I was watching "The Right Stuff" the other day and it struck me that what the space program needs is a return to cool project names.
I mean, "Mercury", "Apollo", those were names you could really get behind. But what do we get now: "Space Shuttle" (or even worse "Space Transport System") and "International Space Station".
So, NASA, don't even think about calling it "Manned Mars Mission"! I guess the obvious choice would be the "Ares" project; but please, anything with a little style.
I think I see what you're saying. But if the large set of supporting libraries isn't an optional add on, but is defined as being part of the language (for example, you can't claim that you have a java virtual-machine unless you implement several gazillion libraries, we can quibble about java the language vs. java the environment, but the reality is that programmers will reject using a VM that doesn't have it all); then why does the distinction between the fundamental operators of the language and all those libraries matter to the end user of the language?
And if the difference between the two things is irrelevant to the programmer, then why doesn having a small set of fundamental operators matter for the long term influence of the language?
I guess maybe that gets to the root of my problem, I don't think that Graham presented a complete arguement about why having a small set of fundamental operators matters. Looking at the article again, it's more like he simply asserted the point and then used the point to push his bias.
I guess I need him to write another article entitled: "This Is Why Having a Small Set of Fundamental Operators Makes a Language Better Even Though the Vast Majority of Programmers Couldn't Even Tell You What the Fundamental Operators of the Language Are."
Well obviously if you don't need to write to the console or there is no console, then you're not going to use the standard i/o libraries. My point was that if you're writing a program that does write to the console, you're not going to write a whole new version of printf() using low level operating system calls. You're going to assume that the standard i/o library is available.
Hey, I actually read the article and there's a key point that Graham makes that I don't agree with.
He makes the point to separate the details of a language into "fundamental operators" and "all the rest" then goes on to say that languages which last and have influence on future languages are the ones that minimize the number of fundamental operators. And then gives examples of things that are fundamental operators in many languages that he feels we don't need (e.g. strings, arrays, maybe numbers).
He doesn't have much to say about "all the rest". Presumabily he would move strings into "all the rest" since we would still want our languages to have functions to manipulate strings (if you think that I'm ever going to write a string tokenizer function again, you've got another thing coming).
But, I think that the basic concept of splitting up a language into these two parts is fundamentally flawed. The line between the core of the language and all the accompanying libraries of code has broken down completely. It was already falling apart in C (does anyone program C without assuming that the standard I/O library is available?). But with Java and C# the distinction is almost completely gone. Programming languages have become complete environments were you can assume that tons of libraries are naturally going to be available. And separating out a language's "fundamental operators" and it's "all the rest" is an artificial division that doesn't really work.
You answered your own question. The reason your suggestion will never happen is because it would require consumer electronics companies to co-operate on a standard. And they really, really, REALLY hate doing that. Even when there is the potential to make lots of money they still won't (e.g. pick one re-writeable DVD standard).
All home electronics equipment could easily be interoperable by now, there's no technical obstacle and the protocols are all there. But the CE companies simply refuse to work together. They're stuck in a zero-sum game mentallity.
Your issue with what are generally known as terminator genes (seeds which produce plants that cannot have viable offspring) is not a problem with genetic engineering per se. Rather it's a complaint with a particular practice of the agribusiness industry. Whether that practice was achieved with genetic engineering or chemicals or selective breeding or even (hypothetical) seed use licensing laws isn't really germane.
Is anybody working on a phone optimized for people who just want to talk on their telephone? By that I mean, no camera, no colour screen, no games, etc, etc.
I want a phone that is as small as you can make it while still having good reception. Plus get the battery life as long as you can (mostly by cutting out all the extras). Small, long battery life, good reception, that's all.
Unfortunately, the telephones that skip all the extra crap tend to be the company's cheap models and tend to be very large.
Even if you know what you're doing.
on
Family Tech Support
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· Score: 1, Redundant
No stupidity in this story, but here it is anyway.
I was doing some tech support for my Mom and things weren't going well (I think that it was that the bridge active X control for MS zone wouldn't run under a non-administrator user), and I loudly expressed a few choice words about the program, the programmers who made it, and their ancestors. I believe that there may have been some wall banging involving my fists.
Afterwards, my Mom said that she was glad to see that computers were just as hard to use for people who knew what they were doing. It made her feel better when she had problems.
Also, as a programmer, I like the idea of a company that produces both productivity applications and games. The only other one that I can think of is Microsoft. It's nice to see a company making the products that it wants to make, even if they don't all fit a "product line".
I say "as a programmer" because I still hold out the hope that my manager will come to me and say "Bill, for the next project we thought we'd move away from accounts receivable applications and make a game."
