And for the management types who are reading this, start rotating your admins among different projects, at least annually. Take the Linux expert and put him in charge of Active Directory; take the Windows expert and put him in charge of the SAN; take the SAN guy and put him in charge of the Cisco and Foundry routers. Shake things up, force people to work outside of their comfort zones. Not only will it encourage your staff to constantly learn (which is a good thing with geeks, we like learning),...
I think I worked at your company. The trained Linux admins hated the AD infrastructure, the Windows guys couldn't log into the *nix boxes, and some quack kept making small *minor* changes to the Cisco boxes that took down the whole network. (hmmm - we probably don't need this option - "Emulate ???? bug" - now off - hey why did I lose access to the EU office?)
Rotating Admins is a novel idea, but a better idea is to keep them closer to their areas of expertise.
While I agree this is difficult to accept from a consumer point of view, and traditionally it has appeared that Microsoft has not always tested products well before release. I can tell you from a testing point of view it is very difficult to do full regression test before release.
Think about this from MS point of view. They have many applications in the market, on many, many different platforms with basically an uncountable number of configurations. To test every OS update with every version of every one of their own apps, a small subset of important third party apps, on an appropriate number of configurations and platforms will quickly get into the millions or billions of setups to test.
This can logically be reduced with pairwise testing and orthogonal array reductions, but still to get that all done before alpha or beta testing would be near impossible...
But again this misses the whole point of cross-pollination. If I decide to buy T-gene infected seeds, I automatically have the potential to affect other farmers around me, whether or not they bought the T-gene seeds. As far as I have seen there is no practical way of limiting the contamination to a single field.... So even if I make the decision for myself, based on my econimic and philosophical factors, I should not make the decision for all my neighbours.
In fact, in Canada, farmers have been successfully sued for collecting (stealing) the seeds of their own crops when their neighbours used genetically modified seeds.
Oddly the parent article is correct. C# is one of the few languages that has comprehensive on-line documentation. If you start here: Visual C# you will find that there is plenty of quality material. Also most the reference material is NOT specific to those running MS Dev Studio. The reference material gives nice clear examples.
Writing Applications with Visual C#
Provides a high-level orientation covering common programming tasks using C# and the.NET Framework, with links to more detailed documentation.
Migrating to Visual C#
Compares the C# language to Java and C++ and describes how to use the Java Language Conversion Assistant to convert Java and Visual J++ applications to Visual C#.
C# Programming Guide
Provides information and practical examples on how to use C# language constructs.
C# Reference
Provides detailed reference information on C# programming concepts, keywords, types, operators, attributes, preprocessor directives, compiler switches, and compiler error and warnings.
C# Language Specification
Links to the latest version of the C# Specifications in Microsoft Word format.
Visual C# Samples
Sample source code demonstrating how to program using Visual C#.
Reading that article is like having a mini vacation, where after returning, your perspective is positively adjusted. My favourite quote was this paragraph.
"Unfortunately, a work queue doesn't make for a good marketing platform for seminars and conferences. It's not glamorous. It sounds a lot like a pile of work, because that's exactly what it is."
It is nice just know there is the possibility of a more efficient model, than the anti-productive meetings that continuously crop up at the end of projects (what features can we drop to meet the schedule, how many resources can we steal from other groups, can we live with releasing at this crazy high defect rate, etc. etc.) It seems highly desirable to work towards a model that actually promotes "real" work.
Hopefully this article will plant some seeds of thought that will start permiating other organizations.
Even with Windows, it is not a one size fits all world. (There are multiple versions of XP, there are also server editions of Windows, and now Microsoft is even coming out with stripped down versions.)
So why do people expect the same from Linux? I personally think it is important for developers, system administrators, technical support, etc to really understand what is happening at the OS level. That type of person does not require a system that hides all the details, restricts the power of the OS behind fancy GUIs, and in general protects them from doing stupid things. Those would be requirements for a standard desktop user, who really does not care about how the OS is working, and a system such as Slackware is not the top choice -- unless someone else is administrating the box. On the other hand for those who need/enjoy learning about the OS, enjoy automating administration, and need the power Slackware is a brilliant choice.
