First: only an idiot would put a password into source code. That's what configuration files are for. What, you want to have to edit a script every time the password changes?
Second, there's no point encoding, encrypting or otherwise "securing" the configuration file. If a user has access to your configuration files, he has access to everything else, and all your security is useless.
So really the question is: I don't want the neighbours to see me naked. What should I tattoo on my butt-cheeks to make me safe?
The road is a bubble sort. Assholes get to bubble forward, sensible drivers pull back. This is good because, coincidentally, forward is where all the accidents are.
Someone needs to check with all the schools and Boy Scout organisations around Washington to find the underage boy Starr has been having sex with. There's no way one man can be such a complete arse unless he's got something to hide. And hey, he's a Republican, so you know he's not into vanilla sex; the GOP makes Britain's Tory party look like Tellytubbies.
In what way is it evil to keep your promise? They signed a contract; they're doing what they said they'd do.
Google is being good, not evil, by doing this. Unless you think they were evil to sign the contract, in which case they're being evil if they provide Google Earth at all.
The mistaken assumption is "anyone who takes away my toys must be evil". If you have that assumption, you're not being good, you're just being childish.
Hey, go easy on them. They've only had seven years to learn how to spell the word. Don't rush them! I mean, look how long it took them to get a CSS-based layout for this site, and CSS is only three letters!
Yeah, GP! You're a retard! And you're too cowardly to even log in with a real Slashdot login, unlike the brave fellow who called you out on your retardedness!
Oh, wait...!
Coming soon to Mozilla: ActiveM plug-ins! Now with the exciting "FORMAT C:" functionality, and complete integration with BOTH kinds of email software - Outlook AND Outlook Express!
If you're trying for credibility, do some research first. Maybe the ringtones can't possible work; maybe they can and do; maybe it's all caused by pixies. "I call bullshit" has no value at all as a comment; "I call bullshit and here's a respectable information source to back me up" is useful.
Even if it were possible to operate such a large collection of vacuum tubes with the small power supplies available for household electrical equipment, the glass fabrication process has too many flaws to enable mass production on such a scale. It would seem that the "personal computer" will never be anything other than what it is: a fiction.
The best description I've ever come up with for the Geek mindset is this: a Geek can hold a complex structure in her head and manipulate it with ease. A History Geek can hold the structure of a historical event and see motivations and causes from every angle; a Carpentry Geek can plan an entire piece of woodwork and see every cut and join vividly; a Programming Geek can hold a program's structure and its data and event flows and manipulate it as an idea.
Someone commented that the difference between Microsoft and Google is that Microsoft programmers are holding concepts the size of "If...Then...Else" and Google programmers are holding concepts the size of Bayesian filtering; thus, Google's Geeks are better at making big, coherent plans without getting lost in the details. It's not 100% true across the board, but it's an insight.
As a Project Manager, then, your job is to:
1. Allow your Geeks to transfer the concepts from the screen/page/whiteboard into their heads; and
2. Allow your Geeks to hold those ideas easily once they've got them.
Step 1 is a bandwidth issue: make the "inputs" more efficient by, for example, giving all of them dual-head monitors and high speed printers, so they can get lots of code into a usable format for reading (some of us prefer printouts; others just need vi/Emacs and a flicker-free monitor). Step 2 is a quality issue: Geeks who have to hide in headphones or run away to the park to read because of ringing phones and nagging managers are NOT going to be able to do their job.
And with any data pipe, throughput is more a function of time rather than pressure. So your dream of getting your programmers up to speed in minimum time really is -- pardon the pun -- a pipe dream. They won't be any use to you if they don't have the time to learn the systems they're working on.
Gods that's freaky... zero comments at any level, and the page is already slashdotted. There's got to be some way to create and automatic mirroring system for/.-referenced pages, so that before an article is posted to/., all pages it links to get auto-mirrored on some server that can handle the load, then the links in the article point to the mirror instead of to the original article. Gotta be possible, and GOTTA be better than what we have here.
