Reading over the original judge's order to allow the antitrust lawsuit to continue, it seems that the DOJ gathered enough evidence to show that the actions from the companies were detrimental to the employees.
After receiving documents produced by Defendants and interviewing witnesses, the DOJ concluded that Defendants reached “facially anticompetitive” agreements that “eliminated a significant form of competition . . . to the detriment of the affected employees who were likely deprived of competitively important information and access to better job opportunities.” DOJ Complaint against Adobe, et al. (“DOJ Adobe Compl.”), Harvey Decl. Ex. A, at 2, 14; DOJ Complaint against Lucasfilm (“DOJ Lucasfilm Compl.”), Harvey Decl. Ex. D, at 2, 15, 22; CAC
112. The DOJ also determined that the agreements “were not ancillary to any legitimate collaboration,” “were much broader than reasonably necessary for the formation or implementation of any collaborative effort,” and “disrupted the normal price-setting mechanisms that apply in the labor setting.”
What are you doing in Firebug that you can't do in Chrome's developer tools? IMO Chrome's developer tools provides much better support to developers. There are a lot of features that Chrome's developer tools has that I don't think exist in Firebug, albeit that I haven't used Firebug on a daily basis in a couple of years. As an example, the Timeline/Profiles features for analyzing poor performance.
A language is not evil because it isn't strongly typed. Just because a language offers that option doesn't mean that you have to use it though. There are a lot of things that languages offer that aren't the best tool in all cases. This is where coding standards come in really helpful:)
That being said, I think that these could help you out:
JSLint - this is a linter that has some IDE support to help ensure that your code will adhere to some good standards
jQuery - this will help to abstract browser differences away so that you don't have to worry about that to cause your site to not work
QUnit - this is a test suite to aid in development
JSCoverage - helps to measure code coverage of unit tests.
JavaScript has been around for a long time and has lots of books and articles written. This is a huge benefit. I personally think that JavaScript Patterns by Stoyan Stefanov is a good quick read to show you how to implement popular design patterns in JavaScript. A deeper discussion can be found in his book Object-Oriented JavaScript.
Never... ever suggest they don’t have to pay you. What they pay for they’ll value. What they get for free they’ll take for granted and then demand as a right. Hold them up for all the market will bear.
-Lois McMaster Bujold
I would recommend reading "Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art" [http://www.stevemcconnell.com/est.htm]. When estimates are created, there are many tasks besides "programming" that need to be done that are totally forgot about in the estimates and thus throws things off from the very beginning. We have to admit from the beginning that it is an estimate and is hinged with certain unknowns. If the unknowns are cleared up, we can be more accurate with our quoting (this is why requirements gathering should be done with careful attention). Also, since the estimates are just that, they need to not just be a number, but more of a range (if you have to give a number, choose the far end and be sure that you are confident that it can be accomplished by then - with a minimum of 90% certainty - and give the confidence with the estimate). One thing that I have learned is that I never negotiate on estimates/price, I only negotiate on functionality. If a manager/client wants it quicker/cheaper/less hours, fine, but I'm not going to change the number unless the functionality changes or more unknowns are cleared up (helping me to quote more accurately).
Starting with Vista, and continuing with Windows 7, the menubar is going away. To be replaced with things like the Windows Explorer contextual strip, or the Office Ribbon(now in Paint and Wordpad too). Many apps still retain the menubar as an option to be pinned or to be shown briefly by holding the Alt key.
I think the point was that Windows is getting rid of the menubar, in favor of the contextual strip or Office Ribbon, not that FireFox is going to use the ribbon in their design. They are simply trying to improve the interface and make it more like the competitors, IE and Chrome (who have come up with some novel ideas to improve the interface). If Windows is not going to have the menubar, then FireFox will look completely out of the times if they continue with it (whether the users on here like it or not).
Oh. So apparently "The Sunlight Foundation" is another name for the government now?! I think that I missed the part where this was under any presidential office.
