Aye, which just goes to show how the Romans are (were?) are intellectual superiors in this matter. There's a tendancy among Xians, Muslims and other monotheists to look at the ascent of religious thought as a progression:
Shamanism->Polytheism->Monotheism
Trouble is monotheists by definition have something of a problem co-existing with other religions. Your Roman polytheists on the other hand used to march into a new territory, check out the local religion, then simply map over the local gods to their own - asking those on the bench to budge up a little if they found one that didn't fit. A very civilized approach to the whole thing.
I wouldn't be the first to observer that in modern western liberal and diverse society, if you need to be religious at all you stand a much better chance of rubbing along with everyone else if your a polytheist as you can do the Roman thing on a personal level. Hence the attraction of the 'new age' pagan religions (currently growing faster in the west than any other belief system)
The original quote (well the original's in Latin, but hey:-) is
"It is vain to do with more what can be done with less."
Which does not say that the simplest explanation is always correct, rather that when choosing an explanation for a problem the natural bias should be towards the simpler explanation.
You're absolutly correct of course, but don't let this simplistic attitude blind you into dismissing all religious thought as beneath contempt.
The intellectual life of your modern-day born-again tub-thumping evangelist of course on a par with Sesame Street and only fit for children and animals. Indeed most preachers you'll meet on a day to day basis are little better than the modern day equivalent of the semi-literate peasants who tended to the masses in the hovels across medieval Europe. Check out 'Creation Science' if you're in any doubt.
However from the first to the 15th century some of the brightest minds in Christendom wrestled with the philosophy of religion. Their were professors in Paris discussing the implications of alien life hundreds of years before the renaissence. Indeed to this day the Vatican has it's own scientific advisors who are more than worth of respect (they made a mistake with Galileo and have no intention of repeating it:-).
Incidently you're hardly the first to conclude this. For instance google around and find out why it makes ecological sense for not to cultivate pigs in the biblical middle east or for the population of india to keep, but not kill, cows.
Well yes, I agree about the history. But the King James bible is probably the most sublime composition of length in English we have and as such sort of deserves to be the uber-English-bible. Try comparing text from the earlier Wycliff bible which is leaden in comparison.
Yeah, but I've never been convinced that SQL-92 was a move forward anyway. IMHO although the concept of separating join logic from filter (where) logic makes academic sense, in practice it's extreamly difficult to write down complex SQL involving multiple tables in a way that's easy to read and comprehend. In contrast if you do everything in the where statements then if you order and indent correctly it's much easier to see what's going on.
This is a vastly important point if you're maintaining a system of any complexity over any period of time. I'm aware that the older syntax can be ambigous in some circumstances, but again in practice the instances where this is a problem are vastly outweighed by the maintenance issues.
Back in ~1997 there was a know vunerability in one of the apache distribution files that could be used to execute a root command on the server. Beening able to exploit this was dependent upon the server having a particular unmodified file available.
This was pre-google, but by judicious use of alta-vista it was quite easy to bring back a list of vunerable servers.
This is wonderfully counterproductive on the RIAAs part.
We all know downloading mp3's actually increases the rate at which we buy CDs - because of finding new bands and music we wouldn't hear otherwise. So if RIAA succeed in reducing the opportunity for distributing mainstream bands and music then the exposure for 'the rest' can only increase. The number of CD an individual can buy isn't infinatly elastic, so the result will be that the RIAA will drive down their own sales as a proportion of total CDs sold.
How long is indeed anyone's guess. However the general pattern of trade - western societies developing and tooling up for ever more technologically advanced goods the production of which progressively moves outwards to 'developing' nations - has been continuing now pretty much unabated since 1750 or so. There's now sign of it abating.
Indeed we've been here before with the English textile industry and competition from India in the mid-19th century.
Good point. I've contracted a few coding projects for the states from the UK and while I can't compete on price directly with India because pay rates are about 20% lower and I don't have to charge VAT at 17.5% there is some significant cost saving.
Also our time differential is only 5 hours to the east coast - same as east to west coast inside the states, so no big deal.
