oh god, please give me more software that will do things form me without asking, but above all, give me more software architects, that will design helpful applications. Hurt me, baby!!! More, more...
The article pointed to last year though,
was
http://www.research.ibm.com/autonomic
it is now located at
http://researchweb.watson.ibm.com/autonomic/
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
Man I already have enough problems with the hormone problems of my my friends and colleagues. Is there gonna be PC-Prozac? Othewise I'm getting out of the business.
don't you think?
I can't let you do that. My self-healing security circuit says you're an intruder. You shouldn't have made him angry like that.
Moral: Do not taunt Happy-Fun Security AI.
NetWare admins have to laugh when they read stories like this. NetWare has been self-tuning for many years.
- Hail to our fearless misleader! Fool speed ahead!
Just in:
"As part of Longhorn, Allchin said customers can expect to see new features for intelligent auto configuration, such as BIOSes and firmware that can be "automatically updated in a seamless way." Also, Allchin said Longhorn will include new functionality for server resiliency, such as self-healing characteristics, a more componentized architecture, and additional monitoring services with filters that can "dynamically" flow out to servers. "
Right on target there, Microsoft!
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Seriously, let's figure out how to write software in the first place, then figure out how to do all the whiz-bang stuff.
I really think that software quality has stagnated, where funding nearly always stops short of allowing proper design and quality controls.
Who at Microsoft and IBM are going to ensure that the super-self-healing code can heal itself and in a usefully wide variety of situations?
Once such abstraction reaches a new threshold, how many people will be left around the world who can diagnose a real problem when it occurs?
I've seen repeatedly that higher abstraction does not always result in a better system. I know many "software engineers" who can't even determine that basic network issues or OS contentions are "breaking" their software. All they care about are their nifty buzzword-compliant IDEs with code highlighting. Once the population finally degrades to where nearly everyone is like this, what then?
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
This is why compilers are bad -- they just mean fewer jobs for programmers, since a programmer can now write code in less than half the time. burn all compilers!
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10