... And, being a Murdoch rag, it's not particularly well respected, either. I find the Sydney Morning Herald, aka the Sadly Moaning Horrid, to be a better paper all round, even if it does have a habit of riding particular bandwagons until the wheels fall off (*coughReneRivkincough*).
Bloody hell. The day I skip work with the flu and a kitchen-shelf-related near-concussion, the agency gets slashdotted. I'm glad I'm not looking after that site -- just four or five other ones run by AGIMO. I wonder if they're still up... yep. Phew!
I can report that I've been using PHP, Perl, the Sablotron XSLT parser and other FOSS tools in the service of AGIMO for the last couple of years. I even develop in Emacs. AGIMO and the AusGov in general are quite amenable to open source s/w. They even have no particular objection to me open-sourcing the tools I've produced at work, like the XBlurb text parser and the Xenolith site engine -- not that I have, since neither of them is particularly interesting, but the willingness is there.
Meanwhile, AGIMO is getting in bed an awful, awful content mismanagement system, which I'm doing my best to avoid. It's not all good news. But it's a long way from a single vendor, thank the gods.
No, "highly religious" is wrong. The rest, perhaps; but that only demonstrates that modern sensibilities have shifted to the left over time, because they were very very definitely, without a shadow of a gnat's fart of a doubt, a long way to the left of their opposition.
The reason, by the way, that they managed to set up a government that worked better than all its peers and predecessors is this: they were very intelligent people, with experience and wisdom to back up their intellects. Neither the "liberals" nor the "conservatives" of modern America are anywhere near their level. (Hell, the guy the liberals picked last year managed to lose to George W Bush, ferfuxache! How can he manage something like that and still have the brain power to tie his own shoelaces? Incredible!)
Are you seriously suggesting that armed rebellion against the government is a right guaranteed by the constitution?
Dude, I'm Australian and I know it is. How did you get so out of touch with your own history that you could have forgotten that? It's the whole point of the US Constitution; it's the reason it was genuinely revolutionary. Did you really not know that? Gods, I hope not everyone is as out of touch over there!
A writing degree. Professional writing, journalism, editing, anything like that. Stack it heavily with the sort of courses that teach you how to find your way around punctuation (other than != and:: and $_=~/^$/; and the like...).
Functional literacy is rarer than you'd think, even among uni grads. A programmer who can communicate in human language is a valuable thing -- I'm one, and I've rarely been out of work since almost graduating 15 years ago, so I think I can say this with authority.
And lest you think you'll be dumped in the corner to write (ugh!) documentation, don't worry. There are other things you can do that will be less onerous. Programs have error messages and user interfaces, and you don't have to search far to find really, really ugly uses of human language in these. You can be the saviour! Go for it.
(Heh... I'm glad SOMEONE remembers that... I wonder if it will show the blasted areas of the Antarctic when it eventually extends down there.)
Re:Ahead of its time, etc.
on
Delphi Turns 10
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Sing it, brother!
I was so early to Delphi that Borland Australia's sales staff hadn't even heard of it the first time I called up to order a copy. It was only available on CD-ROM, so I had to borrow a friend's CD drive long enough to install it. It was great stuff, and when later versions added extra features, it went from strength to strength. I still use D6, which is quite stable (compared to earlier versions, at least) and a really solid development environment.
That being said, it's still the pits. Borland couldn't market raw meat to wolves. They lack even the microscopicest smidgen of clue. They're idiots, through and through. Such a shame a magnificent programming tool like Delphi had to die because of a bunch of wankers in suits.
Slashdot Mirror
First: only an idiot would put a password into source code. That's what configuration files are for. What, you want to have to edit a script every time the password changes? Second, there's no point encoding, encrypting or otherwise "securing" the configuration file. If a user has access to your configuration files, he has access to everything else, and all your security is useless. So really the question is: I don't want the neighbours to see me naked. What should I tattoo on my butt-cheeks to make me safe?
