It seems to me that the answer to spam is whitelists. I find I get very little non-spam from people who aren't in my address book (you just have to be diligent about keeping your whitelist up to date).
I realize that some people do have a different email usage pattern and do get lots of mail from new senders, but then you could just use an "ask for confirmation" style whitelist filter.
Is there some reason why whitelists aren't more popular (aside from the fact that it's not the default configuration of Outlook [Express])?
Re:Nothing more to see here. Move along.
on
Bitter Java
·
· Score: 1
No personal offense intended, but I'm always a little worried by people that think that they don't have anything more to learn.
You're probably right in that, if you're a professional programmer, you should probably know most of the stuff in this book.
But also, I'd be very surprised if there weren't several new ideas as well. Just because you're making money programming doesn't mean that you know everything. People tend to get into habits and don't look around for better ways.
I have this book and I'd almost recommend it but I think that the main point that needs to be made is that it's not about extreme programming (despite the title), it's about various tools that have come out of the Java (and XP) community.
The title is a very unfortunate marketing ploy. I say unfortunate because putting XP in the title will probably drive away Java programmers who don't care for XP.
But the tools it discusses (Ant, JUnit (and family), and JMeter) are applicable to any Java project, regardless of your development methodology. And beyond the first twenty pages or so of the book, the authors really don't mention XP.
Re:The main thing I think the article misses ...
on
The Next Generation
·
· Score: 1
There was an interesting article that I read by Spider Robinson (sorry, can't find the reference now) where he makes the point that we can envision technologies now that will probably, in a thousand years, mean that we don't do any of the things on the list you gave.
Sure, 1000 years is a bit less engaging than 50. But Robinson was writing a "millenial" type of article. His point was that we, more or less, live the same way people from the year 1000 lived, but that people from the year 3000 would have trouble recognizing us as
What's the/. owner's take on ad blocking software?
I think that it's becoming much more common.
I've never bothered to install ad blocking software, but I recently upgraded my firewall software (zonealarm) and it came with new ad blocking features. I figured, what the hell, turned it on, and wow! It's really nice. I wouldn't want to go back to browsing without it.
I think that this is the beginning of a trend and we're going to see ad blocking software built in to anti-virus software, web browsers, etc...
I hope that the Sci-Fi network keeps this up. Whatever one's opinions about particular TV adaptations, I think that it would be a very good idea for Sci-Fi network to make bringing classic SF literature to television as part of their mandate.
That's a lot better reason for the channel to exist than to show continuous repeats of the same old serieses.
This is only happenning because the online scam people don't have an effective Washington lobby and don't make enough campaign contributions.
After the FTC goons have pushed them around a bit, they'll get the idea and start paying the protection money, ah, sorry, right, that should be the "campaign contributions" (like the media industries do).
Buy a few senators and the FTC will fight with you not against you.
Well, I would say that the logic is that any company that could use it's own products and doesn't opens itself up to criticism concerning the quality of said products.
If the executives at Ford don't drive Ford cars then what does it say about Ford cars? If Microsoft developers don't use Visual Studio, what does it say about Visual Studio? If AOL/TW doesn't use the email system that AOL/TW sells, then what does it say about that email system?
So when one company buys another the new company has to try to use the products of both companies, regardless of the transitionary costs (e.g. Hotmail and Microsoft server OS).
The (unforunately named) phrase is "eating your own dogfood".
Well if physically finding the machines is important, why not use machine names of:
Longitude+Latitude+Altitude
With enough precision the names are guarenteed to be unique (to one universe). You could even install GPS and altimeter cards and have the machines name themselves automatically.
While lots of people talk about AOL shipping a Linux install on their ubiquitous CDs I don't really see that happening (because of the support nightmare of grandma calling up because she can't view the powerpoint presentations she had from her grandkids).
But what I do think that makes sense is AOL buying a hardware vendor and bundling Linux, Mozilla, an AOL client, and staroffice into a microsoft free solution.
Gateway would make a good choice becuase they're not doing so well (primarily because they're not Dell), but they've got good brand recognition. Then we'd start to see the "AOL Computer by Gateway" (with Linux probably not mentioned at all).
