"When someone says: 'I want a programming language in which I need only say what I wish done', give him a lollipop." - Alan J. Perlis
A non-programmer will never be able to change a program to do something other than what was intended. I've yet to see a program that does everything that everyone wants it to.
I'm a programmer also, and I just don't see computers able to take a software specification or design and end up producing what the customer wants. At least, not in my lifetime.
Then again, most human programmers are also unable to take a spec and produce what the customer wants.
It looks like their opinion was sufficiently voiced. They wanted to move the tab bar, Google didn't. There's really only so many arguments you can give to moving the tab bar and it doesn't take several hundred replies to do that.
I used to develop using the latest Firefox build with only Firebug active on an XP laptop that's about 4 years old. Firefox routinely takes up the most memory of any running application, even though I'll only have 1 or 2 tabs open to my application, and it frequently becomes unresponsive if I'm switching between programs or if I leave it minimized for a while.
I don't know what the cause is, but the end result is that I am frequently waiting for Firefox to respond so I can continue with my work. That's why I switched to Chrome for development, every time I go back to it it's already responding, it runs my application noticeably faster than Firefox does, and it doesn't monopolize my memory.
Incidentally, neither IE nor Opera show the same unresponsiveness on the same machine. Firefox is the only browser that takes more breaks than I do.
Until very recently I used Firefox exclusively for development because of Firebug. I recently switched to developing in Chrome because the developer tools have finally matured to the point that I don't need Firebug any more, and Chrome is much faster and more responsive at running my applications and doesn't use as much memory to do so. Firefox has taken up the same position as IE as being just another browser to test, while Opera is still my browser of choice.
It's like your carpenter telling you that your cabinet will have sliding doors; no matter how many orders he gets for hinged doors, he'll ignore it.
You know, I think it's a lot more like the carpenter only making hinged (the more popular variety), and refusing to make "custom" doors. I'm pretty sure we're seeing a small vocal minority demanding these things from Google. I've never heard a single complaint from anyone I know (literally) complaining about the tab placement in Chrome. If someone has such a major problem with that and just can't adjust to anything that fits outside their view of what a browser should be, then they should be using Firefox with however many extensions it takes to make it just what they want. Asking Google to make changes like these doesn't help everyone who uses Chrome who by some cosmic miracle is not completely terrified by the current tab placement.
As a developer, I really hate it when customers try to dictate the features in my software. I designed it a certain way, and by some strange quirk of fate I actually used intelligent reasoning and logic in my decision-making process, and then some clueless customer comes along who would like it to work differently because they don't want to adjust to how it already works. We got burned big on that when we relented and agreed to implement a certain feature which ended up having an extreme negative impact on performance because it was contrary to the original design goals. Sure, that one customer got the feature they wanted, but now the entire thing is slower for everyone. As developers, we need to know when to say "no" to change requests. It might irritate a small percentage of users, but it's for the greater good. Sorry if the minority doesn't like that.
I'm sure it has nothing to do with measuring objective things like heart rate, blood pressure, and cortisol levels. The sample size is a little small, but these *are* measurable quantities.
OK, then you're not a psychiatrist. Do you always chime in on subjects you have no interest in to profess the fact that you have no interest in them? That sounds a little bizarre. I wonder why you do that...
I feel like this whole thing was just a huge self promotion for his new upcoming stuff.
Wow, what a weird thing for an entertainer to do. I thought he did it because he was bored and was just looking for some human contact, like the rest of Slashdot. You mean this whole "giving interviews" thing has something to do with promotion? That's just weird, man.
What's bizarre about eating too much? What's bizarre about smoking too much? What's bizarre about exercising too much? What's bizarre about masturbating too much?
I'm a professional, I love my MBP with its glossy screen - I'm a developer - and I have no issues with it. I sit in front of it for most of the day, in either Windows 7 for.Net, or in OSX for IOS development and its a great bit of kit to use.
I think you're missing the point. It's good that you like your screen, but what if you worked in an environment where glare is an issue? The point is that the glossy screen is your only option, you have no other options with Apple. Now you need a third-party product to remove the gloss from the glossy screen. Again, it's great that it works for you, but the point is that there is no choice in the matter.
Human-readable error messages may also be a good idea. Surely you can do better than "We aren't accept direct connection not from dedicated SMTP servers."
I'm pretty sure that malicious authors try any number of ways to load Flash. Instead of trying to block all possible ways of loading Flash, how about just block Flash? Where is the threat with Javascript?
What kind of a stretch is that? I use Opera, I set it to load plugins on-demand. When I get to a page that has Flash content worth watching, I click on it to load the Flash movie. I'm protected against anything I haven't clicked to load. What's so difficult to understand?
It's a fact that Acrobat is crap software, it's a fact that I haven't used a website that requires Java in many years, and it's a fact that the only Flash content I see are things that I explicitly load.
Fair enough, but can you see why that wouldn't put you in a good position to form opinions about it?
I can form an opinion about whatever I want, but I acknowledge that it's unwise to comment on features without knowing them. I haven't used NoScript in years.