Image this happening under the Obama office. Nope, I didn't think you could.
P.S. I *am* a fanboi of keeping the money that I earned.
I find that a lot of times managers like to feel important, so they force you to sit in a meeting where they tell you everything that they are working on and want to tell you way more than you need to know. There is nothing I hate more than being interrupted when I am developing some code to sit in a meeting, and then find out that I didn't need to be there at all and now my time was just completely wasted...
Never... ever suggest they don't have to pay you. What they pay for they'll value. What they get for free they'll take for granted and then demand as a right. Hold them up for all the market will bear.
I think that I must be the only person who actually read the paper. The point of the author is not that we don't need good passwords, but rather that we would gain much more security out of making the user ids strong. The individual talked about all of the ways that accounts can be broken into and talked heavily about the method of bulk guessing accounts. If the site's user ids are very dense (meaning that the unused input space is little), then the chances of a break in are much more likely (like in the case of site generated user ids that are sequential). This is because the input space for passwords is only so large, and it is very likely that 1 in 1,000,000 users will have a random password. The research talked about how in order for this to be true, the site has to have a large amount of users (like a national bank chain). The author even mentions that it doesn't matter if the user writes his/her strong user id down, as it is only a portion of the credentials and is intended to prevent the bulk guessing of accounts. This used with stronger passwords (I should note that the author even talks about not really needing strong passwords if strong user ids are used) seems to be a good defense. It is a very interesting read, and the author brings thoughts to the table that have not really been discussed (as far as I have read). Before anyone attacks this simple synopsis of the paper, please read it to fully understand lol.
That was said in response to your previous statement:
Until Google reaches a point where it becomes virtually impossible to field a competing site successfully, I think the word 'monopoly' is a bit premature.
My point was that I believe that is the case already.
Windows and IE target the same customers - consumers of software.
While this might be correct that they both consume software, they are different markets. Not everyone using Windows will use a web browser, and not everyone using a web browser will use Windows. It is like saying that Google's search and advertising target the same customers - consumers of the Internet. Remember that the advertisers are also searchers (just wear different hats from time to time). Both instances seem to be two items that go hand in hand in people's minds today.
It could be stated that Google is stifling advancements in online advertising because the ad service is tied right in with search results (I'm not arguing that is wrong though), preventing other vendors from getting the market share on their service. To alleviate this, the EU will require Google to remove the advertisement feature from their web site and the user must choose if they want one of those services lol. I don't really think that is the problem per se. I think it is the ad service that is then sold to other web sites, which happens to be the same one used on their search site. Being that almost everyone uses google for search, they need to advertise on google. However, Google also makes money by then selling those ads to other third party sites. While I don't think this is wrong for them to do, other companies can look and claim that it is anti-competitive since this further cements their grips on the online advertising market. If someone advertises on Google, they also have the opportunity to show up on a vast array of other sites (a huge selling point). Explain how another competitor can come in to even compete? I'm not saying that Google is purposely doing so, but one has to understand that the government would need to keep an eye out to ensure that they aren't.
I'm not sure I quite agree with your assessment. I believe that there is a very large barrier to entry for someone to compete with google. Even if some other company could somehow develop a competing algorithm (which is pretty unlikely due to all of the PhDs google employs and the decade head start - their only real threats have failed time and time again), they also have to have the technology infrastructure to handle the load. There is more to the search engine than other web applications. I'm not so sure that the fact that they have a great search engine is the concern. I believe the tie-in with that and the ad service is what is seen as the monopoly behaviors. They pretty much dominate the search so much that there really is not a reason to even market that much on any other search engines (stifling competition in the online advertising sector). So now, anything that they do to increase their market share in the online advertising sector is questionable if they are doing it to hinder competition or better a product. It is the same argument that Microsoft is trying to say with the browser tie-in with the operating system. They say that you can simply download and install another one if you so desire... after all, it is just a click away in the browser.
