> Care to clarify? The only thing remotely applicable is Apple's requirements for the SDKs used to develop for iOS (which allows for cross-platform kits like Unity). This limitation is primarily to make sure iOS doesn't get a bunch of shitty lowest-common-denominator ports, which is something they've been burned on in the past.
That is one reason, not the only reason. The ability to produce cross-platform applications that run on iOS and elsewhere has been disabled thanks to App Store policies. Then we can talk about formats used for lock-in. When AAC was first used by iTunes it could not be used elsewhere (thanks to the DRM, but the point is that it could not be used anywhere else). That has now changed but at the time Apple was building its music empire that's how it was (music would only work with Apple software and gear). These days, try buying an Apple eBook through iTunes and see how far you get reading it with a Kindle. Again, building an empire. Eventually the restrictions will be removed and everyone will forget what Apple did to get where it is. Now, I'm not bashing Apple specifically here. Every big company does this, so Apple is not alone. But we can 'call a spade "a spade"' which means we can point out that Apple also practices these lock-in tactics (even if they do make good stuff).
> With today's electronics, devices are fast enough in general to nicely make up for the lack of hard realtime.
Well, apparently you didn't read the original parent post. He seemed to consider that real time was necessary for his drum kit sim.
> Also, many of those who've focused on "Mac-only" products are crying all the way to the bank just now...
Nope. They went broke when windows took over. It will happen again to those who aren't doing portable code (which you correctly point out can also be done it C++, but then you are not writing iOS code in Objective-C are you, which is my whole point - write portable! the thing that differs is our choice of language [Java being my preferred language as its frameworks are vastly more portable than C++ on all platforms save for those that are locked out by the vendor - which was the point I was trying to get across - avoid the lock-in]).
Nb. why can't you get RT Java on Android? because the vendor doesn't want you to! that was my point. It wasn't about whether you should be using Java on mobile, it is the fact the vendors *won't let you* when otherwise you could really 'write once, run anywhere' [WORE].
If we set aside my points about vendor lock-in and address your concerns about Java itself. How do I know that the write once promise works and the performance is good enough? Well because I'm able to use Java for a jet combat flight simulator code I'm building for Windows, Linux and Mac - 'WORE' really does work if you know wtf you are doing and choose your libraries carefully (JoGL, JOAL, JInput, etc). Unfortunately it won't work on mobiles because the vendors have locked me out (hence the point of my original post) - if it wasn't for the sh!tty mobile vendors I'd be able to cover iOS and Android too. For me *both* platforms are not worth writing specific code for, since you have to re-implment for each. Now I've notices that the real time performance of Java is sufficient since you are multithreaded and the GC can run on one core while you do your stuff on another. Sure, if you only write single threaded then you might have difficulty, but multi-threading is so much easier in Java (viz C++) that you are a mug if you aren't using it for performance hungry software. Even in the old days IL-2: Sturmovik was written in Java (with some C++ for speed critical stuff). These days the IL-2: Cliffs of Dover is written in C#.NET which arguably has a less efficient runtime in some aspects (that I'm interested in) than the JVM.
Hmm, that's strange. It seems to work just fine for me - perhaps it is because I know what the hell I'm doing, unlike freshmen (I learned to do good cross-platform all my C++ years). Especially when I use decent libraries (JoGL for 3D and JOAL for sound).
> Apple isn't doing anything to "make you develop for their platform only" other than offering a product that people actually want to develop for.
Bullshit. That is exactly part if their strategy.
> Java has too many latency issues for any kind of real time music apps like synthesizers or drum machines and Apple has always been sure to pay attention to the needs of "creatives" and realized Java wouldn't work.
You are right if you are talking about Java SE. There is a real-time Java specification if you really need it. Plus, even with Java SE you are not limited by the Sun/Oracle/OpenJDK implementation. What matters is programming to the interface, not the particular implementation. For example, you could use the gcj implementation which essentially has C runtime performance. Is C too slow for you? You can have multi-platform implementation (Java) as well as deterministic performance. With Apple technologies you get what they give you and if they decide to withdraw it (which they do from time to time, still using Hypercard? Carbon? even Cocoa will die). By tying yourself to some niche you are guaranteeing that your future growth will be constrained - as any significant product cannot be re-written on a whim. While mobile is hot now its growth will slow and picking to develop for iOS-only you choose short-term profit (which can be a legitimate goal) at the expense of a business model that can be maintained in the long term (we've seen the same crap in the past with those that chose Mac-only products in the past). Incidentally, the latency of Java can be negligible compared to the latency the operating system introduces - so you will always suffer poor real-time performance on any desktop OS. If you are serious about real-time you use Solaris, one of the dedicated real-time OSes (VxWorks etc), or use hardware. Your argument doesn't really hold water under close scrutiny.