AOL would make it clear that this wasn't a Windows computer and that Windows software wouldn't run on it, but AOL has enough money to keep at it until they've sold enough units for software vendors to start supporting it. The target audience would be new computer users and heavy AOL users who are buying a new computer.
In my view the only way that Linux can succeed on the desktop is if the computer comes pre-installed with Linux. Installing a second OS is something that the average user is just never going to do. And AOL/TW has deep enough pockets to make a go of it.
I'm finding it pretty ironic that the main protection for our rights against corporate abuse is other corporations. Intel protecting our rights against Disney. AOL/TW protecting our rights against Microsoft.
Sure, the corporations are all acting only in their interests, not ours. But whatever happenned to our elected officials protecting our rights? (rhetorical question, btw)
Yes it can "hurt" in the sense that almost all environmental protection activities have some money cost associated with them.
For example, one figure I've seen thrown about (which may or may not be true, but it illustrates my point) is that the cost of implementing the Kyoto Agreement (on controlling carbon emissions) would be about the same as the cost of providing a source of clean drinking water to every person on earth that doesn't have one (which is, shamefully, a lot of people).
That's not to say that if we scrap Kyoto we would spend the money saved usefully elsewhere, but the point is that environmentalism does cost.
So it's fair to do cost/benefit analysis of all proposals (but very hard to get agreement on those costs and benefits...)
As Cliff (the poster) pointed out, we've been doing software development for over fifty years now. So why aren't things perfect yet?
I think that one of the reasons is that managers are unwilling to look to the literature of the industry. Over those fifty years a huge about of good stuff has been written about how to manage software projects and software companies. But very few managers read any of it.
As a rough-and-ready indicator of a manager's skills, I'll often have a look at the bookshelf in their office and see how interested they are in learning how to do their job better.
We could have a whole discussion about what are good and bad books for software project management (I usually start them off with "Peopleware" and go from there), but the first step is finding some managers who actually want to learn.
As an aside, this is also one of my pet peeves about programmers. Sure, lots of people have oracle DBA or java threads books on their shelf, but few people seem to read books about generally-being-a-better-programmer.
The problem with job postings on company web sites is that a lot of them are bogus too. The company might have the posting up but not really be hiring because:
o required for HR reasons but they already have somebody internal that they want
o nobody is maintaining the page anymore (maybe the guy who did it was fired:)
o the company wants to give the impression to investors/journalists/etc who are reading the site that the company is still growing. So they put up an job description, collect the resumes, but never have any interviews ("We're always interested in hiring excellent people!" yeah, right)
I don't see anything wrong with usage caps so long as the provider is completely clear about them. The provider has to pay fees for upstream bandwidth and it's only fair for them to want to control these costs.
Now, it is wrong for a provider to claim "unlimited" data transfer and then harass the users. But if the provider is clear about caps, then what's the problem.
Now, for the specific question of Rogers (and the other Canadian cable regional monopolies), the Canadian regulator (CRTC) should force them to provide open access to their "last mile" like they've successfully done with the telephone companies.
I didn't see anything in that article reflecting the alledged new focus on security that billg went to so much trouble to spell out in his public memo.
And not just that the new "features" metioned sound like great new places for bugs to hide, but MS doesn't even mention new security features in it's leaks.
Like many other people have said, if MS is serious about security then the next release of Windows has to be a complete security audit with zero new features.
sigh. and I had such high hopes that they got it this time.
I think that even Grandma will be a little upset if a new OS is slipped by her. Especially if it means that all the MS apps that she was using are gone.
But I think that there is another step in AOL's plan here: buying a computer vendor. Probably Gateway; they're cheap since Dell is crushing them.
So now they have computers, an OS, and all the other AOL/ICQ/Netscape/Winamp/etc software. Gateway then starts selling the "AOL Computer", with not a drop of MS software on it. (With staroffice for office apps.)
They now have a completely credible alternative to Microsoft.
Another important point in Canada's favour for broadband is that the regulator (CRTC, like US FCC) forced the monopoly telcos to sell their end of the DSL line wholesale.
That is, any company can offer to sell me DSL service and the telco has to let them connect their equipment to the switch end of my copper.