You know, I'm not quite sure that will work on non-mobile/non-touch screen devices too well. The average slashdotter (and anyone growing up in the modern generations) most likely types too fast for that to even really register in their brain as the letters turn to asterisks too quickly. I think that hen peckers are the only ones who would really gain any advantage out of that. That is why it is so successful on the iPhone, you have no choice but to hen peck.
Saying that a user should not be able to put in html is a cop out. As a versed software engineer, you should be completely perfect with parsing data and validating it. In fact, if you have a degree from a university (which I'm assuming that you do), you should have had to deal with grammars in one of your classes. It sounds like you don't recognize the need for this, as you are most likely not what one would classify as a "web developer". That is fine, but some applications require the use of this. One very realistic example is a CMS controlled by a company. They need this type of control. Creating your own language (bbcode or wiki-code) defeats the purpose of the standards that are out there (HTML), especially to the extent that a CMS needs.
Well, you attempted to fix your problem in this response but my first statement is correct. mysql_escape_string does have some problems. You have to use mysql_real_escape_string to be sure if you are inserting binary data into the database as there can be potential injection attacks done otherwise.
If you think that most PHP developers are extremely bad, I think that you need to look around at all developers. You find really bad code in all languages, and pretty often (go to thedailywtf.com for some examples). I would hardly look at my fellow developers (you know the real ones...) building frameworks like Drupal and call them extremely bad. You can say this is a minority, but I think that you are sadly mistaken, especially if you think this "Web 2.0" thing is a hype. Wait a few more years and look at the technology that is built around the web browser (regardless of the back-end technology).
PHP has won out as the language of choice on the web, its a fact. PHP is not what it used to be, prior to version 5.2. It is a robust language that can create very rich and scalable Internet technologies. I work with Fortune 500 companies who are completely satisfied with using PHP over Java. A "serious developer" should be comfortable in any language (whether PHP, Java, Ruby, Python, etc.). In fact a "serious" web developer must be versed in many languages, as they piece together systems in different languages.
Unfortunately you are incorrect at how easy it is to prevent these issues. In some examples, you want the input to come through as HTML that is allowed to be displayed back to the end users. An example of this is MySpace.com (or even the commenting system here). Do you remember the Samy worm that crawled through their system? The techniques you have given would not have worked. An advanced parser that validates the input is necessary to prevent that (by stripping out the bad portions of the data). I was tasked with creating such a parser for a website I worked on (emerciv.com) to prevent the XSS attacks like that from occurring (and also the problem with invalid HTML that can break page flow). Furthermore, mysql_escape_char is not the industry preferred method of preventing MySQL injection attacks as it still allows some to occur; the preferred method is to use PDO. You might want to study up on those...
Oh, and by the way, I am a software engineer (finishing up my Master of Science in Software Engineering with a focus on Knowledge and Information Engineering from the University of Michigan's Dearborn campus at the end of the summer and have been asked by the Electrical and Computer Engineering department chair to create new curriculum for the undergraduates in interactive web development, and will be teaching it as well) and I consider myself a PHP developer (amongst other languages) and take offense to that;)
I can see a problem if you are trying to get service for your phone, but every time you hold it up and away from your body to try to get better reception it goes into camera mode. Come on now, I can't be the only one that does that lol...
Design patterns are needed by those who can read, but can't write. To write code you need to be able to... write.
I really have to question one's programming skills when they state something like this (I would almost think that one that says this would also say that there is no reason to do any requirements or design before actually beginning the coding). No matter what you are writing, you are coming up with design patterns all of the time. You might not be writing as elegant solutions as "The Gang of Four" did, but you are still coming up with re-usable bits of code that solve problems in a specific domain. Design patters are simply solutions to design problems that are found to be reoccurring. I think that some people come across bad uses of the patterns and assume that all uses are bad.