All mobile development is platform specific, whether you like it or not. Apple in particular always has an interest in making you develop for their platform only. The fragmentation of the market is deliberate and always occurs in the current *innovation space*. Same thing happened with web 'standards' (ECMAscript and W3C standards), same thing happened with 'operating systems' (until Java came and levelled most of the differences for the developers interested in doing cross-platform stuff), same thing happened in hardware.
At the mobile development is balkanized while the big players fight for turf. Who suffers? developers. It would have been nice to have proper Java work on the mobiles too (funny thing is, the early Apple devices actually had hardware JVM support, which Apple did not use) - that way developers would get a benefit of 'write once run everywhere, test everywhere' (which your JUnit and Continuous Integration environments help with - if you are smart enough to use them). However, every hardware manufacturer wants to do their own thing (just like sound, CPUs, disk drives, networking etc etc all used to have non-standardized interfaces in the past). The current mess on mobiles is Apple's fault as much as it is Google's. Face it, they just don't give a sh!t about developer needs, they just want to rule the mobile world and feel that trying to capture the market with non-standard interfaces helps themselves.
Yeah mate. What an awesome thing to do! Hope things go well in the future for you all. Despite their difficulties, they probably don't yet realise how lucky they already got (to have a Slashdotter as a Dad:)). It is always saddening to think that some orphans unfortunately never get picked (for whatever reason).
What is interesting is your need to defend Microsoft so vigorously and persistently. I guess you get jollies from that. Now the reason I mentioned supercomputers, and the fact that Linux pwns the CA nodes was to point out the fact that Windows XP is incapable of this (your beloved, since you appear stuck in the days of 1999; I mean, your security solution is to not use stuff, and avoid most of the web, seriously? that's 1999 advice) - since you seemed to insinuate that if Windows was on the CA servers they wouldn't have been hacked. Clearly a ridiculous and totally troll-esque. However, you run back to your little troll site and post a link, without even thinking about what is being said (and of course assuming that Windows has perfect audio support - sorry monkeyboy, it don't and is broken in some pretty fundamental ways too - like muti-drop outputs thanks to the DRM paths in Win7).
They say to never 'debate with an unarmed opponent' so I've been trying not to. However I'm always prepared to listen to whatever rational arguments you choose to make, in fact I welcome them, but so far what you've come up with is a pretty lame site obviously written by someone who is unable to perform even the most simple tasks with a computer (ffs, my mother runs Linux with a far better experience, better performance, and with fewer hassles than when I put her on WinXP - unfortunately it appears that even if she can use Linux successfully you cannot).
From what you have said your answer is to install WinXP on ancient gear and never upgrade; or to sell brand new stuff to customers but never think about the fact they can't get new drivers for their stuff in two years (this is where Windows and Linux really differ; Windows has fantastic driver support for two years after you buy something and then after that there is usually nothing; Linux always starts 6 months behind but the driver support gets better and better until the gear is around a decade old). Of course, you are only interesting in reading sites and information that reinforces your worldview (from 1999, when Microsoft still had mindshare). The world has moved on but it appears you have not, but clearly love to harp on as if you are some kind of guru (a 'guru' that struggles with basic setup in Linux, lol).
Oh, by the way, any monkey can spend money - I could brag about my spending habits but that would just show bad taste (if you understand the concept) and get further offtopic (which you appear to like to do). Like I said, please enjoy your little out-of-date bubble while the tech world steams ahead without you and your kind.
Their testing should be able to move software an arbitrary amount of time forward and back in time. This is an utter failure of their development team and their test team, because these kinds of test are totally fundamental to testing any software. Running a server two weeks ahead of time is not a sufficiently good test. You have to be able to run the software at an arbitrary time and the developers should be the ones doing this from their desktop during development - it is too late to try testing it later.
