It is my opinion that no rights are unalienable, and sovereignty can be lost just as easily as any personal freedom. Everything is defined by what a given society says is right. The governments of the world generally recognize each other's sovereignty, and I will as well. I'll recognize it only until Thailand is invaded by someone else, or overthrown in revolt. Then the current government will lose its right to govern, and we'll move on to someone else.
Hardly. I don't like censorship, and I wish the best of luck to those trying to change it. I just object to the implication that "actual crime" is defined by whatever the USA/Britain/EU/Australia/whoever culture claims is wrong, and that the cultural values of others don't matter.
All (to my knowledge) governments recognize Thailand's government. Likewise, my opinion is that it should be considered sovereign, and crime there is entirely what they want to define it as. Breathing's illegal? Okay. Breathing's now a crime. Being Jewish is illegal? Okay. Being Jewish is now a crime. Failure to salute the flag is illegal? Okay. That's a crime too. What gives us the right do decide what rights others should have?
Crime is determined by the government, which only stays in power by popular support. Rights are determined by society, which includes the government-supporting people. If people's support changes, then it's time for a regime change. Revolution isn't easy, but it's been done for the past several thousand years. As long as Thailand's government is in power, it may be assumed to have the support of the people. Not full support, but enough that there's no revolution quite yet.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Consider these words carefully. The very first word "we" notes that these opinions are those of the authors. The authors believe the rights should be unalienable, but recognize that it is only their opinion. Further, that it is the government's job to protect the people's chosen rights, and the government only holds power while the people allow it. Finally, when a government is no longer serving its people, the people should revolt. Note that nowhere does it state the involvement of any foreign powers, or requiring the government be approved by anyone but the governed.
If it's declared criminal in that jurisdiction, it's a crime. Whether it's morally right or wrong is dependent on your society.
I'm not saying I like it, but I'll respect Thailand's right to govern itself. If the people don't like it, revolt/leave/commit suicide. A leader without followers is just a person.
Your statement about CPAN bothers me. But I am a fan of Perl so I digress...
I agree with most of your points about libraries, but I feel you missed a big one: bugs. My job involves gluing together a few third-party libraries to fit our product. (various Apache stuff, mostly). Now and then, we hit bugs. Not major ones, but significant enough to cause a few hours of lost productivity.
If Perl's syntax were actually elaborate, that might hold. Maybe something like "every third line MUST be blank, unless it's a full moon, or a Thursday, in which case being blank is optional, but the line must include an uppercase letter."
Offering more than one way to write a given line, and attempting to follow the rules of a natural language, is not "elaborate scheming and intrigue". Perhaps you have a counter-example? or is this just more FUD from the I-was-told-Perl-is-ugly-so-I'll-repeat-it school of thought?
It's considered trolling because that's purely what it is.
Perhaps you'd like to enlighten us with some examples of "byzantine syntax", since Greek and Latin aren't valid Perl. Perhaps you meant "British" syntax, since the language is based more off of English than other programming languages. Yes, I'm aware this places it in the same group as COBOL, but hear me out.
Perl's syntax is based off natural language. You should be able to tell the computer what to do in the same way you'd tell another person, with some obvious extra clarity needed. In this regard, it is the opposite of INTERCAL. In Perl, when you want to run a function 'foo' if and only if 'bar' is true, the statement is very close to what I've just said.
foo if bar;
Sure, it's not like C, but why should we limit our thinking? Alternatively, just as in English you can say "If 'bar' is true, run 'foo'":
if (bar) { foo }
Perl is a language for people who use language. Even the more ugly syntax makes perfect sense with a bit of thought:
s/foo/bar/g;
That's a full statement, saying "substitute foo with bar globally". It applies to whatever you happen to be working on at the moment, just like how there are many statements in English that carry an implied 'you'.
The syntax of the Perl language is only ugly if you try to forget that it is a language. Perhaps other languages should try to emulate Perl's features, and actually gain some readability. Sometimes, it just makes more sense to express things differently. Would COBOL be so bad if it allowed BASIC's syntax as well (and allowing non-computer people to write in it carried the death penalty)?