Yeah - cos then they'd be the Microsoft mascot instead.
The road is a bubble sort. Assholes get to bubble forward, sensible drivers pull back. This is good because, coincidentally, forward is where all the accidents are.
That's still less kinky than the Tories.
Someone needs to check with all the schools and Boy Scout organisations around Washington to find the underage boy Starr has been having sex with. There's no way one man can be such a complete arse unless he's got something to hide. And hey, he's a Republican, so you know he's not into vanilla sex; the GOP makes Britain's Tory party look like Tellytubbies.
In what way is it evil to keep your promise? They signed a contract; they're doing what they said they'd do.
Google is being good, not evil, by doing this. Unless you think they were evil to sign the contract, in which case they're being evil if they provide Google Earth at all.
The mistaken assumption is "anyone who takes away my toys must be evil". If you have that assumption, you're not being good, you're just being childish.
Three cheers for the Y0.001K problem!
Damn! And in this of all possible years! Can we still celebrate after such a scandal?
Hey, go easy on them. They've only had seven years to learn how to spell the word. Don't rush them! I mean, look how long it took them to get a CSS-based layout for this site, and CSS is only three letters!
Yeah, GP! You're a retard! And you're too cowardly to even log in with a real Slashdot login, unlike the brave fellow who called you out on your retardedness! Oh, wait...!
Coming soon to Mozilla: ActiveM plug-ins! Now with the exciting "FORMAT C:" functionality, and complete integration with BOTH kinds of email software - Outlook AND Outlook Express!
If you're trying for credibility, do some research first. Maybe the ringtones can't possible work; maybe they can and do; maybe it's all caused by pixies. "I call bullshit" has no value at all as a comment; "I call bullshit and here's a respectable information source to back me up" is useful.
Even if it were possible to operate such a large collection of vacuum tubes with the small power supplies available for household electrical equipment, the glass fabrication process has too many flaws to enable mass production on such a scale. It would seem that the "personal computer" will never be anything other than what it is: a fiction.
The best description I've ever come up with for the Geek mindset is this: a Geek can hold a complex structure in her head and manipulate it with ease. A History Geek can hold the structure of a historical event and see motivations and causes from every angle; a Carpentry Geek can plan an entire piece of woodwork and see every cut and join vividly; a Programming Geek can hold a program's structure and its data and event flows and manipulate it as an idea.
Someone commented that the difference between Microsoft and Google is that Microsoft programmers are holding concepts the size of "If...Then...Else" and Google programmers are holding concepts the size of Bayesian filtering; thus, Google's Geeks are better at making big, coherent plans without getting lost in the details. It's not 100% true across the board, but it's an insight.
As a Project Manager, then, your job is to:
1. Allow your Geeks to transfer the concepts from the screen/page/whiteboard into their heads; and
2. Allow your Geeks to hold those ideas easily once they've got them.
Step 1 is a bandwidth issue: make the "inputs" more efficient by, for example, giving all of them dual-head monitors and high speed printers, so they can get lots of code into a usable format for reading (some of us prefer printouts; others just need vi/Emacs and a flicker-free monitor). Step 2 is a quality issue: Geeks who have to hide in headphones or run away to the park to read because of ringing phones and nagging managers are NOT going to be able to do their job.
And with any data pipe, throughput is more a function of time rather than pressure. So your dream of getting your programmers up to speed in minimum time really is -- pardon the pun -- a pipe dream. They won't be any use to you if they don't have the time to learn the systems they're working on.
Gods that's freaky... zero comments at any level, and the page is already slashdotted. There's got to be some way to create and automatic mirroring system for /.-referenced pages, so that before an article is posted to /., all pages it links to get auto-mirrored on some server that can handle the load, then the links in the article point to the mirror instead of to the original article. Gotta be possible, and GOTTA be better than what we have here.