Um, no. Hotmail was acquired by Microsoft in 1997. Hotmail originally ran on FreeBSD and Solaris. Eventually Microsoft ported it to Windows but they have reliability problems for a long time. I'm surprised you got this so badly wrong given your impressively low Slashdot ID. When corrected, the example you gave exactly counters the argument you were trying to make. I guess that the true origins of Hotmail are not something that Microsoft hides, but probably not something they mention much either. In fact, if you dig around you often find that what people consider to be Microsoft original products are actually acquired and then heavily modified. Examples: DOS, Flight Simulator (from Sublogic), Powerpoint (originally "Forthought Presenter"), Viso, Hotmail, etc etc. Then we get Microsoft developed products that are attempted clones of others: Zune, C#.NET (derived from Java), XBox, Kinect (concepts from iToy, Track IR although a different implementation - but not an original idea). etc etc.
Azure is the first to use the "cloud" term because Microsoft originated that marketing term. It was Sun that invented the idea long ago (remember, "The network is the computer"), but they were stymied by Microsoft's tactical moves against them (plus some of Sun's own failings - like it being hard to purchase from them due to the crazy internal greed/politics between different Sun sales teams).
nb. Excel is a true Microsoft product, but ran on Macs two years before being ported to Windows! It is, of course, dervied from Lotus 123. So sure, Microsoft is an innovator, in some parallel universe, but not this one.
You see that the 'problem' with Slashdotter is not that we intrinsically hare Microsoft - it's just that we have long memories so can easily spot the misinformed and Microsoft's presentation of historical events (which is often PR-ed and doesn't actually line up with what actually happened). I pity the good guys that work for Microsoft, coping so much flak because of the crazy antics of their company/PR/legal/management (although some Microsoft devs and testers obviously are clueless - not having a clue about the Gregorian calendar is a shocking and basic error to make, especially in internationalized software).
nb. the CAs were compromised running Linux/CA because the CA (just like most of the supercomputers) have chosen not to run Windows (since it blows for real uptimes, y'know the ones you measure in years). Cool, enjoy spending your life goofing off.
Yeah, but any competent business that is bigger than *tiny* can get better uptimes - if they have any IT staff that know what they are doing (and have some redundancy built in). Even for small outfits a LAN or dedicated WAN circuits (easy to hire from a telco) is far more robust than relying on the general Internet (there are far more pieces to break, and not under your direct control with the Internet). So no, I would say that Amazon and Microsoft don't have better uptimes than a competent small business - and worse, when there is downtime with a Cloud provider *there is nothing the small business can do about it* (unlike if they control their own resources). It may be cheaper to use the cloud, but it is not more reliable and certainly there is a huge loss of control (which can impact reliability). Once the Cloud gets as reliable as (First World) electricity then it makes sense to switch. The Cloud is still quite far from the 'reliable electricity' model at the moment - unfortunately bosses want to believe in the Cloud bullshit, even what is promised doesn't yet match reality, so they suck it up. Good Engineering practice is to keep your business running, which is what the parent said. Good financial practice is something else.
That's funny they want your files in the cloud considering Windows Azure just went 'tits up' for an extended period (possibly due to them not being able to handle a leap year - that would be amazingly dumb if true).
South Korea used to have joint industrial ventures with the North Koreans. That didn't stop the Norks from infiltrating assassins and saboteurs into the South. The Norks also set up industrial disputes to twist the arm of the South a lot too. Good luck to the Chinese if they make the same mistakes.
North Korea is a known source of proliferation of nuclear and ballistic missile technology (where it can sneak them past the eyes of the international community). It is also known to use diplomatic immunity to transport in drugs such as heroin and very high quality counterfeit US currency (made using NK government printing presses using ink from the same Scandinavian supplier the US does). It is a good thing to get rid of their nuke programme.
Actually much of the aid food is distributed to the elites for loyalty, hoarded by the North Korean Army and Secret Police units, or sold over the border in China for luxuries for the elites. There is some benefit for giving food aid but there is no doubt it is propping up the evil North Korean government and prolonging the misery of the citizens. As harsh as it is to say, the strategic view would be to not give the aid *until* the North Koreans had proven they'd given up nuclear arms - not give the aid first (which has been shown for the last three decades to be a waste of time; the citizens still don't get enough and the government always reneges on its promises; and still sends saboteurs and assassins into South Korea on a routine basis - did you know that?).
I read that apparently the streets of Pyongyang are often lined with US flags. This is because the US aid comes in large sacks with US flags stamped on them. The populace then puts these handy sacks to all sorts of uses - which results in the US flag being everywhere. Quite ironic.
