I like Boris Beizer's "Black Box Testing", which is not really about white box testing. It has really good examples based on filling out U.S. tax forms. It helps to understand testing at both specific and abstract levels.
In the first few chapter the reader was admonished to find out what happens next byu reading the next chapter. Ungghh, how annoying.
Again, from "Red Mars", which I liked, the notion of monotheism as a shepherder idea.Unghh, ok, but does this have to come up in every book?
I found very few of the characters interesting, or related to the sweep of history. In "Red Storm Rising" by Tom Clancy or "Winds of War" by Herman Wouk the author manages to tell a sweeping story where you care about the each part and each character. This book missed that.
All that said, read "Red Mars", you'll probably like it.
Chemically the ink is water with 1/1000 or less of dye added. Dye that cost pennies per cart or less. Mostly water and we're paying more than gasoline, good booze, etc..?
Almost every rule in English has several exceptions, and many things in English cannot be deduced from rules, they must simply each be learned, and there are hundreds of these. Pronunciation is ridiculous, which you've mentioned, but apart from pronunciation is grammar, spelling, plural forms, tenses and possessive forms, all of these have strange nuances in English.
Sounds suspiciously like perl. How many times have I explained about scalar and list context.
I assume you mean that Raskin seems to critisize modalism in interface design and that Vi can't be used without considering if you are in insert or command mode.
You are right, of course... but on other fronts Vi is very good at allowing me to edit large pieces of text without using the mouse to confirm "ok" in some dialog box seperate from the text, and by using a minimum of keystrokes. When I use Emacs I feel like I have to remember too many keystroke combinations to do the same job.
Also just because a programmer can become used to modality doesn't mean that everyone should do the same. After all theoretically each key on the keyboard could cause a change global modality when pressing a second key while holding down the first. (That would be a nightmare). But most of can manage to figure out that shift will uppercase the keys without too many problems.
The problem with modality that Raskin points out is like the CAPSLOCK key, that gives almost no indication that it has been pressed but quite obviously changes the mode. (That's why I use the Happy Hacker keyboard, no CAPSLOCK)
I liked the book a lot because it focused a lot on making the human machine interface more efficient. I pretty much hate gui's that force you to jump through umpteen dialogs to configure something that should take 5 or 6 key strokes and Raskin seems to understand this.
I even had my wife a non-programmer read the section on modalism, which has greatly enhanced her ability to turn on the TV and actually play the TiVo or DVD successfully without calling me.
After reading the book I am even more rabid about my adoration of ViM
One problem... in the book he talks a lot about products like this Canon word processor that didn't seem like commercial successes. They may have been "humane" or even efficient, but no one bought them. What good is that?
If everyone starts wiring up to their neighbors via real cable or 802.11 (wi-fi is the new marketing term). Then there would be lots of routes.
I am thinking of doing this in my neighborhood. It doesn't take a lot more than what organizing a block party does. The trick would be then to establish links between neighborhoods.
I am not qualified to comment on Oracle or other RDBMS'es but I would vouch for MySQL paid support. They are very quick to respond and work until the problem is solved. It's worth the money.
I gaurantee that Oracle support won't get you email from the main developers. When you have MySQL support you may just get Monty to respond.
If need be they'll send a patch for you to compile, so you can see what changed. Oracle won't be doing that anytime soon.
I gotta say I use VMWare running a MS OS just for web browsing and those darm attachments in propietary formats.
It works really well and you can suspend the OS when it's not in use. It's a lot slicker than dual boot by a long shot.
There are some cultural issues. Some people don't know why it's a good idea to send files in email in a non-propietary format. I send them a few files they don't know how to open and they usually get the hint. Send them postscript when you are feeling kind and nroff when you feel cranky.
The U.S. has numerous laws re: restraint of trade. Most of these non-competes are thrown out, because they restrain trade. Companies unfortunately have the upper hand since they have a staff of lawyers on retainer so there cost is essentially -$0- while the ex-employee may find the defense costs exorbitant.
