When Moore's Law stalled with the stalling of clock cycles, we simply tried to side-step and restart Moore's Law by simply doubling the number of processors/cores instead of doubling the clock speed.
Of course, that gave us the additional problem of parallelization and we seem to doing an equally poor job at managing that as what we're doing managing and efficiently using the abundance of other computing resources we've been given.
The first thing to install after installing Windows 10 is this very useful tool: Shut Up 10 which will turn off most (if not all) of the spying within Windows 10. The utility gets fairly regular updates, too.
Made by a well respected German company (who are a Microsoft Gold Partner no less - no figure).
Yes, and don't forget that the C3 project, upon which most of "agile" (or at least XP) is founded was, ultimately, cancelled and considered to be a complete failure
I've often said this to my programming colleagues, but Dates, Times and calculations between them really are one of the hardest "problems" in solve in programming/computing.
Dates & Times are so incredibly deceptive as on the surface they appear simple yet when you really look into it they're incredibly hard to get "right", what with time differences, daylight savings times (where we arbitrarily move the clock around for the hell of it). DST's are the worst.
Imagine if things like DST were applied to our numbers. It's like having our normal Base10 numbering system, but once or twice a year, we suddenly decide that the digit 6 actually represents 7 of something (or alternatively, represents 5 of something). Now all those calculations that assert that 6 + 6 = 12 are wrong, as 6 + 6 actually equals 13!
What you don't know, though, is the shop is a front for his more surreptitious and covert activities. Apparently, his superiors in MI6 were a little uneasy with him specifically running a shop selling spy equipment as his "cover", but he successfully convinced them that its the best disguise. You know, hiding in plain sight and all that!
But merely a fad. Just as much as AOL chat rooms, Friendster and MySpace, and possibly even YouTube and Twitter.
There's nothing demanding that users continue to user Facebook, nothing binds their behavior, and worst of all, user interest can easily evaporate overnight.
Oh but there is something demanding that users continue to use Facebook: The Network Effect.
And within Facebook's network effect, Critical mass has long since been surpassed and Metcalfe's Law has grown to such a large proportion that, for current users of Facebook, leaving Facebook is akin to simply switching off the internet altogether.
Indeed. I think we're broadly in agreement here. The great thing about certain sections of Microsoft is that a lot of the managers in those areas are precisely those developers with the "developer mindset".
For example, Scott Guthrie - who I previously mentioned - was the lead developer on ASP.NET itself (the old "webforms" not the newer MVC incarnation) but is now a vice-president of the Developer Division.
Having people in a managerial capacity with some level of authority and decision making ability who are also developers with the developer mindset is very often a very good thing.
It's not just developers and managers as groups. Remember, that these days Microsoft is a huge organisation and is full of many different divisions. There's Windows, Office, XBox, Windows Phone etc. amongst many others.
The guys that are responsible for this move are the "Web Dev Div", who are a sub-group within the "Developer Division".
Within certain parts of Microsoft, they can, have done, and are continuing to do some very interesting, worthwhile and generally community-friendly (and not-so-evil) work.
Never mind rolling out a 4G network, a lot of the cellular/mobile networks in the UK can't even provide a decent 3G service!
I'm with O2, and in a built-up populous city and at least 50% of the time I find that I have an incredibly poor 3G signal. This figure doubles when I go indoors.
Let's try and make the 3G signal better first before we start jumping onto the "next big thing". Or if 4G really is the saviour of 3G's ills, let's get rid of 3G and have the networks provide all us consumers with free upgrades to 4G!
And the public is correct. Most software *is* "bug-ridden, badly designed shite".
I'm a software developer by trade, and I'm also old enough to be of the generation where one has pride in one's work but, in my experience, many places where I've worked don't seem to share that same pride in a job well done. Most care far more about getting something, no matter how "bug-ridden" or "badly designed" out of the door so they can bill the customer.