To become decent developer, you have to be able to figure out solution to problems yourself without consulting books.
A decent developer will refuse to refer to a book for help in solving a problem class that has been solved many times over. A great programmer will remember what he/she read in a book a while back about what to look for and how to reduce efforts. That book will not give you any answers to your problems that you will be able to cut-and-paste, rather it will give you the tools necessary to become a more competent programmer. There is more to writing good code besides knowing what the syntax of a language is.
On flip side, the only effect of design pattern application I have seen is exponential growth of code base size: piles of crap code doing nothing else but implementing the patterns, instead of actually solving the problem at hand.
I'm sorry that you have come across someone's bad code. Have you ever seen a bad implementation of a sorting algorithm and said this is so bad, and refuse to ever use that algorithm again? Just because you came across a bad use of something, does not mean that it is bad.
I have to agree (it is the "gang of four"). Even if people say that patterns are overused, they are necessary if you want to reduce current and future estimates.
While working on my Master of Science degree, this book was probably the most useful book that I had to read. I applied the concepts instantly to my work, which allowed us to take on much larger projects and increase profit margins.
I should also state that it is very easy to read and has great examples to show the concept. This is really a must read for any individual who is writing software.
Now a whole new generation of kids can have great enjoyment from the Nintendo. It's kind of like a console hand-me down of sorts lol.
According to the article it is a knock-off device that one of the students found in India on the streets for $12. Adding the Internet access and other necessary componenets most likely will not hike up the price over the OLPC.
If someone finds the company that makes those devices, I want to buy in. This could take off.
After reading the article, it appears that the nitrates just run off after a rain. Where do they go to? local bodies of water. Reading the Wikipedia article for nitrates, there are negatives from exposure to nitrates in drinking water, especially for infants. I'm not sure how much is too much, or how much this method produces, but it may be cause for concern. Also, depending on how much this produces, there may be an increase in algae blooms.
Now don't take this as us saying that our software isn't secure... just think of it as us saying that we found some undocumented features (don't think of them as bugs) and wanted to share them with you so that you can use them... lol
Two things. First in regards to your statement about not having the website. Go back and type in your search term again. You might notice the AJAX search terms popping up with a website as the first that will take you directly to the site. I think that they are testing something to see if that is more valuable when trying to go to a company's website.
Two, I think that everyone is missing the real point of what they are trying to do. They came out saying that they had more indexed pages just to get publicity. The real new thing added to the search arena is that they are analyzing the content of the site to get the context of the terms on each site. If you put in a really generic topic, you will get all content on the page, however there is more ways of looking at the content via the grey bar at the top (under the search box). They have the search results sorted by context to help to refine your results. This is something that Google does not currently do and I believe this company is trying to be the next thing that Google purchases to add into their search results. I think that it is a pretty good concept to test out because the other search engines can't really get context of content.
I would recommend staying away from the low level stuff to start. If he enjoys programming, he'll naturally want to learn that stuff as he gets more advanced.
I got hooked on programming a little different than most people did. I started to make programs for my calculator that did things that could help me out in my math classes way back in ninth grade, I've been hooked ever since. I've noticed in my academic studies that the best students were those that pushed themselves on their own. I believe that these students will be the ones that succeed in the field because they have a natural inclination to want to learn more. So, I recommend to start to get him interested in making a program that he thinks would be cool. Have it a little simple to start off, and then help him do some more advanced things in it. If he enjoys programming, he will want to do some of the more advanced things on his own.
It might be easier to have him start with a Basic-type language to start off with. A modern C-style language may be too difficult to learn the concepts at first, as a lot of beginning students really trip up on OO concepts/syntax. If he can handle the C-style language, why not teach him PHP. It is heavily supported by the open source community, meaning tons of examples and online help. This will allow him to move at his own pace. I would not recommend going with a Ruby or Python for an initial language. The syntax is so different than the C-style that is prevalent in the major languages, potentially not aiding him in his initial studies (also making it more difficult to move on to new languages as other languages do not share the syntax structure).
