We don't have a "nice border condition", we collaborate at least as much with people from other institutions, as we do within our organization. And we certainly don't want to pass every draft we send out of the house through an "interoperability unit", that would really hurt productivity.
Changes are not going to happen from the bottom of the system, we have no option other than use the software everybody else uses. A way out of this mess would have to come from the top.
> Nobody really has a "We need to run Word" problem > (except maybe when converting that legacy format to > an open format); they have a "We need to create > documents" problem.
Lots of people have a "we need to coopererate with people in other institutions who only uses MS Word" problem. We do lots of text with math here, and would be way more productive with LaTeX. But out collaboraters use MS Word, and thus, so do we. We can't even use WordPerfect or OpenOffice, when it comes to math-heavy text, compatibility break down. It also breaks down between versions of MS Word, the MS Monopopoly is really hurting productivity around here.
> Working on a cross-platform project means that a > developer must make several builds before checking > in a change. You don't have to compile everything > from scratch for that to quickly add up.
Presumably you have to link several times as well, which mean the link time *still* dominates.
> Early on, it's more likely that developers make > big changes before compiling. After code > completion, it's more likely that developers > make one or two line bug fixes and need to > re-compile.
Early on, the project isn't as big, so a complete build isn't as bad. At least for me, my project is today 7 times as big as it was when it was "complete" (i.e. did was it was initially planned to do and started getting used). Looking at the big free software projects (gcc, Linux, KDE...) that seems typical.
> The project that my team is working on contains > nearly 10,000 targets, not all of which have > very good dependencies set up as the software > aged. I guess we're not serious developers.
At least, you probably need to set off more time for refactoring. Using a faster compiler sound more like a band-aid than a solution. Too strong coupling has other (and more serious) bad effects than long compile times.
I always get confused about people claiming compile time is important for development. It seems to be people who make a habbit of compiling everything from scratch. Haven't they heard of make? To me, link time is the limiting factor. When I make a change, I have to compile just the file I changed, or maybe a handfull of files if I changed an interface. And then I have to link all 236 files, which is where the time is spend.
I can see it compile time being important to people who use the compiler as an install tool (like gentoo users), but not for any serious developers.
> 1. I won't buy any hardware that hash such > encumbrances, as an end-user.
You, personally, is not a very big market.
> 2. In my country DMCA-style laws won't pass > because (a) they would be inconstitutional (b) > we would not like them...
But they passed in EU. With the two major economic blocks (EU and USA) behind DMCA, WTO will make it mandatory.
> 3. I won't buy any such hardware as a sysadmin > because of vendor lock-in and associated costs. > I can graft a spreadsheet proving it as a bad > business move in 5 minutes. I did it before.
Doesn't help if your boss has gone paranoid about "data stealing", and notice almost everyone is using MS Windows anyway.
Doesn't help in the "other" situation with no central data management, where people just buy the cheapest stuff that work with their MS-Windows PC.
> 4. People in the USofA may buy stuff again and > again but in other, not-so-rich parts of the > world, we tend to make our stuff last a little > bit more.
It will take longer to come to you. And in any case, MS cares about people only when they are able to pay.
You gave the answer. For scientific computing, Fortran is where the libraries and support tools are.
You can think of it as being for scientific computing what php is for web development. Except, of course, that Fortran is far more dominating in the scientific computing field than PHP is for web development.
I know, I write scientific computing in C++, and I must occationally consider if it wouldn't have been more cost efficient to use Fortran, where most of the relevant libraries, support tools and expertise is.
A: Global warming is a fact. The people who continue to deny it are more and more to liken with flat eartheners. Note that just five years ago there was still reasonable doubt, and ten years ago it was just a likely hypothesis. Even Bjørn Lomborg, whose older statements the deniers quote often, is now a believer.
However, catastrophic is just hyperbole. The best case scenarios are hardly noticeable in the natural variation, and the worst case scenarious are no longer on a threat to civilization scale.
The better models and better data which has eliminated the "no effect" scenario, has also eliminated the doomsday scanarios. The scale of uncertianty is much smaller.
B: Yes, I did miss the fact that 15 new eastblock states just joined the EU. I only noticed 8 former eastblock nations joining, plus two western rich nations (Cypres and Malta). The fact I didn't miss was how EU diplomatic and economic involvement has helped all these nations, plus Romania and Bulgaria which will join in 2007, through a peaceful transition from soviet vasals to modern democracies, despite the many latent conflicts formerly suppressed by force. A similar thing is happening in Turkey, where the human right and minority conditions are better than ever, even though there are still a long way to go.
