Absolutely. At my work I do a lot of heavy duty simulation. Basically a whole bunch of writes to a database for a couple of days, then some queries. For the extra overhead of writing to a dtabase rather than flat files, we gain so much flexibility in looking at our data.
Why MySQL? Because it is fast, and in our game, that's what matters.
There is a good reason to make notes different colours and sizes. It is so that folks who are partially sighted can easily recognise the different notes.
Err, no. That is precisely not what they are saying. They describe software as reaching a state of Self-Organized Criticallity. This is analogous to a sandpile (the codebase) onto which sand is being continuously poured. What happens is the slopes of the sandpile start avalanching (code changes) as sand is pored on. The interesting thing is that a certain relationship is observed between the size of avalanches (code changes) and their frequency.
In software terms, what this means is not that code gets more stable, but that stability is dependent on the scale at which you are looking at things. Look at the linux kernel: There are lots of small changes being made, but their are still big changes happening (albeit less frequently). e.g. the 0(1) scheduler, new filesystems, etc.
It is definitely not that things taper off to stabilityy, then there is an equilibrium where only small changes are occuring. Changes of all sizes are continuously happening - its just the bigger ones are less frequent. But you can predict how often the bigger changes will happen, based on observing how often the smaller ones happen.
I've just been thinking my way through this article, and I think it might have some interesting consequences - maybe there is a paper in it somewhere!
regards, treefrog
Yeah, I have to agree with all of these, although I don't think that Fear and Loathing is one of HST's best works. I much prefer Generation of Swine and The Great Shark Hunt, which are both collections of short essays.
There is nothing in the GPL that says you can't sell GPL'd software.
However, you are right in that it can stop GPL'd software being distributed. I'm a systems engineer working on telecoms systems. We can't use any GPL'd software because if we distribute, we have to distribute the source. There is nothing in the simulator source that is really that depserately inn need of protection. However, the details of the very proprietary algorithms that run on umpity million pound boxes that are being simulated, is written into the software. Since we don't want that redistrributed, we can't use any GPL'd software. Hence we have re-written any GPL'd stuff that we really want from scratch.
I did not say that there was no expense in moving from a GSM based system (GSM/GPRS/EDGE TDMA technologies) to UMTS (CDMA). What I did say was that you needed a new radio end, while the same core should work. And I am right. You need to replace the GSM radio access network (BTS and BSC) with the UMTS RAN (Node B and RNC). The core remains the same (MSC-VLR, GMSC, SGSN, GGSN, HLR, EIR etc). So while there is an expense in buying a new RAN (and the old one won't be ripped, UMTS will be overlaid on GSM/GPRS), the expense is less than rolling out a completely new network. EDGE is less of an upgrade still. You need software patches in the BSC and BTS, and new Wideband modem cards in the BTS, but that is about it.
What are the handset issues you are referring to? All the main manufactureres are well down the line to building UMTS handsets (and recall that these wont just do UMTS, they will do ISHO to GSM/GPRS, and will have the obligatory bluetooth as well).
You are right that China is one of the big growth markets for mobile telcommunications. But I think you have misunderstood my point. China has its own CMMA standard. I can't remember the acronym for it at the moment, but it is a TDD system, rather than the European FDD system (which means you run uplink and downlink on the same frequency, and multiplex between them. This allows better bandwidth utilisation for asymetric services). My point was that given the Chionese record on patent law (HuaWei anyone?) I wouldn't hold my breath for huge patent licensing profits to roll into Qualcomm).
I completely accept that CDMA technologies (CDMA2000 and UMTS) are more efficient and give higher quality and better bandwidth than TDMA technoligies (GSM/GPRS). But quality is not the issue. Mobile phones in europe are just part of life. Evryone has one, not just the geeks. The big issue is coverage and availability. I've used my phone all over Europe -from French ski slopes to Portugese beaches and Swiss chalets. One phone works everywhere, it's cheap, and it all appears on my bill when I get home. I can send SMS to friends in Italy - despite the fact that they are on a different network in a different country.
