Slashdot Mirror
Worst Bug or Shortcomings in a Standard?
Alastair asks: "Just curious what the Slashdot crowd thinks are the worst bugs ever to creep into a standard? For mine, the various security vulnerabilities in WEP would make the grade. Also perhaps the lack of a protocol field in HDLC, and which most implementations added in a non-compatible way. I'm thinking here about bugs which result in partial or total irrelevance of the standard itself, as opposed to just a lack of interest in adopting it."
'Nuff said.
Stop the world; I need to get off.
I wish there was a way to install programs common accross all versions of linux.
/tmp or the installer will dump core. After the installer is done, edit /etc/X11/XF86Config and add a section called "GL" and put "driver nv" in it. Make sure you have the latest version of X and Linux kernel 2.6 or else X will segfault when you start. OK, run the Quake 3 installer and make sure you set the proper group and setuid permissions on quake3.bin. If you want sound, look here [link to another obscure web site], which is a short HOWTO on how to get sound in Quake 3. That's all there is to it!"
Linux zealots are now saying "oh installing is so easy, just do apt-get install package or emerge package": Yes, because typing in "apt-get" or "emerge" makes so much more sense to new users than double-clicking an icon that says "setup".
Linux zealots are far too forgiving when judging the difficultly of Linux configuration issues and far too harsh when judging the difficulty of Windows configuration issues. Example comments:
User: "How do I get Quake 3 to run in Linux?"
Zealot: "Oh that's easy! If you have Redhat, you have to download quake_3_rh_8_i686_010203_glibc.bin, then do chmod +x on the file. Then you have to su to root, make sure you type export LD_ASSUME_KERNEL=2.2.5 but ONLY if you have that latest libc6 installed. If you don't, don't set that environment variable or the installer will dump core. Before you run the installer, make sure you have the GL drivers for X installed. Get them at [some obscure web address], chmod +x the binary, then run it, but make sure you have at least 10MB free in
User: "How do I get Quake 3 to run in Windows?"
Zealot: "Oh God, I had to install Quake 3 in Windoze for some lamer friend of mine! God, what a fucking mess! I put in the CD and it took about 3 minutes to copy everything, and then I had to reboot the fucking computer! Jesus Christ! What a retarded operating system!"
So, I guess the point I'm trying to make is that what seems easy and natural to Linux geeks is definitely not what regular people consider easy and natural. Hence, the preference towards Windows.
This is stupid, but it bugs me that we're stuck with "Referer" in HTTP.
It should have been female connectors with only one pinout (e.g DCE) on all equipment supporting RS232, and all RS232 cables should be crossed (null modems).
Instead we have a complete mess with male and female connectors, straight and crossed cables. Is pin 2 receive or transmit? Dohhh.
Why female connectors on boxes? Male connectors are more fragile. If the pins break, replace (or repair) the cable. The female connector on the box is OK.
Luckily, RS232 are dying ;-)
RFC1925
Sure a well defined markup language is nice but really, people seem to loose all rational sense when it comes to XML - It cannot be used in a project without the project becomming "XML"? Scripting languages have been capable of processing all manner of free form text files in the past but somehow XML is necessary for interoperation? Why do people somehow think that XML encapsulated data will be small and quick to parse and are then suprised when it isn't? Why are they so fucking proud when their server can generate some trivial number of XML packets per second? What nutjob actually thought XML is easy to read? And what is the difference between a node an an attribute? Really?