If it's ever an issue you can also have you new employer agree to defend you in case they pull stuff like this. If they want you bad enough it's no big deal since they have lawyers on retainer too.
That is pretty lame, but sadly I hear it way too often in this forum.
If that is so true (that people who can't do some esoteric computer task, then too bad for them) why do you use a keyboard instead of flipping bit switches on the front of an Altair. Well, duh the keyboard is easier and much more accessible for people who don't think in hex or binary.
Why don't you go back to your punch cards? That would certainly raise the bar for people who shouldn't be allowed to use computers.
Maybe everyone should have to write their own OS kernel, that would seperate who should be able to use a computer.
Maybe you should be forced to design your own chips, that would really seperate those who are worthy to operate a computer.
You do whatever you want with your CDR's. Keep all you money under your mattress. I don't care.
What I'm saying is that there are people who will need help with their storage. You don't have to be part of the solution, if you don't want to be.
This is interesting. The lessons from Napster, general network / lan files sharing, as well as dozens of other files sharing technologies, even ftp mirrors show us that this is a powerful and useful sharing proposal.
However, it isn't the only thing. There is still a place for data that is not shared that has higher fences or protection and authentication gaurding it.
I think about my data as being more like my money. I want to be able to retain full control of who gets it and when.
For instance, I want everyone to be able to access my boring personal web site all the time for free. I want only my wife and myself to be able to access my tax returns for the last five years. I want my child to be able to access the family photo gallery, but I don't want him to be able to delete it. I want to be able to transfer all my personal data from one data warehouse to another as easy as it is to transfer banks.
When people start talking about these file sharing technologies they forget that the data we have fits into many different profiles. Each of them needs a different level of protection.
Now one person I know suggested that people will always want their personal data on their own hard drive. Sounds like a good idea in theory, but here are the facts as I see them.
Most people can't organize their hard drives well enough to keep track of their data.
Most people aren't capable of performing regular backups.
Most people can't effectively use virus scanning software.
Most people can't write effective indexing or searching software to find what they want.
Most people let professionals manage their valuable assets. Meaning most people have more money at the bank or the brokerage than they keep in their home. How many people do you know who keep all their money in a beige tin box under a messy desk in their house? Thats exactly what people do with their valuable data.
Now, as recently as one year ago, I would have said that most people had less then one meg of important digital content, that was unique. Now it's a different story with digital photos (good or bad, it doesn't matter) digital movies, banking and tax information, etc..
My two cents.
timbu
It's pretty neat actually
on
Perl and .NET
·
· Score: 1
I have tried Visual Studio.NET + the Visual Perl plugin + the Perl to IL compiler. I have to say it's all pretty neat, assuming you are running Windows.
I fear the dark side of MS, and actually far prefer vim to an IDE, but this stuff works in a pretty compelling way. Perl is a pretty good glue language in it's own right, but if you wanted to call functions from C++, Java or VB from the same Perl code, well you would be pissing up a rope. Seems like you could actually do that with.NET. Additionally, it seems like the C# and IL specs are open enough to reverse engineer (if that's still legal) and create open source versions.
If you ask me, and you didn't, people should be catious but there is a lot they are dong right.
I've always liked Mr. Greenspun's writing, and his various we sites.
A couple of things to keep in mind.
He isn't always as right as he is opinionated.
He makes a lot of assumptions about the world, that may seem to have evidence in his world, but don't play so well to the rest of us.
That said, there were a number of interesting points made.
Like everyone else I think having people work 70+ hours a weeks is bullsh*t. It might work for a while but it isn't sustainable or neccessary. I work with veteran of the software industry who started in the 70's, 80's and early 90's. Not only can they put out high quality code, but they can do it in 40 - 50 hours.
Maybe if you hire single people who wish to stay single this will work. Heck if you reward them well enough anyone might do it for a year or two, but I don't think it's sustainable.
