The problem with software engineering is that we don't have very good ways of building Big Things. A bridge is a Big Thing, but did the engineer have to design the process of smelting the steel? No, he gets "off the shelf" stuff to build his bridge and knows, because of the standards in place for steel and other bridge parts, he can make something that won't fall down.
Software engineering is not at that point yet. We don't have rigid standards in place for stuff that is really at the raw material level in software. What our discipline needs is standard, off the shelf software components that have been proven to be both bug-free and to have used the best algorithm possible for its task. Some people claim that writing bug-free software is impossible, and maybe so, but we could still learn from other engineering disciplines and strive for a six-sigma level of quality.
So what is really needed is a big, powerful, high-performance, and bug-free library that is able to perform common programming tasks. Preferably, it should have the ability to be called from a variety of higher-level languages. Come to think of it, if the underpinnings of.NET were built with real engineering standards, we might be able to start comparing our profession favorably to other types of engineering. Hopefully the fact that.NET is an open standard will encourage developers outside of MS to ensure that a high level of engineering exists. If.NET turns out to be less than promised, we still would need something to take its place. Whatever it is will need to be a standardized library that is big enough to accomplish most programming tasks, while at the same time having high performance and being bug-free.
So far we aren't there..NET is looming, but is unproven. What will be the standard library of code that will support future generations of coders in building the massive skyscrapers(compared to the modest houses of today) with the foundation and the tools we give them?
Three of today's greatest scientists all agree - we are looking at a future where humans become cyborgs or else risk being a loser in the game of evolution.
We will gradually turn into machines - because economics will force us to in order to compete successfully. Those who don't will likely become slaves of those who do. Those that decide to enhance their lifespan and abilities through the use of computer enhancements will survive and thrive in the future.
Kurzweil actually takes this thought out to the point where we are just software - our DNA - and therefore can transfer the essence of our being from machine to machine once the tech is fully developed.
I notice a lot of/.ers disagree. Hmm...who do I believe, the greatest thinkers of our time or a bunch of/.ers? Yep, the future looks pretty scary(or bright, depending on your POV).
who replied to my comment. After reading through all the comments it is clear to me that I made a really bad analogy.
A better one might be that if replicators of physical objects existed, we would likely see restrictions on what objects we could copy. And, someone who provided a way to defeat those restrictions would probably face jail time.
I don't think Skylarov belongs in jail. However, I think that people who create digital things like software or music should be able to limit the amount of free copying that happens to their creation. In my opinion the only real way of doing that is to build a culture of respect - respect for the authors of software, music, movies, etc. Its likely that NO lock, encryption method or other security device is 100% secure. Therefore the only way to really have things be secure is if the vast majority of people respect laws and copyrights.
If the vast majority of people do not respect the law, then we have a serious problem. I'm not talking about unjust laws like the DMCA. I'm talking about the copyright laws that get broken every day by people who wouldn't even consider shoplifting. We have to build a culture of trust and respect, or else we may have to watch our digital society be replaced by something far more draconian.
with the Skylarov case. First, there is a big difference between Ed Felton, who broke the SDMI encryption and Skylarov. Felton did his work as a purely academic excercise, whereas Skylarov made a product and distributed it for sale.
Seems to me if Skylarov was only interested in promoting better security he wouldn't have tried to sell his product. This looks to me like someone trying to make a buck off an insecure product.
Look at it another way. I come up with a key that can open and start any Ford vehicle. I have a couple of options. I could contact Ford and show them the tech that allows anyone to break into their vehicles. Or, if I don't want to deal with Ford directly I could publish the findings in an academic journal without trying to sell the key.
Instead of doing that, however, I decide to market and sell keys that can break into every Ford. Now, don't you see what's wrong with that? I could have taken the high road, but instead I tried to make a buck. This is pretty much what Dmitry did.
I can assure you, that if anyone tries to market a key that will unlock any Ford, that person will get thrown in jail if caught. Why should software be different?
And I'm sorry, there's something a bit shady about VA Linux. Look up the investor lawsuits that have been filed against them and you'll see what I mean. Now they are looking to burn about 80 million before they inevitably die. Really they should give that to their stockholders now and give up as honorably as possible.
Its too bad they are so fucked, because/. is a great site. I hope VA doesn't take Slashdot down with it.
I wouldn't trust them either. According to this report(real audio), VA is essentially a penny stock, with no hope of survival after 5 quarters, as they will run out of cash. Their stock is currently $1.73, down from a high of $320.
Imagine how it must feel to be in Maldas or ESRs shoes having lost a paper wealth worth millions. I know I wouldn't have enjoyed the ride down.
A lot of information can be gleaned from the timing of the keystrokes and some (relatively simple) packet decoding.