This is a well known phenomonen. Most non-first world development agencies recognise that in the long run competing on price isn't sustainable because there's always someone further down the chain who will undercut you. The Indians themselves are *already* worried because they are loosing outsourcing jobs *now* to places like China and Vietnam who can undercut them.
It's true that India/Pakistan/Bangladesh etc do have some advantage in that because of a colonial past they have an english-speaking culture. Personally I suspect the Indian 'problem', while it will never go away, will diminish as wage cost rise in India and the options become either a small'ish reduction in cost by outsourcing to india - with minor communication problems - or a large reduction by outsourcing to China - with potentially major communication problems.
Unfortunatly for them the chances of any other parts of our non-white empire getting it's act together sufficiently to compete seem non-existant. Nigerian coders anyone?
Kazaa lite is currently showing 4,251,066 uses online sharing 864,211,508 files. When I first swapped to it after the great morpheus fiasco the figures were regularly around 1,500,000 users.
Amen to that. Gyms, running, swimming etc always seemed pointless to me but Martial Arts come with an inbuilt sense of purpose and goals that keep the interest. I recently got a knee injury (unrelated) and had to take a month off my regular classes - and by the end of 4 weeks I was just aching to get out there and hit a few boards again.
Tae Kwon Do has also cured a long-term niggling back problem I had through most of my 30's - because of it's emphasis on streatching and flexibility. And I'm currently looking for some local Judo classes to complement a stiking martial art with a wrestling one.
Also consider giving martial arts a try. Similarly I could never see the point of working out at the gym, or running or swimming for no purpose - and like many geeks competitive team sports don't really appeal. Martial arts however give you a defined set of goals, yourself yo compete against at your own rate, and a sense of doing something for a purpose.
Personally I'd recommend Tae Kwon Do because it's places a great deal of emphasis on flexibility (it's cured my back problems anyway). Also myself I've found I prefer a school where there's some form of contact sparing because for me systems loose a sense of reality if you don't do that - at least on an occassional basis. YMMV of course.
IMHO even the programming outsourcing isn't as simple as that. Outsourcing coding is fine if you're developing or extending a well defined system to an agreed spec. Trouble is all the clients I work for don't really know what they want and couldn't write a spec to save their own skins. Generally we arrive at a satisfactory solution by an iterative approach - I don't have to be based in the same office, but it sure helps I'm in the same country.
No, I don't think you've any reason to worry. I've seen something similar before - it never works.
Back in the late 80's/early 90's there was a real buzz about software that would write software. It came in many different forms - Oracle had SSADM software that would generate applications once you put the system design as high level description, various IBM mainframe systems that would generate CICS systems from bolt-together components (very like O'Reilly dicusses in fact) - there was even a PC system called 'the last one' which was supposed to generate any application you needed from a high-level description. All of them had the common theme that you were going to need no, or many fewer, coders.
That didn't happen.
The flaw in the argument is assuming the whole world is predicatable and regular enough that solutions can be build from a set of predefined blocks. In practice this never happens because 1. All business and business processes are *always* much more messy than this 2. There's always something else to be done - any business system is a compromise between what can be built and what the customer would like. As filling the basics becomes easier the idiosyncratic tweaks that you need special code for become larger. 3. Technology changes drive systems requirements. 'The Last One' was so named because it was the last softwre system you were ever supposed to purchase because it then generate systems to do all you needed. Problem was 'the last one' ran on DOS.
In the future we may spend more time assembling systems from OpenSource commodity chunks, but because the world is messy those chuncks will never fit exactly as required or cover all the requiments needed for each unique business. In fact I expect they'll be more work rather than less.
Moreover, communication with spacecraft will substantially improve. It took traditional explorers months to get messages home. For Capt. Robert Falcon Scott and other polar pioneers, messages home were not even an option. By contrast, the time needed for the first visitors to Mars (probably 30 years from now) to relay their thoughts and impressions will be measured in mere minutes.
Well, at least 20 minutes from Mars orbit. That is unless wealth also buys you exemption from the laws of physics
While an exchange replacement obviously has some application;-) what I need is an Access replacement. If one existed then that linux market would dwarf the exchange one.
