Okay, I was following along on your side for a bit there, but then this:
(I'll give, I think notepad is a shining proof of concept that microsoft can write a secure and stable app if they just neglect to provide even the most basic of features!)
Come on! Haven't you ever used notepad on a large file with line-wrapping turned on and then tried to save and continue editing? Microsoft can't avoid the bugs even when they LEAVE OUT the features.
Do you really think the stats programmers are such dumbasses they still don't know to look for "Opera"?
Assuming "The last guy knew what he was doing" without actually knowing anything about the subject is just one more endemic problem in the software industry... And on the highway. The most important part of programming is what you read, not what you type.
I really like your analogy. Alcoholism and bad programming practices...
The problem isn't the C language. The problem is, as always, language bigotry and poor breadth of knowledge.
Of course, that sword cuts equally in all directions. What language can you imagine as "the" systems language in 50 years? Can the future really hope to hang on to diversity? Where will we attain unity?
If we teach all the C programmers Java, and all the Java programmers C. Then we'll get world peace! (Oh wait, that's just my own bigotry showing.)
Well....gif,.jpg, other standard image formats. Text isn't the whole world, just a useful part of it.
Law enforcement stuff usually embeds image in text rather than text in image. base64 encoded.jpg will still be readable in 50 years. Are there any "application" formats that can say the same thing?
Not carefully choosing good software leads to bad vendors. No good vendors leads to not being able to carefully choose good software...
I find that in such cases, redifining, or properly defining for the first time "get the job done" is: a) the only useful solution b) works wonders if you can swing it
Basically, I can't fathom researchers who are allowed to precisely dictate what tools they will use. I would think the requisition process should always include alternatives to any single-vendor solution. ie: "What would we do if this vendor didn't exist?" type of questions. Sounds like you were looking into it. Fundamentally, any company must decide what is important.
If "getting the job done" for the moment, using the easiest tool available, becomes more important than long-term reliability, viability, and support costs... You get an industry that looks a lot like ours, with companies like Microsoft thriving. To me, Microsoft solutions often simply "look useful" at a cursory level, but later on important design flaws and methodology issues combine to create large bottle-necks and high expenses.
Note, this isn't always the case. The Windows 2000 line, and Microsoft SQL server have been coming along nicely. But what are the chances this can last without large price-hikes down the road?
Perhaps this is why I'm starting to see large disc-arrays become more popular than optical media, at least in governmental stuff... The "plain text" has gone without saying in this sector for quite a long time. Of course, here data is only stored 5-10 years in many cases.
This problem sounds more like a "not carefully choosing effective standardized software" issue than an archival issue. Sure, scientists, engineers, whatever should be able to use whatever tools they need to get the job done. But part of the job is storing everything in a useful (and agreed upon) format that everyone can use.
MS Word.doc, would probably be the first mistake here, given MS track record of munging the format as time goes on. HTML x.x or post-script, even.pdf format (which still has some of Word's problems) would seem much better options for useful archival here.
No, folks get to go *through* airport security without being strip-searched when they *aren't* caught doing anything wrong. Just like, people whose computers aren't spewing tons of ICMP traffic don't get their internet connection shut off because they haven't been caught with their pants down.
The luddites don't have a monopoly on crazy. That's all I was saying. I'm sure you agree.
I do, after all, that was the gist of my point. (Well, combined with the thought that making evolution the first topic in a discussion with someone of a very different philosophical outlook exemplifies this "crazy", at least if you're trying to foster mutual understanding)
A good point, and a good reason to write agreements under such a system as "rental" agreements rather than "ownership" agreements.
This blurring of the line between what is "rented"(under someone else's control) and what is "owned"(under consumer control) is a nasty trick. If these companies followed rental/ownership models, then those of us who like to tinker could go out and buy parts at cost that are exactly the same as those parts rented out, with freedom included. Instead, we have companies claiming to "sell" things under what amounts to a rental agreement, and then never offering those same appliances for "sale". This was exactly the kind of thing that got IBM into trouble a few years back, and will likely cause hard-ships for both producers and consumers before it runs its course.
Given all this, it makes your claim that consumers "like" to get their phone for free seem silly since they really don't have much choice. They either pay for it twice, or once via rental agreement.
When you don't make a call it costs you nothing. Consumers like that.
Hmm... maybe that's why I don't have a cell-phone? I make no calls, and pay nothing! Seriously though, consumers want cell-phones with good service that are cheap for what they get. Given that criteria I doubt they really care *how* all that comes together for them. (Personally, I just try to avoid getting reemed by telcos because my ass is always sore from previous encounters)
Mobile telephoney has boomed in the US as well, we just don't have text messaging and some other niceties. In general, folks don't seem willing to pay more for text messaging. So, in this country, telcos decided it was cheaper to keep the text messaging ability out of the industry rather than let it become commodity with little or no bump in service fees. Now that messaging has "slipped in" because of stiff competition we'll probably see it become commodity before long...