Slashdot Mirror
Here is a recent video from Google on how they are doing it: Google Cloud Platform Live: DevOps at Google Speed & Tools for You
After receiving documents produced by Defendants and interviewing witnesses, the DOJ concluded that Defendants reached “facially anticompetitive” agreements that “eliminated a significant form of competition . . . to the detriment of the affected employees who were likely deprived of competitively important information and access to better job opportunities.” DOJ Complaint against Adobe, et al. (“DOJ Adobe Compl.”), Harvey Decl. Ex. A, at 2, 14; DOJ Complaint against Lucasfilm (“DOJ Lucasfilm Compl.”), Harvey Decl. Ex. D, at 2, 15, 22; CAC
112. The DOJ also determined that the agreements “were not ancillary to any legitimate collaboration,” “were much broader than reasonably necessary for the formation or implementation of any collaborative effort,” and “disrupted the normal price-setting mechanisms that apply in the labor setting.”
What are you doing in Firebug that you can't do in Chrome's developer tools? IMO Chrome's developer tools provides much better support to developers. There are a lot of features that Chrome's developer tools has that I don't think exist in Firebug, albeit that I haven't used Firebug on a daily basis in a couple of years. As an example, the Timeline/Profiles features for analyzing poor performance.
A language is not evil because it isn't strongly typed. Just because a language offers that option doesn't mean that you have to use it though. There are a lot of things that languages offer that aren't the best tool in all cases. This is where coding standards come in really helpful :)
That being said, I think that these could help you out:
JavaScript has been around for a long time and has lots of books and articles written. This is a huge benefit. I personally think that JavaScript Patterns by Stoyan Stefanov is a good quick read to show you how to implement popular design patterns in JavaScript. A deeper discussion can be found in his book Object-Oriented JavaScript.
Never... ever suggest they don’t have to pay you. What they pay for they’ll value. What they get for free they’ll take for granted and then demand as a right. Hold them up for all the market will bear. -Lois McMaster Bujold
I would recommend reading "Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art" [http://www.stevemcconnell.com/est.htm]. When estimates are created, there are many tasks besides "programming" that need to be done that are totally forgot about in the estimates and thus throws things off from the very beginning. We have to admit from the beginning that it is an estimate and is hinged with certain unknowns. If the unknowns are cleared up, we can be more accurate with our quoting (this is why requirements gathering should be done with careful attention). Also, since the estimates are just that, they need to not just be a number, but more of a range (if you have to give a number, choose the far end and be sure that you are confident that it can be accomplished by then - with a minimum of 90% certainty - and give the confidence with the estimate). One thing that I have learned is that I never negotiate on estimates/price, I only negotiate on functionality. If a manager/client wants it quicker/cheaper/less hours, fine, but I'm not going to change the number unless the functionality changes or more unknowns are cleared up (helping me to quote more accurately).
Starting with Vista, and continuing with Windows 7, the menubar is going away. To be replaced with things like the Windows Explorer contextual strip, or the Office Ribbon(now in Paint and Wordpad too). Many apps still retain the menubar as an option to be pinned or to be shown briefly by holding the Alt key.
I think the point was that Windows is getting rid of the menubar, in favor of the contextual strip or Office Ribbon, not that FireFox is going to use the ribbon in their design. They are simply trying to improve the interface and make it more like the competitors, IE and Chrome (who have come up with some novel ideas to improve the interface). If Windows is not going to have the menubar, then FireFox will look completely out of the times if they continue with it (whether the users on here like it or not).
Oh. So apparently "The Sunlight Foundation" is another name for the government now?! I think that I missed the part where this was under any presidential office.
Image this happening under the Obama office. Nope, I didn't think you could.
P.S. I *am* a fanboi of keeping the money that I earned.