Access may be inelegant and messy, but I have dozens of clients who use it as a front-end system for sqlserver. Most of these don't do anything else much with their PCs but some wp/spreadsheet, and would seriously consider going to linux tomorrow (probably would with the licence fees) except for being hooked in with Access applications.
The Access replacement would have to offer 85% much of what is in Access already with a relatively simple migration strategy as these systems are suffciently complex that costs and time rule out a complete rewrite. That is we need forms, reports and a scripting language - prefably VB compatible or with a VB translator. The sqlserver side could generally be replaced with postgres with an acceptable amount of work.
In my experience there are now many, many companies out there who are sticking to Office97 because Access97 does what they want and can't afford the upgrade fees. If a viable Linux strategy existed they would take it. Unfortunatly as yet there doesn't seem to be one.
The last book of the newer "Engines of Light" trilogy was recently published too (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnI nquiry.asp?userid=69Y7O3S8XC&isbn=0765340739&itm=1 ). Similar themes in many ways, but the idea of a neo-communist Euro-Russian ressurgance explored in more detail. MacLeod is interesting, in that like Ian Banks (also Scottish incidently) he sees the future as deepest red - and all the better for that too.
Hmm, have you actually seen this book? I don't care what precisely the title is - 'Dynamic HTML' is as good as any - but it's simply a superb reference and one of the top half dozen most commonly used books on my shelf. A more accurate title might be 'every single damm specification for HTML, DHTML, Javascript, CSS and evertying else connected with client-side browser behaviour exhaustively referenced, dereferenced and cross-referenced' - but that would be a bit long to fit on the cover.
I've had the second edition for several years and pre-ordered the second. It's *that* good.
Actually the GNP of the EU is about 50% larger than that of the USA. Only the fact that the EU hasn't got it's act totally together yet economically, politically and militarily is discusing the impact of that fact.
Doubt if I'll live to see it, but although the first half of this century will undoubtably be america's, the second will be the EU's.
Slashdot Mirror
Aye, which just goes to show how the Romans are (were?) are intellectual superiors in this matter. There's a tendancy among Xians, Muslims and other monotheists to look at the ascent of religious thought as a progression:
Shamanism->Polytheism->Monotheism
Trouble is monotheists by definition have something of a problem co-existing with other religions. Your Roman polytheists on the other hand used to march into a new territory, check out the local religion, then simply map over the local gods to their own - asking those on the bench to budge up a little if they found one that didn't fit. A very civilized approach to the whole thing.
I wouldn't be the first to observer that in modern western liberal and diverse society, if you need to be religious at all you stand a much better chance of rubbing along with everyone else if your a polytheist as you can do the Roman thing on a personal level. Hence the attraction of the 'new age' pagan religions (currently growing faster in the west than any other belief system)
The original quote (well the original's in Latin, but hey :-) is
"It is vain to do with more what can be done with less."
Which does not say that the simplest explanation is always correct, rather that when choosing an explanation for a problem the natural bias should be towards the simpler explanation.
That's simply not true. The original quote from William of Occam is
"It is vain to do with more what can be done with less".
In other words the simpler approach should be chossen on the balance of evidence and explanation.
You're absolutly correct of course, but don't let this simplistic attitude blind you into dismissing all religious thought as beneath contempt.
:-).
The intellectual life of your modern-day born-again tub-thumping evangelist of course on a par with Sesame Street and only fit for children and animals. Indeed most preachers you'll meet on a day to day basis are little better than the modern day equivalent of the semi-literate peasants who tended to the masses in the hovels across medieval Europe. Check out 'Creation Science' if you're in any doubt.
However from the first to the 15th century some of the brightest minds in Christendom wrestled with the philosophy of religion. Their were professors in Paris discussing the implications of alien life hundreds of years before the renaissence. Indeed to this day the Vatican has it's own scientific advisors who are more than worth of respect (they made a mistake with Galileo and have no intention of repeating it
Incidently you're hardly the first to conclude this. For instance google around and find out why it makes ecological sense for not to cultivate pigs in the biblical middle east or for the population of india to keep, but not kill, cows.
