Yah, that makes better sense. Although, I still wonder, if the bill's RFID is inactive, is it no good?
If RFID tags were "required" in order to pass the bills as legal tender, then I imagine that anybody who had a defective one would have to exchange it at the bank, just as if it had been torn in half. You wouldn't lose the money, but you couldn't perform untraceable transactions, either.
Comes from a time when all the technology was banished into a separate structure, as in "transmitter shack", "ham shack" (amateur radio), and so forth. Sometimes it was a literal shack, since technology in every age attracts the geeks and repels the Martha Stewarts.
I am a developer, but not one of those that considers documentation evil. Not at all--it's just like another program in my experience. I'm all in favor of building "reusable" doco, insofar as this is possible. The trouble with it is, the machines have no choice but to run the proggies you write for them. But, as has been noted by many, "People are a problem". Remember "RTFM"?
Given the sort of doco that usually crops up in what I laughingly think of as "real life", the prospect of having the most odious chunks of it modularized in order subsequently to pop up all over the landscape like seedy trailer parks is not something that spins the propeller on my beanie. Better to start with the advice of, say, Richard Mitchell and rid oneself of the plague of obfuscated bizspeak before allowing it to spawn. That done, go forth and conquer.
And, he does us all a big favor by addressing the negatives associated with using technology to assemble documents by explaining that it actually takes more creativity to write content that can fit into multiple media, for multiple audiences, than it does to continually rewrite information over and over again each time it is needed.
This would seem to be more of a reason to avoid modular doco. Creativity is not, shall we say, plentiful? at the typical workplace. And often, it isn't wanted when it is available.
And a fair number of 'em couldn't even be troubled to prove they were eligible to vote.
Besides, finding the right hole in a Votomatic card can be really tough when you're trying to punch ten or more of them at once. It works much better when you put them in the machine one at a time, but that takes too long...you have to guess how many votes your candidate will need based on precincts that have already reported, and waiting for those reports seriously cuts into the time you have to get those bogus ballots down to the county election board. It really complicates things when you miscalculate and the lawyers have to come in and fix the election for you.
Sometimes I do use Perl. It doesn't *have* to be a write-only environment, yanno. But for production use, you have to make sure to avoid obfuscatory constructions, no matter what language it is. (Perl just offers so many possibilities!)
I don't obfuscate code, partly because I have no reason to hide what I'm doing, but also because I often have to go back into that stuff myself and add features or tweaks. But all the other reasons you advanced, plus the one by a followup poster, apply. C'est la vie.
Just as nobody would dream of submitting a major article for publication in academia without having it proof read by at least one peer
"Peer" being the operative word. In my previous job, where I did have peers that understood the sort of things I was doing, we never actually had code reviews -- no time. In my current job, I submit code to review all the time, but none of the reviewers actually understand it.
Don't get me wrong. It still helps. I have the sort of mind that can see other peoples' mistakes in a flash, but not my own. Not, that is, until I start to explain them to somebody else. So I still boost the practice.
I encouraged my parents to get one so that we "kids" could reach them by email. They used it for perhaps 4 months, off and on, but there were constant problems, both with the service and with the billing, mainly because Netpliance never could arrange a local contact phone number, and the unit had to call long distance at fixed intervals to keep itself updated, even when nobody was on it. The Netpliance people strove mightily to make it work for them, but eventually they gave up and went for a "real" computer[1] and a local ISP[2]. That was the breakthrough for them. Turned out that they didn't need the simplicity of the i-opener (practically its only selling point) when they had live technical support to get them over the initial learning curve.
[1] Ok, it's a 98 box. (cat flames >/dev/null 2>) is all I have to say about that.
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I saw that. It's true, this one can't, but others could. Would such a thing be useful to Big Brother? Is that too big a stretch?
If RFID tags were "required" in order to pass the bills as legal tender, then I imagine that anybody who had a defective one would have to exchange it at the bank, just as if it had been torn in half. You wouldn't lose the money, but you couldn't perform untraceable transactions, either.
Thing is, if they start doing that, what if you accidentally microwaved a 100-euro note and destroyed the RFID? Would that make it no good?
English is not his mother tongue. He's doing ok all the same.
Btw, forget spell checkers. They are oblivious to context, so they don't catch inappropriate homonyms. Learn to spell instead.
Comes from a time when all the technology was banished into a separate structure, as in "transmitter shack", "ham shack" (amateur radio), and so forth. Sometimes it was a literal shack, since technology in every age attracts the geeks and repels the Martha Stewarts.
So, what's the codon for "goto"? Do we know that one yet?
Given the sort of doco that usually crops up in what I laughingly think of as "real life", the prospect of having the most odious chunks of it modularized in order subsequently to pop up all over the landscape like seedy trailer parks is not something that spins the propeller on my beanie. Better to start with the advice of, say, Richard Mitchell and rid oneself of the plague of obfuscated bizspeak before allowing it to spawn. That done, go forth and conquer.
This would seem to be more of a reason to avoid modular doco. Creativity is not, shall we say, plentiful? at the typical workplace. And often, it isn't wanted when it is available.
All copyrights on "works for hire" will be retroactively extended to "time of creation plus 4000 years." Hammurapi is back in copyright!
Then it would look like the Matrix....
Besides, finding the right hole in a Votomatic card can be really tough when you're trying to punch ten or more of them at once. It works much better when you put them in the machine one at a time, but that takes too long...you have to guess how many votes your candidate will need based on precincts that have already reported, and waiting for those reports seriously cuts into the time you have to get those bogus ballots down to the county election board. It really complicates things when you miscalculate and the lawyers have to come in and fix the election for you.
Oh, by the way: <THPFPT!>
I don't obfuscate code, partly because I have no reason to hide what I'm doing, but also because I often have to go back into that stuff myself and add features or tweaks. But all the other reasons you advanced, plus the one by a followup poster, apply. C'est la vie.
"Peer" being the operative word. In my previous job, where I did have peers that understood the sort of things I was doing, we never actually had code reviews -- no time. In my current job, I submit code to review all the time, but none of the reviewers actually understand it.
Don't get me wrong. It still helps. I have the sort of mind that can see other peoples' mistakes in a flash, but not my own. Not, that is, until I start to explain them to somebody else. So I still boost the practice.
A telling point. You see, if they actually have the knowledge to judge IT applicants, they aren't likely to be working in HR.
And who watched "Space, 1999" to see Martin Landau, anyway? I'll warrant that Barbara Bain may have had something to do with it....
[1] Ok, it's a 98 box. (cat flames >/dev/null 2>) is all I have to say about that.