Seconded. It was my third language (Basic and LOGO being prior), but the first one actually useful for much.
You can get away with a hello world being about 5 lines of code, comes with a nice IDE that doesn't get in the way (v6 or 7 even have syntax highlighting which helps) and you can actually write some pretty cool stuff with it. I even wrote a couple of small PC games with it with full 256 colour graphics and sound - you could use inline assembly to help speed things up too.
I managed it. I agree that there's a hell of a lot of brain damage in basic though. Luckily i moved on before i got too far beyond the simple stuff in basic.
I've got a big soft spot for pascal. I started wtih basic, and then LOGO (home computer had basic, then logo in school as a kid), but Pascal was the first useful language that actually taught me about data types, functions, and later, object oriented programming (TPv6).
Its easy to read, not prone to bugs like using = when you mean == (in C), and fast enough to get useful stuff done.
Problem with programming these days is that to get anything useful done you're buried under a hundred layers of toolkits and abstraction from what is actually going on.
Give kids an old PC with a copy of DOS, turbo pascal and some basic instructions on VGA mode 0x13 and you can write fun stuff pretty quickly.
Ahh i didn't mean to imply you still despise/avoid RAD tools. Simply that you've been there before they were around, and learned the old way of speccing things out and getting the logic done first before starting to write code.
Rather than the new (perhaps self taught via the web) programmer way of playing with blocks and letting the tool sort things out.
If you're in the corporate world there are plenty of reasons to stick with IE. Its already there, it can be secured adequately (security zones, filtering firewall at the edge), group policy and it actually works with DHCP proxy autodetect, which mozilla and chrome do not. Which is a big issue if you have mandatory proxy usage inside your network and roaming users who want their browser to work without it when outside.
The UI issues are a non-issue, its the under the hood stuff that keeps IE on corporate desktops.
Its because it is configurable via group policy, DHCP proxy autodetect actually works (unlike chrome, Firefox) and there is plenty of crappy old intranet style applications out there that businesses rely on that may/may not work in other browsers. It is also on just about every Windows machine connected to the internet, and as it can do all of the above, in the workplace there is little incentive to install an additional browser (thereby increasing your vulnerability exposure / software maintenance efforts) if you protect it with a traffic inspecting firewall.
Thing is, coming up in the 80s you were around before the RAD tools and auto-generated code. Practice these days seems to be draw a pretty GUI in an interface builder, tweak generated code a bit, and let the compiler find your syntax errors, and your beta/production users find your logic errors.
If you can type fast, you can go through the write/debug/rewrite cycle faster. You can also actually test code in reality faster.
If you can't type, you'll either take longer to get the code entered and tested, or you'll have to desk check it, which may or may not be possible when you're dealing with other people's APIs.
Can you be a good programmer and slow typist? Sure. But if you can type fast your productivity will be improved.
Yes. I've just spent all day dealing with network brain damage due to having to try and route back to our 10.3.1.0/24 subnet from a company running 10.3.1.0/24 internally on their own network. Fucking joy.
Because they do not mangle packets. If your packet is allowed - it passes through unmolested and in-tact.
You may want to read up on what NAT actually does to your IP packets (essentially mangling them by rewriting the IP addresses embedded into the packet). NAT breaks UDP without horrible hacks to maybe get ONE machine working behind your NAT box for anything that speaks UDP.
A firewall for real IP addresses (be it IPv6 or IPv4) does not mangle the packets. The source and destination IP is left in tact. Thus, if you want to (for example) allow UDP in through your firewall, the destination machine specified in the packet matches where the packet should actually end up.
NAT also breaks IPSEC without buggering around with NAT traversal (Nat mangles the packet, thus invalidating it when it is checked for integrity at the remote end). The work around (NAT-T) is less secure than proper IPSEC. Yes, NAT, which some tout as being good for security, WEAKENS IPSEC. It also weakens the security/breaks SIP.
As to picking what devices should be NATed - if you have real IPs, the entire need for NAT goes away. If you have real IPs, don't use NAT, simply block all incoming connections and you're done. You've got the same security without the packet mangling that makes apps harder to write and less secure.
NAT is evil. Yes, that is the extent of what some people write - but there are real, valid reasons for it. The "advantages" of NAT aren't really there, but there are plenty of drawbacks.
You fail at understanding concepts. The script was an example from cisco IOS. Any home user DSL router can handle simple firewalling these days if you turn nat OFF. I posted a few lines because it is straightforward and it illustrates the concept. You would rather i post screenshots for each and every shitty little home user router's GUI?