Well yes, I agree about the history. But the King James bible is probably the most sublime composition of length in English we have and as such sort of deserves to be the uber-English-bible. Try comparing text from the earlier Wycliff bible which is leaden in comparison.
:-)
And I'm a card-carrying atheist
Yeah, but I've never been convinced that SQL-92 was a move forward anyway. IMHO although the concept of separating join logic from filter (where) logic makes academic sense, in practice it's extreamly difficult to write down complex SQL involving multiple tables in a way that's easy to read and comprehend. In contrast if you do everything in the where statements then if you order and indent correctly it's much easier to see what's going on.
This is a vastly important point if you're maintaining a system of any complexity over any period of time. I'm aware that the older syntax can be ambigous in some circumstances, but again in practice the instances where this is a problem are vastly outweighed by the maintenance issues.
Back in ~1997 there was a know vunerability in one of the apache distribution files that could be used to execute a root command on the server. Beening able to exploit this was dependent upon the server having a particular unmodified file available.
This was pre-google, but by judicious use of alta-vista it was quite easy to bring back a list of vunerable servers.
This is wonderfully counterproductive on the RIAAs part.
We all know downloading mp3's actually increases the rate at which we buy CDs - because of finding new bands and music we wouldn't hear otherwise. So if RIAA succeed in reducing the opportunity for distributing mainstream bands and music then the exposure for 'the rest' can only increase. The number of CD an individual can buy isn't infinatly elastic, so the result will be that the RIAA will drive down their own sales as a proportion of total CDs sold.
Eeek. I meant to say NO sign of it abating.
Schieste
How long is indeed anyone's guess. However the general pattern of trade - western societies developing and tooling up for ever more technologically advanced goods the production of which progressively moves outwards to 'developing' nations - has been continuing now pretty much unabated since 1750 or so. There's now sign of it abating.
Indeed we've been here before with the English textile industry and competition from India in the mid-19th century.
It's not a null-sum game. The total world GNP increases all the time.
Good point. I've contracted a few coding projects for the states from the UK and while I can't compete on price directly with India because pay rates are about 20% lower and I don't have to charge VAT at 17.5% there is some significant cost saving.
Also our time differential is only 5 hours to the east coast - same as east to west coast inside the states, so no big deal.
This is a well known phenomonen. Most non-first world development agencies recognise that in the long run competing on price isn't sustainable because there's always someone further down the chain who will undercut you. The Indians themselves are *already* worried because they are loosing outsourcing jobs *now* to places like China and Vietnam who can undercut them.
It's true that India/Pakistan/Bangladesh etc do have some advantage in that because of a colonial past they have an english-speaking culture. Personally I suspect the Indian 'problem', while it will never go away, will diminish as wage cost rise in India and the options become either a small'ish reduction in cost by outsourcing to india - with minor communication problems - or a large reduction by outsourcing to China - with potentially major communication problems.
Unfortunatly for them the chances of any other parts of our non-white empire getting it's act together sufficiently to compete seem non-existant. Nigerian coders anyone?
Kazaa lite is currently showing 4,251,066 uses online sharing 864,211,508 files. When I first swapped to it after the great morpheus fiasco the figures were regularly around 1,500,000 users.
You mean those servitors at MacDonalds are humans?
Non-caucasians are generally lactose-intolerant after early childhood. Indeed it makes them sick.
Amen to that. Gyms, running, swimming etc always seemed pointless to me but Martial Arts come with an inbuilt sense of purpose and goals that keep the interest. I recently got a knee injury (unrelated) and had to take a month off my regular classes - and by the end of 4 weeks I was just aching to get out there and hit a few boards again.
Tae Kwon Do has also cured a long-term niggling back problem I had through most of my 30's - because of it's emphasis on streatching and flexibility. And I'm currently looking for some local Judo classes to complement a stiking martial art with a wrestling one.
Also consider giving martial arts a try. Similarly I could never see the point of working out at the gym, or running or swimming for no purpose - and like many geeks competitive team sports don't really appeal. Martial arts however give you a defined set of goals, yourself yo compete against at your own rate, and a sense of doing something for a purpose.