Talk to someone from Morning Star Fellowship Church about evolution for a little while.
Oh, evolution. That thing science doesn't understand which is used to explain everything? I'm sure I would have great fun watching you in that discussion... Care to prove the earth is at least 3.8 billion years old, sure I'll go along with that. Looking to show how humans arose from apes? It starts looking pretty random to me.
Truth, that little thing inside of everyone that no one else can quite get a strangle-hold on.
You get the system for a very small amount of money and the company expects you to subscribe for a monthly fee to use it.
Hmm... sounds like the answer is simple on that one. If it costs money to make, don't sell at a loss. If you do, well, you probably won't have to worry about being in business much longer. It isn't the consumer's job to protect stupid and greedy business models.
Wow. That took a lot of guts to admit. I'm proud of you.
Now that you've done so, please move out of the way and let some *real* programmers write things up in SQL. Mel will be over shortly.
Seriously though. If (when?) you decide to rewrite that Acess stuff and hop platforms, it probably wouldn't be tough to write in something that would work on Windows and Linux. Java/JDBC/JSP (or similar) is certainly one current possibility.
Perhaps we're thinking of different examples. Personally, I can't think of a single instance where someone bought a device, went home, took it apart and did something truly harmful to the manufacturer with it. Well, aside from review it and publicize the fact it was a piece of crap, but that's protected speech.
So, for me, the "expected limit" would be. Well... there is no limit. What is it I *shouldn't* do with something I buy that isn't already illegal in some context unrelated to the purchase?
From Roblimo's article: Libertarian IT workers who watch their jobs go overseas should derive joy from geographic shifts in employment. Their "dog eat dog" creed requires them to be happy whenever the marketplace finds a way to pay workers less and increase business owners' profits.
B, effing S. We could care less about corporate profits. Libertarians are for one thing. Less government.
Would I rejoice if my job flew over-seas? No, I'd sit down and figure out what I had to offer that was worth being paid well for here in the US, or I'd fly over-seas myself to find a friendlier economy. Its called personal responsibility, but I wouldn't expect a typical american to have heard of it.
I leave it as an exercise for the reader to realize the implications of fewer slimey governmental fingers in everything. Things like employee versus business owner rights would balance out naturally. A few roudy unions here, a corrupt business owner there, mixed liberally with laws that prohibit truly violent and heinous acts. Shake well and enjoy the freedom.
It's a simple equation really. Laws pro-union: bad, laws anti-union: bad. Laws pushing jobs over seas: bad, laws forcing jobs to stay here: bad. Laws in general: bad, laws against rape and murder: good. Just enough laws to foster civilization: good.
I know how to live my life better than any governmental sub-comittee, and I think you do too.
What "we" have to avoid, I think, is to criticize manfacturers that use Linux and do not at the same time make the box open to access like described above. Especially bad is to "hack" into Linux-based devices beyond what one can be reasonably expected to do with something you own, and to blackmail manufacturers into releasing information and source code of proprietary parts.
Hmm... You seem to think people don't own what they buy. If manufacturers think they can win market share through lock-in rather than quality product, perhaps "we" need to teach them a lesson.
I was wondering if somebody was gonna say that. I was beginning to doubt my gut-reaction. (ie: COM sucks donkey nads, especially when you wind up bailing out collegues who try to use it)
Who ever thought exporting Microsoft's C++ vtable and calling it a "standard" was a good idea should have at least 2 fingers removed for the pain and suffering they've caused. Binary artifacts like that belong *below* the abstraction level!!
Actually... I was trying to make a point about certainty, ie: trust. Any modern computer is made up of far more "3rd party" code than, well, anything else. Do you put your faith in things you think you understand yourself? In engineers working at Intel? In industrious Linux kernel volunteers? It's all a matter of choice.
I think the problem with these so called "helper" virii is more about boundaries than trust or certainty. On the one hand, no one has the right to walk on others systems without permission. On the other hand, noisily propogating a virus through a known exploit is just asking folks to do something about it.
Slashdot Mirror
Okay, I was following along on your side for a bit there, but then this:
(I'll give, I think notepad is a shining proof of concept that microsoft can write a secure and stable app if they just neglect to provide even the most basic of features!)
Come on! Haven't you ever used notepad on a large file with line-wrapping turned on and then tried to save and continue editing? Microsoft can't avoid the bugs even when they LEAVE OUT the features.
Do you really think the stats programmers are such dumbasses they still don't know to look for "Opera"?
Assuming "The last guy knew what he was doing" without actually knowing anything about the subject is just one more endemic problem in the software industry... And on the highway. The most important part of programming is what you read, not what you type.
nuff said.