You see, technology isn't everything. Ubiquity and ease of use count for a lot. This is why Microsoft and Apple are both winners in their own way. The European telcos made a great decision in opting for GSM. They rolled out a network right across a continent; they cut deals so people could access each other's networks seamlessly and be billed at a reasonable rate when they got home. By abandoning a winner takes all approach they made sure that there was a huge takeup for the phones, and hence a huge market that they were all printing money in.
They do now need to move on. GSM capacity is limited (which is why they need UMTS). WAP was and still is CRAP. GPRS / EDGE will probably be enough data for most people in most places. How much data do you need on a phone screen anyway? UMTS will be rolled out into the cities first, but may never reach rural areas. EVen if it does it will take 10 years, and someone will have to come up with a killer app for it first. Video messaging might actually be the one. I know my wife really wants it, and she is not a techie. She wants to be able to send me pictures of shoes when she is out shopping!
Oh, and I'm not lying about seamlessness. It wasn't GPRS, it was GSM back in 1999. I completed a house purchase on my mobile from on the continent. At the time I was crossing the border between France and Spain south of Biarritz. The call did not drop.
The advantage of GSM/GPRS/EDGE (an upgraded GPRS with some fancier physical layer stuff to give higher data rates) is that it is already here, rolled out across the continent, and works seamlessly. Really seamlessly. I have held conversations on my mobile while crossing national borders (shifting between carriers) and my calls did not drop.
GSM/GPRS/EDGE has a huge advantage because it is already there, and cheap to upgrade. In reality you will probably get a dial-up quality service on GPRS - everywhere! I suspect the latency issues will go away as the standards guys work out some good solutions and it propogates through into the operator's kit.
The big question is 3G. Where will it be profitable, and where will it be needed. BTW, both CDMA2000 and UMTS (the European standard) are WCDMA technologies - it stands for Wideband Code Division Multiple Access). There will be a need for it in many built up areas because of capacity limitations in GSM (voice is still the killer app).
China is one of the big markets for UMTS - they have their own flavour of it. It's a million quid to apint of warm beer that Qualcomm won't make any money of patent licensing in China!
Oh, and only 1 newtwork upgrade should be required, as GPRS has already been rolled out. You need a new radio end, but the core should all stay the same.
The thing is, he is right. I spend a lot of time up in the Alpes Maritime. There are memorials up there to American soldiers who died in WWII. There are regularly fresh flowers at the memorials. France, in my experience, has not forgotten the sacrifices of WWII
I followed the debate in (UK) House of Commons yesterday quite closely. I'm still ambivelent about the whole thing. On the one hand, I know that the Iraqi leadership is a bunch of genocidal murders who have launched at two wars, and deployed weapons of mass destruction against their own and other people. On the other hand, I can't help feeling that the world is being bullied by a US administration that decided on its course of action long before 11th Sept 2001.
In the end I think I'm just sad. Sad that it has come to this. Sad that the international order has been torn apart. Sad that diplomacy has failed. I'm not sure where the blame lies, but I think that there are a lot of people on both sides of the Atlantic who should be searching their consciences right now.
vous avez me donner deux differents textes: L'une (en francais) c'est l'intervention du 14 Fevrier, l'autre (en anglais) est l'intervention du 7 Mars. La vraie addresse pour l'intervention du 14 Fevrier (en anglais) est ici.
Pardon ma francais. Je n'y a pas une dictionaire francais ici a mon informateur:-(
(and in English....)
Thanks. The links you gave refer to 2 different speeches, the English link is to a speech on the 7th March, the French to one on 14th Feb. The English translation of the 14th Feb speech can be found here.
OK, the problem with 3G in Europe is not that we can't make the tech work. The GSM world congress a week or so ago in Cannes was full of companies (Ericsson, Nokia, Motorola, Alcatel) etc. demonstrating 3G. It will work, and it will be good. Possibly not quite as good as what might be arranged in a completely free market, but pretty good. The problem is that no-one knows what to do with it.