The initial release of Microsoft Windows was a graphical shell that ran on top of DOS. So that means Windows 7 is still based on 16-bit code, right? Because we all know, nothing ever grows or expands or evolves beyond its initial origins.
You're still talking about the origin of the name "NoScript", right?
Did you know: NoScript blocks plugins, movies, and applets too?
Obviously not. I try to avoid Firefox, and I don't need the functionality of NoScript in my browser of choice because most of it is built-in.
There's a reason it is "NoScript" not "NoJavaScript".
Since plugin blocking was added after the initial release, the initial intention (and name) was in fact blocking Javascript. From the changelog, it appears that plugin blocking was added in 1.1.
They do still teach lawyers how to construct an argument, right?
I wouldn't know, I'm not a lawyer, I just appreciate the work of some of them.
It seems to me that loading plugins on-demand is really all you need. I don't see a reason to stop Javascript as a security precaution, I don't know of any plain Javascript attacks that lead to malware being installed. There are too many PDF readers that work better than Acrobat to justify using Acrobat, and I haven't seen Java in use in years. I don't know if an extension is required in Firefox in order to load plugins on-demand, but if you block those 3 then you block at least 85% of attacks. I just don't see any additional security benefit in blocking Javascript.
Slashdot is a perfect example, it's simply not usable with javascript enabled.
So how do you explain all of the people, like myself, who use Slashdot with Javascript enabled? Your credibility is starting to ring a bit hollow. A lack of Javascript is not a security panacea, not by a long shot. Plugins are the problem, not scripting. Scripting only matters if you're defending against a script injection attack. It doesn't do squat if the server was hacked and the page has an iframe pointing to a PDF, Java applet, or Flash movie, and it does even less against a site that is simply malicious.
How does this refute any of the points I was making? My point was that HP was around then, and they're still around now selling computers. I added the bit about Wozniak to even show a link between Apple and HP from the early days. HP management is terribly inept, but that doesn't mean they weren't around when Apple started making computers.
I don't know if they threw him out or not, but the Apple 1 didn't fit in with their business, scientific, and industrial model. I'm not trying to claim that HP is visionary, or that Steve Jobs is not, just that it's not correct to say that Apple is the only personal computer manufacturer from the early days that is still around.
Slashdot Mirror
That reminds me of a quote.
"When someone says: 'I want a programming language in which I need only say what I wish done', give him a lollipop."
- Alan J. Perlis
A non-programmer will never be able to change a program to do something other than what was intended. I've yet to see a program that does everything that everyone wants it to.
I'm a programmer working on process automation
Job killer!
I'm a programmer also, and I just don't see computers able to take a software specification or design and end up producing what the customer wants. At least, not in my lifetime.
Then again, most human programmers are also unable to take a spec and produce what the customer wants.
Regardless of the actual intentions, I do not believe that this appearance is in the best interests of Google in the long run.
Slashdot: Opinions of nerds. Does this matter?
It looks like their opinion was sufficiently voiced. They wanted to move the tab bar, Google didn't. There's really only so many arguments you can give to moving the tab bar and it doesn't take several hundred replies to do that.
I used to develop using the latest Firefox build with only Firebug active on an XP laptop that's about 4 years old. Firefox routinely takes up the most memory of any running application, even though I'll only have 1 or 2 tabs open to my application, and it frequently becomes unresponsive if I'm switching between programs or if I leave it minimized for a while.
I don't know what the cause is, but the end result is that I am frequently waiting for Firefox to respond so I can continue with my work. That's why I switched to Chrome for development, every time I go back to it it's already responding, it runs my application noticeably faster than Firefox does, and it doesn't monopolize my memory.
Incidentally, neither IE nor Opera show the same unresponsiveness on the same machine. Firefox is the only browser that takes more breaks than I do.
Until very recently I used Firefox exclusively for development because of Firebug. I recently switched to developing in Chrome because the developer tools have finally matured to the point that I don't need Firebug any more, and Chrome is much faster and more responsive at running my applications and doesn't use as much memory to do so. Firefox has taken up the same position as IE as being just another browser to test, while Opera is still my browser of choice.
It's like your carpenter telling you that your cabinet will have sliding doors; no matter how many orders he gets for hinged doors, he'll ignore it.
You know, I think it's a lot more like the carpenter only making hinged (the more popular variety), and refusing to make "custom" doors. I'm pretty sure we're seeing a small vocal minority demanding these things from Google. I've never heard a single complaint from anyone I know (literally) complaining about the tab placement in Chrome. If someone has such a major problem with that and just can't adjust to anything that fits outside their view of what a browser should be, then they should be using Firefox with however many extensions it takes to make it just what they want. Asking Google to make changes like these doesn't help everyone who uses Chrome who by some cosmic miracle is not completely terrified by the current tab placement.
As a developer, I really hate it when customers try to dictate the features in my software. I designed it a certain way, and by some strange quirk of fate I actually used intelligent reasoning and logic in my decision-making process, and then some clueless customer comes along who would like it to work differently because they don't want to adjust to how it already works. We got burned big on that when we relented and agreed to implement a certain feature which ended up having an extreme negative impact on performance because it was contrary to the original design goals. Sure, that one customer got the feature they wanted, but now the entire thing is slower for everyone. As developers, we need to know when to say "no" to change requests. It might irritate a small percentage of users, but it's for the greater good. Sorry if the minority doesn't like that.