Yougoslavia was the only tragic exception, but basically all the former eastblock countries had such latent conflict, that only one of them erupted it pretty impressive.
C: If you look at the data rather than the spin, the global trend is increasing wealth for both poor and rich, and even narrowing the gap between countries, but with some regions (noticeable Africa) left behind.
I'm not surprised that the gap inside US is widening, you asked for it by electing Bush.
1. I have learned a lot more different viewpoints, and I have learned to appreciate the insight they give.
2. My heart say no to stronger government, but my brain say that it does help against terrorism. Countries with a strong government are much better at preventing terrorism than weak governments. Even though US and EU are they main enemies as defined by the islamic world revolution, after 9/11 most "successful" terrorist actions are done in third world countries.
However, the strength of the government is more closely linked to how free of corruption it is, than to how many secret agents it has. This is why Russian government is weak. Thus, cultivating a free press (to combat corruption) is more important than giving more powers to the secret police. Giving up to much liberty will lead to a weaker government.
3. I hope we in the future will have better models for describing social changes, and that we in the future rather than blaming the past for making mistakes, understand why these mistakes were made.
4. We, in the rich part of the world, are in no serious environmental danger. The climatic changes will not be more catastrophic than we can deal with them. At the local level, the environment has become steadily more healthy in the "rich west" for decades. In the "booming east" the same will start happing soon, as material wealth will lead to a larger concern for the environment. Africa is screwed, environmentally, as in any other way.
5. The current trend is a strong religious and national backslash to the globalisation project, which threatens modernism (civil liberties, democracy, secularity...) as well. Of course, the tide will turn again. Look at Iran for an example, where the teocracy is increasingly out of touch with the young population.
6. I believe stronger international organisations and global wealth will eventually make war an exception. Look at Europe, a continent which has been at war with itself for all of written history. Today, war between the EU members seem impossible, and EU is expanding in a way that is pacifying rather than aggrevating its neighbours. The EU rules for joining requires appicants to settle border conflicts, and to treat minorities within the borders respectfully.
7. In a sense, we already have a world government. It is called WTO. I do not believe we will have a world government in the sense of the national governments, there are too much cultural difference for that. But I can see a pressure for WTO to become more transparent, more democratic, and to take on non-economic considerations affecting trade, such as global enironment. This could lead to a convergence with other transnational organizations, such as UN and the international court.
8. I'm not sure the gap between rich an poor is widening, on a global scale. The biggest economic growth are in China and India, with more than a third of the world population, and both comparable poor countries. I see this trend continuing, and eventually even reach AFrica, which is currently left behind. On a local geographical scala and scort time scale, I see a widening in the rich countries, as the middle and lower classes are pressured by the developing countries, and a scrinking in the developing countries, as the new jobs create a new middle class, which need to be serviced thus improving conditions for the lower class. As long as we manage to handle the population growth (and it can be done), I see the living condition growing for most people, which is more important than the size of the gap.
9. You should have asked about the population growth, how to handle it, and what changes it will cause.
I have no idea who will win the US election. In a sense, it is a small version of the battle mentioned in point 5. Kerry representing modernism, and Bush the religious and natinalist backslash.
Well x.org was there before XFree, so saying thanks for XFree for "starting all these" is inapropriate. However, we can thank them for "carrying the torch" during a long time where x.org where going nowhere.
Because we live in a democracy where everybody (well, a lot) has one vote each, the mistaken belief that everybodys opinion is worth the same is widespread. For technical issues, many people (but not enough, judging by the/. comments) realize that they they have insufficient insight to contribute anything worthwhile. But for politics, such a lack of insight is not stopping them.
That "quiz" is just a list of Libertarian issues, formulated by Libertarians. The political compass is also slanted towards Libertarianism, but less grossly. The whole 2d model with social and economic axes is Libertarian in spirit.
A conservative or socialist would pick other axes to plot viewpoints.
> But how many times on Slashdot to you see somebody > say "Nope, you're wrong. Look- it's in Wikipedia!"
I haven't seen that. But I often see "this issue is explained much better in this Wikipedia article than I can do here", which is a fine use of Wikipedia.
> This is especially true in the more technical > categories, where there are a lot of amateurs who > think they know things but are just completely > wrong.
I'd expect that, over time, these entries would list both the mistaken belief, the correct belief, and some autoritative (more so than a wikipedia link) arguments why the correct belief is the correct one.
This will actually be mere useful for the sceptical reader, who will not automatically assume what he reads is necessarily coreect, even from a more autoritative source.
Some replies to those who never read the story, yet commented on the summary.