I find that a lot of times managers like to feel important, so they force you to sit in a meeting where they tell you everything that they are working on and want to tell you way more than you need to know. There is nothing I hate more than being interrupted when I am developing some code to sit in a meeting, and then find out that I didn't need to be there at all and now my time was just completely wasted...
Never... ever suggest they don't have to pay you. What they pay for they'll value. What they get for free they'll take for granted and then demand as a right. Hold them up for all the market will bear.
Lois McMaster Bujold
I think that I must be the only person who actually read the paper. The point of the author is not that we don't need good passwords, but rather that we would gain much more security out of making the user ids strong. The individual talked about all of the ways that accounts can be broken into and talked heavily about the method of bulk guessing accounts. If the site's user ids are very dense (meaning that the unused input space is little), then the chances of a break in are much more likely (like in the case of site generated user ids that are sequential). This is because the input space for passwords is only so large, and it is very likely that 1 in 1,000,000 users will have a random password. The research talked about how in order for this to be true, the site has to have a large amount of users (like a national bank chain). The author even mentions that it doesn't matter if the user writes his/her strong user id down, as it is only a portion of the credentials and is intended to prevent the bulk guessing of accounts. This used with stronger passwords (I should note that the author even talks about not really needing strong passwords if strong user ids are used) seems to be a good defense. It is a very interesting read, and the author brings thoughts to the table that have not really been discussed (as far as I have read). Before anyone attacks this simple synopsis of the paper, please read it to fully understand lol.
How are these examples Google's responsibility?
That was said in response to your previous statement:
Until Google reaches a point where it becomes virtually impossible to field a competing site successfully, I think the word 'monopoly' is a bit premature.
My point was that I believe that is the case already.
Windows and IE target the same customers - consumers of software.
While this might be correct that they both consume software, they are different markets. Not everyone using Windows will use a web browser, and not everyone using a web browser will use Windows. It is like saying that Google's search and advertising target the same customers - consumers of the Internet. Remember that the advertisers are also searchers (just wear different hats from time to time). Both instances seem to be two items that go hand in hand in people's minds today.
It could be stated that Google is stifling advancements in online advertising because the ad service is tied right in with search results (I'm not arguing that is wrong though), preventing other vendors from getting the market share on their service. To alleviate this, the EU will require Google to remove the advertisement feature from their web site and the user must choose if they want one of those services lol. I don't really think that is the problem per se. I think it is the ad service that is then sold to other web sites, which happens to be the same one used on their search site. Being that almost everyone uses google for search, they need to advertise on google. However, Google also makes money by then selling those ads to other third party sites. While I don't think this is wrong for them to do, other companies can look and claim that it is anti-competitive since this further cements their grips on the online advertising market. If someone advertises on Google, they also have the opportunity to show up on a vast array of other sites (a huge selling point). Explain how another competitor can come in to even compete? I'm not saying that Google is purposely doing so, but one has to understand that the government would need to keep an eye out to ensure that they aren't.
I'm not sure I quite agree with your assessment. I believe that there is a very large barrier to entry for someone to compete with google. Even if some other company could somehow develop a competing algorithm (which is pretty unlikely due to all of the PhDs google employs and the decade head start - their only real threats have failed time and time again), they also have to have the technology infrastructure to handle the load. There is more to the search engine than other web applications. I'm not so sure that the fact that they have a great search engine is the concern. I believe the tie-in with that and the ad service is what is seen as the monopoly behaviors. They pretty much dominate the search so much that there really is not a reason to even market that much on any other search engines (stifling competition in the online advertising sector). So now, anything that they do to increase their market share in the online advertising sector is questionable if they are doing it to hinder competition or better a product. It is the same argument that Microsoft is trying to say with the browser tie-in with the operating system. They say that you can simply download and install another one if you so desire... after all, it is just a click away in the browser.