Personally I'd recommend Tae Kwon Do because it's places a great deal of emphasis on flexibility (it's cured my back problems anyway). Also myself I've found I prefer a school where there's some form of contact sparing because for me systems loose a sense of reality if you don't do that - at least on an occassional basis. YMMV of course.
IMHO even the programming outsourcing isn't as simple as that. Outsourcing coding is fine if you're developing or extending a well defined system to an agreed spec. Trouble is all the clients I work for don't really know what they want and couldn't write a spec to save their own skins. Generally we arrive at a satisfactory solution by an iterative approach - I don't have to be based in the same office, but it sure helps I'm in the same country.
No, I don't think you've any reason to worry. I've seen something similar before - it never works.
Back in the late 80's/early 90's there was a real buzz about software that would write software. It came in many different forms - Oracle had SSADM software that would generate applications once you put the system design as high level description, various IBM mainframe systems that would generate CICS systems from bolt-together components (very like O'Reilly dicusses in fact) - there was even a PC system called 'the last one' which was supposed to generate any application you needed from a high-level description. All of them had the common theme that you were going to need no, or many fewer, coders.
That didn't happen.
The flaw in the argument is assuming the whole world is predicatable and regular enough that solutions can be build from a set of predefined blocks. In practice this never happens because
1. All business and business processes are *always* much more messy than this
2. There's always something else to be done - any business system is a compromise between what can be built and what the customer would like. As filling the basics becomes easier the idiosyncratic tweaks that you need special code for become larger.
3. Technology changes drive systems requirements. 'The Last One' was so named because it was the last softwre system you were ever supposed to purchase because it then generate systems to do all you needed. Problem was 'the last one' ran on DOS.
In the future we may spend more time assembling systems from OpenSource commodity chunks, but because the world is messy those chuncks will never fit exactly as required or cover all the requiments needed for each unique business. In fact I expect they'll be more work rather than less.
Well, at least 20 minutes from Mars orbit. That is unless wealth also buys you exemption from the laws of physics
While an exchange replacement obviously has some application ;-) what I need is an Access replacement. If one existed then that linux market would dwarf the exchange one.
Access may be inelegant and messy, but I have dozens of clients who use it as a front-end system for sqlserver. Most of these don't do anything else much with their PCs but some wp/spreadsheet, and would seriously consider going to linux tomorrow (probably would with the licence fees) except for being hooked in with Access applications.
The Access replacement would have to offer 85% much of what is in Access already with a relatively simple migration strategy as these systems are suffciently complex that costs and time rule out a complete rewrite. That is we need forms, reports and a scripting language - prefably VB compatible or with a VB translator. The sqlserver side could generally be replaced with postgres with an acceptable amount of work.
In my experience there are now many, many companies out there who are sticking to Office97 because Access97 does what they want and can't afford the upgrade fees. If a viable Linux strategy existed they would take it. Unfortunatly as yet there doesn't seem to be one.
The last book of the newer "Engines of Light" trilogy was recently published too (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnI nquiry.asp?userid=69Y7O3S8XC&isbn=0765340739&itm=1 ). Similar themes in many ways, but the idea of a neo-communist Euro-Russian ressurgance explored in more detail. MacLeod is interesting, in that like Ian Banks (also Scottish incidently) he sees the future as deepest red - and all the better for that too.
Hmm, have you actually seen this book? I don't care what precisely the title is - 'Dynamic HTML' is as good as any - but it's simply a superb reference and one of the top half dozen most commonly used books on my shelf. A more accurate title might be 'every single damm specification for HTML, DHTML, Javascript, CSS and evertying else connected with client-side browser behaviour exhaustively referenced, dereferenced and cross-referenced' - but that would be a bit long to fit on the cover.
I've had the second edition for several years and pre-ordered the second. It's *that* good.
Actually the GNP of the EU is about 50% larger than that of the USA. Only the fact that the EU hasn't got it's act totally together yet economically, politically and militarily is discusing the impact of that fact.
Doubt if I'll live to see it, but although the first half of this century will undoubtably be america's, the second will be the EU's.