There are several such networks, and entering one is volunterly. The compete with each other, and in particular with the conventional economy, to which they are a threat since the gift economy is not taxed.
A gift network can only be corrupted to the level where it no longer benefits the members, after that they will obviously leave.
So in summary: It does not go against human nature, unless you believe that "helping other in order to help yourself" goes against human nature. Yes, you can be a computer criminal in that economy, just as you can in the conventional economy (by hacking into a banks central database). But the amount of damage you can do is less, since the economy is less centralized.
It would however undermine the central autority (government), so they would never allow it. Not that they did in the story.
Great. You keep worrying about "philosophy" and I'll worry about paying my bills, paying attention to my girlfriend, and killing any home intruders who were forced to rob me because of their "predetermined chemistry".
Of course you will. Your brain chemestry leaves you no other choice.
Your parents and grandparents cant teach you how to interact with peers. They may be able to prepare you for a life in a strictly hierachical society though.
Or at least were involved with it. Andrew, which I have never used but were "talked about" a lot, and NeWS which was simply amazing, but unfortunately was marketed after X10 (and later X11) has become the de-facto standard for Unix desktops.
> Doesn't anyone else here see the absurdity > of providing high-quality software (via your > precious time) for free to the corporations > that do not give us their technology, food > or services for free?
Actually, much of the free software is given away for free by corporations, either directly (like IBM's contributions to the Linux kernel) or indirectly by employees who hack on free software for internal use, but contribute the changes back to the community with the blessing of the company.
In fact, I suspect more of the free software *being used* come from such corporate contributions, as come from home hobbyist, students, government organisations and researchers.
I know they run on Solaris. The point adressed was that there are plenty of signficant non-free software for Linux. Oracle used to be Sun-centric as you describe, but I believe they have switched to being Linux centric. Not that it matters, the "big name" packages will obviously be available for both.
The fact that Sun is providing Linux emulation does indicate that there either already are, or that Sun estimate there will soon be, a significant amount of Linux specific software amoung the vertical applications.
Mathematica. Splus. DB2. Oracle. There are lots of proprietary server, engeneering or vertical market applications. Sun used to be the leader of these markets, but linux have been making constant inroads. It is possible that Linux now has taken the leading role.
Slashdot Mirror
We don't have a "nice border condition", we collaborate at least as much with people from other institutions, as we do within our organization. And we certainly don't want to pass every draft we send out of the house through an "interoperability unit", that would really hurt productivity.
Changes are not going to happen from the bottom of the system, we have no option other than use the software everybody else uses. A way out of this mess would have to come from the top.
> Nobody really has a "We need to run Word" problem
> (except maybe when converting that legacy format to
> an open format); they have a "We need to create
> documents" problem.
Lots of people have a "we need to coopererate with people in other institutions who only uses MS Word" problem. We do lots of text with math here, and would be way more productive with LaTeX. But out collaboraters use MS Word, and thus, so do we. We can't even use WordPerfect or OpenOffice, when it comes to math-heavy text, compatibility break down. It also breaks down between versions of MS Word, the MS Monopopoly is really hurting productivity around here.
> Working on a cross-platform project means that a
> developer must make several builds before checking
> in a change. You don't have to compile everything
> from scratch for that to quickly add up.
Presumably you have to link several times as well, which mean the link time *still* dominates.
> Early on, it's more likely that developers make
> big changes before compiling. After code
> completion, it's more likely that developers
> make one or two line bug fixes and need to
> re-compile.
Early on, the project isn't as big, so a complete build isn't as bad. At least for me, my project is today 7 times as big as it was when it was "complete" (i.e. did was it was initially planned to do and started getting used). Looking at the big free software projects (gcc, Linux, KDE...) that seems typical.
> The project that my team is working on contains
> nearly 10,000 targets, not all of which have
> very good dependencies set up as the software
> aged. I guess we're not serious developers.
At least, you probably need to set off more time for refactoring. Using a faster compiler sound more like a band-aid than a solution. Too strong coupling has other (and more serious) bad effects than long compile times.
I always get confused about people claiming compile time is important for development. It seems to be people who make a habbit of compiling everything from scratch. Haven't they heard of make? To me, link time is the limiting factor. When I make a change, I have to compile just the file I changed, or maybe a handfull of files if I changed an interface. And then I have to link all 236 files, which is where the time is spend.
I can see it compile time being important to people who use the compiler as an install tool (like gentoo users), but not for any serious developers.
> 1. I won't buy any hardware that hash such
...
> encumbrances, as an end-user.
You, personally, is not a very big market.