Why do we need high speed data to a mobile phone. Or more correctly, not why do we, the geeks need 384Kb/s (realistically) to our phones, but why does my mum need it, or the 14 year old who lives next door. There is no business model which has a good reason for the consumer to upgrade to 3G, because the killer-app isn't there. The operators (BT, France Telecom, T-mobil etc) have a killer ap. They're running out of capacity. They need 3G to give them the higher capacity, but they have problems justifying it. Why would their customers want more expensive new 3G phones?
The trouble is a little worse than that, even. All the operators have invested in 3G on the assumption that their CAPEX (capital expenditure) is going to be covered by an increase in ARPU (average revenue per user). In this economic climate? I think not.
On the other hand, some folk here have commented on Europe adopting a standard (GSM) too early. Maybe it was too early, but it was a simple cheap standard that has done us well for a long time. Having a product now is sometimes better than having a better product next week. We have rolled out GSM right across the continent. We interwork between operators, and between different country's networks. Three years ago I completed the negotiations on buying a house in the UK on my mobile. I was speaking to a lawyer (in the UK) from my mobile, while crossing the border from France to Spain. Switch countries, switch networks, don't drop your call. That simple. For 95% of the population, a phone is a phone. It isn't a piece of advanced technology. It is a thing that sits in your pocket, and rings when someone wants to talk to you, or allows you to talk to someone else when you want to. GSM gives you that, right across Europe. It isn't technology, it is just one of the things you keep in your pocket, and don't worry about. It is what it should be; as ubiquitous a s a credit card. 3 cheers for GSM.
I'm not a CVS expert - I use it at home a bit. At work we use Clearcase. This allows us to put a nice logical structure on our development tree, so we know where everything comes from and is going. Moreover, certain people are tasked with the responsibility for particular branches. It is their job to ensure that particular branches build, and to resolve any conflicts.
For example. We have a main branch (current release), with integration branches for the various subsystems off this. Off these branches our team has a branch, and off this individual developers work on individual features/bugs etc. Because we have clearly defined responsibilities (e.g. X is responsible for merges into the team branch, Y is responsible for this integration branch, Z looks after the main branch), we always know who is responsible for sorting the issues out.
Because everyone is working on different branches, and the only collisions are at merge time, we usually don't have a problem. And when we do, the responsibilities are clearly defined.
What do you mean by a common protocol? You have an entire protocol stack here, ranging from the physical layer upwards.
Maybe you are talking about implementing a common voice codec, such as the AMR codec, which is optimised for wireless performance (a completely different thing to a standard wireline codec).
Maybe you are talking about a common standard for the higher protocol layers in the control plane - such as SIP, RSVP or H232 family.
But the lower layers are all different depending on the technology. 802.11a/b is different to Bluetooth is different from GSM/GPRS/EDGE is different to UMTS or CDMA2000, because their featureset depends on the frequency range and the underlying technology. For example GSM (a TDMA) system only supports hard hand -over (this means you are always connected to one and only one cell), wheras UMTS(a W-CDMA) technology supports soft handover (where one can be connected to 2 or more cells simultaneously). Don't underestimate the infrastructure differences that this can result in - the changes back up right the way into the network core.
BIAS NOTE: I work for a major telecoms manufacturer on UMTS (the technical name for 3G - a W-CDMA technology).
This is an interesting commentary, but it fails to note many things.
First, the continent-wide adoption of GSM in Europe has led to huge take up of mobile phones. Everyone (schoolkids upwards) has one, communications across networks are not a problem (and are cheap), moving across national boundaries are not a problem (hell - I closed a deal on buying a house (in the UK) over the phone while crossing the border between France and Spain). There are various economic effects going on in Europe which make GSM a winner - the huge take-up, the ease of interconnection, SMS, etc.
That is not to say that GSM does not have problems. There are certainly capacity problems in many European cities - the operators are running out of bandwidth, and this is one of the drivers for the adoption of 3G. Certainly CDMA technology offers much high capacity than GSM. GPRS does offer adequate data rates for must currently conceivable apps, but doesn't do anything for the bandwidth problem. Of course, it's also possible that GSM/GPRS is the way forwards - especially if it will interwork with 802.11 a/b for high speed data in built up areas.