See what happens to your star programmers when they are going through a really ugly divorce because there wife has given up on their marriage.
25 hours a week spent in communication is ridiculous. Lots of companies have a lot less than that.
One or two people doing the design, now that is critical. But it might be valuable to have a bunch more people review the design to make sure the design isn't screwed up.
OK, I can agree with you if you make an exemption at $10,000,000 in todays dollars, instead of $750,000.
On the other hand, I still stick with the no taxes without representation issue.
You may remember a skirmish between the British and a rogue colony a couple of hundred years ago. One big cause of that war for indepedance was taxation without representation.
If I am dead I cannot vote.
If I cannot vote, don't tax me.
In addition a lot of people pay estate taxes. It's not just the Scrooge McDucks ultra wealthy.
Who says my the people I leave my money too won't do better things with it than the government?
Spouting off ? I know how to spout off, and that wasn't spouting off.
If a person reverse engineered the protocols they use, one could make sure the information being sent back was on the up and up.
I understand the information gathering today can be opted out of, but what about the future? In addition how do we know they are being truthful about today's privacy policy? How are they audited?
How much of the IIT review will be for process, meaning how the information is used, what kinds of warrants are required, etc. versus the actual how does Carnivore work and can it be abused?
I could be wrong, but I think they pretty much bought it from someone else
That doesn't mean they didn't invest and pay for this technology. It just means that sometimes what Microsoft calls inovation is really licensing,merger, acquisition, and creative funding.
The USPS is the one great evidence I choose to disprove most conspiracy theories.
After all the same folks who brought you the mail can't possibly conspire against us in some sort of global conspiracy of epic proportions.
Same thing with the President. If he can't even get some in his office without the whole world knowing, how could he pull off any real conspiracy that might require more than two people to keep their mouth shut.
Slashdot Mirror
I like Boris Beizer's "Black Box Testing", which is not really about white box testing. It has really good examples based on filling out U.S. tax forms. It helps to understand testing at both specific and abstract levels.
In the first few chapter the reader was admonished to find out what happens next byu reading the next chapter. Ungghh, how annoying.
Again, from "Red Mars", which I liked, the notion of monotheism as a shepherder idea.Unghh, ok, but does this have to come up in every book?
I found very few of the characters interesting, or related to the sweep of history. In "Red Storm Rising" by Tom Clancy or "Winds of War" by Herman Wouk the author manages to tell a sweeping story where you care about the each part and each character. This book missed that.
All that said, read "Red Mars", you'll probably like it.
What's even worse is the true cost of the ink.
Chemically the ink is water with 1/1000 or less of dye added. Dye that cost pennies per cart or less. Mostly water and we're paying more than gasoline, good booze, etc..?
laser is the way to go.
set prompt="`uname -n` | `whoami` [\!]: >" Which looks like the following in csh. maple:/home/timbu | timbu [13]: >
Almost every rule in English has several exceptions, and many things in English cannot be deduced from rules, they must simply each be learned, and there are hundreds of these. Pronunciation is ridiculous, which you've mentioned, but apart from pronunciation is grammar, spelling, plural forms, tenses and possessive forms, all of these have strange nuances in English.
Sounds suspiciously like perl. How many times have I explained about scalar and list context.
Yes, but I am full of contradictions. Contradictions work for me.
"I am large, I contain multitudes" -Walt Whitman
I assume you mean that Raskin seems to critisize modalism in interface design and that Vi can't be used without considering if you are in insert or command mode.
You are right, of course ... but on other fronts Vi is very good at allowing me to edit large pieces of text without using the mouse to confirm "ok" in some dialog box seperate from the text, and by using a minimum of keystrokes. When I use Emacs I feel like I have to remember too many keystroke combinations to do the same job.
Also just because a programmer can become used to modality doesn't mean that everyone should do the same. After all theoretically each key on the keyboard could cause a change global modality when pressing a second key while holding down the first. (That would be a nightmare). But most of can manage to figure out that shift will uppercase the keys without too many problems.