Stalin feed the Russian population. His enforcement of collectivization starved the *Ukranian* population. The ethnic Ukranians have not forgotten the Holodomor even if the Russians (and interestingly enough, the Russian Ukranians I've come across) are taught to dispute the Holodomor (the usual story, when you get to re-write the textbooks you can say anything, just how glorious life was under Stalin [not!]).
He has been convicted, and was punished for it. In theory his slate was clean (apart from the record of the previous convictions).
Now he tried to start a more legit business sailing *just* on the right side of the law. Was good enough for New Zealand but not good enough for the US Recording MAFIA.
Some coders are just shit and will never learn if you tell them (we lead them to water but they just don't listen - I've supplied working date-correct code in the past but some folks [usual Visual Basic schmucks] still want to do crappy hacks instead of doing it right).
If you are working with dates you should never work with an internal representation that is not Gregorian (although, of course, you need to display Gregorian, you just don't use that for your internal date representation). For example, the Java standard library has some clunky date handling but the internal representation is in the *Julian* Calendar. This is just a count of days since some date in the past (turns out to be way in the past, where the Gregorian and Julian calendars are synchronized on that one date). That means date calculations become very easy (which is why java.util.Calendar can do all sorts of nifty calculations and get it right every time no matter whether it is a every-4-years leap year or every 400-years not-a-leap year.
Coders are also very crap at dealing with Timezones. Even if they are aware of timezones most do not realise that one location can have multiple timezones (such as Standard Time and Daylight Time for a single timezone band). The key for internationalized stuff is always do calculations and storage in UTC *only*, and then convert to the local display timezone on output.
The last thing people don't commonly realise is that there are some dates without timezone. Most points in time should have an attached timezone (+0 for UTC) but some should never have a timezone. A birthday is a classic example. Your birthday is the same date no matter what timezone you are in, but this does not mean that a timezone should be attached to your birthday, since the actual point in time may be the same but at the same point in time the date is different around the world. Example, in timezone +13 (where I am now) it could be my birthday but in England (+0) or the US (-6 in some parts) it will be the day before so is not my birthday, despite being the same moment in time. In this way a birthday should not have a timezone attached.
If you think this is esoteric junk that devs shouldn't need to worry about then you're a bad developer (if you do coding at all). Turns out that even the pros get this wrong. When the F-22 fighter first crossed the International Date Line their software crashed and they lost most of their flight computers (but not all). Fortunately they could just make out their tanker and could follow it back to Hawaii. It also appears that the Windows Azure software platform may be choking because of the leap year - if so then that is woeful (but regrettably not abnormal for low-time Windows coders). Getting time and dates right does matter!
Understanding time and dates is *fundamental* for professional software development. If you feel a bit hazy on the subjects covered here then it is time to do some research and experimental with the extra functionality your development tools offer (like I said, Java does this properly, which can be checking how they thought about this stuff).
Lol. That's a low hourly rate to get paid. I guess Windows monkeys are a dime-a-dozen. You'd get a factor of three more doing multi-platform stuff (like I do). But that's beside the point.
> I have XP machines that have been out in the field 8 years now, with ZERO driver failures, that's two service packs, around 3000 patches and ZERO driver failures.
Wow, who's in the perception distortion bubble? I call total BS on this one. That is such an outrageous claim - you really can't be making it and expect people who have also been computing well before the DOS days to believe that WinXP is as reliable as Unix based systems do you? Those machines you claim can't be doing anything useful (Solotaire only?) - and clearly haven't had more modern software installed that require newer services and drivers. Oh yeah, these 8 year old machines won't be doing wireless either (the bane of Linux drivers).
Most high-uptime machines (that is, servers where all the real money is if your company is not Microsoft) run RedHat or CentOS. The really critical ones run Solaris. These are chosen because they are reliable (lol, the Windows Azure Cloud Computing platform has just had a huge outage - in contrast I worked on a large Internet scale system deployed on CentOS to thousands of nodes, no service-level failures there). Computing is not only the desktop but when you are a peon at the bottom looking up I guess that's all you see. The rest of the world is rapidly moving away from PCs (and Windows) for their computing needs except in some niches. There will always be some PC sales but the growth these days is negative (-6% per annum according to the latest Microsoft Windows sales). I hope you have an alternative sales career lined up.
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> Care to clarify? The only thing remotely applicable is Apple's requirements for the SDKs used to develop for iOS (which allows for cross-platform kits like Unity). This limitation is primarily to make sure iOS doesn't get a bunch of shitty lowest-common-denominator ports, which is something they've been burned on in the past.