Oh, and did I mention that UMTS and CDMA (IIRC) are both frequency (rather than time) split between the uplink and downlink. This is fine for voice, but when you start running lots of hugely asymetric services (like web browsing), it doen't look so smart.
It is probably a bit disingenuous to claim that the Europeans can't make UMTS work. The system is just going into deployment now. All the major telco manufactureres have systems out on test, and not only are they testing their own kit, they are testing interoperability of parts of the system that are being built from rival vendors kit. So, for example the Radio Access Network might come from the people I work for, but the core comes from someone else. And they are making it work with 5 nines reliability. It will arrive, and soon.
The main problem, and one that is touched on in the article, is actually the huge take-up of GSM. The problem is that everyone who has a 3G phone is quite happy with it. Sure, new things come along all the while (e.g. picture messaging), but no-one has yet come up with a really good reason why you might want to trade in your GSM phone for a 3G one (what do you need up to 2Mb/s for on a phone??).The operators have a good reason for you to switch - they're running out of bandwidth - but that is their problem, not the users.
Probably, what will happen is that the new 3G phones will be dual system GSM/UMTS phones. Pure GSM will gradually be phased out, but will probably always remain in remoter areas where the arguments for 3G just don't stand up economically. The handover between the GSM and UMTS systems is quite nightmareish, but their are a lot of people wrking on it at present.
A big question is the business economics. Nokia are very strong in handsets, and they have a few UMTS contacts. Ericsson have the lion's share of UMTS contracts, but can't get the kit out of the door quick enough. Motorola doesn't have enough contracts, but may be heavyweight enough to survive to the next round, where the quality of competing products may count more. Most of the rest are dead in the water. Alcatel, Lucent, Siemens, Nortel. would you honestly count on any of them being around in a year or so?
Hold on, it's going to be bumpy, but I think UMTS will arrive. CDMA won't disappear, but it won't go global. And the major problem that the US telcos have is their pricing models. There is more to a succesful business than technology - you have to have a product that people want.
Actually, why do you think that when you travel to Europe all different denominations of banknotes look different from each other (for example the Euro notes).
The whole point is the banknotes are different colours and sizes, and have differentiating features (such as intaglio printing) placed in different places on the note precisely so that someone with impaired sight can easily tell the fifferent denominations apart (see here for details on the features of Euro banknotes for the partially sighted.
How do those with poor sight differentiate between the different banknote denomintaions in the USA?
but I do find myself in need of a RDBMS right now. My constraints aren't the usual ones though. I need to do pretty much real time data logging from a simulator, which can then be queried later. If I work hard and pull some fancy tricks, I can get the load down to 10000 updates per second. Each update will insert one or more rows into one or more tables. Data is never altered once it is entered. I may have up to 8 simulatneous users logging data. At the risk of starting a flame war - is my choice of mySQL over another RDBMS a good one here, or should I look for something else.
OK, so you have a very good point about having a good IDE. But I think you are wrong about not wanting makefiles. With a makefile I can not only compile the code, I can
rebuild the pre and post contracts for every function and method (design by contact) from the specification
compile the code
rebuild the documentation from embedded comments in the code (literate programming),
regress unit tests against previous versions of the code
and a thousand and one other things too.
IDE's are good. They can make me (and you) very productive. But make is another fine tool that increases my productivity in another, orthogonal fashion to an IDE.
Hear, Hear....
Software engineering is both similar and different to other sorts of engineering. But it is still engineering. The problem is that very few people are willing to think of it as engineering, which is why we are still stuck in the equivelent of about 1780, somewhere at the start of the industrial revolution.
As an aside, my best friend works on the Forth Rail Bridge in Scotland - you know the big cantilever arch bridge built 100 years or so ago. He's shown me round it, and quite frankly, it is absolutely awe inspiring! It was a huge project, bigger and different from anything previously built. And yet it was completed on time, and is still there running 1000 tonne trains every day. WHy? Because the design, specification and construction process was up to scratch.
