> If anything, the lack of objectively measured results makes certain positions, > such as being a manager, harder. Imagine trying to write code with only vague > results, and no stack traces or debuggers available. That would *suck*.
I've never seen a manager who seemed to have a particularly hard life, or seemed to work particularly hard. A few have even had a clue. A few have even been not entirely redundant time-wasters who spent as little time coding as possible before entering the pastures of managment.
> I'm tired of this fucking elitist attitude.
Too bad;)
> What pisses me off most is that it > never comes from the folks who are the real geek studs. The people who really > know their shit don't have an attitude of being the world's greatest. That's why > they keep learning.
I never said I was the world's greatest. Just competent. And I *do* keep learning. I just don't tolerate fools gladly...
> Instead we have to listen to this dip-shit crap
... like ones who try to argue like that.
> from dweebs who think they're > techie gurus because they just switched their shell to tcsh or because they just > finished reading PHP in 24 hours.
That's hardly the case but you can think what you like, having failed to refute my point, "anonymous coward".
> I dunno. Gates, Ellison, McNeely.....they all wear suits. And I don't think you > could credibly make the case that they're the kind of people that have to wear >suits to get by.
They do to press conferences and such like. Do they every day? Anyway, we all know Gates never coded anything, so he doesn't count;)
> They seem to genuinely like them. Not everyone wants to look like Matchbox 20 > when they go to work, and its not because they don't have anything extra to > offer.
You're making my point for me. The case you describe is clearly a choice.
> You however seem to be in abundance of inflated self-worth and arrogance.
Why? Because I get to choose whether I have to wear a tie to work or not?
> Sheesh, spoken like a true geek. Did it ever occur to you that some people like > wearing suits? Some people like the fit and feel of a quality garment?
This hinges on the matter of choice. If you *have* to wear a suit, it's usually because you aren't skilled enough to offer anything more than you ability to conform. This is especially true of managers and marketroids, who don't have any obvious skills that can be objectively measured.
Wearing T-shirts and jeans, or whatever, will be tolerated perfectly well if you're clearly contributing enough for it not to be an issue.
> Not to mention that you someone "being yourself" can be different things at > different times.
I can't quite parse this, but if you mean what I think you do, that different circumstances often require a different public persona, then I agree. And if you don't want to wear a suit, you shouldn't go to an event that requires one.
> Just because I normally like a T-shirt and jeans when I'm > programming doesn't mean I also don't enjoy wearing the full-blown suit to a > formal party
I've found little to enjoy in such a get-up, but whatever your fetish is, is fine with me;)
> Maybe you did all those reboots because YOU'RE STUPID
And yet, on your web page, you state:
> Another factor in the popularity of windows is that more often than not, open > source software is home brew crap. I've downloaded amany packages that rarely > build [via Gnu MAKE] on the first try or they rely too much auxilary stuff to > actually work.
Maybe you couldn't run make because you are also stupid? Probably not, but it's a ridiculous thing to say.
Perhaps you should consider that you seem to like Perl, one of the most popular and successfull open-source projects in existence. It simply would not have been created in the Windows environment - you would be stuck with Visual Basic or the awful batch file format, or something just as broken.
Anyway, CS people just tend to prefer Unix as it is more developer friendly (useless IDEs aside). All the tools are there, it doesn't fall over and it's not fundamentally insecure, something you should be aware of given some of the (quite interesting) security related content of your site.
As for your pro-MS page, it seems a bit non-technical in nature. Perhaps once you finish your degree and do a course or two in OS design and implementation you'll begin to understand what the issues are with the current state of the Windows OS.
Not that I'm going to suggest Linux is the be-all and end-all. Many people who know more about OS implementation that I do seem to like FreeBSD, for example.
BTW if you do not want to appear as a script kiddie, as you claim, change all the spelling of "PERL" on your site to Perl. This spelling fairly screams newbie-ness;)
> trying to build powerful RPC mechanisms like SOAP on top of it.
Powerful RPC mechanisms like SOAP?
Compared to mature, complete and portable technologies like CORBA it's still in the stone-age. It currently describes a fairly primitive "RPC with XML" implementation, and that's about it.
And it *definitely* should not be running over HTTP/port 80. That's just a fundamental error.
> Java the > language doesn't suffer from all of these > problems, just particular implementations may. > (There have been security exploits based on bugs > in the JVM before, yes.)