That is one reason, not the only reason. The ability to produce cross-platform applications that run on iOS and elsewhere has been disabled thanks to App Store policies. Then we can talk about formats used for lock-in. When AAC was first used by iTunes it could not be used elsewhere (thanks to the DRM, but the point is that it could not be used anywhere else). That has now changed but at the time Apple was building its music empire that's how it was (music would only work with Apple software and gear). These days, try buying an Apple eBook through iTunes and see how far you get reading it with a Kindle. Again, building an empire. Eventually the restrictions will be removed and everyone will forget what Apple did to get where it is. Now, I'm not bashing Apple specifically here. Every big company does this, so Apple is not alone. But we can 'call a spade "a spade"' which means we can point out that Apple also practices these lock-in tactics (even if they do make good stuff).
> With today's electronics, devices are fast enough in general to nicely make up for the lack of hard realtime.
Well, apparently you didn't read the original parent post. He seemed to consider that real time was necessary for his drum kit sim.
> Also, many of those who've focused on "Mac-only" products are crying all the way to the bank just now...
Nope. They went broke when windows took over. It will happen again to those who aren't doing portable code (which you correctly point out can also be done it C++, but then you are not writing iOS code in Objective-C are you, which is my whole point - write portable! the thing that differs is our choice of language [Java being my preferred language as its frameworks are vastly more portable than C++ on all platforms save for those that are locked out by the vendor - which was the point I was trying to get across - avoid the lock-in]).
Nb. why can't you get RT Java on Android? because the vendor doesn't want you to! that was my point. It wasn't about whether you should be using Java on mobile, it is the fact the vendors *won't let you* when otherwise you could really 'write once, run anywhere' [WORE].
If we set aside my points about vendor lock-in and address your concerns about Java itself. How do I know that the write once promise works and the performance is good enough? Well because I'm able to use Java for a jet combat flight simulator code I'm building for Windows, Linux and Mac - 'WORE' really does work if you know wtf you are doing and choose your libraries carefully (JoGL, JOAL, JInput, etc). Unfortunately it won't work on mobiles because the vendors have locked me out (hence the point of my original post) - if it wasn't for the sh!tty mobile vendors I'd be able to cover iOS and Android too. For me *both* platforms are not worth writing specific code for, since you have to re-implment for each. Now I've notices that the real time performance of Java is sufficient since you are multithreaded and the GC can run on one core while you do your stuff on another. Sure, if you only write single threaded then you might have difficulty, but multi-threading is so much easier in Java (viz C++) that you are a mug if you aren't using it for performance hungry software. Even in the old days IL-2: Sturmovik was written in Java (with some C++ for speed critical stuff). These days the IL-2: Cliffs of Dover is written in C#.NET which arguably has a less efficient runtime in some aspects (that I'm interested in) than the JVM.
Hmm, that's strange. It seems to work just fine for me - perhaps it is because I know what the hell I'm doing, unlike freshmen (I learned to do good cross-platform all my C++ years). Especially when I use decent libraries (JoGL for 3D and JOAL for sound).
> Apple isn't doing anything to "make you develop for their platform only" other than offering a product that people actually want to develop for.
Bullshit. That is exactly part if their strategy.
> Java has too many latency issues for any kind of real time music apps like synthesizers or drum machines and Apple has always been sure to pay attention to the needs of "creatives" and realized Java wouldn't work.
You are right if you are talking about Java SE. There is a real-time Java specification if you really need it. Plus, even with Java SE you are not limited by the Sun/Oracle/OpenJDK implementation. What matters is programming to the interface, not the particular implementation. For example, you could use the gcj implementation which essentially has C runtime performance. Is C too slow for you? You can have multi-platform implementation (Java) as well as deterministic performance. With Apple technologies you get what they give you and if they decide to withdraw it (which they do from time to time, still using Hypercard? Carbon? even Cocoa will die). By tying yourself to some niche you are guaranteeing that your future growth will be constrained - as any significant product cannot be re-written on a whim. While mobile is hot now its growth will slow and picking to develop for iOS-only you choose short-term profit (which can be a legitimate goal) at the expense of a business model that can be maintained in the long term (we've seen the same crap in the past with those that chose Mac-only products in the past). Incidentally, the latency of Java can be negligible compared to the latency the operating system introduces - so you will always suffer poor real-time performance on any desktop OS. If you are serious about real-time you use Solaris, one of the dedicated real-time OSes (VxWorks etc), or use hardware. Your argument doesn't really hold water under close scrutiny.