Compare that with the fate of the neighbouring Tay Bridge, which fell down one night kiling 75 people on a train.
Process wont save you from everything, but it will weed out most of the worst problems
Eerm, maybe not.
I work in an engineering department for a major telco. My boss *only* hires PhD's, and even then only 1 in 6 of those he interviews. And I bet many other big companies are the same.
But back to the original question. I had the same problem as the poster while I was doing my undergrad degree. I swapped courses, from Maths to Philosophy. Years later I went back to college, got the masters and then a PhD, and here I am now.
Possibly try and swap your major. Maybe find some interesting extra-curricular activities - climb mountains, learn to surf, take up a martial art - if nothing else it may get you laid:-) But what ever you do, finish that degree!
Slashdot Mirror
Absolutely. At my work I do a lot of heavy duty simulation. Basically a whole bunch of writes to a database for a couple of days, then some queries. For the extra overhead of writing to a dtabase rather than flat files, we gain so much flexibility in looking at our data.
Why MySQL? Because it is fast, and in our game, that's what matters.
regards,
treefrog
- decide how far away subject is
- turn focus ring to that distance
I have never had a camera with which I take such consistantly good photos. The reason is, it forces me to think about what I am photographing.They are expensive. My B series cost me 60 about 7 or 8 years back. My S series cost me $200 18 months ago (In a camera chop in Oak Park, Chicago).
regards, treefrog
There is a good reason to make notes different colours and sizes. It is so that folks who are partially sighted can easily recognise the different notes.
regards, treefrog
And I don't want to look like RMS!
regards, treefrog
In software terms, what this means is not that code gets more stable, but that stability is dependent on the scale at which you are looking at things. Look at the linux kernel: There are lots of small changes being made, but their are still big changes happening (albeit less frequently). e.g. the 0(1) scheduler, new filesystems, etc.
It is definitely not that things taper off to stabilityy, then there is an equilibrium where only small changes are occuring. Changes of all sizes are continuously happening - its just the bigger ones are less frequent. But you can predict how often the bigger changes will happen, based on observing how often the smaller ones happen.
I've just been thinking my way through this article, and I think it might have some interesting consequences - maybe there is a paper in it somewhere! regards, treefrog
A couple of books I'd recommend:
- The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgarkov
- Kim by Rudyard Kipling
- Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
regards, treefrogThere is nothing in the GPL that says you can't sell GPL'd software.
However, you are right in that it can stop GPL'd software being distributed. I'm a systems engineer working on telecoms systems. We can't use any GPL'd software because if we distribute, we have to distribute the source. There is nothing in the simulator source that is really that depserately inn need of protection. However, the details of the very proprietary algorithms that run on umpity million pound boxes that are being simulated, is written into the software. Since we don't want that redistrributed, we can't use any GPL'd software. Hence we have re-written any GPL'd stuff that we really want from scratch.
Best regards, treefrog
regards, treefrog
I did not say that there was no expense in moving from a GSM based system (GSM/GPRS/EDGE TDMA technologies) to UMTS (CDMA). What I did say was that you needed a new radio end, while the same core should work. And I am right. You need to replace the GSM radio access network (BTS and BSC) with the UMTS RAN (Node B and RNC). The core remains the same (MSC-VLR, GMSC, SGSN, GGSN, HLR, EIR etc). So while there is an expense in buying a new RAN (and the old one won't be ripped, UMTS will be overlaid on GSM/GPRS), the expense is less than rolling out a completely new network. EDGE is less of an upgrade still. You need software patches in the BSC and BTS, and new Wideband modem cards in the BTS, but that is about it.
What are the handset issues you are referring to? All the main manufactureres are well down the line to building UMTS handsets (and recall that these wont just do UMTS, they will do ISHO to GSM/GPRS, and will have the obligatory bluetooth as well).
You are right that China is one of the big growth markets for mobile telcommunications. But I think you have misunderstood my point. China has its own CMMA standard. I can't remember the acronym for it at the moment, but it is a TDD system, rather than the European FDD system (which means you run uplink and downlink on the same frequency, and multiplex between them. This allows better bandwidth utilisation for asymetric services). My point was that given the Chionese record on patent law (HuaWei anyone?) I wouldn't hold my breath for huge patent licensing profits to roll into Qualcomm).