You know, I'm not quite sure that will work on non-mobile/non-touch screen devices too well. The average slashdotter (and anyone growing up in the modern generations) most likely types too fast for that to even really register in their brain as the letters turn to asterisks too quickly. I think that hen peckers are the only ones who would really gain any advantage out of that. That is why it is so successful on the iPhone, you have no choice but to hen peck.
Saying that a user should not be able to put in html is a cop out. As a versed software engineer, you should be completely perfect with parsing data and validating it. In fact, if you have a degree from a university (which I'm assuming that you do), you should have had to deal with grammars in one of your classes. It sounds like you don't recognize the need for this, as you are most likely not what one would classify as a "web developer". That is fine, but some applications require the use of this. One very realistic example is a CMS controlled by a company. They need this type of control. Creating your own language (bbcode or wiki-code) defeats the purpose of the standards that are out there (HTML), especially to the extent that a CMS needs.
Well, you attempted to fix your problem in this response but my first statement is correct. mysql_escape_string does have some problems. You have to use mysql_real_escape_string to be sure if you are inserting binary data into the database as there can be potential injection attacks done otherwise.
If you think that most PHP developers are extremely bad, I think that you need to look around at all developers. You find really bad code in all languages, and pretty often (go to thedailywtf.com for some examples). I would hardly look at my fellow developers (you know the real ones...) building frameworks like Drupal and call them extremely bad. You can say this is a minority, but I think that you are sadly mistaken, especially if you think this "Web 2.0" thing is a hype. Wait a few more years and look at the technology that is built around the web browser (regardless of the back-end technology).
PHP has won out as the language of choice on the web, its a fact. PHP is not what it used to be, prior to version 5.2. It is a robust language that can create very rich and scalable Internet technologies. I work with Fortune 500 companies who are completely satisfied with using PHP over Java. A "serious developer" should be comfortable in any language (whether PHP, Java, Ruby, Python, etc.). In fact a "serious" web developer must be versed in many languages, as they piece together systems in different languages.
Unfortunately you are incorrect at how easy it is to prevent these issues. In some examples, you want the input to come through as HTML that is allowed to be displayed back to the end users. An example of this is MySpace.com (or even the commenting system here). Do you remember the Samy worm that crawled through their system? The techniques you have given would not have worked. An advanced parser that validates the input is necessary to prevent that (by stripping out the bad portions of the data). I was tasked with creating such a parser for a website I worked on (emerciv.com) to prevent the XSS attacks like that from occurring (and also the problem with invalid HTML that can break page flow). Furthermore, mysql_escape_char is not the industry preferred method of preventing MySQL injection attacks as it still allows some to occur; the preferred method is to use PDO. You might want to study up on those...
;)
Oh, and by the way, I am a software engineer (finishing up my Master of Science in Software Engineering with a focus on Knowledge and Information Engineering from the University of Michigan's Dearborn campus at the end of the summer and have been asked by the Electrical and Computer Engineering department chair to create new curriculum for the undergraduates in interactive web development, and will be teaching it as well) and I consider myself a PHP developer (amongst other languages) and take offense to that
I can see a problem if you are trying to get service for your phone, but every time you hold it up and away from your body to try to get better reception it goes into camera mode. Come on now, I can't be the only one that does that lol...
Design patterns are needed by those who can read, but can't write. To write code you need to be able to ... write.
I really have to question one's programming skills when they state something like this (I would almost think that one that says this would also say that there is no reason to do any requirements or design before actually beginning the coding). No matter what you are writing, you are coming up with design patterns all of the time. You might not be writing as elegant solutions as "The Gang of Four" did, but you are still coming up with re-usable bits of code that solve problems in a specific domain. Design patters are simply solutions to design problems that are found to be reoccurring. I think that some people come across bad uses of the patterns and assume that all uses are bad.
To become decent developer, you have to be able to figure out solution to problems yourself without consulting books.