Actually the pricing
of DB2 is quite resonable -- especially for the express version.
<flame suit on>
The other issue is that many companies using products such as MySql have to re-implement features that are standard in other systems. Features such as robust replication, clustering, etc also are just coming on line for MySql and Postgres, but have been part of DB2 and friends for years.
This new twist could be used by the known FUD machines in a manner as bad or worse then the original issue. Especially if the OSS community really makes a big stink about this. This how I could see it unfolding. SCO gets sued and made to look like a bunch of scoundrels, a FUDder shows how vulnerable other companies are to this - perhaps even giving specific examples. Then same FUDder advertises that the way to avoid this is to completely eliminate all OSS code from company premises.
Of course that logic is flawed, but I can see many corporations getting paranoid and developing new guidelines indicating that bringing OSS code on site is grounds for dismissal.
I really like to have my resolutions at 1200x1600. The problem is that almost no monitors that are bigger then 20" display this very well. I went through two Viewsonics, and then settled for the highend Samsung 22". (I also tried other ones at work...) These monitors all displayed very nicely at lower resolutions, but at the higher resolutions, there where obvious deformations in straight lines, sometimes unstable sections of the screen, etc.
So be sure to preview your screen at the resolution/colour depth/frequency that you are intending to ultimately be stuck with.
I agree, there is not the community feeling of FreeBSD, but after installing the Mandrake beta, I was amazed at how well everything worked. I found that things executed quickly, though Mozilla had a nasty habit of crashing... The Mandrake Control center made administration a breeze. One interesting piece to note is that KDE and Gnome seemed faster then in 8.2. The big problem is that I am feeling a little guilty recommending Mandrake after years of using Slackware and FreeBSD.
Larry, I have found the perl manuals to be some of the most readable computer manuals available today. (esp. the camel book) I actually enjoyed reading them. Are you planning on writing any more books?
Slashdot Mirror
And for the management types who are reading this, start rotating your admins among different projects, at least annually. Take the Linux expert and put him in charge of Active Directory; take the Windows expert and put him in charge of the SAN; take the SAN guy and put him in charge of the Cisco and Foundry routers. Shake things up, force people to work outside of their comfort zones. Not only will it encourage your staff to constantly learn (which is a good thing with geeks, we like learning), ...
I think I worked at your company. The trained Linux admins hated the AD infrastructure, the Windows guys couldn't log into the *nix boxes, and some quack kept making small *minor* changes to the Cisco boxes that took down the whole network. (hmmm - we probably don't need this option - "Emulate ???? bug" - now off - hey why did I lose access to the EU office?)
Rotating Admins is a novel idea, but a better idea is to keep them closer to their areas of expertise.
* I don't work for or endorse MS products *
While I agree this is difficult to accept from a consumer point of view, and traditionally it has appeared that Microsoft has not always tested products well before release. I can tell you from a testing point of view it is very difficult to do full regression test before release.
Think about this from MS point of view. They have many applications in the market, on many, many different platforms with basically an uncountable number of configurations. To test every OS update with every version of every one of their own apps, a small subset of important third party apps, on an appropriate number of configurations and platforms will quickly get into the millions or billions of setups to test.
This can logically be reduced with pairwise testing and orthogonal array reductions, but still to get that all done before alpha or beta testing would be near impossible...
But again this misses the whole point of cross-pollination. If I decide to buy T-gene infected seeds, I automatically have the potential to affect other farmers around me, whether or not they bought the T-gene seeds. As far as I have seen there is no practical way of limiting the contamination to a single field.... So even if I make the decision for myself, based on my econimic and philosophical factors, I should not make the decision for all my neighbours.
In fact, in Canada, farmers have been successfully sued for collecting (stealing) the seeds of their own crops when their neighbours used genetically modified seeds.
Oddly the parent article is correct. C# is one of the few languages that has comprehensive on-line documentation. If you start here: Visual C# you will find that there is plenty of quality material. Also most the reference material is NOT specific to those running MS Dev Studio. The reference material gives nice clear examples.