I completely accept that CDMA technologies (CDMA2000 and UMTS) are more efficient and give higher quality and better bandwidth than TDMA technoligies (GSM/GPRS). But quality is not the issue. Mobile phones in europe are just part of life. Evryone has one, not just the geeks. The big issue is coverage and availability. I've used my phone all over Europe -from French ski slopes to Portugese beaches and Swiss chalets. One phone works everywhere, it's cheap, and it all appears on my bill when I get home. I can send SMS to friends in Italy - despite the fact that they are on a different network in a different country.
You see, technology isn't everything. Ubiquity and ease of use count for a lot. This is why Microsoft and Apple are both winners in their own way. The European telcos made a great decision in opting for GSM. They rolled out a network right across a continent; they cut deals so people could access each other's networks seamlessly and be billed at a reasonable rate when they got home. By abandoning a winner takes all approach they made sure that there was a huge takeup for the phones, and hence a huge market that they were all printing money in.
They do now need to move on. GSM capacity is limited (which is why they need UMTS). WAP was and still is CRAP. GPRS / EDGE will probably be enough data for most people in most places. How much data do you need on a phone screen anyway? UMTS will be rolled out into the cities first, but may never reach rural areas. EVen if it does it will take 10 years, and someone will have to come up with a killer app for it first. Video messaging might actually be the one. I know my wife really wants it, and she is not a techie. She wants to be able to send me pictures of shoes when she is out shopping!
Oh, and I'm not lying about seamlessness. It wasn't GPRS, it was GSM back in 1999. I completed a house purchase on my mobile from on the continent. At the time I was crossing the border between France and Spain south of Biarritz. The call did not drop.
regrads, treefrog
GSM/GPRS/EDGE has a huge advantage because it is already there, and cheap to upgrade. In reality you will probably get a dial-up quality service on GPRS - everywhere! I suspect the latency issues will go away as the standards guys work out some good solutions and it propogates through into the operator's kit.
The big question is 3G. Where will it be profitable, and where will it be needed. BTW, both CDMA2000 and UMTS (the European standard) are WCDMA technologies - it stands for Wideband Code Division Multiple Access). There will be a need for it in many built up areas because of capacity limitations in GSM (voice is still the killer app). China is one of the big markets for UMTS - they have their own flavour of it. It's a million quid to apint of warm beer that Qualcomm won't make any money of patent licensing in China!
Oh, and only 1 newtwork upgrade should be required, as GPRS has already been rolled out. You need a new radio end, but the core should all stay the same.
regards, treefrog
I followed the debate in (UK) House of Commons yesterday quite closely. I'm still ambivelent about the whole thing. On the one hand, I know that the Iraqi leadership is a bunch of genocidal murders who have launched at two wars, and deployed weapons of mass destruction against their own and other people. On the other hand, I can't help feeling that the world is being bullied by a US administration that decided on its course of action long before 11th Sept 2001.
In the end I think I'm just sad. Sad that it has come to this. Sad that the international order has been torn apart. Sad that diplomacy has failed. I'm not sure where the blame lies, but I think that there are a lot of people on both sides of the Atlantic who should be searching their consciences right now.
Thanks, treefrog
vous avez me donner deux differents textes: L'une (en francais) c'est l'intervention du 14 Fevrier, l'autre (en anglais) est l'intervention du 7 Mars. La vraie addresse pour l'intervention du 14 Fevrier (en anglais) est ici.
Pardon ma francais. Je n'y a pas une dictionaire francais ici a mon informateur :-(
(and in English....) Thanks. The links you gave refer to 2 different speeches, the English link is to a speech on the 7th March, the French to one on 14th Feb. The English translation of the 14th Feb speech can be found here.
treefrog
Do you have a link to Dominique de Villepin's recent speeches at the UN?
regards, treefrog
Why do we need high speed data to a mobile phone. Or more correctly, not why do we, the geeks need 384Kb/s (realistically) to our phones, but why does my mum need it, or the 14 year old who lives next door. There is no business model which has a good reason for the consumer to upgrade to 3G, because the killer-app isn't there. The operators (BT, France Telecom, T-mobil etc) have a killer ap. They're running out of capacity. They need 3G to give them the higher capacity, but they have problems justifying it. Why would their customers want more expensive new 3G phones?