So it's not just the cable monopoly and the telco monopoly competing. I have dozens of choices for DSL service. And does competition drive down prices and improve service? Damn right it does.
I know that the FCC sort of did this. But the telcos dragged their heels and charged extremely high rates and I don't think that there are any independents left.
But you can always hope that the FCC will go to Verizon and say "you will offer other ISPs access and you will do it and this price, and if you give us any trouble we'll crush you." But somehow that doesn't seem like corporate-shill Powell's style. Too bad.
"an open extensible IDE for anything but nothing in particular...[value comes from] plug-ins that "teach" eclipse how to work with things"
Isn't that one description of emacs as well. Emacs has a, probably, justified reputation as being hard to use and extend. But is it really going to be that much easier to write extensions for Eclipse? And are those extension writers really going to make the extensions easy to use and with a consistant user interface? I have my doubts on both counts.
I don't think that this is really a computer science related question.
I mean that almost everyone reaches a point in their lives (usually somewhere in their twenties) when they come to the realization that they are not destined for true greatness. That they'll probably just lead ordinary lives, one in billions.
Don't get me wrong here, there is still plenty of oppourtunity for joy and even, dare I say it, job satisfaction. But we can't all change the world.
And I think that the poster was expressing this, more than a dis-satifaction with computer science.
I found the summiters comment about "things that never really existed in the first place" to be troubling.
The money in my bank account doesn't "exist" in any matter-based form, but I'd sure be pissed if it disappeared.
As members of a new virtual world, we have to adopt to attitude that information does "exist" and needs to be treated with the same care that physical things do.
It would be brilliant if the sci-fi channel decided that part of their mandate was to bring quality sci-fi literature to the small screen.
Of course, quality to whom. So start with the books that have stood the test of time.
The bit that worried me from the article was: "Brannon Braga confirmed that Paramount is testing a few early concepts with focus groups." Good television comes from creative vision, not consensus.
Slashdot Mirror
It seems to me that the answer to spam is whitelists. I find I get very little non-spam from people who aren't in my address book (you just have to be diligent about keeping your whitelist up to date).
I realize that some people do have a different email usage pattern and do get lots of mail from new senders, but then you could just use an "ask for confirmation" style whitelist filter.
Is there some reason why whitelists aren't more popular (aside from the fact that it's not the default configuration of Outlook [Express])?
No personal offense intended, but I'm always a little worried by people that think that they don't have anything more to learn.
You're probably right in that, if you're a professional programmer, you should probably know most of the stuff in this book.
But also, I'd be very surprised if there weren't several new ideas as well. Just because you're making money programming doesn't mean that you know everything. People tend to get into habits and don't look around for better ways.
I have this book and I'd almost recommend it but I think that the main point that needs to be made is that it's not about extreme programming (despite the title), it's about various tools that have come out of the Java (and XP) community.
The title is a very unfortunate marketing ploy. I say unfortunate because putting XP in the title will probably drive away Java programmers who don't care for XP.
But the tools it discusses (Ant, JUnit (and family), and JMeter) are applicable to any Java project, regardless of your development methodology. And beyond the first twenty pages or so of the book, the authors really don't mention XP.
There was an interesting article that I read by Spider Robinson (sorry, can't find the reference now) where he makes the point that we can envision technologies now that will probably, in a thousand years, mean that we don't do any of the things on the list you gave.
Sure, 1000 years is a bit less engaging than 50. But Robinson was writing a "millenial" type of article. His point was that we, more or less, live the same way people from the year 1000 lived, but that people from the year 3000 would have trouble recognizing us as
What's the /. owner's take on ad blocking software?
I think that it's becoming much more common.
I've never bothered to install ad blocking software, but I recently upgraded my firewall software (zonealarm) and it came with new ad blocking features. I figured, what the hell, turned it on, and wow! It's really nice. I wouldn't want to go back to browsing without it.
I think that this is the beginning of a trend and we're going to see ad blocking software built in to anti-virus software, web browsers, etc...
I hope that the Sci-Fi network keeps this up. Whatever one's opinions about particular TV adaptations, I think that it would be a very good idea for Sci-Fi network to make bringing classic SF literature to television as part of their mandate.
That's a lot better reason for the channel to exist than to show continuous repeats of the same old serieses.