Perl the language doesn't suffer from all of these problems, just particular implementations may. (There have been security exploits based on bugs in the Perl implementation before, yes.)
Python the language doesn't suffer from all of these problems, just particular implementations may. (There have been security exploits based on bugs in a Python implementation before, yes.)
And so on ad infinitum...
> Perl and Python, because of their ability to > execute commands on the system so easily or > interpret code sent by an attacker, are subject > to a different class of security holes.
So Java is more secure because it makes things more difficult?
Perl has a taint mode to protect you against data sent by an attacker. Java doesn't have this, so I could easily end up accessing files/running commands that I'm not supposed to.
In short, any programming language still requires *some* level of awareness of security issues.
> Because Perl (especially) attempts to make so > much functionality available to the user, it > often leads to hack-job scripts that are > difficult to reason about.
I could easily say the same about much of the Java code that I see.
> Why is it unfair to mention that perl has had > oveflows?
Because, being implemented in C, so has the JVM, no doubt. But you were claiming that Java is safe, and Perl is not.
> I merely want to challenge the notion that > slashdot folks seem to have that buffer > overflows are an easy thing to avoid, and that > they're only made by "bad" programmers.
I agree, but I'm just helping you to understand that Perl in particular is not an unsafe language.
> How can you say that "apparently they're all > gone now"?
Because there was a pogrom to eliminate them a few releases back. At least we know someone tried;)
How can anyone say there are no overflows in the JVM? I can't see the code, or the development process, therefore my trust level is fairly low.
But isn't the JVM written in C? So doesn't Java therefore suffer from all of these problems?
Yes, I'm aware of the theory that you just fix all the overflows in the JVM and then you are safe, but doesn't that also apply to Perl, which you (unfairly IMHO) mention in your other rant as having had overflows (in the past - at least it shows that they get fixed! Apparently they're all gone now...).
At least I can *see* the Perl source code. Is the same true of the JVM?
For Python people, the same argument applies.
In short, I think Java *and* Perl *and* Python are "safe", but you can't really claim that just Java is.
Slashdot Mirror
> If anything, the lack of objectively measured results makes certain positions,
;)
...
> such as being a manager, harder. Imagine trying to write code with only vague
> results, and no stack traces or debuggers available. That would *suck*.
I've never seen a manager who seemed to have a particularly hard life, or seemed to work particularly hard. A few have even had a clue. A few have even been not entirely redundant time-wasters who spent as little time coding as possible before entering the pastures of managment.
> I'm tired of this fucking elitist attitude.
Too bad
> What pisses me off most is that it
> never comes from the folks who are the real geek studs. The people who really
> know their shit don't have an attitude of being the world's greatest. That's why
> they keep learning.
I never said I was the world's greatest. Just competent. And I *do* keep learning. I just don't tolerate fools gladly
> Instead we have to listen to this dip-shit crap
... like ones who try to argue like that.
> from dweebs who think they're
> techie gurus because they just switched their shell to tcsh or because they just > finished reading PHP in 24 hours.
That's hardly the case but you can think what you like, having failed to refute my point, "anonymous coward".
> I dunno. Gates, Ellison, McNeely.....they all wear suits. And I don't think you
;)
> could credibly make the case that they're the kind of people that have to wear
>suits to get by.
They do to press conferences and such like. Do they every day? Anyway, we all know Gates never coded anything, so he doesn't count
> They seem to genuinely like them. Not everyone wants to look like Matchbox 20
> when they go to work, and its not because they don't have anything extra to
> offer.
You're making my point for me. The case you describe is clearly a choice.
> You however seem to be in abundance of inflated self-worth and arrogance.
Why? Because I get to choose whether I have to wear a tie to work or not?
> Sheesh, spoken like a true geek. Did it ever occur to you that some people like
;)
> wearing suits? Some people like the fit and feel of a quality garment?
This hinges on the matter of choice. If you *have* to wear a suit, it's usually because you aren't skilled enough to offer anything more than you ability to conform. This is especially true of managers and marketroids, who don't have any obvious skills that can be objectively measured.
Wearing T-shirts and jeans, or whatever, will be tolerated perfectly well if you're clearly contributing enough for it not to be an issue.
> Not to mention that you someone "being yourself" can be different things at
> different times.