The problem with modality that Raskin points out is like the CAPSLOCK key, that gives almost no indication that it has been pressed but quite obviously changes the mode. (That's why I use the Happy Hacker keyboard, no CAPSLOCK)
I liked the book a lot because it focused a lot on making the human machine interface more efficient. I pretty much hate gui's that force you to jump through umpteen dialogs to configure something that should take 5 or 6 key strokes and Raskin seems to understand this.
I even had my wife a non-programmer read the section on modalism, which has greatly enhanced her ability to turn on the TV and actually play the TiVo or DVD successfully without calling me.
After reading the book I am even more rabid about my adoration of ViM
One problem ... in the book he talks a lot about products like this Canon word processor that didn't seem like commercial successes. They may have been "humane" or even efficient, but no one bought them. What good is that?
If everyone starts wiring up to their neighbors via real cable or 802.11 (wi-fi is the new marketing term). Then there would be lots of routes.
I am thinking of doing this in my neighborhood. It doesn't take a lot more than what organizing a block party does. The trick would be then to establish links between neighborhoods.
I am not qualified to comment on Oracle or other RDBMS'es but I would vouch for MySQL paid support. They are very quick to respond and work until the problem is solved. It's worth the money.
I gaurantee that Oracle support won't get you email from the main developers. When you have MySQL support you may just get Monty to respond.
If need be they'll send a patch for you to compile, so you can see what changed. Oracle won't be doing that anytime soon.
I gotta say I use VMWare running a MS OS just for web browsing and those darm attachments in propietary formats.
It works really well and you can suspend the OS when it's not in use. It's a lot slicker than dual boot by a long shot.
There are some cultural issues. Some people don't know why it's a good idea to send files in email in a non-propietary format. I send them a few files they don't know how to open and they usually get the hint. Send them postscript when you are feeling kind and nroff when you feel cranky.
timbu
The U.S. has numerous laws re: restraint of trade. Most of these non-competes are thrown out, because they restrain trade. Companies unfortunately have the upper hand since they have a staff of lawyers on retainer so there cost is essentially -$0- while the ex-employee may find the defense costs exorbitant.
If it's ever an issue you can also have you new employer agree to defend you in case they pull stuff like this. If they want you bad enough it's no big deal since they have lawyers on retainer too.
That is pretty lame, but sadly I hear it way too often in this forum.
If that is so true (that people who can't do some esoteric computer task, then too bad for them) why do you use a keyboard instead of flipping bit switches on the front of an Altair. Well, duh the keyboard is easier and much more accessible for people who don't think in hex or binary.
Why don't you go back to your punch cards? That would certainly raise the bar for people who shouldn't be allowed to use computers.
Maybe everyone should have to write their own OS kernel, that would seperate who should be able to use a computer.
Maybe you should be forced to design your own chips, that would really seperate those who are worthy to operate a computer.
You do whatever you want with your CDR's. Keep all you money under your mattress. I don't care.
What I'm saying is that there are people who will need help with their storage. You don't have to be part of the solution, if you don't want to be.
--timbu2
This is interesting. The lessons from Napster, general network / lan files sharing, as well as dozens of other files sharing technologies, even ftp mirrors show us that this is a powerful and useful sharing proposal.
However, it isn't the only thing. There is still a place for data that is not shared that has higher fences or protection and authentication gaurding it.
I think about my data as being more like my money. I want to be able to retain full control of who gets it and when.
For instance, I want everyone to be able to access my boring personal web site all the time for free. I want only my wife and myself to be able to access my tax returns for the last five years. I want my child to be able to access the family photo gallery, but I don't want him to be able to delete it. I want to be able to transfer all my personal data from one data warehouse to another as easy as it is to transfer banks.
When people start talking about these file sharing technologies they forget that the data we have fits into many different profiles. Each of them needs a different level of protection.
Now one person I know suggested that people will always want their personal data on their own hard drive. Sounds like a good idea in theory, but here are the facts as I see them.