I always remember this quotation from the great Niklaus Wirth:
In a well known interview with Dr. Carlo Pescio, published in Software Development, June 1997, Pescio asks Wirth:
You probably know about the 'good enough software' concept popularized by Yourdon. In many senses, it's just a rationalization of what's happening in the software world: the first company hitting the market with a feature-rich product is more likely to win the battle than the careful, quality-seeking company. Do you think there is anything developers and software organizations can do about that? I guess many developers would be happy to be given more time to develop better software, but at the same time they are rushed in the name of corporate survival. 'Educating the users' seems more a wild dream than a possibility.
to which Wirth replies:
'Good enough software' is rarely good enough. It is a sad manifestation of the spirit of modern times, in which an individual's pride in his/her work has become rare. The idea that one might derive satisfaction from his or her successful work, because that work is ingenious, beautiful, or just pleasing, has become ridiculed. Nothing but economic success and monetary reward is acceptable. Hence our occupations have become mere jobs. But quality of work can be expected only through personal satisfaction, dedication and enjoyment. In our profession, precision and perfection are not a dispensable luxury, but a simple necessity.
You: I can't let you use the normal Dropbox because SOX made it illegal, but I can give you an account on our internal encrypted fileserver so you can share documents easily with your coworkers.
User: Oh, I didn't realize it was a legal issue. Can you show me that fileserver thing?
Except most users stop listening after you've said "I can't let you use...". You're not offering solutions. Your "good IT" is really no different than "bad IT", to the user.
The user wants to use Dropbox. The solution, the only solution as far as the user is concerned, is to give them Dropbox!
Slashdot Mirror
I doubt very much that this will happen.
When Moore's Law stalled with the stalling of clock cycles, we simply tried to side-step and restart Moore's Law by simply doubling the number of processors/cores instead of doubling the clock speed.
Of course, that gave us the additional problem of parallelization and we seem to doing an equally poor job at managing that as what we're doing managing and efficiently using the abundance of other computing resources we've been given.
They're coming right after the flying cars, right?
The first thing to install after installing Windows 10 is this very useful tool: Shut Up 10
which will turn off most (if not all) of the spying within Windows 10. The utility gets fairly regular updates, too.
Made by a well respected German company (who are a Microsoft Gold Partner no less - no figure).
Yes, and don't forget that the C3 project, upon which most of "agile" (or at least XP) is founded was, ultimately, cancelled and considered to be a complete failure
Tell that to:
Automattic
Mozilla
GitHub
Basecamp (formerly 37signals) (who even wrote a book about how great remote working can be)
along with a myriad of other companies who work either entirely remotely, or have very liberal policies around remote working.
Most, if not all of whom, can be considered to be quite successful within their field.
Spot on.
I've often said this to my programming colleagues, but Dates, Times and calculations between them really are one of the hardest "problems" in solve in programming/computing.
Dates & Times are so incredibly deceptive as on the surface they appear simple yet when you really look into it they're incredibly hard to get "right", what with time differences, daylight savings times (where we arbitrarily move the clock around for the hell of it). DST's are the worst.
Imagine if things like DST were applied to our numbers. It's like having our normal Base10 numbering system, but once or twice a year, we suddenly decide that the digit 6 actually represents 7 of something (or alternatively, represents 5 of something). Now all those calculations that assert that 6 + 6 = 12 are wrong, as 6 + 6 actually equals 13!
What you don't know, though, is the shop is a front for his more surreptitious and covert activities. Apparently, his superiors in MI6 were a little uneasy with him specifically running a shop selling spy equipment as his "cover", but he successfully convinced them that its the best disguise. You know, hiding in plain sight and all that!
Seriously, this shouldn't be moderated Funny. It should be moderated Insightful.
I'm sure I'm supposed to tell you something about my lawn now, too!
Password Strength
Facebook is indeed profitable.
But merely a fad. Just as much as AOL chat rooms, Friendster and MySpace, and possibly even YouTube and Twitter.
There's nothing demanding that users continue to user Facebook, nothing binds their behavior, and worst of all, user interest can easily evaporate overnight.
Oh but there is something demanding that users continue to use Facebook: The Network Effect.
And within Facebook's network effect, Critical mass has long since been surpassed and Metcalfe's Law has grown to such a large proportion that, for current users of Facebook, leaving Facebook is akin to simply switching off the internet altogether.