Um, attempting to "scientifically prove" someone's an idiot? If only that actually were an oxymoron...
Run away garbage collection is the problem of Java, just as fandango on core is the problem of C.
Neither is perfect. They are certainly different.
Both can be avoided, given painstaking control of memory life-cycles.
I really like your analogy. Alcoholism and bad programming practices...
The problem isn't the C language. The problem is, as always, language bigotry and poor breadth of knowledge.
Of course, that sword cuts equally in all directions. What language can you imagine as "the" systems language in 50 years? Can the future really hope to hang on to diversity? Where will we attain unity?
If we teach all the C programmers Java, and all the Java programmers C. Then we'll get world peace! (Oh wait, that's just my own bigotry showing.)
Well... .gif, .jpg, other standard image formats. Text isn't the whole world, just a useful part of it.
.jpg will still be readable in 50 years. Are there any "application" formats that can say the same thing?
Law enforcement stuff usually embeds image in text rather than text in image. base64 encoded
I guess it can be a death-spiral.
Not carefully choosing good software leads to bad vendors. No good vendors leads to not being able to carefully choose good software...
I find that in such cases, redifining, or properly defining for the first time "get the job done" is:
a) the only useful solution
b) works wonders if you can swing it
Basically, I can't fathom researchers who are allowed to precisely dictate what tools they will use. I would think the requisition process should always include alternatives to any single-vendor solution. ie: "What would we do if this vendor didn't exist?" type of questions. Sounds like you were looking into it. Fundamentally, any company must decide what is important.
If "getting the job done" for the moment, using the easiest tool available, becomes more important than long-term reliability, viability, and support costs... You get an industry that looks a lot like ours, with companies like Microsoft thriving. To me, Microsoft solutions often simply "look useful" at a cursory level, but later on important design flaws and methodology issues combine to create large bottle-necks and high expenses.
Note, this isn't always the case. The Windows 2000 line, and Microsoft SQL server have been coming along nicely. But what are the chances this can last without large price-hikes down the road?
Two notions. Plain ASCII text. Raid DISC arrays.
Perhaps this is why I'm starting to see large disc-arrays become more popular than optical media, at least in governmental stuff... The "plain text" has gone without saying in this sector for quite a long time. Of course, here data is only stored 5-10 years in many cases.
This problem sounds more like a "not carefully choosing effective standardized software" issue than an archival issue. Sure, scientists, engineers, whatever should be able to use whatever tools they need to get the job done. But part of the job is storing everything in a useful (and agreed upon) format that everyone can use.
.doc, would probably be the first mistake here, given MS track record of munging the format as time goes on. HTML x.x or post-script, even .pdf format (which still has some of Word's problems) would seem much better options for useful archival here.
MS Word
Heck, we even do that for the applications we write so our customers don't have to...
If we wasted our time doing this for *every* windows update, rather than just security related stuff, we'd never get anything done.
Ya, then if my fancy new program goes fandango on core, I get to re-install my operating system. Swe-et!
Lets, hope there will be reasonable measures taken to keep this memory safe when access is "fast and random".
No, folks get to go *through* airport security without being strip-searched when they *aren't* caught doing anything wrong. Just like, people whose computers aren't spewing tons of ICMP traffic don't get their internet connection shut off because they haven't been caught with their pants down.
The luddites don't have a monopoly on crazy. That's all I was saying. I'm sure you agree.
I do, after all, that was the gist of my point. (Well, combined with the thought that making evolution the first topic in a discussion with someone of a very different philosophical outlook exemplifies this "crazy", at least if you're trying to foster mutual understanding)
The rest... Well I'll email it just in case.
A good point, and a good reason to write agreements under such a system as "rental" agreements rather than "ownership" agreements.
This blurring of the line between what is "rented"(under someone else's control) and what is "owned"(under consumer control) is a nasty trick. If these companies followed rental/ownership models, then those of us who like to tinker could go out and buy parts at cost that are exactly the same as those parts rented out, with freedom included. Instead, we have companies claiming to "sell" things under what amounts to a rental agreement, and then never offering those same appliances for "sale". This was exactly the kind of thing that got IBM into trouble a few years back, and will likely cause hard-ships for both producers and consumers before it runs its course.
Given all this, it makes your claim that consumers "like" to get their phone for free seem silly since they really don't have much choice. They either pay for it twice, or once via rental agreement.
When you don't make a call it costs you nothing. Consumers like that.