All mobile development is platform specific, whether you like it or not. Apple in particular always has an interest in making you develop for their platform only. The fragmentation of the market is deliberate and always occurs in the current *innovation space*. Same thing happened with web 'standards' (ECMAscript and W3C standards), same thing happened with 'operating systems' (until Java came and levelled most of the differences for the developers interested in doing cross-platform stuff), same thing happened in hardware.
At the mobile development is balkanized while the big players fight for turf. Who suffers? developers. It would have been nice to have proper Java work on the mobiles too (funny thing is, the early Apple devices actually had hardware JVM support, which Apple did not use) - that way developers would get a benefit of 'write once run everywhere, test everywhere' (which your JUnit and Continuous Integration environments help with - if you are smart enough to use them). However, every hardware manufacturer wants to do their own thing (just like sound, CPUs, disk drives, networking etc etc all used to have non-standardized interfaces in the past). The current mess on mobiles is Apple's fault as much as it is Google's. Face it, they just don't give a sh!t about developer needs, they just want to rule the mobile world and feel that trying to capture the market with non-standard interfaces helps themselves.
Yeah, the art of Star Wars books showcase his artistic talent too.
.. that way when the next Sith Lord gains enough unnatural abilities of the Dark Side to reverse death he'll be ok.
Yeah mate. What an awesome thing to do! Hope things go well in the future for you all. Despite their difficulties, they probably don't yet realise how lucky they already got (to have a Slashdotter as a Dad :)). It is always saddening to think that some orphans unfortunately never get picked (for whatever reason).
What is interesting is your need to defend Microsoft so vigorously and persistently. I guess you get jollies from that. Now the reason I mentioned supercomputers, and the fact that Linux pwns the CA nodes was to point out the fact that Windows XP is incapable of this (your beloved, since you appear stuck in the days of 1999; I mean, your security solution is to not use stuff, and avoid most of the web, seriously? that's 1999 advice) - since you seemed to insinuate that if Windows was on the CA servers they wouldn't have been hacked. Clearly a ridiculous and totally troll-esque. However, you run back to your little troll site and post a link, without even thinking about what is being said (and of course assuming that Windows has perfect audio support - sorry monkeyboy, it don't and is broken in some pretty fundamental ways too - like muti-drop outputs thanks to the DRM paths in Win7).
They say to never 'debate with an unarmed opponent' so I've been trying not to. However I'm always prepared to listen to whatever rational arguments you choose to make, in fact I welcome them, but so far what you've come up with is a pretty lame site obviously written by someone who is unable to perform even the most simple tasks with a computer (ffs, my mother runs Linux with a far better experience, better performance, and with fewer hassles than when I put her on WinXP - unfortunately it appears that even if she can use Linux successfully you cannot).
From what you have said your answer is to install WinXP on ancient gear and never upgrade; or to sell brand new stuff to customers but never think about the fact they can't get new drivers for their stuff in two years (this is where Windows and Linux really differ; Windows has fantastic driver support for two years after you buy something and then after that there is usually nothing; Linux always starts 6 months behind but the driver support gets better and better until the gear is around a decade old). Of course, you are only interesting in reading sites and information that reinforces your worldview (from 1999, when Microsoft still had mindshare). The world has moved on but it appears you have not, but clearly love to harp on as if you are some kind of guru (a 'guru' that struggles with basic setup in Linux, lol).
Oh, by the way, any monkey can spend money - I could brag about my spending habits but that would just show bad taste (if you understand the concept) and get further offtopic (which you appear to like to do). Like I said, please enjoy your little out-of-date bubble while the tech world steams ahead without you and your kind.
Their testing should be able to move software an arbitrary amount of time forward and back in time. This is an utter failure of their development team and their test team, because these kinds of test are totally fundamental to testing any software. Running a server two weeks ahead of time is not a sufficiently good test. You have to be able to run the software at an arbitrary time and the developers should be the ones doing this from their desktop during development - it is too late to try testing it later.
The problem with this Slashdotter is that I can't type, and I'm often too hurried to proofread. My apologies for the typos in my previous post.