Now, as recently as one year ago, I would have said that most people had less then one meg of important digital content, that was unique. Now it's a different story with digital photos (good or bad, it doesn't matter) digital movies, banking and tax information, etc..
My two cents.
timbu
I have tried Visual Studio .NET + the Visual Perl plugin + the Perl to IL compiler. I have to say it's all pretty neat, assuming you are running Windows.
I fear the dark side of MS, and actually far prefer vim to an IDE, but this stuff works in a pretty compelling way. Perl is a pretty good glue language in it's own right, but if you wanted to call functions from C++, Java or VB from the same Perl code, well you would be pissing up a rope. Seems like you could actually do that with .NET. Additionally, it seems like the C# and IL specs are open enough to reverse engineer (if that's still legal) and create open source versions.
If you ask me, and you didn't, people should be catious but there is a lot they are dong right.
I've always liked Mr. Greenspun's writing, and his various we sites.
A couple of things to keep in mind.
He isn't always as right as he is opinionated.
He makes a lot of assumptions about the world, that may seem to have evidence in his world, but don't play so well to the rest of us.
That said, there were a number of interesting points made.
Like everyone else I think having people work 70+ hours a weeks is bullsh*t. It might work for a while but it isn't sustainable or neccessary. I work with veteran of the software industry who started in the 70's, 80's and early 90's. Not only can they put out high quality code, but they can do it in 40 - 50 hours.
Maybe if you hire single people who wish to stay single this will work. Heck if you reward them well enough anyone might do it for a year or two, but I don't think it's sustainable.
See what happens to your star programmers when they are going through a really ugly divorce because there wife has given up on their marriage.
25 hours a week spent in communication is ridiculous. Lots of companies have a lot less than that.
One or two people doing the design, now that is critical. But it might be valuable to have a bunch more people review the design to make sure the design isn't screwed up.
OK, I can agree with you if you make an exemption at $10,000,000 in todays dollars, instead of $750,000. On the other hand, I still stick with the no taxes without representation issue.
You may remember a skirmish between the British and a rogue colony a couple of hundred years ago. One big cause of that war for indepedance was taxation without representation.
If I am dead I cannot vote.
If I cannot vote, don't tax me.
In addition a lot of people pay estate taxes. It's not just the Scrooge McDucks ultra wealthy.
Who says my the people I leave my money too won't do better things with it than the government?
Spouting off ? I know how to spout off, and that wasn't spouting off.
If a person reverse engineered the protocols they use, one could make sure the information being sent back was on the up and up.
I understand the information gathering today can be opted out of, but what about the future? In addition how do we know they are being truthful about today's privacy policy? How are they audited?
It is time to patch the Tivo software so that it can send out the same useless information each time they connect.
Sort of like those cookies I send that say "Don't set cookies on my hard drive. I don't want 'em!"
I notice in the documents released by EFF that vast portions of the Carnivore docs are blacked out.
I am used to this type of release when it comes to Department of Defense, CIA, or NSA docs since those involve national security.
However these are FBI docs. What criteria determine when a document should be classified by the FBI?
How much of the IIT review will be for process, meaning how the information is used, what kinds of warrants are required, etc. versus the actual how does Carnivore work and can it be abused?
I could be wrong, but I think they pretty much bought it from someone else
That doesn't mean they didn't invest and pay for this technology. It just means that sometimes what Microsoft calls inovation is really licensing,merger, acquisition, and creative funding.
timbu
The USPS is the one great evidence I choose to disprove most conspiracy theories.
After all the same folks who brought you the mail can't possibly conspire against us in some sort of global conspiracy of epic proportions.
Same thing with the President. If he can't even get some in his office without the whole world knowing, how could he pull off any real conspiracy that might require more than two people to keep their mouth shut.
timbu
I wish I had a bewolf cluster of these mice ...
Seriously folks, why does this thing have a cord. Optical + wireless would rock + five buttons would rock.
timbu