Re:cost of acquisition is everything, huh?
on
Ubuntu on a Dime
·
· Score: 1
If Joe cares that little about his purchases, Linux is probably not for him anyway. He'd be better off buying a Mac, where everything (generally) Just Works. I'm not going to claim that adopting Linux is effortless. If Joe isn't willing to put in that bit of effort, he should stick with whatever he's given.
hundreds of other sources
Personally, I'd rather get my instant downloads from a single source, through hundreds of mirrors. One system to learn, one catalog, and one place to look for everything.
Speaking of which, you might want to try looking around a bit. Repository contents are available for browsing. Other distros offer their repositories, too, but I didn't feel like looking them up. Google's pretty good for that.
Re:cost of acquisition is everything, huh?
on
Ubuntu on a Dime
·
· Score: 4, Informative
No disrespect intended, but that's really flamebait. Let's play.
Frustration with overly technical administrative requirements is a cost.
The whole point of this book is to reduce those requirements by explaining things. As stated in the review, it's apparently easy to follow.
Having to ask other people how to do stuff all the time is a cost.
So is a phone call to tech support, where you get told the stereotypical useless answer by a script-reader making slightly more than minimum wage. Posting a message on a forum, where you can get advice from a few dozen fellow users is more "bang for the buck", so to speak.
Listening to overbearing geeks tell you how easy things you can't figure out are, is a cost.
So is having to tell the tech support script-reader that your computer is really plugged in, you did push the right button, and the mouse is not being used as a foot pedal. There's remarkably few arrogant helpers like that, and they usually get chewed out by the benevolent ones.
Having to find and download "free" software to do stuff MS users get with their machines, and then finding out it isn't quite the same, is a cost.
Things included with Windows generally come installed in Ubuntu. Installation is two mouse clicks and typing one word, where Windows installations usually require serial numbers, a drive to the store, and other costs you conveniently ignore. Expecting everything to be in the exact same place after replacing a core component of you computer is a ridiculous requirement.
Not being able to easily exchange docs and pictures with your nieces and nephews is a cost.
If you're having problems running a basic email client, or even opening a file in OpenOffice, perhaps you shouldn't be using a computer in the first place. Maybe now is also a good time to mention the joyous pain of Microsoft Office's ever-changing file formats. Have you forgotten 2007 already?
Do I need to go on?
Nope. You've made your knowledge of the subject fully evident. Thanks for playing correct-a-troll, and have a nice day.
From the listing for the job I now hold (emphasis mine):
BS in Computer Science, MS is preferred.
Knowledge of data structures, algorithms, and complexity analysis.
Fluency in two or more of: Java, HTML, JavaScript, AJAX.
Strong analytical and troubleshooting skills. Working knowledge of Microsoft Windows and Unix (preferably Linux).
Working knowledge of SQL and data warehousing principles.
Knowledge of PHP, Perl or Python a plus. Open source experience/contribution with any Linux or open-source projects.
The company uses a lot of open-source projects in their work. Being familiar with the open-source community (especially the self-managed, team-oriented development and the community-driven support system) is practically required for the job.
This is what happens when you stop looking for just a "typical corporate IT department" and start looking for actually decent jobs. With no previous paid employment, I'm starting at a salary roughly equal to the average given by the linked search. You may now be astounded.
And yet, from what I hear (not knowing it myself) the latest version breaks most attempts at backwards-compatibility. That's a good mark of an immature platform.
I just recently got a job at an all-Java shop. I might, if I feel the need, write a shell script or two. From what I can tell, Java's still accepted in the "real world", but it doesn't have the hype it used to.