... And, being a Murdoch rag, it's not particularly well respected, either. I find the Sydney Morning Herald, aka the Sadly Moaning Horrid, to be a better paper all round, even if it does have a habit of riding particular bandwagons until the wheels fall off (*coughReneRivkincough*).
Q. Why did Douglas Hofstadter cross the road?
A. To make this joke possible.
Q. How many Douglas Hofstadters does it take to change a lightbulb?
A. The answer to this question.
Bloody hell. The day I skip work with the flu and a kitchen-shelf-related near-concussion, the agency gets slashdotted. I'm glad I'm not looking after that site -- just four or five other ones run by AGIMO. I wonder if they're still up... yep. Phew!
I can report that I've been using PHP, Perl, the Sablotron XSLT parser and other FOSS tools in the service of AGIMO for the last couple of years. I even develop in Emacs. AGIMO and the AusGov in general are quite amenable to open source s/w. They even have no particular objection to me open-sourcing the tools I've produced at work, like the XBlurb text parser and the Xenolith site engine -- not that I have, since neither of them is particularly interesting, but the willingness is there.
Meanwhile, AGIMO is getting in bed an awful, awful content mismanagement system, which I'm doing my best to avoid. It's not all good news. But it's a long way from a single vendor, thank the gods.
Implementating? Implementating???!!!
Something is very very wrong with the /. editors. I think it's time I spent my precious picoseconds looking at some other website.
No, "highly religious" is wrong. The rest, perhaps; but that only demonstrates that modern sensibilities have shifted to the left over time, because they were very very definitely, without a shadow of a gnat's fart of a doubt, a long way to the left of their opposition.
The reason, by the way, that they managed to set up a government that worked better than all its peers and predecessors is this: they were very intelligent people, with experience and wisdom to back up their intellects. Neither the "liberals" nor the "conservatives" of modern America are anywhere near their level. (Hell, the guy the liberals picked last year managed to lose to George W Bush, ferfuxache! How can he manage something like that and still have the brain power to tie his own shoelaces? Incredible!)
"Unjustly cancelled"? It was Enterprise Meets Bonanza. It didn't get cancelled early enough.
Next you'll be lamenting the loss of Muppet Trek, aka Farscape. Good grief!
Dude, I'm Australian and I know it is. How did you get so out of touch with your own history that you could have forgotten that? It's the whole point of the US Constitution; it's the reason it was genuinely revolutionary. Did you really not know that? Gods, I hope not everyone is as out of touch over there!
A writing degree. Professional writing, journalism, editing, anything like that. Stack it heavily with the sort of courses that teach you how to find your way around punctuation (other than != and :: and $_=~/^$/; and the like...).
Functional literacy is rarer than you'd think, even among uni grads. A programmer who can communicate in human language is a valuable thing -- I'm one, and I've rarely been out of work since almost graduating 15 years ago, so I think I can say this with authority.
And lest you think you'll be dumped in the corner to write (ugh!) documentation, don't worry. There are other things you can do that will be less onerous. Programs have error messages and user interfaces, and you don't have to search far to find really, really ugly uses of human language in these. You can be the saviour! Go for it.
(Heh... I'm glad SOMEONE remembers that... I wonder if it will show the blasted areas of the Antarctic when it eventually extends down there.)
Sing it, brother!
I was so early to Delphi that Borland Australia's sales staff hadn't even heard of it the first time I called up to order a copy. It was only available on CD-ROM, so I had to borrow a friend's CD drive long enough to install it. It was great stuff, and when later versions added extra features, it went from strength to strength. I still use D6, which is quite stable (compared to earlier versions, at least) and a really solid development environment.
That being said, it's still the pits. Borland couldn't market raw meat to wolves. They lack even the microscopicest smidgen of clue. They're idiots, through and through. Such a shame a magnificent programming tool like Delphi had to die because of a bunch of wankers in suits.