Um, no. Hotmail was acquired by Microsoft in 1997. Hotmail originally ran on FreeBSD and Solaris. Eventually Microsoft ported it to Windows but they have reliability problems for a long time. I'm surprised you got this so badly wrong given your impressively low Slashdot ID. When corrected, the example you gave exactly counters the argument you were trying to make. I guess that the true origins of Hotmail are not something that Microsoft hides, but probably not something they mention much either. In fact, if you dig around you often find that what people consider to be Microsoft original products are actually acquired and then heavily modified. Examples: DOS, Flight Simulator (from Sublogic), Powerpoint (originally "Forthought Presenter"), Viso, Hotmail, etc etc. Then we get Microsoft developed products that are attempted clones of others: Zune, C#.NET (derived from Java), XBox, Kinect (concepts from iToy, Track IR although a different implementation - but not an original idea). etc etc.
Azure is the first to use the "cloud" term because Microsoft originated that marketing term. It was Sun that invented the idea long ago (remember, "The network is the computer"), but they were stymied by Microsoft's tactical moves against them (plus some of Sun's own failings - like it being hard to purchase from them due to the crazy internal greed/politics between different Sun sales teams).
nb. Excel is a true Microsoft product, but ran on Macs two years before being ported to Windows! It is, of course, dervied from Lotus 123. So sure, Microsoft is an innovator, in some parallel universe, but not this one.
You see that the 'problem' with Slashdotter is not that we intrinsically hare Microsoft - it's just that we have long memories so can easily spot the misinformed and Microsoft's presentation of historical events (which is often PR-ed and doesn't actually line up with what actually happened). I pity the good guys that work for Microsoft, coping so much flak because of the crazy antics of their company/PR/legal/management (although some Microsoft devs and testers obviously are clueless - not having a clue about the Gregorian calendar is a shocking and basic error to make, especially in internationalized software).
nb. the CAs were compromised running Linux/CA because the CA (just like most of the supercomputers) have chosen not to run Windows (since it blows for real uptimes, y'know the ones you measure in years). Cool, enjoy spending your life goofing off.
Yeah, but any competent business that is bigger than *tiny* can get better uptimes - if they have any IT staff that know what they are doing (and have some redundancy built in). Even for small outfits a LAN or dedicated WAN circuits (easy to hire from a telco) is far more robust than relying on the general Internet (there are far more pieces to break, and not under your direct control with the Internet). So no, I would say that Amazon and Microsoft don't have better uptimes than a competent small business - and worse, when there is downtime with a Cloud provider *there is nothing the small business can do about it* (unlike if they control their own resources). It may be cheaper to use the cloud, but it is not more reliable and certainly there is a huge loss of control (which can impact reliability). Once the Cloud gets as reliable as (First World) electricity then it makes sense to switch. The Cloud is still quite far from the 'reliable electricity' model at the moment - unfortunately bosses want to believe in the Cloud bullshit, even what is promised doesn't yet match reality, so they suck it up. Good Engineering practice is to keep your business running, which is what the parent said. Good financial practice is something else.
That's funny they want your files in the cloud considering Windows Azure just went 'tits up' for an extended period (possibly due to them not being able to handle a leap year - that would be amazingly dumb if true).
Some portion of food aid is sold on Chinese markets to generate hard currency.
South Korea used to have joint industrial ventures with the North Koreans. That didn't stop the Norks from infiltrating assassins and saboteurs into the South. The Norks also set up industrial disputes to twist the arm of the South a lot too. Good luck to the Chinese if they make the same mistakes.
North Korea is a known source of proliferation of nuclear and ballistic missile technology (where it can sneak them past the eyes of the international community). It is also known to use diplomatic immunity to transport in drugs such as heroin and very high quality counterfeit US currency (made using NK government printing presses using ink from the same Scandinavian supplier the US does). It is a good thing to get rid of their nuke programme.
Actually much of the aid food is distributed to the elites for loyalty, hoarded by the North Korean Army and Secret Police units, or sold over the border in China for luxuries for the elites. There is some benefit for giving food aid but there is no doubt it is propping up the evil North Korean government and prolonging the misery of the citizens. As harsh as it is to say, the strategic view would be to not give the aid *until* the North Koreans had proven they'd given up nuclear arms - not give the aid first (which has been shown for the last three decades to be a waste of time; the citizens still don't get enough and the government always reneges on its promises; and still sends saboteurs and assassins into South Korea on a routine basis - did you know that?).
I read that apparently the streets of Pyongyang are often lined with US flags. This is because the US aid comes in large sacks with US flags stamped on them. The populace then puts these handy sacks to all sorts of uses - which results in the US flag being everywhere. Quite ironic.