Java's Big Thing was its ability to be written once, and run on VMs on any platform. That advantage was promptly killed by the rise of AJAX and all its cross-platform happiness. The same buzz Java once enjoyed is now held by cloud computing, for much the same reason: it allows programmers to write something once, and not worry about the future as much. As languages have progressed, we've consistently moved away from hardware-specific details. Today, I see Java as a sort of middle ground between using the "edgy but immature" languages like Python, and the "old but crusty" languages like C and C++. It has enough libraries and tie-in packages that any modern technology can be easily implemented.
Programmers today don't want to (and shouldn't need to) deal with memory allocation, pointers math, or any such arcane matters. They also don't want to have to refactor as their chosen language tries to stabilize itself. This is why C rose to such prominence. It allowed programmers to stay away from the processor. Java currently allows programmers to stay away from the operating system. Eventually, I expect we'll move toward even more abstract languages, where we just need to specify what we want, and the compiler (or something) will figure out the steps needed to reach that goal. It'll be an automatic software engineer, just as compilers are automatic replacements for the grad students who used to translate programs into machine code.
Here's to the future, where I, too, will be obsolete.
I once searched for my social security number. I found a florist in Texas. It was run by someone with the same first name as me, and their surname is also my middle name. That was a bit creepy.
In most jurisdictions I've ever known, riding a bike on the road is recommended, if not required. In only a few places is it prohibited. However, I have never in my life seen a road where driving over the speed limit, while distracted, in a school zone, is legal. Take your idiocy back to 4chan.
First, judging from your other posts in this discussion, you're an idiot. I sincerely hope it's just a good acting job.
Second, ADHD is not a myth. There are many varying degrees of ADHD, and some are able to be controlled fully without medication. There are many people who are diagnosed to appease parents, and many people who go undiagnosed. That makes it very hard for anyone to judge what is a "disorder" compared to what is just "different."
I was diagnosed with ADHD about 12 years ago, and have been off medication for 6. I've spent the last decade training myself to be able to concentrate on a single task, and it's still very hard. I fought it for years, before I finally began to adapt. Now, my office desk has several toys on it, to give my hands something to do. There's a half-dozen pens (which haven't worked in a long time) simply for the purpose of occupying my teeth. I (a software engineer) usually work on about six issues at once, while my coworkers are working on one or two.
ADHD does exist, and it's a hell of a disorder. I've stayed awake for hours at night, just watching the movie of ideas go through my mind. I've lost jobs and friends because I couldn't follow through on tasks.
Today, I consider my ADHD to be a benefit. I resolve more tickets than most of my coworkers, especially those involving debugging. I do not suffer from the tunnel vision that often plagues programmers. The condition is there, but it no longer disrupts my life. As such, it no longer fits the criteria for a "disorder." I am cured.
literally anything that shows you can code in a reasonable, organized fashion will put you at the top of the list.
Absolutely.
I recently (last week) got one of those awesome jobs everyone wants (sucks to be y'all). I am 100% certain that the only reason I (a grad student with no significant paid work experience) got the interview was because I did very well in some ACM programming contests. The job involves working on a lot of algorithms that are screwey, to say the least. I showed I could handle screwey problems easily, and I got the job.
"I think employers trawling old web forums to dig up any dirt they can find is just peachy keen, and anyone who doesn't go along with the status quo by constant paranoid identity-hopping is an idiot!"
I'm not an employer, but personally I'd rather work with someone who will own up to their past mistakes rather than hide from them, especially if I'm in a situation where the cost of hiring is high.
"Oops. I added a huge bug to the last release, and it's going to need an emergency patch. I'll just quit, claim it's a family problem, and hope nobody notices before I get a new job."
An identity carries reputation. Sometimes, even a slightly-tarnished history is better than none at all. The employers are already taking a risk by hiring someone in the first place. Having less guesswork about the employee's history is a good thing.