I don't think that you can say that TNG had no continuity. Like the other ST serieses, TNG followed the formula of having about 5 out of 6 episodes have no continuity (the strange phenomenom of the week episodes) while the other 1 out of 6 relied on knowledge of past events to get full enjoyment out of the episode. (Not that you couldn't enjoy the continuity episodes if you hadn't seen previous episodes, but it worked better if you had.)
Somewhat ironically, most the the episodes you cite were continutity episodes. Would "Q Who", "The Best of Both Worlds", and "Yesterday's Enterprise" work as well if you hadn't seen previous episodes with Q, the borg, and Tasha Yar, respectively. Sure, they're watchable if you hadn't, but they don't have the same emotional impact.
Even "The Inner Light" has more emotional impact if you had seen previous episodes that established that Picard somewhat regrets trading a family for his career.
Granted, TNG is very continuity light compared to Buffy. But it had much higher continuity than most TV drama.
I said it in the Interwoven patent thread and I'll say it again. Yes, I'm very worried about patent system abuse, but what I can I do about it.
All I can think of is to write a letter to my congressman and maybe make a donation to the EFF, but I really don't see that making very much of a difference.
Rather than the usual wailing and gnashing that we usually see on these patent abuse threads, can someone please come up with something that an ordinary person without a lot of money can do about the situation?
And if nobody can come up with something good to do, could the editors just stop posting these patent abuse stories, because they always simply generate the same set of responses.
Okay, yet another story about an overly broad patent on existing technology. Yes, I'm as worried about this as you are. But what can I do?
About the only thing that I can think of is to write a letter to my congressman and maybe throw a few bucks at the EFF. But I don't see that doing much because, dispite the complete idiocy of the situation, the issue just doesn't seem to have a high enough profile to attract legislative action.
Are there any other ideas about what an individual without a lot of money can really do about this problem?
Nah, it's not that bad. I've got DSL (in Toronto) for C$30, regular price not a special, limited time start up price, no extra charges (to the ISP that is, of course I need to have basic telephone service from Bell to get DSL from anybody).
For this to work, you already need to have a relationship with the client. Once they trust that you aren't going to screw them, they're much more willing.
Ah, that's a good point. My negative experiences with trying to get people to agree to an optional scope contract were with new(ish) clients where we didn't have a pre-existing relationship of trust.
I think that if a suitable existing client comes along with a suitable project I might just try it again (optional scope contract that is, I still have other problems with XP, but that's another story).
Your approach is a good one, and mirrored much of what we usually did, but I don't think that you can claim that what you described is XP (if that was the point you were trying to make). There's way too much up front design for what I understand to be real XP. (And yes, I do understand that XP doesn't say "no design".)
I would classify your methodology as Evolutionary Delivery (as per McConnell's lifecycle definitions).
Oh goody, another XP flame war on/. I might as well jump in the fire.
Well, I worked at a web shop for a few years (though, that was during the bubble, maybe things have changed now) and I looked into using XP because many aspects of it seemed to fit our needs. But one aspect always hung me up and that was that XP projects are basically optional scope contracts.
Basically, the clients always wanted to see the whole site (at least mockups) before they would sign off on the work. Even if we all knew that there was likely to be significant changes along the way.
Saying something like "let's get broad agreement on the general nature of the site and then work in iterations to refine the details. Now please sign this contract for three months of work for four developers" just didn't work.
Now, XP proponents will claim that this can be overcome by educating the client. I'll just say that that wasn't my experience. Optional scope contracts just wouldn't fly. Other XP proponents might say to hide the process from the client and make an XP project look, to the outside, like a waterfall with very flexible change management, but I wasn't happy with that sort of methodological dishonesty.
I think that this problem with optional scope is a problem not just with web sites but with any project where contractor and client are different companies. Most of the XP success stories I've heard are on projects where the client is an internal division of the same company, so things are a little less confrontational and more flexible.
I stand corrected on the details of my rant. But I think that the basic point still holds. MS is very selective about what software they do and don't bundle.
And if there was a lawsuit about removing A-V software, it would seem to be pretty good precident to prevent the bundling of IE, messenger, WMP, etc.
I'm going to take this oppourtunity to rant a little bit off topic.
One thing that has always pissed me off about Microsoft bundling products into the OS is that they've never bundled anti-virus software. Anti-virus software is pretty much required on any computer running Windows, and if any software is a natural fit to go into the OS, anti-virus is it. I mean christ! MS is bundling firewall and NAT software in the OS now! But no A-V?!?