Well, if you use RSA you don't need to type a password so that would solve that particular problem. But if you really want to be paranoid about it, the technology exists to capture your keystrokes. I believe it works by detecting the charge released from depressing each keystroke(the keyboard uses capacitance to send specific characters if I'm not mistaken). So you really need to work behind lead walls or something else that will block that signal from being transmitted.
Again, using RSA would prevent the password from being transmitted. But they could just keep listening, and gather sensitive data as you type away.
Well, I actually wondered if such people existed, so my statement was partly to draw out anyone who had.:) But I still can't help wondering, if someone is skilled enough to patch Red Hat, why is he working as a sysadmin? Wouldn't he be more suited to a development job?
Client software OTOH, now that's where you want the source since that's where your company's business logic resides. The "bricks" component of our company primarily relies on a closed source product, and if I had the source I could fix a lot of broken things.
So really, I should have more specifically stated kernel level development as something most companies wouldn't have expertise to fix if something went wrong.
and that's a pretty big difference when it comes to how one copes with problem analysis and recovery when you hit something the operating system does not handle well or at all.
However, I have yet to see a single sysadmin tweak the source of a Linux or BSD kernel because they found a bug or performance bottleneck. I mean really, who expects the average sysadmin to go in and fix a kernel if something breaks. No, they submit bug reports and hope someone else fixes it soon. Just like in closed source.
Not to disparage open source software, but to think the average maintainer is going to dive in and fix things when he notices a problem is stretching things a bit. The people who actually can fix things in the code generally are not sysadmins.
Re:Slashdot readership stats ... get 'em fresh!
on
Stopping The 56K Hate
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· Score: 1
Hey, the less people using cable in my neighborhood, the more bandwidth there is for me!
I won't be joining your ranks, but you certainly have my support. Well maybe not, but at least I won't discriminate against you.
Leads right into Passport.
on
Hotmail Hacked
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· Score: 1, Redundant
Don't forget, with your hotmail account, you automatically have a Microsoft Passport created for you!
With Passport, a single sign on can access all your credit cards, bank accounts, medical history, and other pertinent data! And who better than Microsoft to trust all your personal data to? You'll never again have to worry about who has your personal information because you have the power of Microsoft to secure it and manage it for you.
Even if the physical goods could be distributed for free, you'd still need to pay for production and creation. Even if the costs of production could be reduced to zero, you'd still need to pay for creation
When that happens physical goods, like information will "want to be free".
This means one cannot keep several iterators around at the same time and manipulate them independently
Actually you can. True, only one iterator per connection(you are using ADO, I'm guessing), but you can create multiple connections to the same database and get multiple iterators(MoveNext, etc).
There's no reason to do your VB programming in Access BTW, unless your intention is to distribute your app along with an Access database. Use VB proper to connect to an Access database and you'll find less limitations.
The next generation of MS programming tools looks pretty good. VB will be strongly typed(no more voodoo variables), and fully object oriented, supporting polymorphism and inheritance. I imagine a lot of games will be programmed in VB since it will have hooks into DirectX.
Also, outside of VB C# looks killer and should serve to do away with MFC, at least for new applications.
I always thought the constant in the speed of light referred specifically to the speed of light in a vacuum.
Of course it is going to vary depending on the mass light travels between and the medium it travels through. Also, lets not forget, light is composed of particles - wouldn't the speed of light also depend on its source? Perhaps this is just the phenomenon of an unknown element or subatomic particle we haven't yet discovered. And, another thing I didn't see mentioned was signal degradation. They are looking at a quasar that emitted its light 12 billion years ago.
Observe it in a vacuum, however, control the known variables and the properties of light should hold the same. Unfortunately, these physicists have no choice but to use incomplete evidence to draw their conclusions.
hmm. Your post blames Microsoft for things that are really your companys fault. SQL Server doesn't "shut itself down automatically" unless there is something wrong with the machine or its setup. ASP/COM is quite capable of code reuse and templates. Actually I think if you used COM to any great extent you'll find its equivalent doesn't exist in the Linux world.
Sounds like you got to clean up a mess left by someone else and you persuaded your company to use the tools you are most comfortable using. I just don't think its fair in this case to blame MS for things that are the fault of the company and the consultant that it hired.
You will need to get on the Apache mailing list and regularly apply patches to keep your application secure. Thats not something unique to IIS. And what do you plan on replacing SQL Server with, Postgres? Plan on rolling your own full text indexing, replication, and transactions, features I'm sure you already use being an eBusiness company and all.
So in fairness, the technology that is "well-suited for the job" is the one you are most skilled at, and doesn't really have to do with the relative strengths and/or weaknesses of either Apache or IIS. Right?