Agreed, it's definitely not because of an inherent character flaw of the German people.
If Stanley Milgram's experiment has taught us one thing, it's that as human beings and irrespective of our race, colour, creed and country of birth, we are all fallible and potentially open to coercion to do the bidding (or at least silently allow it to happen - something that Martin Niemöller expressed so beautifully in his "First they came.." statement) of "evil" men.
The navigational aid that you're talking about sounds a lot like "Virtual Cable". Check out the video. Amazing stuff.
Indeed. I think we're broadly in agreement here. The great thing about certain sections of Microsoft is that a lot of the managers in those areas are precisely those developers with the "developer mindset".
For example, Scott Guthrie - who I previously mentioned - was the lead developer on ASP.NET itself (the old "webforms" not the newer MVC incarnation) but is now a vice-president of the Developer Division.
Having people in a managerial capacity with some level of authority and decision making ability who are also developers with the developer mindset is very often a very good thing.
It's not just developers and managers as groups. Remember, that these days Microsoft is a huge organisation and is full of many different divisions. There's Windows, Office, XBox, Windows Phone etc. amongst many others.
The guys that are responsible for this move are the "Web Dev Div", who are a sub-group within the "Developer Division".
It contains many people, including guys like Scott Guthrie, Scott Hanselman, Phil Haack (who recently left to join GitHub) etc., who have always done things that don't seem very Microsoft-like, like releasing ASP.NET MVC as an open-source product - albeit one that didn't accept outside contributions - back in 2009 along with such moves as bundling things like the open source jQuery library with Visual Studio and openly committing improvements back to the core project without trying the usual embrace, extend, extinguish tactics.
Within certain parts of Microsoft, they can, have done, and are continuing to do some very interesting, worthwhile and generally community-friendly (and not-so-evil) work.
Whoa, slow down there!
Never mind rolling out a 4G network, a lot of the cellular/mobile networks in the UK can't even provide a decent 3G service!
I'm with O2, and in a built-up populous city and at least 50% of the time I find that I have an incredibly poor 3G signal. This figure doubles when I go indoors.
Let's try and make the 3G signal better first before we start jumping onto the "next big thing". Or if 4G really is the saviour of 3G's ills, let's get rid of 3G and have the networks provide all us consumers with free upgrades to 4G!
I'm a software developer by trade, and I'm also old enough to be of the generation where one has pride in one's work but, in my experience, many places where I've worked don't seem to share that same pride in a job well done. Most care far more about getting something, no matter how "bug-ridden" or "badly designed" out of the door so they can bill the customer.
I always remember this quotation from the great Niklaus Wirth:
In a well known interview with Dr. Carlo Pescio, published in Software Development, June 1997, Pescio asks Wirth:
You probably know about the 'good enough software' concept popularized by Yourdon. In many senses, it's just a rationalization of what's happening in the software world: the first company hitting the market with a feature-rich product is more likely to win the battle than the careful, quality-seeking company. Do you think there is anything developers and software organizations can do about that? I guess many developers would be happy to be given more time to develop better software, but at the same time they are rushed in the name of corporate survival. 'Educating the users' seems more a wild dream than a possibility.
to which Wirth replies:
'Good enough software' is rarely good enough. It is a sad manifestation of the spirit of modern times, in which an individual's pride in his/her work has become rare. The idea that one might derive satisfaction from his or her successful work, because that work is ingenious, beautiful, or just pleasing, has become ridiculed. Nothing but economic success and monetary reward is acceptable. Hence our occupations have become mere jobs. But quality of work can be expected only through personal satisfaction, dedication and enjoyment. In our profession, precision and perfection are not a dispensable luxury, but a simple necessity.
You: I can't let you use the normal Dropbox because SOX made it illegal, but I can give you an account on our internal encrypted fileserver so you can share documents easily with your coworkers. User: Oh, I didn't realize it was a legal issue. Can you show me that fileserver thing?
Except most users stop listening after you've said "I can't let you use...". You're not offering solutions. Your "good IT" is really no different than "bad IT", to the user.
The user wants to use Dropbox. The solution, the only solution as far as the user is concerned, is to give them Dropbox!