This is why I complain about shiny interfaces specifically. Interfaces have become shinier everywhere, and often at the expense of response times. For 'modern' programs using images for an interface, on a moderately old system, it's not uncommon to have a noticeable delay as the interface renders. Yes, some of that is waiting for I/O to fetch the images from disk, but that could all be avoided if shiny displays were pushed off into a separate thread, or avoided altogether.
omg you don't think i'm a deity you must not program
How should I respond to that? I ignored your insults, and responded to what little substance there was. I don't think you understood at all what I said, so I clarified. I'll try it again, nice and simple:
It doesn't matter how the OS runs if application programmers suck. In the real world, programmers suck. We implement hacks and don't fix them. We obey the whim of Marketing, because that's what we're paid to do. We sacrifice good algorithms for things that work right now. I'm a programmer, I suck, and I've never met a programmer who doesn't. I have, however, met many who don't realize it.
I'm not referring to the OS programmers. I think that, like you said, the gains from a different OS would be imperceptible. I believe the limiting factor is the capabilities of applications, which are generally not designed to take advantage of any kind of parallel system, no matter how scheduling/allocating is handled.
I agree, management's got a lot to do with it. I have more of a personal vendetta against bad programmers, but I'm open to diversion. Who hires the programmers with half a bachelor's degree, because they're cheaper? Who pushes for a shiny UI in favor of extensive testing? Bad developers write bad code, and bad management encourages it.
The problem is today's desktop programs don't use the multiple cores efficiently enough, Probert said.
If you have a program that needs to do X things at once, it'll run best on multiple cores. You can't avoid that fact. TFA makes references to eliminating the abstraction of a process, giving each program only a single core. My point is that that won't help at all if the idiotic programmers of this world still can't write a decent program.
It doesn't matter if you can run 50 things at once, if the programs you use are written poorly. They'll still try to run in a single thread, doing a single thing, and preferring shiny buttons over actual function. I/O will have to wait for screen updates. Until I start seeing consistently better programs, I'll continue to assume programmers are dumb.
It's great to push for better scheduling, however you want to do it, but having both better scheduling and improved efficiency will still be better. I personally think that redesigning the OS concepts is a poor choice for improvement.
Slashdot Mirror
It is my opinion that no rights are unalienable, and sovereignty can be lost just as easily as any personal freedom. Everything is defined by what a given society says is right. The governments of the world generally recognize each other's sovereignty, and I will as well. I'll recognize it only until Thailand is invaded by someone else, or overthrown in revolt. Then the current government will lose its right to govern, and we'll move on to someone else.
Hardly. I don't like censorship, and I wish the best of luck to those trying to change it. I just object to the implication that "actual crime" is defined by whatever the USA/Britain/EU/Australia/whoever culture claims is wrong, and that the cultural values of others don't matter.
All (to my knowledge) governments recognize Thailand's government. Likewise, my opinion is that it should be considered sovereign, and crime there is entirely what they want to define it as. Breathing's illegal? Okay. Breathing's now a crime. Being Jewish is illegal? Okay. Being Jewish is now a crime. Failure to salute the flag is illegal? Okay. That's a crime too. What gives us the right do decide what rights others should have?
Crime is determined by the government, which only stays in power by popular support. Rights are determined by society, which includes the government-supporting people. If people's support changes, then it's time for a regime change. Revolution isn't easy, but it's been done for the past several thousand years. As long as Thailand's government is in power, it may be assumed to have the support of the people. Not full support, but enough that there's no revolution quite yet.
From the American Declaration of Independence
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Consider these words carefully. The very first word "we" notes that these opinions are those of the authors. The authors believe the rights should be unalienable, but recognize that it is only their opinion. Further, that it is the government's job to protect the people's chosen rights, and the government only holds power while the people allow it. Finally, when a government is no longer serving its people, the people should revolt. Note that nowhere does it state the involvement of any foreign powers, or requiring the government be approved by anyone but the governed.
"actual crime"
If it's declared criminal in that jurisdiction, it's a crime. Whether it's morally right or wrong is dependent on your society.
I'm not saying I like it, but I'll respect Thailand's right to govern itself. If the people don't like it, revolt/leave/commit suicide. A leader without followers is just a person.
Try reading your own link. Perl, a dynamic language, cannot be parsed statically. In other news, green is not red, and water is wet.