Although I'm glad you got your company to switch. I'm thinking of doing the same thing, but its primarily due to licensing and $$$.
If the first edition is the Old Testament, and the second edition is the New Testament, then the third -might- be called the Book of Mormon...then what would be the fourth edition?
Asus is one of the better ones. I also like Abit. Gigabyte boards are pretty reliable, but they didn't have nifty features like overclocking without changing jumpers on the mobo.
This problem seems to be entirely due to static. Here's an anecdote - over the last several years my brother has destroyed too many motherboards to count. I have never lost a motherboard. I am careful about static - he rips his computer apart every week and leaves the case covers off.
I remember when people were advised to touch the case of the computer before even using the mouse? And yes, there have been reports of motherboards dying because of static discharge through the mouse. I haven't heard such stories lately, perhaps that was when serial mice were more common. However, this story seems to be the exact same thing, only with Palms instead of mice.
Moral of the story - ground yourself before you use your computer and take common sense precautions.
I second this. Actually, I was able to combine 3 of their "bookshelves" (Unix, Perl, and Networking) into a single CD, as they each only take about 90MB.
One disc to carry around 18 O'Reilly books! Now, thats ebooks done right.
Isn't this just a way to get students to do low-cost engineering work for you?
These things should be sponsored by universities or non-profit organizations like the ACM, not companies. I'd imagine the winning solutions are worth far more than the prizes offered.
Slashdot Mirror
Software engineering is not at that point yet. We don't have rigid standards in place for stuff that is really at the raw material level in software. What our discipline needs is standard, off the shelf software components that have been proven to be both bug-free and to have used the best algorithm possible for its task. Some people claim that writing bug-free software is impossible, and maybe so, but we could still learn from other engineering disciplines and strive for a six-sigma level of quality.
So what is really needed is a big, powerful, high-performance, and bug-free library that is able to perform common programming tasks. Preferably, it should have the ability to be called from a variety of higher-level languages. Come to think of it, if the underpinnings of
So far we aren't there.
aren't we supposed to go back to 1991 first?
Three of today's greatest scientists all agree - we are looking at a future where humans become cyborgs or else risk being a loser in the game of evolution.
We will gradually turn into machines - because economics will force us to in order to compete successfully. Those who don't will likely become slaves of those who do. Those that decide to enhance their lifespan and abilities through the use of computer enhancements will survive and thrive in the future.
Kurzweil actually takes this thought out to the point where we are just software - our DNA - and therefore can transfer the essence of our being from machine to machine once the tech is fully developed.
I notice a lot of
A better one might be that if replicators of physical objects existed, we would likely see restrictions on what objects we could copy. And, someone who provided a way to defeat those restrictions would probably face jail time.
I don't think Skylarov belongs in jail. However, I think that people who create digital things like software or music should be able to limit the amount of free copying that happens to their creation. In my opinion the only real way of doing that is to build a culture of respect - respect for the authors of software, music, movies, etc. Its likely that NO lock, encryption method or other security device is 100% secure. Therefore the only way to really have things be secure is if the vast majority of people respect laws and copyrights.
If the vast majority of people do not respect the law, then we have a serious problem. I'm not talking about unjust laws like the DMCA. I'm talking about the copyright laws that get broken every day by people who wouldn't even consider shoplifting. We have to build a culture of trust and respect, or else we may have to watch our digital society be replaced by something far more draconian.
Seems to me if Skylarov was only interested in promoting better security he wouldn't have tried to sell his product. This looks to me like someone trying to make a buck off an insecure product.
Look at it another way. I come up with a key that can open and start any Ford vehicle. I have a couple of options. I could contact Ford and show them the tech that allows anyone to break into their vehicles. Or, if I don't want to deal with Ford directly I could publish the findings in an academic journal without trying to sell the key.
Instead of doing that, however, I decide to market and sell keys that can break into every Ford. Now, don't you see what's wrong with that? I could have taken the high road, but instead I tried to make a buck. This is pretty much what Dmitry did.
I can assure you, that if anyone tries to market a key that will unlock any Ford, that person will get thrown in jail if caught. Why should software be different?
Well maybe you would, but most people wouldn't.
And I'm sorry, there's something a bit shady about VA Linux. Look up the investor lawsuits that have been filed against them and you'll see what I mean. Now they are looking to burn about 80 million before they inevitably die. Really they should give that to their stockholders now and give up as honorably as possible.
Its too bad they are so fucked, because
Imagine how it must feel to be in Maldas or ESRs shoes having lost a paper wealth worth millions. I know I wouldn't have enjoyed the ride down.
Well, if you use RSA you don't need to type a password so that would solve that particular problem. But if you really want to be paranoid about it, the technology exists to capture your keystrokes. I believe it works by detecting the charge released from depressing each keystroke(the keyboard uses capacitance to send specific characters if I'm not mistaken). So you really need to work behind lead walls or something else that will block that signal from being transmitted.