> 2. In my country DMCA-style laws won't pass
> because (a) they would be inconstitutional (b)
> we would not like them
But they passed in EU. With the two major economic blocks (EU and USA) behind DMCA, WTO will make it mandatory.
> 3. I won't buy any such hardware as a sysadmin
> because of vendor lock-in and associated costs.
> I can graft a spreadsheet proving it as a bad
> business move in 5 minutes. I did it before.
Doesn't help if your boss has gone paranoid about "data stealing", and notice almost everyone is using MS Windows anyway.
Doesn't help in the "other" situation with no central data management, where people just buy the cheapest stuff that work with their MS-Windows PC.
> 4. People in the USofA may buy stuff again and
> again but in other, not-so-rich parts of the
> world, we tend to make our stuff last a little
> bit more.
It will take longer to come to you. And in any case, MS cares about people only when they are able to pay.
You gave the answer. For scientific computing, Fortran is where the libraries and support tools are.
You can think of it as being for scientific computing what php is for web development. Except, of course, that Fortran is far more dominating in the scientific computing field than PHP is for web development.
I know, I write scientific computing in C++, and I must occationally consider if it wouldn't have been more cost efficient to use Fortran, where most of the relevant libraries, support tools and expertise is.
A: Global warming is a fact. The people who continue to deny it are more and more to liken with flat eartheners. Note that just five years ago there was still reasonable doubt, and ten years ago it was just a likely hypothesis. Even Bjørn Lomborg, whose older statements the deniers quote often, is now a believer.
However, catastrophic is just hyperbole. The best case scenarios are hardly noticeable in the natural variation, and the worst case scenarious are no longer on a threat to civilization scale.
The better models and better data which has eliminated the "no effect" scenario, has also eliminated the doomsday scanarios. The scale of uncertianty is much smaller.
B: Yes, I did miss the fact that 15 new eastblock states just joined the EU. I only noticed 8 former eastblock nations joining, plus two western rich nations (Cypres and Malta). The fact I didn't miss was how EU diplomatic and economic involvement has helped all these nations, plus Romania and Bulgaria which will join in 2007, through a peaceful transition from soviet vasals to modern democracies, despite the many latent conflicts formerly suppressed by force. A similar thing is happening in Turkey, where the human right and minority conditions are better than ever, even though there are still a long way to go.
Yougoslavia was the only tragic exception, but basically all the former eastblock countries had such latent conflict, that only one of them erupted it pretty impressive.
C: If you look at the data rather than the spin, the global trend is increasing wealth for both poor and rich, and even narrowing the gap between countries, but with some regions (noticeable Africa) left behind.
I'm not surprised that the gap inside US is widening, you asked for it by electing Bush.
Here are my answers:
1. I have learned a lot more different viewpoints, and I have learned to appreciate the insight they give.
2. My heart say no to stronger government, but my brain say that it does help against terrorism. Countries with a strong government are much better at preventing terrorism than weak governments. Even though US and EU are they main enemies as defined by the islamic world revolution, after 9/11 most "successful" terrorist actions are done in third world countries.
However, the strength of the government is more closely linked to how free of corruption it is, than to how many secret agents it has. This is why Russian government is weak. Thus, cultivating a free press (to combat corruption) is more important than giving more powers to the secret police. Giving up to much liberty will lead to a weaker government.
3. I hope we in the future will have better models for describing social changes, and that we in the future rather than blaming the past for making mistakes, understand why these mistakes were made.
4. We, in the rich part of the world, are in no serious environmental danger. The climatic changes will not be more catastrophic than we can deal with them. At the local level, the environment has become steadily more healthy in the "rich west" for decades. In the "booming east" the same will start happing soon, as material wealth will lead to a larger concern for the environment. Africa is screwed, environmentally, as in any other way.
5. The current trend is a strong religious and national backslash to the globalisation project, which threatens modernism (civil liberties, democracy, secularity...) as well. Of course, the tide will turn again. Look at Iran for an example, where the teocracy is increasingly out of touch with the young population.
6. I believe stronger international organisations and global wealth will eventually make war an exception. Look at Europe, a continent which has been at war with itself for all of written history. Today, war between the EU members seem impossible, and EU is expanding in a way that is pacifying rather than aggrevating its neighbours. The EU rules for joining requires appicants to settle border conflicts, and to treat minorities within the borders respectfully.
7. In a sense, we already have a world government. It is called WTO. I do not believe we will have a world government in the sense of the national governments, there are too much cultural difference for that. But I can see a pressure for WTO to become more transparent, more democratic, and to take on non-economic considerations affecting trade, such as global enironment. This could lead to a convergence with other transnational organizations, such as UN and the international court.