I can't quite parse this, but if you mean what I think you do, that different circumstances often require a different public persona, then I agree. And if you don't want to wear a suit, you shouldn't go to an event that requires one.
> Just because I normally like a T-shirt and jeans when I'm
> programming doesn't mean I also don't enjoy wearing the full-blown suit to a
> formal party
I've found little to enjoy in such a get-up, but whatever your fetish is, is fine with me
> Maybe you did all those reboots because YOU'RE STUPID
;)
And yet, on your web page, you state:
> Another factor in the popularity of windows is that more often than not, open
> source software is home brew crap. I've downloaded amany packages that rarely
> build [via Gnu MAKE] on the first try or they rely too much auxilary stuff to
> actually work.
Maybe you couldn't run make because you are also stupid? Probably not, but it's a ridiculous thing to say.
Perhaps you should consider that you seem to like Perl, one of the most popular and successfull open-source projects in existence. It simply would not have been created in the Windows environment - you would be stuck with Visual Basic or the awful batch file format, or something just as broken.
Anyway, CS people just tend to prefer Unix as it is more developer friendly (useless IDEs aside). All the tools are there, it doesn't fall over and it's not fundamentally insecure, something you should be aware of given some of the (quite interesting) security related content of your site.
As for your pro-MS page, it seems a bit non-technical in nature. Perhaps once you finish your degree and do a course or two in OS design and implementation you'll begin to understand what the issues are with the current state of the Windows OS.
Not that I'm going to suggest Linux is the be-all and end-all. Many people who know more about OS implementation that I do seem to like FreeBSD, for example.
BTW if you do not want to appear as a script kiddie, as you claim, change all the spelling of "PERL" on your site to Perl. This spelling fairly screams newbie-ness
> trying to build powerful RPC mechanisms like SOAP on top of it.
Powerful RPC mechanisms like SOAP?
Compared to mature, complete and portable technologies like CORBA it's still in the stone-age. It currently describes a fairly primitive "RPC with XML" implementation, and that's about it.
And it *definitely* should not be running over HTTP/port 80. That's just a fundamental error.
> The JVM is probably written in C
...
;)
That or C++, I'm not sure.
> Java the
> language doesn't suffer from all of these
> problems, just particular implementations may.
> (There have been security exploits based on bugs
> in the JVM before, yes.)
Perl the
language doesn't suffer from all of these
problems, just particular implementations may.
(There have been security exploits based on bugs
in the Perl implementation before, yes.)
Python the
language doesn't suffer from all of these
problems, just particular implementations may.
(There have been security exploits based on bugs
in a Python implementation before, yes.)
And so on ad infinitum
> Perl and Python, because of their ability to
> execute commands on the system so easily or
> interpret code sent by an attacker, are subject
> to a different class of security holes.
So Java is more secure because it makes things more difficult?
Perl has a taint mode to protect you against data sent by an attacker. Java doesn't have this, so I could easily end up accessing files/running commands that I'm not supposed to.
In short, any programming language still requires *some* level of awareness of security issues.
> Because Perl (especially) attempts to make so
> much functionality available to the user, it
> often leads to hack-job scripts that are
> difficult to reason about.
I could easily say the same about much of the Java code that I see.
> Why is it unfair to mention that perl has had
> oveflows?
Because, being implemented in C, so has the JVM, no doubt. But you were claiming that Java is safe, and Perl is not.
> I merely want to challenge the notion that
> slashdot folks seem to have that buffer
> overflows are an easy thing to avoid, and that
> they're only made by "bad" programmers.
I agree, but I'm just helping you to understand that Perl in particular is not an unsafe language.
> How can you say that "apparently they're all
> gone now"?
Because there was a pogrom to eliminate them a few releases back. At least we know someone tried
How can anyone say there are no overflows in the JVM? I can't see the code, or the development process, therefore my trust level is fairly low.
> then Java is a totally appropriate choice.
...).
But isn't the JVM written in C? So doesn't Java therefore suffer from all of these problems?
Yes, I'm aware of the theory that you just fix all the overflows in the JVM and then you are safe, but doesn't that also apply to Perl, which you (unfairly IMHO) mention in your other rant as having had overflows (in the past - at least it shows that they get fixed! Apparently they're all gone now
At least I can *see* the Perl source code. Is the same true of the JVM?
For Python people, the same argument applies.
In short, I think Java *and* Perl *and* Python are "safe", but you can't really claim that just Java is.