I stand corrected. I should have checked CPAN. Of course there's more than one language to do it in.
Your statement about CPAN bothers me. But I am a fan of Perl so I digress...
I agree with most of your points about libraries, but I feel you missed a big one: bugs. My job involves gluing together a few third-party libraries to fit our product. (various Apache stuff, mostly). Now and then, we hit bugs. Not major ones, but significant enough to cause a few hours of lost productivity.
If Perl's syntax were actually elaborate, that might hold. Maybe something like "every third line MUST be blank, unless it's a full moon, or a Thursday, in which case being blank is optional, but the line must include an uppercase letter."
Offering more than one way to write a given line, and attempting to follow the rules of a natural language, is not "elaborate scheming and intrigue". Perhaps you have a counter-example? or is this just more FUD from the I-was-told-Perl-is-ugly-so-I'll-repeat-it school of thought?
It's considered trolling because that's purely what it is.
Perhaps you'd like to enlighten us with some examples of "byzantine syntax", since Greek and Latin aren't valid Perl. Perhaps you meant "British" syntax, since the language is based more off of English than other programming languages. Yes, I'm aware this places it in the same group as COBOL, but hear me out.
Perl's syntax is based off natural language. You should be able to tell the computer what to do in the same way you'd tell another person, with some obvious extra clarity needed. In this regard, it is the opposite of INTERCAL. In Perl, when you want to run a function 'foo' if and only if 'bar' is true, the statement is very close to what I've just said.
foo if bar;
Sure, it's not like C, but why should we limit our thinking? Alternatively, just as in English you can say "If 'bar' is true, run 'foo'":
if (bar) { foo }
Perl is a language for people who use language. Even the more ugly syntax makes perfect sense with a bit of thought:
s/foo/bar/g;
That's a full statement, saying "substitute foo with bar globally". It applies to whatever you happen to be working on at the moment, just like how there are many statements in English that carry an implied 'you'.
The syntax of the Perl language is only ugly if you try to forget that it is a language. Perhaps other languages should try to emulate Perl's features, and actually gain some readability. Sometimes, it just makes more sense to express things differently. Would COBOL be so bad if it allowed BASIC's syntax as well (and allowing non-computer people to write in it carried the death penalty)?
If Joe cares that little about his purchases, Linux is probably not for him anyway. He'd be better off buying a Mac, where everything (generally) Just Works. I'm not going to claim that adopting Linux is effortless. If Joe isn't willing to put in that bit of effort, he should stick with whatever he's given.
hundreds of other sources
Personally, I'd rather get my instant downloads from a single source, through hundreds of mirrors. One system to learn, one catalog, and one place to look for everything.
Speaking of which, you might want to try looking around a bit. Repository contents are available for browsing. Other distros offer their repositories, too, but I didn't feel like looking them up. Google's pretty good for that.
No disrespect intended, but that's really flamebait. Let's play.
Frustration with overly technical administrative requirements is a cost.
The whole point of this book is to reduce those requirements by explaining things. As stated in the review, it's apparently easy to follow.
Having to ask other people how to do stuff all the time is a cost.
So is a phone call to tech support, where you get told the stereotypical useless answer by a script-reader making slightly more than minimum wage. Posting a message on a forum, where you can get advice from a few dozen fellow users is more "bang for the buck", so to speak.
Listening to overbearing geeks tell you how easy things you can't figure out are, is a cost.
So is having to tell the tech support script-reader that your computer is really plugged in, you did push the right button, and the mouse is not being used as a foot pedal. There's remarkably few arrogant helpers like that, and they usually get chewed out by the benevolent ones.
Having to find and download "free" software to do stuff MS users get with their machines, and then finding out it isn't quite the same, is a cost.
Things included with Windows generally come installed in Ubuntu. Installation is two mouse clicks and typing one word, where Windows installations usually require serial numbers, a drive to the store, and other costs you conveniently ignore. Expecting everything to be in the exact same place after replacing a core component of you computer is a ridiculous requirement.