The trouble is a little worse than that, even. All the operators have invested in 3G on the assumption that their CAPEX (capital expenditure) is going to be covered by an increase in ARPU (average revenue per user). In this economic climate? I think not.
On the other hand, some folk here have commented on Europe adopting a standard (GSM) too early. Maybe it was too early, but it was a simple cheap standard that has done us well for a long time. Having a product now is sometimes better than having a better product next week. We have rolled out GSM right across the continent. We interwork between operators, and between different country's networks. Three years ago I completed the negotiations on buying a house in the UK on my mobile. I was speaking to a lawyer (in the UK) from my mobile, while crossing the border from France to Spain. Switch countries, switch networks, don't drop your call. That simple. For 95% of the population, a phone is a phone. It isn't a piece of advanced technology. It is a thing that sits in your pocket, and rings when someone wants to talk to you, or allows you to talk to someone else when you want to. GSM gives you that, right across Europe. It isn't technology, it is just one of the things you keep in your pocket, and don't worry about. It is what it should be; as ubiquitous a s a credit card. 3 cheers for GSM.
regards, treefrog
I'm not a CVS expert - I use it at home a bit. At work we use Clearcase. This allows us to put a nice logical structure on our development tree, so we know where everything comes from and is going. Moreover, certain people are tasked with the responsibility for particular branches. It is their job to ensure that particular branches build, and to resolve any conflicts.
For example. We have a main branch (current release), with integration branches for the various subsystems off this. Off these branches our team has a branch, and off this individual developers work on individual features/bugs etc. Because we have clearly defined responsibilities (e.g. X is responsible for merges into the team branch, Y is responsible for this integration branch, Z looks after the main branch), we always know who is responsible for sorting the issues out.
Because everyone is working on different branches, and the only collisions are at merge time, we usually don't have a problem. And when we do, the responsibilities are clearly defined.
Best regards, treefrog
mod parent up please.
Isn't it called "The Art of Computer Programming", currently maintained by Donald Knuth ?
Maybe you are talking about implementing a common voice codec, such as the AMR codec, which is optimised for wireless performance (a completely different thing to a standard wireline codec).
Maybe you are talking about a common standard for the higher protocol layers in the control plane - such as SIP, RSVP or H232 family.
But the lower layers are all different depending on the technology. 802.11a/b is different to Bluetooth is different from GSM/GPRS/EDGE is different to UMTS or CDMA2000, because their featureset depends on the frequency range and the underlying technology. For example GSM (a TDMA) system only supports hard hand -over (this means you are always connected to one and only one cell), wheras UMTS(a W-CDMA) technology supports soft handover (where one can be connected to 2 or more cells simultaneously). Don't underestimate the infrastructure differences that this can result in - the changes back up right the way into the network core.
Best regards, Treefrog
BIAS NOTE: I work for a major telecoms manufacturer on UMTS (the technical name for 3G - a W-CDMA technology).
This is an interesting commentary, but it fails to note many things.
First, the continent-wide adoption of GSM in Europe has led to huge take up of mobile phones. Everyone (schoolkids upwards) has one, communications across networks are not a problem (and are cheap), moving across national boundaries are not a problem (hell - I closed a deal on buying a house (in the UK) over the phone while crossing the border between France and Spain). There are various economic effects going on in Europe which make GSM a winner - the huge take-up, the ease of interconnection, SMS, etc.
That is not to say that GSM does not have problems. There are certainly capacity problems in many European cities - the operators are running out of bandwidth, and this is one of the drivers for the adoption of 3G. Certainly CDMA technology offers much high capacity than GSM. GPRS does offer adequate data rates for must currently conceivable apps, but doesn't do anything for the bandwidth problem. Of course, it's also possible that GSM/GPRS is the way forwards - especially if it will interwork with 802.11 a/b for high speed data in built up areas.