8. I'm not sure the gap between rich an poor is widening, on a global scale. The biggest economic growth are in China and India, with more than a third of the world population, and both comparable poor countries. I see this trend continuing, and eventually even reach AFrica, which is currently left behind. On a local geographical scala and scort time scale, I see a widening in the rich countries, as the middle and lower classes are pressured by the developing countries, and a scrinking in the developing countries, as the new jobs create a new middle class, which need to be serviced thus improving conditions for the lower class. As long as we manage to handle the population growth (and it can be done), I see the living condition growing for most people, which is more important than the size of the gap.
9. You should have asked about the population growth, how to handle it, and what changes it will cause.
I have no idea who will win the US election. In a sense, it is a small version of the battle mentioned in point 5. Kerry representing modernism, and Bush the religious and natinalist backslash.
That actually worked with Muammar Gadafi. Ok, judging by that site, he may not have moved much in the sane depeartment.
Well x.org was there before XFree, so saying thanks for XFree for "starting all these" is inapropriate. However, we can thank them for "carrying the torch" during a long time where x.org where going nowhere.
He has also done a lot of valuable Emacs work.
Because we live in a democracy where everybody (well, a lot) has one vote each, the mistaken belief that everybodys opinion is worth the same is widespread. For technical issues, many people (but not enough, judging by the /. comments) realize that they they have insufficient insight to contribute anything worthwhile. But for politics, such a lack of insight is not stopping them.
That "quiz" is just a list of Libertarian issues, formulated by Libertarians. The political compass is also slanted towards Libertarianism, but less grossly. The whole 2d model with social and economic axes is Libertarian in spirit.
A conservative or socialist would pick other axes to plot viewpoints.
> But how many times on Slashdot to you see somebody
> say "Nope, you're wrong. Look- it's in Wikipedia!"
I haven't seen that. But I often see "this issue is explained much better in this Wikipedia article than I can do here", which is a fine use of Wikipedia.
> This is especially true in the more technical
> categories, where there are a lot of amateurs who
> think they know things but are just completely
> wrong.
I'd expect that, over time, these entries would list both the mistaken belief, the correct belief, and some autoritative (more so than a wikipedia link) arguments why the correct belief is the correct one.
This will actually be mere useful for the sceptical reader, who will not automatically assume what he reads is necessarily coreect, even from a more autoritative source.
Some replies to those who never read the story, yet commented on the summary.
There are several such networks, and entering one is volunterly. The compete with each other, and in particular with the conventional economy, to which they are a threat since the gift economy is not taxed.
A gift network can only be corrupted to the level where it no longer benefits the members, after that they will obviously leave.
So in summary: It does not go against human nature, unless you believe that "helping other in order to help yourself" goes against human nature. Yes, you can be a computer criminal in that economy, just as you can in the conventional economy (by hacking into a banks central database). But the amount of damage you can do is less, since the economy is less centralized.
It would however undermine the central autority (government), so they would never allow it. Not that they did in the story.
They could (but don't) use overcharged SMS (and MMS).
Wasn't there some recent study showing that most spam is generated by a small number of people?
Your parents and grandparents cant teach you how to interact with peers. They may be able to prepare you for a life in a strictly hierachical society though.
Or at least were involved with it. Andrew, which I have never used but were "talked about" a lot, and NeWS which was simply amazing, but unfortunately was marketed after X10 (and later X11) has become the de-facto standard for Unix desktops.
> Doesn't anyone else here see the absurdity
> of providing high-quality software (via your
> precious time) for free to the corporations
> that do not give us their technology, food
> or services for free?
Actually, much of the free software is given away for free by corporations, either directly (like IBM's contributions to the Linux kernel) or indirectly by employees who hack on free software for internal use, but contribute the changes back to the community with the blessing of the company.
In fact, I suspect more of the free software *being used* come from such corporate contributions, as come from home hobbyist, students, government organisations and researchers.
This is just one more reason for advertisers to choose google.
I know they run on Solaris. The point adressed was that there are plenty of signficant non-free software for Linux. Oracle used to be Sun-centric as you describe, but I believe they have switched to being Linux centric. Not that it matters, the "big name" packages will obviously be available for both.
The fact that Sun is providing Linux emulation does indicate that there either already are, or that Sun estimate there will soon be, a significant amount of Linux specific software amoung the vertical applications.
Mathematica. Splus. DB2. Oracle. There are lots of proprietary server, engeneering or vertical market applications. Sun used to be the leader of these markets, but linux have been making constant inroads. It is possible that Linux now has taken the leading role.