Now, I realize that the reasons are all about marketing and company politics (MS wants to crush Real, for example, but doesn't really mind Symantec). But I'd like to see some anti-trust official use A-V software as the babelfish versus God argument against MS OS bundling.
Microsoft Guy: Well, your honor, including all these programs in the operating system was essential to provide the user with a productive and innovative experience.
Anti-trust Guy: Ah ha! But what about A-V software! It's absolutely required but you've never bundled it.
I think that one of the big questions that underlies the problems we're having with the RBOCs (and in other areas) is: who owns infrastructure that a private company built while they were operating under a government granted monopoly?
If we can clearly answer that question, then the other issues clear up a bit.
If you think "well, a private company built it, so they own it", then the FCC and everyone else should just get the hell out.
But if you think "well, that government granted monopoly was equivalent to a government subsidy, so the people are at least part owners of the resulting infrastructure", then the FCC has every right to step in and mandate the cost of accessing that infrastructure.
Remember folks, the purpose of capitalism isn't to serve the workers and, despite what some people think, it isn't to serve the employers/owners. No, the purpose is to serve the consumers. The whole system is set up to produce the best quality goods and services at the lowest price.
And this is a good thing because its the system that gives the most power to the individual (just like democracy is the sytem that gives the most power to the individual (the citizen)).
Are the localized disruptions and hardships? Yes. But the advantage of the system is that everyone gets the benefits. (Whereas in most other systems, for example, socialism, everyone gets the hardships and the benefits are localized.)
I stopped reading Crichton because he stopped writing novels and started writing padded screenplays. There's rarely anything written about the internal aspects of the characters, it's all in the dialog. The setting and action sequences are spelled out in great details. And it's clear what parts are padding that's meant to be removed when cutting the story down to movie length. I wouldn't be surprised if he wrote the screenplay first then wrote the novellization.
Okay, you could argue that this was always the case, but it's gotten worse and worse with each book.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't understand why the broswser component needs a separate name. Why isn't it just the "mozilla browser" and the "mozilla email client", etc.
They've got a very well established name in mozilla. Why dilute their presense with lots of other names?
In the matter of religion versus science I'm issuing a restraining order: religion must remain 500 yards from science at all times.
-5F05 "Lisa the Skeptic"
For another data point, I'm paying $20 (CAN$30) for 1Mbit/s service (Toronto, Canada). So $16.50 for 128kbit/s sounds pretty damn expensive.
I was watching "The Right Stuff" the other day and it struck me that what the space program needs is a return to cool project names.
I mean, "Mercury", "Apollo", those were names you could really get behind. But what do we get now: "Space Shuttle" (or even worse "Space Transport System") and "International Space Station".
So, NASA, don't even think about calling it "Manned Mars Mission"! I guess the obvious choice would be the "Ares" project; but please, anything with a little style.
I think I see what you're saying. But if the large set of supporting libraries isn't an optional add on, but is defined as being part of the language (for example, you can't claim that you have a java virtual-machine unless you implement several gazillion libraries, we can quibble about java the language vs. java the environment, but the reality is that programmers will reject using a VM that doesn't have it all); then why does the distinction between the fundamental operators of the language and all those libraries matter to the end user of the language?
And if the difference between the two things is irrelevant to the programmer, then why doesn having a small set of fundamental operators matter for the long term influence of the language?
I guess maybe that gets to the root of my problem, I don't think that Graham presented a complete arguement about why having a small set of fundamental operators matters. Looking at the article again, it's more like he simply asserted the point and then used the point to push his bias.
I guess I need him to write another article entitled: "This Is Why Having a Small Set of Fundamental Operators Makes a Language Better Even Though the Vast Majority of Programmers Couldn't Even Tell You What the Fundamental Operators of the Language Are."
Well obviously if you don't need to write to the console or there is no console, then you're not going to use the standard i/o libraries. My point was that if you're writing a program that does write to the console, you're not going to write a whole new version of printf() using low level operating system calls. You're going to assume that the standard i/o library is available.
Hey, I actually read the article and there's a key point that Graham makes that I don't agree with.
He makes the point to separate the details of a language into "fundamental operators" and "all the rest" then goes on to say that languages which last and have influence on future languages are the ones that minimize the number of fundamental operators. And then gives examples of things that are fundamental operators in many languages that he feels we don't need (e.g. strings, arrays, maybe numbers).
He doesn't have much to say about "all the rest". Presumabily he would move strings into "all the rest" since we would still want our languages to have functions to manipulate strings (if you think that I'm ever going to write a string tokenizer function again, you've got another thing coming).