Oh, and did I mention that UMTS and CDMA (IIRC) are both frequency (rather than time) split between the uplink and downlink. This is fine for voice, but when you start running lots of hugely asymetric services (like web browsing), it doen't look so smart.
It is probably a bit disingenuous to claim that the Europeans can't make UMTS work. The system is just going into deployment now. All the major telco manufactureres have systems out on test, and not only are they testing their own kit, they are testing interoperability of parts of the system that are being built from rival vendors kit. So, for example the Radio Access Network might come from the people I work for, but the core comes from someone else. And they are making it work with 5 nines reliability. It will arrive, and soon.
The main problem, and one that is touched on in the article, is actually the huge take-up of GSM. The problem is that everyone who has a 3G phone is quite happy with it. Sure, new things come along all the while (e.g. picture messaging), but no-one has yet come up with a really good reason why you might want to trade in your GSM phone for a 3G one (what do you need up to 2Mb/s for on a phone??).The operators have a good reason for you to switch - they're running out of bandwidth - but that is their problem, not the users.
Probably, what will happen is that the new 3G phones will be dual system GSM/UMTS phones. Pure GSM will gradually be phased out, but will probably always remain in remoter areas where the arguments for 3G just don't stand up economically. The handover between the GSM and UMTS systems is quite nightmareish, but their are a lot of people wrking on it at present.
A big question is the business economics. Nokia are very strong in handsets, and they have a few UMTS contacts. Ericsson have the lion's share of UMTS contracts, but can't get the kit out of the door quick enough. Motorola doesn't have enough contracts, but may be heavyweight enough to survive to the next round, where the quality of competing products may count more. Most of the rest are dead in the water. Alcatel, Lucent, Siemens, Nortel. would you honestly count on any of them being around in a year or so?
Hold on, it's going to be bumpy, but I think UMTS will arrive. CDMA won't disappear, but it won't go global. And the major problem that the US telcos have is their pricing models. There is more to a succesful business than technology - you have to have a product that people want.
regards, treefrog
The whole point is the banknotes are different colours and sizes, and have differentiating features (such as intaglio printing) placed in different places on the note precisely so that someone with impaired sight can easily tell the fifferent denominations apart (see here for details on the features of Euro banknotes for the partially sighted.
How do those with poor sight differentiate between the different banknote denomintaions in the USA?
regards, treefrog
Slight problem - I already have a PhD.
Is an MBA the answer ??
reefrog.
Any help appreciated, treefrog
and a thousand and one other things too.
IDE's are good. They can make me (and you) very productive. But make is another fine tool that increases my productivity in another, orthogonal fashion to an IDE.
Why not use both?
regards, tree_frog
As an aside, my best friend works on the Forth Rail Bridge in Scotland - you know the big cantilever arch bridge built 100 years or so ago. He's shown me round it, and quite frankly, it is absolutely awe inspiring! It was a huge project, bigger and different from anything previously built. And yet it was completed on time, and is still there running 1000 tonne trains every day. WHy? Because the design, specification and construction process was up to scratch.
Compare that with the fate of the neighbouring Tay Bridge, which fell down one night kiling 75 people on a train.
Process wont save you from everything, but it will weed out most of the worst problems
Just my 2p's worth. Regards
Treefrog
Eerm, maybe not.
:-) But what ever you do, finish that degree!
I work in an engineering department for a major telco. My boss *only* hires PhD's, and even then only 1 in 6 of those he interviews. And I bet many other big companies are the same.
But back to the original question. I had the same problem as the poster while I was doing my undergrad degree. I swapped courses, from Maths to Philosophy. Years later I went back to college, got the masters and then a PhD, and here I am now.
Possibly try and swap your major. Maybe find some interesting extra-curricular activities - climb mountains, learn to surf, take up a martial art - if nothing else it may get you laid
Hope it gets bet for you. Best regards
Treefrog