.NET Framework, with links to more detailed documentation.
A section of that page:
Using the Visual C# IDE
Introduces the Visual C# development environment.
Writing Applications with Visual C#
Provides a high-level orientation covering common programming tasks using C# and the
Migrating to Visual C#
Compares the C# language to Java and C++ and describes how to use the Java Language Conversion Assistant to convert Java and Visual J++ applications to Visual C#.
C# Programming Guide
Provides information and practical examples on how to use C# language constructs.
C# Reference
Provides detailed reference information on C# programming concepts, keywords, types, operators, attributes, preprocessor directives, compiler switches, and compiler error and warnings.
C# Language Specification Links to the latest version of the C# Specifications in Microsoft Word format.
Visual C# Samples
Sample source code demonstrating how to program using Visual C#.
Reading that article is like having a mini vacation, where after returning, your perspective is positively adjusted. My favourite quote was this paragraph.
"Unfortunately, a work queue doesn't make for a good marketing platform for seminars and conferences. It's not glamorous. It sounds a lot like a pile of work, because that's exactly what it is."
It is nice just know there is the possibility of a more efficient model, than the anti-productive meetings that continuously crop up at the end of projects (what features can we drop to meet the schedule, how many resources can we steal from other groups, can we live with releasing at this crazy high defect rate, etc. etc.) It seems highly desirable to work towards a model that actually promotes "real" work.
Hopefully this article will plant some seeds of thought that will start permiating other organizations.
Even with Windows, it is not a one size fits all world. (There are multiple versions of XP, there are also server editions of Windows, and now Microsoft is even coming out with stripped down versions.)
So why do people expect the same from Linux? I personally think it is important for developers, system administrators, technical support, etc to really understand what is happening at the OS level. That type of person does not require a system that hides all the details, restricts the power of the OS behind fancy GUIs, and in general protects them from doing stupid things. Those would be requirements for a standard desktop user, who really does not care about how the OS is working, and a system such as Slackware is not the top choice -- unless someone else is administrating the box. On the other hand for those who need/enjoy learning about the OS, enjoy automating administration, and need the power Slackware is a brilliant choice.
Actually the pricing of DB2 is quite resonable -- especially for the express version.
<flame suit on>The other issue is that many companies using products such as MySql have to re-implement features that are standard in other systems. Features such as robust replication, clustering, etc also are just coming on line for MySql and Postgres, but have been part of DB2 and friends for years.
<flame suit off>This new twist could be used by the known FUD machines in a manner as bad or worse then the original issue. Especially if the OSS community really makes a big stink about this. This how I could see it unfolding. SCO gets sued and made to look like a bunch of scoundrels, a FUDder shows how vulnerable other companies are to this - perhaps even giving specific examples. Then same FUDder advertises that the way to avoid this is to completely eliminate all OSS code from company premises.
Of course that logic is flawed, but I can see many corporations getting paranoid and developing new guidelines indicating that bringing OSS code on site is grounds for dismissal.
I really like to have my resolutions at 1200x1600. The problem is that almost no monitors that are bigger then 20" display this very well. I went through two Viewsonics, and then settled for the highend Samsung 22". (I also tried other ones at work...) These monitors all displayed very nicely at lower resolutions, but at the higher resolutions, there where obvious deformations in straight lines, sometimes unstable sections of the screen, etc.
So be sure to preview your screen at the resolution/colour depth/frequency that you are intending to ultimately be stuck with.
I agree, there is not the community feeling of FreeBSD, but after installing the Mandrake beta, I was amazed at how well everything worked. I found that things executed quickly, though Mozilla had a nasty habit of crashing... The Mandrake Control center made administration a breeze. One interesting piece to note is that KDE and Gnome seemed faster then in 8.2. The big problem is that I am feeling a little guilty recommending Mandrake after years of using Slackware and FreeBSD.
Larry, I have found the perl manuals to be some of the most readable computer manuals available today. (esp. the camel book) I actually enjoyed reading them. Are you planning on writing any more books?