But, I think that the basic concept of splitting up a language into these two parts is fundamentally flawed. The line between the core of the language and all the accompanying libraries of code has broken down completely. It was already falling apart in C (does anyone program C without assuming that the standard I/O library is available?). But with Java and C# the distinction is almost completely gone. Programming languages have become complete environments were you can assume that tons of libraries are naturally going to be available. And separating out a language's "fundamental operators" and it's "all the rest" is an artificial division that doesn't really work.
You answered your own question. The reason your suggestion will never happen is because it would require consumer electronics companies to co-operate on a standard. And they really, really, REALLY hate doing that. Even when there is the potential to make lots of money they still won't (e.g. pick one re-writeable DVD standard).
All home electronics equipment could easily be interoperable by now, there's no technical obstacle and the protocols are all there. But the CE companies simply refuse to work together. They're stuck in a zero-sum game mentallity.
Your issue with what are generally known as terminator genes (seeds which produce plants that cannot have viable offspring) is not a problem with genetic engineering per se. Rather it's a complaint with a particular practice of the agribusiness industry. Whether that practice was achieved with genetic engineering or chemicals or selective breeding or even (hypothetical) seed use licensing laws isn't really germane.
Well, to be fair, there are as many new episodes of Enterprise produced per year as every other show on television, 22 to 26.
And by convention, the television season usually lasts from September to May. That's, of course, more than 26 weeks, so they show re-runs.
Enterprise isn't any better or worse for re-runs than any other show.
(Note: of course, I'm describing how network television works in the United States. Other countries do it differently.)
Is anybody working on a phone optimized for people who just want to talk on their telephone? By that I mean, no camera, no colour screen, no games, etc, etc.
I want a phone that is as small as you can make it while still having good reception. Plus get the battery life as long as you can (mostly by cutting out all the extras). Small, long battery life, good reception, that's all.
Unfortunately, the telephones that skip all the extra crap tend to be the company's cheap models and tend to be very large.
No stupidity in this story, but here it is anyway.
I was doing some tech support for my Mom and things weren't going well (I think that it was that the bridge active X control for MS zone wouldn't run under a non-administrator user), and I loudly expressed a few choice words about the program, the programmers who made it, and their ancestors. I believe that there may have been some wall banging involving my fists.
Afterwards, my Mom said that she was glad to see that computers were just as hard to use for people who knew what they were doing. It made her feel better when she had problems.
Also, as a programmer, I like the idea of a company that produces both productivity applications and games. The only other one that I can think of is Microsoft. It's nice to see a company making the products that it wants to make, even if they don't all fit a "product line".
I say "as a programmer" because I still hold out the hope that my manager will come to me and say "Bill, for the next project we thought we'd move away from accounts receivable applications and make a game."
I don't think that you can say that TNG had no continuity. Like the other ST serieses, TNG followed the formula of having about 5 out of 6 episodes have no continuity (the strange phenomenom of the week episodes) while the other 1 out of 6 relied on knowledge of past events to get full enjoyment out of the episode. (Not that you couldn't enjoy the continuity episodes if you hadn't seen previous episodes, but it worked better if you had.)
Somewhat ironically, most the the episodes you cite were continutity episodes. Would "Q Who", "The Best of Both Worlds", and "Yesterday's Enterprise" work as well if you hadn't seen previous episodes with Q, the borg, and Tasha Yar, respectively. Sure, they're watchable if you hadn't, but they don't have the same emotional impact.
Even "The Inner Light" has more emotional impact if you had seen previous episodes that established that Picard somewhat regrets trading a family for his career.
Granted, TNG is very continuity light compared to Buffy. But it had much higher continuity than most TV drama.
I said it in the Interwoven patent thread and I'll say it again. Yes, I'm very worried about patent system abuse, but what I can I do about it.
All I can think of is to write a letter to my congressman and maybe make a donation to the EFF, but I really don't see that making very much of a difference.
Rather than the usual wailing and gnashing that we usually see on these patent abuse threads, can someone please come up with something that an ordinary person without a lot of money can do about the situation?
And if nobody can come up with something good to do, could the editors just stop posting these patent abuse stories, because they always simply generate the same set of responses.
Okay, yet another story about an overly broad patent on existing technology. Yes, I'm as worried about this as you are. But what can I do?
About the only thing that I can think of is to write a letter to my congressman and maybe throw a few bucks at the EFF. But I don't see that doing much because, dispite the complete idiocy of the situation, the issue just doesn't seem to have a high enough profile to attract legislative action.
Are there any other ideas about what an individual without a lot of money can really do about this problem?