As more and more people (read: suits) depend on constant access to email, the corporate network, etc when visiting other clients and plugging into their network, things like DirectAccess will lend support to the issue.
DirectAccess + an ipv6 enabled network internally means that your boss getting access to his email/files/ERP system are as simple as plugging into any old network and his group policy settings enable him to tunnel back into the corportate LAN. Seamlessly.
Thats the driver for IPV6 in the core, on your edge, as soon as potential clients are simply unable to access your services, it will happen.
Will it be next year? 2012? Who knows. But it is coming, and soon.
TBH (other than address space filling up) NAT wasn't imposed anyway. In the UK there were a variety of enthusiast ISPs that were happy to give out multiple public IP addresses if you wanted them.
In the UK maybe. In the APNIC region, you're pretty restricted on what you can get. I'm not talking about a couple of IPs for a home user; if you are a corp with say, 2000 desktops, there's no way you're getting a/21 to have each and every machine with a real IP. NAT was forced...
And thus, we continue to deal with breakage with regards to joining network, VPNing from one network to another. Sure, if you want to block that, block it with ingress/egress filtering. But if you DON'T want to block it for a particular reason, NAT breaks shit in horrible ways.
THere is zero reason an ipv6 end user router couldn't ship with the above 2 line ruleset enabled. In fact, most ISPs these days offer/mandate egress filtering (blocking port 25, etc) in any case, even with ipv4.
Virtually all modern OSes ship with firewall enabled by default, unless the user turns it off. Securing your shit isn't what NAT is for, its just a side effect of breaking end to end connectivity that can far more effectively done by a simple 2 line firewall.
Not sure where you've been looking but Telstra have a public "Transition to IPV6" document available after a simple google search. The Aussie government has a time frame of 2008-2009 for preparation, 2010-2011 for transition and 2013-2015 for "implementation" whatever that means.
Plans are most certainly afoot, I'm currently awaiting a response from my account rep, but he's just left for the christmas break.
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how about we let evolution run its course, rather than encouraging gene pool pollution?
Seconded. It was my third language (Basic and LOGO being prior), but the first one actually useful for much.
You can get away with a hello world being about 5 lines of code, comes with a nice IDE that doesn't get in the way (v6 or 7 even have syntax highlighting which helps) and you can actually write some pretty cool stuff with it. I even wrote a couple of small PC games with it with full 256 colour graphics and sound - you could use inline assembly to help speed things up too.
The thing is, BASIC encourages use of GOTO, rather than being an unusual thing to use when unusual circumstances call for it. If they call for it.
Using goto everywhere creates code that rapidly becomes an unreadable, unmaintainable mess for anyone else trying to follow it.
I managed it. I agree that there's a hell of a lot of brain damage in basic though. Luckily i moved on before i got too far beyond the simple stuff in basic.
uh... cd 20h = 0xcd 0x20, i mean.
I've got a big soft spot for pascal. I started wtih basic, and then LOGO (home computer had basic, then logo in school as a kid), but Pascal was the first useful language that actually taught me about data types, functions, and later, object oriented programming (TPv6).
Its easy to read, not prone to bugs like using = when you mean == (in C), and fast enough to get useful stuff done.
Problem with programming these days is that to get anything useful done you're buried under a hundred layers of toolkits and abstraction from what is actually going on.
Give kids an old PC with a copy of DOS, turbo pascal and some basic instructions on VGA mode 0x13 and you can write fun stuff pretty quickly.
A lot are
Ahh i didn't mean to imply you still despise/avoid RAD tools. Simply that you've been there before they were around, and learned the old way of speccing things out and getting the logic done first before starting to write code.
Rather than the new (perhaps self taught via the web) programmer way of playing with blocks and letting the tool sort things out.
IE9 is not out yet.
If you're in the corporate world there are plenty of reasons to stick with IE. Its already there, it can be secured adequately (security zones, filtering firewall at the edge), group policy and it actually works with DHCP proxy autodetect, which mozilla and chrome do not. Which is a big issue if you have mandatory proxy usage inside your network and roaming users who want their browser to work without it when outside.
The UI issues are a non-issue, its the under the hood stuff that keeps IE on corporate desktops.
Its because it is configurable via group policy, DHCP proxy autodetect actually works (unlike chrome, Firefox) and there is plenty of crappy old intranet style applications out there that businesses rely on that may/may not work in other browsers. It is also on just about every Windows machine connected to the internet, and as it can do all of the above, in the workplace there is little incentive to install an additional browser (thereby increasing your vulnerability exposure / software maintenance efforts) if you protect it with a traffic inspecting firewall.