Not being able to easily exchange docs and pictures with your nieces and nephews is a cost.
If you're having problems running a basic email client, or even opening a file in OpenOffice, perhaps you shouldn't be using a computer in the first place. Maybe now is also a good time to mention the joyous pain of Microsoft Office's ever-changing file formats. Have you forgotten 2007 already?
Do I need to go on?
Nope. You've made your knowledge of the subject fully evident. Thanks for playing correct-a-troll, and have a nice day.
From the listing for the job I now hold (emphasis mine):
BS in Computer Science, MS is preferred.
Knowledge of data structures, algorithms, and complexity analysis.
Fluency in two or more of: Java, HTML, JavaScript, AJAX.
Strong analytical and troubleshooting skills.
Working knowledge of Microsoft Windows and Unix (preferably Linux).
Working knowledge of SQL and data warehousing principles.
Knowledge of PHP, Perl or Python a plus.
Open source experience/contribution with any Linux or open-source projects.
The company uses a lot of open-source projects in their work. Being familiar with the open-source community (especially the self-managed, team-oriented development and the community-driven support system) is practically required for the job.
This is what happens when you stop looking for just a "typical corporate IT department" and start looking for actually decent jobs. With no previous paid employment, I'm starting at a salary roughly equal to the average given by the linked search. You may now be astounded.
And yet, from what I hear (not knowing it myself) the latest version breaks most attempts at backwards-compatibility. That's a good mark of an immature platform.
I just recently got a job at an all-Java shop. I might, if I feel the need, write a shell script or two. From what I can tell, Java's still accepted in the "real world", but it doesn't have the hype it used to.
Java's Big Thing was its ability to be written once, and run on VMs on any platform. That advantage was promptly killed by the rise of AJAX and all its cross-platform happiness. The same buzz Java once enjoyed is now held by cloud computing, for much the same reason: it allows programmers to write something once, and not worry about the future as much. As languages have progressed, we've consistently moved away from hardware-specific details. Today, I see Java as a sort of middle ground between using the "edgy but immature" languages like Python, and the "old but crusty" languages like C and C++. It has enough libraries and tie-in packages that any modern technology can be easily implemented.
Programmers today don't want to (and shouldn't need to) deal with memory allocation, pointers math, or any such arcane matters. They also don't want to have to refactor as their chosen language tries to stabilize itself. This is why C rose to such prominence. It allowed programmers to stay away from the processor. Java currently allows programmers to stay away from the operating system. Eventually, I expect we'll move toward even more abstract languages, where we just need to specify what we want, and the compiler (or something) will figure out the steps needed to reach that goal. It'll be an automatic software engineer, just as compilers are automatic replacements for the grad students who used to translate programs into machine code.
Here's to the future, where I, too, will be obsolete.
I once searched for my social security number. I found a florist in Texas. It was run by someone with the same first name as me, and their surname is also my middle name. That was a bit creepy.
In most jurisdictions I've ever known, riding a bike on the road is recommended, if not required. In only a few places is it prohibited. However, I have never in my life seen a road where driving over the speed limit, while distracted, in a school zone, is legal. Take your idiocy back to 4chan.
First, judging from your other posts in this discussion, you're an idiot. I sincerely hope it's just a good acting job.
Second, ADHD is not a myth. There are many varying degrees of ADHD, and some are able to be controlled fully without medication. There are many people who are diagnosed to appease parents, and many people who go undiagnosed. That makes it very hard for anyone to judge what is a "disorder" compared to what is just "different."
I was diagnosed with ADHD about 12 years ago, and have been off medication for 6. I've spent the last decade training myself to be able to concentrate on a single task, and it's still very hard. I fought it for years, before I finally began to adapt. Now, my office desk has several toys on it, to give my hands something to do. There's a half-dozen pens (which haven't worked in a long time) simply for the purpose of occupying my teeth. I (a software engineer) usually work on about six issues at once, while my coworkers are working on one or two.