Nah, it's not that bad. I've got DSL (in Toronto) for C$30, regular price not a special, limited time start up price, no extra charges (to the ISP that is, of course I need to have basic telephone service from Bell to get DSL from anybody).
For this to work, you already need to have a relationship with the client. Once they trust that you aren't going to screw them, they're much more willing.
Ah, that's a good point. My negative experiences with trying to get people to agree to an optional scope contract were with new(ish) clients where we didn't have a pre-existing relationship of trust.
I think that if a suitable existing client comes along with a suitable project I might just try it again (optional scope contract that is, I still have other problems with XP, but that's another story).
Thanks for your insight.
Your approach is a good one, and mirrored much of what we usually did, but I don't think that you can claim that what you described is XP (if that was the point you were trying to make). There's way too much up front design for what I understand to be real XP. (And yes, I do understand that XP doesn't say "no design".)
I would classify your methodology as Evolutionary Delivery (as per McConnell's lifecycle definitions).
Oh goody, another XP flame war on /. I might as well jump in the fire.
Well, I worked at a web shop for a few years (though, that was during the bubble, maybe things have changed now) and I looked into using XP because many aspects of it seemed to fit our needs. But one aspect always hung me up and that was that XP projects are basically optional scope contracts.
Basically, the clients always wanted to see the whole site (at least mockups) before they would sign off on the work. Even if we all knew that there was likely to be significant changes along the way.
Saying something like "let's get broad agreement on the general nature of the site and then work in iterations to refine the details. Now please sign this contract for three months of work for four developers" just didn't work.
Now, XP proponents will claim that this can be overcome by educating the client. I'll just say that that wasn't my experience. Optional scope contracts just wouldn't fly. Other XP proponents might say to hide the process from the client and make an XP project look, to the outside, like a waterfall with very flexible change management, but I wasn't happy with that sort of methodological dishonesty.
I think that this problem with optional scope is a problem not just with web sites but with any project where contractor and client are different companies. Most of the XP success stories I've heard are on projects where the client is an internal division of the same company, so things are a little less confrontational and more flexible.
I stand corrected on the details of my rant. But I think that the basic point still holds. MS is very selective about what software they do and don't bundle.
And if there was a lawsuit about removing A-V software, it would seem to be pretty good precident to prevent the bundling of IE, messenger, WMP, etc.
I'm going to take this oppourtunity to rant a little bit off topic.
One thing that has always pissed me off about Microsoft bundling products into the OS is that they've never bundled anti-virus software. Anti-virus software is pretty much required on any computer running Windows, and if any software is a natural fit to go into the OS, anti-virus is it. I mean christ! MS is bundling firewall and NAT software in the OS now! But no A-V?!?
Now, I realize that the reasons are all about marketing and company politics (MS wants to crush Real, for example, but doesn't really mind Symantec). But I'd like to see some anti-trust official use A-V software as the babelfish versus God argument against MS OS bundling.
Microsoft Guy: Well, your honor, including all these programs in the operating system was essential to provide the user with a productive and innovative experience.
Anti-trust Guy: Ah ha! But what about A-V software! It's absolutely required but you've never bundled it.
[Microsoft Guy disappears in a puff of logic.]
I think that one of the big questions that underlies the problems we're having with the RBOCs (and in other areas) is: who owns infrastructure that a private company built while they were operating under a government granted monopoly?
If we can clearly answer that question, then the other issues clear up a bit.
If you think "well, a private company built it, so they own it", then the FCC and everyone else should just get the hell out.
But if you think "well, that government granted monopoly was equivalent to a government subsidy, so the people are at least part owners of the resulting infrastructure", then the FCC has every right to step in and mandate the cost of accessing that infrastructure.
Huzzah! Some common sense.
Remember folks, the purpose of capitalism isn't to serve the workers and, despite what some people think, it isn't to serve the employers/owners. No, the purpose is to serve the consumers. The whole system is set up to produce the best quality goods and services at the lowest price.
And this is a good thing because its the system that gives the most power to the individual (just like democracy is the sytem that gives the most power to the individual (the citizen)).
Are the localized disruptions and hardships? Yes. But the advantage of the system is that everyone gets the benefits. (Whereas in most other systems, for example, socialism, everyone gets the hardships and the benefits are localized.)
I stopped reading Crichton because he stopped writing novels and started writing padded screenplays. There's rarely anything written about the internal aspects of the characters, it's all in the dialog. The setting and action sequences are spelled out in great details. And it's clear what parts are padding that's meant to be removed when cutting the story down to movie length. I wouldn't be surprised if he wrote the screenplay first then wrote the novellization.
Okay, you could argue that this was always the case, but it's gotten worse and worse with each book.