Thing is, coming up in the 80s you were around before the RAD tools and auto-generated code. Practice these days seems to be draw a pretty GUI in an interface builder, tweak generated code a bit, and let the compiler find your syntax errors, and your beta/production users find your logic errors.
Would be keen to see the amount of code/keystrokes typed for an obj-c programmer with xcode vs a java programmer with say, eclipse.
If you can type fast, you can go through the write/debug/rewrite cycle faster. You can also actually test code in reality faster.
If you can't type, you'll either take longer to get the code entered and tested, or you'll have to desk check it, which may or may not be possible when you're dealing with other people's APIs.
Can you be a good programmer and slow typist? Sure. But if you can type fast your productivity will be improved.
Direct routing works just fine with IPv6 as is. Mangling your packets still breaks IPsec.
This IS a series of government departments we are dealing with.
Yes. I've just spent all day dealing with network brain damage due to having to try and route back to our 10.3.1.0/24 subnet from a company running 10.3.1.0/24 internally on their own network. Fucking joy.
Because they do not mangle packets. If your packet is allowed - it passes through unmolested and in-tact.
You may want to read up on what NAT actually does to your IP packets (essentially mangling them by rewriting the IP addresses embedded into the packet). NAT breaks UDP without horrible hacks to maybe get ONE machine working behind your NAT box for anything that speaks UDP.
A firewall for real IP addresses (be it IPv6 or IPv4) does not mangle the packets. The source and destination IP is left in tact. Thus, if you want to (for example) allow UDP in through your firewall, the destination machine specified in the packet matches where the packet should actually end up.
NAT also breaks IPSEC without buggering around with NAT traversal (Nat mangles the packet, thus invalidating it when it is checked for integrity at the remote end). The work around (NAT-T) is less secure than proper IPSEC. Yes, NAT, which some tout as being good for security, WEAKENS IPSEC. It also weakens the security/breaks SIP.
As to picking what devices should be NATed - if you have real IPs, the entire need for NAT goes away. If you have real IPs, don't use NAT, simply block all incoming connections and you're done. You've got the same security without the packet mangling that makes apps harder to write and less secure.
NAT is evil. Yes, that is the extent of what some people write - but there are real, valid reasons for it. The "advantages" of NAT aren't really there, but there are plenty of drawbacks.
You fail at understanding concepts. The script was an example from cisco IOS. Any home user DSL router can handle simple firewalling these days if you turn nat OFF. I posted a few lines because it is straightforward and it illustrates the concept. You would rather i post screenshots for each and every shitty little home user router's GUI?
As more and more people (read: suits) depend on constant access to email, the corporate network, etc when visiting other clients and plugging into their network, things like DirectAccess will lend support to the issue.
DirectAccess + an ipv6 enabled network internally means that your boss getting access to his email/files/ERP system are as simple as plugging into any old network and his group policy settings enable him to tunnel back into the corportate LAN. Seamlessly.
Thats the driver for IPV6 in the core, on your edge, as soon as potential clients are simply unable to access your services, it will happen.
Will it be next year? 2012? Who knows. But it is coming, and soon.
In the UK maybe. In the APNIC region, you're pretty restricted on what you can get. I'm not talking about a couple of IPs for a home user; if you are a corp with say, 2000 desktops, there's no way you're getting a /21 to have each and every machine with a real IP. NAT was forced...
And thus, we continue to deal with breakage with regards to joining network, VPNing from one network to another. Sure, if you want to block that, block it with ingress/egress filtering. But if you DON'T want to block it for a particular reason, NAT breaks shit in horrible ways.
THere is zero reason an ipv6 end user router couldn't ship with the above 2 line ruleset enabled. In fact, most ISPs these days offer/mandate egress filtering (blocking port 25, etc) in any case, even with ipv4.
Virtually all modern OSes ship with firewall enabled by default, unless the user turns it off. Securing your shit isn't what NAT is for, its just a side effect of breaking end to end connectivity that can far more effectively done by a simple 2 line firewall.
Google results for unwashed masses dealing with technology problems != the list of valid solutions to technology problems.
Not sure where you've been looking but Telstra have a public "Transition to IPV6" document available after a simple google search. The Aussie government has a time frame of 2008-2009 for preparation, 2010-2011 for transition and 2013-2015 for "implementation" whatever that means.
Plans are most certainly afoot, I'm currently awaiting a response from my account rep, but he's just left for the christmas break.