This is only happenning because the online scam people don't have an effective Washington lobby and don't make enough campaign contributions.
After the FTC goons have pushed them around a bit, they'll get the idea and start paying the protection money, ah, sorry, right, that should be the "campaign contributions" (like the media industries do).
Buy a few senators and the FTC will fight with you not against you.
Well, I would say that the logic is that any company that could use it's own products and doesn't opens itself up to criticism concerning the quality of said products.
If the executives at Ford don't drive Ford cars then what does it say about Ford cars? If Microsoft developers don't use Visual Studio, what does it say about Visual Studio? If AOL/TW doesn't use the email system that AOL/TW sells, then what does it say about that email system?
So when one company buys another the new company has to try to use the products of both companies, regardless of the transitionary costs (e.g. Hotmail and Microsoft server OS).
The (unforunately named) phrase is "eating your own dogfood".
Well if physically finding the machines is important, why not use machine names of:
Longitude+Latitude+Altitude
With enough precision the names are guarenteed to be unique (to one universe). You could even install GPS and altimeter cards and have the machines name themselves automatically.
While lots of people talk about AOL shipping a Linux install on their ubiquitous CDs I don't really see that happening (because of the support nightmare of grandma calling up because she can't view the powerpoint presentations she had from her grandkids).
But what I do think that makes sense is AOL buying a hardware vendor and bundling Linux, Mozilla, an AOL client, and staroffice into a microsoft free solution.
Gateway would make a good choice becuase they're not doing so well (primarily because they're not Dell), but they've got good brand recognition. Then we'd start to see the "AOL Computer by Gateway" (with Linux probably not mentioned at all).
AOL would make it clear that this wasn't a Windows computer and that Windows software wouldn't run on it, but AOL has enough money to keep at it until they've sold enough units for software vendors to start supporting it. The target audience would be new computer users and heavy AOL users who are buying a new computer.
In my view the only way that Linux can succeed on the desktop is if the computer comes pre-installed with Linux. Installing a second OS is something that the average user is just never going to do. And AOL/TW has deep enough pockets to make a go of it.
I'm finding it pretty ironic that the main protection for our rights against corporate abuse is other corporations. Intel protecting our rights against Disney. AOL/TW protecting our rights against Microsoft.
Sure, the corporations are all acting only in their interests, not ours. But whatever happenned to our elected officials protecting our rights? (rhetorical question, btw)
Yes it can "hurt" in the sense that almost all environmental protection activities have some money cost associated with them.
For example, one figure I've seen thrown about (which may or may not be true, but it illustrates my point) is that the cost of implementing the Kyoto Agreement (on controlling carbon emissions) would be about the same as the cost of providing a source of clean drinking water to every person on earth that doesn't have one (which is, shamefully, a lot of people).
That's not to say that if we scrap Kyoto we would spend the money saved usefully elsewhere, but the point is that environmentalism does cost.
So it's fair to do cost/benefit analysis of all proposals (but very hard to get agreement on those costs and benefits...)
As Cliff (the poster) pointed out, we've been doing software development for over fifty years now. So why aren't things perfect yet?
I think that one of the reasons is that managers are unwilling to look to the literature of the industry. Over those fifty years a huge about of good stuff has been written about how to manage software projects and software companies. But very few managers read any of it.
As a rough-and-ready indicator of a manager's skills, I'll often have a look at the bookshelf in their office and see how interested they are in learning how to do their job better.
We could have a whole discussion about what are good and bad books for software project management (I usually start them off with "Peopleware" and go from there), but the first step is finding some managers who actually want to learn.
As an aside, this is also one of my pet peeves about programmers. Sure, lots of people have oracle DBA or java threads books on their shelf, but few people seem to read books about generally-being-a-better-programmer.
The problem with job postings on company web sites is that a lot of them are bogus too. The company might have the posting up but not really be hiring because:
:)
o required for HR reasons but they already have somebody internal that they want
o nobody is maintaining the page anymore (maybe the guy who did it was fired
o the company wants to give the impression to investors/journalists/etc who are reading the site that the company is still growing. So they put up an job description, collect the resumes, but never have any interviews ("We're always interested in hiring excellent people!" yeah, right)
There is also the case of:
Reading my received email using my computer.