Again, using RSA would prevent the password from being transmitted. But they could just keep listening, and gather sensitive data as you type away.
Client software OTOH, now that's where you want the source since that's where your company's business logic resides. The "bricks" component of our company primarily relies on a closed source product, and if I had the source I could fix a lot of broken things.
So really, I should have more specifically stated kernel level development as something most companies wouldn't have expertise to fix if something went wrong.
and that's a pretty big difference when it comes to how one copes with problem analysis and recovery when you hit something the operating system does not handle well or at all.
However, I have yet to see a single sysadmin tweak the source of a Linux or BSD kernel because they found a bug or performance bottleneck. I mean really, who expects the average sysadmin to go in and fix a kernel if something breaks. No, they submit bug reports and hope someone else fixes it soon. Just like in closed source.
Not to disparage open source software, but to think the average maintainer is going to dive in and fix things when he notices a problem is stretching things a bit. The people who actually can fix things in the code generally are not sysadmins.
alright, whos the guy using Windows 3.1? Fess up.
I won't be joining your ranks, but you certainly have my support. Well maybe not, but at least I won't discriminate against you.
With Passport, a single sign on can access all your credit cards, bank accounts, medical history, and other pertinent data! And who better than Microsoft to trust all your personal data to? You'll never again have to worry about who has your personal information because you have the power of Microsoft to secure it and manage it for you.
When that happens physical goods, like information will "want to be free".
yeah, but technically, no more First Posts.
Actually you can. True, only one iterator per connection(you are using ADO, I'm guessing), but you can create multiple connections to the same database and get multiple iterators(MoveNext, etc).
There's no reason to do your VB programming in Access BTW, unless your intention is to distribute your app along with an Access database. Use VB proper to connect to an Access database and you'll find less limitations.
The next generation of MS programming tools looks pretty good. VB will be strongly typed(no more voodoo variables), and fully object oriented, supporting polymorphism and inheritance. I imagine a lot of games will be programmed in VB since it will have hooks into DirectX.
Also, outside of VB C# looks killer and should serve to do away with MFC, at least for new applications.
Of course it is going to vary depending on the mass light travels between and the medium it travels through. Also, lets not forget, light is composed of particles - wouldn't the speed of light also depend on its source? Perhaps this is just the phenomenon of an unknown element or subatomic particle we haven't yet discovered. And, another thing I didn't see mentioned was signal degradation. They are looking at a quasar that emitted its light 12 billion years ago.
Observe it in a vacuum, however, control the known variables and the properties of light should hold the same. Unfortunately, these physicists have no choice but to use incomplete evidence to draw their conclusions.
Is that the culture of Unix imitating Microsoft systems(KDE, Mono, etc.) that Red Hat is following, because I didn't really notice much minimalism.
Ah screw it. Its so much easier and more fun to bash MS and pretend Linux could never make the same mistakes.
Sounds like you got to clean up a mess left by someone else and you persuaded your company to use the tools you are most comfortable using. I just don't think its fair in this case to blame MS for things that are the fault of the company and the consultant that it hired.
You will need to get on the Apache mailing list and regularly apply patches to keep your application secure. Thats not something unique to IIS. And what do you plan on replacing SQL Server with, Postgres? Plan on rolling your own full text indexing, replication, and transactions, features I'm sure you already use being an eBusiness company and all.
So in fairness, the technology that is "well-suited for the job" is the one you are most skilled at, and doesn't really have to do with the relative strengths and/or weaknesses of either Apache or IIS. Right?
Although I'm glad you got your company to switch. I'm thinking of doing the same thing, but its primarily due to licensing and $$$.
The Unabomber's Manifesto!
This problem seems to be entirely due to static. Here's an anecdote - over the last several years my brother has destroyed too many motherboards to count. I have never lost a motherboard. I am careful about static - he rips his computer apart every week and leaves the case covers off.
I remember when people were advised to touch the case of the computer before even using the mouse? And yes, there have been reports of motherboards dying because of static discharge through the mouse. I haven't heard such stories lately, perhaps that was when serial mice were more common. However, this story seems to be the exact same thing, only with Palms instead of mice.
Moral of the story - ground yourself before you use your computer and take common sense precautions.
32 billion dollars in cash in the bank, increasing by a billion per month, and thats not very good at making money?!
Who by your standards is good at making money?
One disc to carry around 18 O'Reilly books! Now, thats ebooks done right.
These things should be sponsored by universities or non-profit organizations like the ACM, not companies. I'd imagine the winning solutions are worth far more than the prizes offered.
Because we all know Perl could never do such a thing.