ADHD does exist, and it's a hell of a disorder. I've stayed awake for hours at night, just watching the movie of ideas go through my mind. I've lost jobs and friends because I couldn't follow through on tasks.
Today, I consider my ADHD to be a benefit. I resolve more tickets than most of my coworkers, especially those involving debugging. I do not suffer from the tunnel vision that often plagues programmers. The condition is there, but it no longer disrupts my life. As such, it no longer fits the criteria for a "disorder." I am cured.
literally anything that shows you can code in a reasonable, organized fashion will put you at the top of the list.
Absolutely.
I recently (last week) got one of those awesome jobs everyone wants (sucks to be y'all). I am 100% certain that the only reason I (a grad student with no significant paid work experience) got the interview was because I did very well in some ACM programming contests. The job involves working on a lot of algorithms that are screwey, to say the least. I showed I could handle screwey problems easily, and I got the job.
"I think employers trawling old web forums to dig up any dirt they can find is just peachy keen, and anyone who doesn't go along with the status quo by constant paranoid identity-hopping is an idiot!"
I'm not an employer, but personally I'd rather work with someone who will own up to their past mistakes rather than hide from them, especially if I'm in a situation where the cost of hiring is high.
"Oops. I added a huge bug to the last release, and it's going to need an emergency patch. I'll just quit, claim it's a family problem, and hope nobody notices before I get a new job."
An identity carries reputation. Sometimes, even a slightly-tarnished history is better than none at all. The employers are already taking a risk by hiring someone in the first place. Having less guesswork about the employee's history is a good thing.
I love seeing new generations of hardware come out. It means that the perfectly adequate cards from two years ago will be even cheaper.
...And to avoid stepping on toes, the programmers acquiesce. I complained about managers once already in this thread.
This is why I complain about shiny interfaces specifically. Interfaces have become shinier everywhere, and often at the expense of response times. For 'modern' programs using images for an interface, on a moderately old system, it's not uncommon to have a noticeable delay as the interface renders. Yes, some of that is waiting for I/O to fetch the images from disk, but that could all be avoided if shiny displays were pushed off into a separate thread, or avoided altogether.
omg you don't think i'm a deity you must not program
How should I respond to that? I ignored your insults, and responded to what little substance there was. I don't think you understood at all what I said, so I clarified. I'll try it again, nice and simple:
It doesn't matter how the OS runs if application programmers suck. In the real world, programmers suck. We implement hacks and don't fix them. We obey the whim of Marketing, because that's what we're paid to do. We sacrifice good algorithms for things that work right now. I'm a programmer, I suck, and I've never met a programmer who doesn't. I have, however, met many who don't realize it.
I'm not referring to the OS programmers. I think that, like you said, the gains from a different OS would be imperceptible. I believe the limiting factor is the capabilities of applications, which are generally not designed to take advantage of any kind of parallel system, no matter how scheduling/allocating is handled.
I agree, management's got a lot to do with it. I have more of a personal vendetta against bad programmers, but I'm open to diversion. Who hires the programmers with half a bachelor's degree, because they're cheaper? Who pushes for a shiny UI in favor of extensive testing? Bad developers write bad code, and bad management encourages it.
From TFA:
The problem is today's desktop programs don't use the multiple cores efficiently enough, Probert said.
If you have a program that needs to do X things at once, it'll run best on multiple cores. You can't avoid that fact. TFA makes references to eliminating the abstraction of a process, giving each program only a single core. My point is that that won't help at all if the idiotic programmers of this world still can't write a decent program.
It doesn't matter if you can run 50 things at once, if the programs you use are written poorly. They'll still try to run in a single thread, doing a single thing, and preferring shiny buttons over actual function. I/O will have to wait for screen updates. Until I start seeing consistently better programs, I'll continue to assume programmers are dumb.
It's great to push for better scheduling, however you want to do it, but having both better scheduling and improved efficiency will still be better. I personally think that redesigning the OS concepts is a poor choice for improvement.