I'm sure it has nothing to do with measuring objective things like heart rate, blood pressure, and cortisol levels. The sample size is a little small, but these *are* measurable quantities.
OK, then you're not a psychiatrist. Do you always chime in on subjects you have no interest in to profess the fact that you have no interest in them? That sounds a little bizarre. I wonder why you do that...
I feel like this whole thing was just a huge self promotion for his new upcoming stuff.
Wow, what a weird thing for an entertainer to do. I thought he did it because he was bored and was just looking for some human contact, like the rest of Slashdot. You mean this whole "giving interviews" thing has something to do with promotion? That's just weird, man.
What's bizzarre about loving something too much?
What's bizarre about eating too much?
What's bizarre about smoking too much?
What's bizarre about exercising too much?
What's bizarre about masturbating too much?
I'm pretty sure it's the "too much" part.
Now admit it -- you're new here, and took the summary as being accurate, right? ;)
Half of that is correct.
I'm a professional, I love my MBP with its glossy screen - I'm a developer - and I have no issues with it. I sit in front of it for most of the day, in either Windows 7 for .Net, or in OSX for IOS development and its a great bit of kit to use.
I think you're missing the point. It's good that you like your screen, but what if you worked in an environment where glare is an issue? The point is that the glossy screen is your only option, you have no other options with Apple. Now you need a third-party product to remove the gloss from the glossy screen. Again, it's great that it works for you, but the point is that there is no choice in the matter.
Human-readable error messages may also be a good idea. Surely you can do better than "We aren't accept direct connection not from dedicated SMTP servers."
Java is the "most vulnerable" application, IE is actually in 4th after Acrobat and Flash.
http://net-security.org/malware_news.php?id=1863
I'm pretty sure that malicious authors try any number of ways to load Flash. Instead of trying to block all possible ways of loading Flash, how about just block Flash? Where is the threat with Javascript?
What kind of a stretch is that? I use Opera, I set it to load plugins on-demand. When I get to a page that has Flash content worth watching, I click on it to load the Flash movie. I'm protected against anything I haven't clicked to load. What's so difficult to understand?
It's a fact that Acrobat is crap software, it's a fact that I haven't used a website that requires Java in many years, and it's a fact that the only Flash content I see are things that I explicitly load.
Fair enough, but can you see why that wouldn't put you in a good position to form opinions about it?
I can form an opinion about whatever I want, but I acknowledge that it's unwise to comment on features without knowing them. I haven't used NoScript in years.
The initial release of Microsoft Windows was a graphical shell that ran on top of DOS. So that means Windows 7 is still based on 16-bit code, right? Because we all know, nothing ever grows or expands or evolves beyond its initial origins.
You're still talking about the origin of the name "NoScript", right?
Did you know: NoScript blocks plugins, movies, and applets too?
Obviously not. I try to avoid Firefox, and I don't need the functionality of NoScript in my browser of choice because most of it is built-in.
There's a reason it is "NoScript" not "NoJavaScript".
Since plugin blocking was added after the initial release, the initial intention (and name) was in fact blocking Javascript. From the changelog, it appears that plugin blocking was added in 1.1.
They do still teach lawyers how to construct an argument, right?
I wouldn't know, I'm not a lawyer, I just appreciate the work of some of them.
Flash requires JavaScript to launch.
No it doesn't.
It seems to me that loading plugins on-demand is really all you need. I don't see a reason to stop Javascript as a security precaution, I don't know of any plain Javascript attacks that lead to malware being installed. There are too many PDF readers that work better than Acrobat to justify using Acrobat, and I haven't seen Java in use in years. I don't know if an extension is required in Firefox in order to load plugins on-demand, but if you block those 3 then you block at least 85% of attacks. I just don't see any additional security benefit in blocking Javascript.
Why not just set the browser to only load plugins on-demand? Is that possible with vanilla Firefox?
Slashdot is a perfect example, it's simply not usable with javascript enabled.
So how do you explain all of the people, like myself, who use Slashdot with Javascript enabled? Your credibility is starting to ring a bit hollow. A lack of Javascript is not a security panacea, not by a long shot. Plugins are the problem, not scripting. Scripting only matters if you're defending against a script injection attack. It doesn't do squat if the server was hacked and the page has an iframe pointing to a PDF, Java applet, or Flash movie, and it does even less against a site that is simply malicious.
Since 85% of attacks come through Java, Acrobat, and Flash, how exactly does NoScript block those?
How does this refute any of the points I was making? My point was that HP was around then, and they're still around now selling computers. I added the bit about Wozniak to even show a link between Apple and HP from the early days. HP management is terribly inept, but that doesn't mean they weren't around when Apple started making computers.
I don't know if they threw him out or not, but the Apple 1 didn't fit in with their business, scientific, and industrial model. I'm not trying to claim that HP is visionary, or that Steve Jobs is not, just that it's not correct to say that Apple is the only personal computer manufacturer from the early days that is still around.