Stalin feed the Russian population. His enforcement of collectivization starved the *Ukranian* population. The ethnic Ukranians have not forgotten the Holodomor even if the Russians (and interestingly enough, the Russian Ukranians I've come across) are taught to dispute the Holodomor (the usual story, when you get to re-write the textbooks you can say anything, just how glorious life was under Stalin [not!]).
He has been convicted, and was punished for it. In theory his slate was clean (apart from the record of the previous convictions). Now he tried to start a more legit business sailing *just* on the right side of the law. Was good enough for New Zealand but not good enough for the US Recording MAFIA.
Well, in the New Zealand news it said he initially asked for NZ$220 / month (nearly quarter of a million kiwi dollars). That's a lot of cheezeburgas!
Some coders are just shit and will never learn if you tell them (we lead them to water but they just don't listen - I've supplied working date-correct code in the past but some folks [usual Visual Basic schmucks] still want to do crappy hacks instead of doing it right).
If you are working with dates you should never work with an internal representation that is not Gregorian (although, of course, you need to display Gregorian, you just don't use that for your internal date representation). For example, the Java standard library has some clunky date handling but the internal representation is in the *Julian* Calendar. This is just a count of days since some date in the past (turns out to be way in the past, where the Gregorian and Julian calendars are synchronized on that one date). That means date calculations become very easy (which is why java.util.Calendar can do all sorts of nifty calculations and get it right every time no matter whether it is a every-4-years leap year or every 400-years not-a-leap year.
Coders are also very crap at dealing with Timezones. Even if they are aware of timezones most do not realise that one location can have multiple timezones (such as Standard Time and Daylight Time for a single timezone band). The key for internationalized stuff is always do calculations and storage in UTC *only*, and then convert to the local display timezone on output.
The last thing people don't commonly realise is that there are some dates without timezone. Most points in time should have an attached timezone (+0 for UTC) but some should never have a timezone. A birthday is a classic example. Your birthday is the same date no matter what timezone you are in, but this does not mean that a timezone should be attached to your birthday, since the actual point in time may be the same but at the same point in time the date is different around the world. Example, in timezone +13 (where I am now) it could be my birthday but in England (+0) or the US (-6 in some parts) it will be the day before so is not my birthday, despite being the same moment in time. In this way a birthday should not have a timezone attached.
If you think this is esoteric junk that devs shouldn't need to worry about then you're a bad developer (if you do coding at all). Turns out that even the pros get this wrong. When the F-22 fighter first crossed the International Date Line their software crashed and they lost most of their flight computers (but not all). Fortunately they could just make out their tanker and could follow it back to Hawaii. It also appears that the Windows Azure software platform may be choking because of the leap year - if so then that is woeful (but regrettably not abnormal for low-time Windows coders). Getting time and dates right does matter!
Understanding time and dates is *fundamental* for professional software development. If you feel a bit hazy on the subjects covered here then it is time to do some research and experimental with the extra functionality your development tools offer (like I said, Java does this properly, which can be checking how they thought about this stuff).
Lol. That's a low hourly rate to get paid. I guess Windows monkeys are a dime-a-dozen. You'd get a factor of three more doing multi-platform stuff (like I do). But that's beside the point.
> I have XP machines that have been out in the field 8 years now, with ZERO driver failures, that's two service packs, around 3000 patches and ZERO driver failures.
Wow, who's in the perception distortion bubble? I call total BS on this one. That is such an outrageous claim - you really can't be making it and expect people who have also been computing well before the DOS days to believe that WinXP is as reliable as Unix based systems do you? Those machines you claim can't be doing anything useful (Solotaire only?) - and clearly haven't had more modern software installed that require newer services and drivers. Oh yeah, these 8 year old machines won't be doing wireless either (the bane of Linux drivers).
Most high-uptime machines (that is, servers where all the real money is if your company is not Microsoft) run RedHat or CentOS. The really critical ones run Solaris. These are chosen because they are reliable (lol, the Windows Azure Cloud Computing platform has just had a huge outage - in contrast I worked on a large Internet scale system deployed on CentOS to thousands of nodes, no service-level failures there). Computing is not only the desktop but when you are a peon at the bottom looking up I guess that's all you see. The rest of the world is rapidly moving away from PCs (and Windows) for their computing needs except in some niches. There will always be some PC sales but the growth these days is negative (-6% per annum according to the latest Microsoft Windows sales). I hope you have an alternative sales career lined up.