Like for example if the police have a search warrant, does that give them the right to read the email stored on my computer.
My guess would be yes, as the real work analogy is listing to the voice messages left on my telephone answering machine.
I don't see anything wrong with usage caps so long as the provider is completely clear about them. The provider has to pay fees for upstream bandwidth and it's only fair for them to want to control these costs.
Now, it is wrong for a provider to claim "unlimited" data transfer and then harass the users. But if the provider is clear about caps, then what's the problem.
Now, for the specific question of Rogers (and the other Canadian cable regional monopolies), the Canadian regulator (CRTC) should force them to provide open access to their "last mile" like they've successfully done with the telephone companies.
I didn't see anything in that article reflecting the alledged new focus on security that billg went to so much trouble to spell out in his public memo.
And not just that the new "features" metioned sound like great new places for bugs to hide, but MS doesn't even mention new security features in it's leaks.
Like many other people have said, if MS is serious about security then the next release of Windows has to be a complete security audit with zero new features.
sigh. and I had such high hopes that they got it this time.
"Markist[sic] theory describes the capitalist as..."
I think that we're off to a problem right at the start if you're going to use Carl Marx's definition of capitalism as the basis for your arguement.
Why don't we instead start from a more neutral dictionary definition. Like this one from Miriam-Webster Collegiate dictionary:
capitalist: a person who has capital especially invested in business
I think that even Grandma will be a little upset if a new OS is slipped by her. Especially if it means that all the MS apps that she was using are gone.
But I think that there is another step in AOL's plan here: buying a computer vendor. Probably Gateway; they're cheap since Dell is crushing them.
So now they have computers, an OS, and all the other AOL/ICQ/Netscape/Winamp/etc software. Gateway then starts selling the "AOL Computer", with not a drop of MS software on it. (With staroffice for office apps.)
They now have a completely credible alternative to Microsoft.
Another important point in Canada's favour for broadband is that the regulator (CRTC, like US FCC) forced the monopoly telcos to sell their end of the DSL line wholesale.
That is, any company can offer to sell me DSL service and the telco has to let them connect their equipment to the switch end of my copper.
So it's not just the cable monopoly and the telco monopoly competing. I have dozens of choices for DSL service. And does competition drive down prices and improve service? Damn right it does.
I know that the FCC sort of did this. But the telcos dragged their heels and charged extremely high rates and I don't think that there are any independents left.
But you can always hope that the FCC will go to Verizon and say "you will offer other ISPs access and you will do it and this price, and if you give us any trouble we'll crush you." But somehow that doesn't seem like corporate-shill Powell's style. Too bad.
From the project page:
"an open extensible IDE for anything but nothing in particular...[value comes from] plug-ins that "teach" eclipse how to work with things"
Isn't that one description of emacs as well. Emacs has a, probably, justified reputation as being hard to use and extend. But is it really going to be that much easier to write extensions for Eclipse? And are those extension writers really going to make the extensions easy to use and with a consistant user interface? I have my doubts on both counts.
And the subject line was rhetorical.
I don't think that this is really a computer science related question.
I mean that almost everyone reaches a point in their lives (usually somewhere in their twenties) when they come to the realization that they are not destined for true greatness. That they'll probably just lead ordinary lives, one in billions.
Don't get me wrong here, there is still plenty of oppourtunity for joy and even, dare I say it, job satisfaction. But we can't all change the world.
And I think that the poster was expressing this, more than a dis-satifaction with computer science.
Or, hopefully, I'm wrong. About everything.
I found the summiters comment about "things that never really existed in the first place" to be troubling. The money in my bank account doesn't "exist" in any matter-based form, but I'd sure be pissed if it disappeared. As members of a new virtual world, we have to adopt to attitude that information does "exist" and needs to be treated with the same care that physical things do.
It would be brilliant if the sci-fi channel decided that part of their mandate was to bring quality sci-fi literature to the small screen. Of course, quality to whom. So start with the books that have stood the test of time.
The bit that worried me from the article was: "Brannon Braga confirmed that Paramount is testing a few early concepts with focus groups." Good television comes from creative vision, not consensus.