A decent developer will refuse to refer to a book for help in solving a problem class that has been solved many times over. A great programmer will remember what he/she read in a book a while back about what to look for and how to reduce efforts. That book will not give you any answers to your problems that you will be able to cut-and-paste, rather it will give you the tools necessary to become a more competent programmer. There is more to writing good code besides knowing what the syntax of a language is.
On flip side, the only effect of design pattern application I have seen is exponential growth of code base size: piles of crap code doing nothing else but implementing the patterns, instead of actually solving the problem at hand.
I'm sorry that you have come across someone's bad code. Have you ever seen a bad implementation of a sorting algorithm and said this is so bad, and refuse to ever use that algorithm again? Just because you came across a bad use of something, does not mean that it is bad.
I have to agree (it is the "gang of four"). Even if people say that patterns are overused, they are necessary if you want to reduce current and future estimates.
While working on my Master of Science degree, this book was probably the most useful book that I had to read. I applied the concepts instantly to my work, which allowed us to take on much larger projects and increase profit margins.
I should also state that it is very easy to read and has great examples to show the concept. This is really a must read for any individual who is writing software.
Now a whole new generation of kids can have great enjoyment from the Nintendo. It's kind of like a console hand-me down of sorts lol.
According to the article it is a knock-off device that one of the students found in India on the streets for $12. Adding the Internet access and other necessary componenets most likely will not hike up the price over the OLPC.
If someone finds the company that makes those devices, I want to buy in. This could take off.
After reading the article, it appears that the nitrates just run off after a rain. Where do they go to? local bodies of water. Reading the Wikipedia article for nitrates, there are negatives from exposure to nitrates in drinking water, especially for infants. I'm not sure how much is too much, or how much this method produces, but it may be cause for concern. Also, depending on how much this produces, there may be an increase in algae blooms.
Now don't take this as us saying that our software isn't secure... just think of it as us saying that we found some undocumented features (don't think of them as bugs) and wanted to share them with you so that you can use them... lol
Two things. First in regards to your statement about not having the website. Go back and type in your search term again. You might notice the AJAX search terms popping up with a website as the first that will take you directly to the site. I think that they are testing something to see if that is more valuable when trying to go to a company's website.
Two, I think that everyone is missing the real point of what they are trying to do. They came out saying that they had more indexed pages just to get publicity. The real new thing added to the search arena is that they are analyzing the content of the site to get the context of the terms on each site. If you put in a really generic topic, you will get all content on the page, however there is more ways of looking at the content via the grey bar at the top (under the search box). They have the search results sorted by context to help to refine your results. This is something that Google does not currently do and I believe this company is trying to be the next thing that Google purchases to add into their search results. I think that it is a pretty good concept to test out because the other search engines can't really get context of content.
I would recommend staying away from the low level stuff to start. If he enjoys programming, he'll naturally want to learn that stuff as he gets more advanced.
I got hooked on programming a little different than most people did. I started to make programs for my calculator that did things that could help me out in my math classes way back in ninth grade, I've been hooked ever since. I've noticed in my academic studies that the best students were those that pushed themselves on their own. I believe that these students will be the ones that succeed in the field because they have a natural inclination to want to learn more. So, I recommend to start to get him interested in making a program that he thinks would be cool. Have it a little simple to start off, and then help him do some more advanced things in it. If he enjoys programming, he will want to do some of the more advanced things on his own.
It might be easier to have him start with a Basic-type language to start off with. A modern C-style language may be too difficult to learn the concepts at first, as a lot of beginning students really trip up on OO concepts/syntax. If he can handle the C-style language, why not teach him PHP. It is heavily supported by the open source community, meaning tons of examples and online help. This will allow him to move at his own pace. I would not recommend going with a Ruby or Python for an initial language. The syntax is so different than the C-style that is prevalent in the major languages, potentially not aiding him in his initial studies (also making it more difficult to move on to new languages as other languages do not share the syntax structure).