Hmm... maybe that's why I don't have a cell-phone? I make no calls, and pay nothing! Seriously though, consumers want cell-phones with good service that are cheap for what they get. Given that criteria I doubt they really care *how* all that comes together for them. (Personally, I just try to avoid getting reemed by telcos because my ass is always sore from previous encounters)
Mobile telephoney has boomed in the US as well, we just don't have text messaging and some other niceties. In general, folks don't seem willing to pay more for text messaging. So, in this country, telcos decided it was cheaper to keep the text messaging ability out of the industry rather than let it become commodity with little or no bump in service fees. Now that messaging has "slipped in" because of stiff competition we'll probably see it become commodity before long...
Talk to someone from Morning Star Fellowship Church about evolution for a little while.
Oh, evolution. That thing science doesn't understand which is used to explain everything? I'm sure I would have great fun watching you in that discussion... Care to prove the earth is at least 3.8 billion years old, sure I'll go along with that. Looking to show how humans arose from apes? It starts looking pretty random to me.
Truth, that little thing inside of everyone that no one else can quite get a strangle-hold on.
You get the system for a very small amount of money and the company expects you to subscribe for a monthly fee to use it.
Hmm... sounds like the answer is simple on that one. If it costs money to make, don't sell at a loss. If you do, well, you probably won't have to worry about being in business much longer. It isn't the consumer's job to protect stupid and greedy business models.
and -gosh- MS Access
Wow. That took a lot of guts to admit. I'm proud of you.
Now that you've done so, please move out of the way and let some *real* programmers write things up in SQL. Mel will be over shortly.
Seriously though. If (when?) you decide to rewrite that Acess stuff and hop platforms, it probably wouldn't be tough to write in something that would work on Windows and Linux. Java/JDBC/JSP (or similar) is certainly one current possibility.
But should that lesson be "DON'T USE LINUX"?
Perhaps we're thinking of different examples. Personally, I can't think of a single instance where someone bought a device, went home, took it apart and did something truly harmful to the manufacturer with it. Well, aside from review it and publicize the fact it was a piece of crap, but that's protected speech.
So, for me, the "expected limit" would be. Well... there is no limit. What is it I *shouldn't* do with something I buy that isn't already illegal in some context unrelated to the purchase?
we might not be such a minority in the sector.
From Roblimo's article:
Libertarian IT workers who watch their jobs go overseas should derive joy from geographic shifts in employment. Their "dog eat dog" creed requires them to be happy whenever the marketplace finds a way to pay workers less and increase business owners' profits.
B, effing S. We could care less about corporate profits. Libertarians are for one thing. Less government.
Would I rejoice if my job flew over-seas? No, I'd sit down and figure out what I had to offer that was worth being paid well for here in the US, or I'd fly over-seas myself to find a friendlier economy. Its called personal responsibility, but I wouldn't expect a typical american to have heard of it.
I leave it as an exercise for the reader to realize the implications of fewer slimey governmental fingers in everything. Things like employee versus business owner rights would balance out naturally. A few roudy unions here, a corrupt business owner there, mixed liberally with laws that prohibit truly violent and heinous acts. Shake well and enjoy the freedom.
It's a simple equation really. Laws pro-union: bad, laws anti-union: bad. Laws pushing jobs over seas: bad, laws forcing jobs to stay here: bad. Laws in general: bad, laws against rape and murder: good. Just enough laws to foster civilization: good.
I know how to live my life better than any governmental sub-comittee, and I think you do too.
What "we" have to avoid, I think, is to criticize manfacturers that use Linux and do not at the same time make the box open to access like described above. Especially bad is to "hack" into Linux-based devices beyond what one can be reasonably expected to do with something you own, and to blackmail manufacturers into releasing information and source code of proprietary parts.
Hmm... You seem to think people don't own what they buy. If manufacturers think they can win market share through lock-in rather than quality product, perhaps "we" need to teach them a lesson.
I was wondering if somebody was gonna say that. I was beginning to doubt my gut-reaction. (ie: COM sucks donkey nads, especially when you wind up bailing out collegues who try to use it)
Who ever thought exporting Microsoft's C++ vtable and calling it a "standard" was a good idea should have at least 2 fingers removed for the pain and suffering they've caused. Binary artifacts like that belong *below* the abstraction level!!
mIRC still works great. I just can't communicate at great distances with MS bigots.
It's hard for me to say that the rank and file computer user needs and deserves unrequested help with securing their system
I agree, and there's no valid/legal reason for someone to code such a virus.
It's just I can also see why a network admin could become frustrated enough to consider it.
Actually... I was trying to make a point about certainty, ie: trust. Any modern computer is made up of far more "3rd party" code than, well, anything else. Do you put your faith in things you think you understand yourself? In engineers working at Intel? In industrious Linux kernel volunteers? It's all a matter of choice.
I think the problem with these so called "helper" virii is more about boundaries than trust or certainty. On the one hand, no one has the right to walk on others systems without permission. On the other hand, noisily propogating a virus through a known exploit is just asking folks to do something about it.