The rockets don't have to be as big as the V2 bec. the rockets don't have to fly as far (across the english channel.)
Also, the Germans were famous for their "big guns". They wasted a lot of resources on their cannons/rockets, when they should have been developing low-cost and easily-assembled battle rifles (Like the AK-47).
Hamas is making a really fantastic tactical move by devoting resources to these rockets. The rockets are up to 6 feet long and made of sheet metal. Even if the rockets don't explode, they can total a car or traumatize an entire generation.
I don't endorse such evil, but the tactics are brilliant.
Yes! It isn't just the consumer that is "through with it." Many businesses I work with will go to great lengths to GET RID of computers. They just plan a business model that makes computers a minor detail, unlike in the past, where computers in the office were the wave of the future!
Think of it this way: If all the desktop computers on earth stopped working, it would be like 1982! Which is just fine.
I learned as a child, "Don't grow the hay to feed the sheep the coyotes eat." Technology is a self-fulfilling business model that is no longer self-fulling.
Americans are a passionate lot. We are twitchy. We practice "road rage". Give us an inch and we try killing someone with that inch, maybe by tying it around their throat. We are not mellow. If we didn't think there might be guns next door, we would all rob and pillage one another.
You want mellow, go to Canada. Some of us here do just that (go to Canada). And sometimes, Canadians come here to America, seeking affordable housing and health care. Blast those Canadians, with their clear accents, tolerance of diversity and polite manners. Bunch of sissies!
And sometimes, people from around the word, from all sorts of different cultures, speaking different languages, with different ethnicities, values and religions, come here. They seek better lives, and a little know thing called FREEDOM and a better way of life. (Listen up, president Bush, you commie bastard who bails out jackass fake banks w/ public money and squandering the birthright of the next generation for a bowl of lentil soup).
Besides, Americans are proud, pompous jerks. Our military is always off "working" on something - if we didn't have a bunch of guns, Canada would raid us. Or that other country across the pond, known as "europe" (which rhymes with syrup). But who knows if that place really exists or not.
Well engineered project work well in the areas they were designed to work well.
The don't work in areas they were not designed to work.
The is the same for EVERYTHING! If a tech manual is intended to primarily be on the web, the printed version is always out of date, and vice-versa.
So unless the app is DESIGNED and WRITTEN in a multi-platform language like java or INTENDED TO BE RUN USING WINE, there won't really be cross platform support.
WINE is therefore not a stop gap. It is an end-result environment for cross-platform development.
Write your code to run under WINE, and it will work under both Windows and Linux.
Write your code for one or the other, and the porting process will result in "different" programs, which will have mismatched features and conventions.
If a primary goal is "cross-platform" support with almost no porting, java or WINE is the way to go. But the "primary" goals of the project are the only things likely to happen.
I think, in the future, we will see more of this mismatching and feature-missing crapola, because of the insurgence of web-apps. If a mainstream app like "Quickbooks" is ported to the web (which it should be), the application version will run differently than the stand-alone.
There can only be one! Parallel development is expensive, unnecessary and unless it is a primary goal, impossible to attain/maintain/etc.
Any time spent dealing with overhead is time not spent being creative and solving problems. All the overhead keeps people frustrated.
Don't use an environment that needs makefiles. Pick an environment that manages compiling issues for you. Or one that doesn't need make files at all.
Write mini-compilers that generate code from config files for you, rather than spend hours hacking out code in languages that weren't designed for the purpose they are being used for.
Use very strong data types. That way, bugs get stopped at compile time.
Use very strict naming conventions: either camelHump or underline_no_caps - no frustration!
Should variables have plurals? Yes or no? Naming conventions for the file system: caps or no caps, underscores_or_not. If you make everything singular, there will never be confusion or the variable names.
Code review is essential. Make everything look the same, so you can't tell who wrote what.
Don't use comments - use conventions.
Use opensource. Its less likely to stop a developer over technical issues, like windows does. And opensource grows old and fades like bluejeans rather than suddenly exploding for unknown reasons, as closed source does.
"Spec" the hardware the software will run on.
"Spec" the software the hardware will run.
Stop pretending databases can effectively abstract data and still maintain acceptable performance. Just spec the hardware.
Publish performance expectations, rather than just say "We'll optimize as needed". What the hell kind of spec is that?
Plan the project around remote developement techniques.
Make part of the project GPL/commercial licensed and roll the code into a Linux distro.
Be proactive in keeping one individual from having too much influence and becoming so important that the project can't function without him.
Find people dedicated to helping one another at all costs, instead of jerks who want to do it their way, is nice (hire some women).
Get rid of the CEO who didn't used to be a techie.
Get rid of the CEO who thinks the engineers should speak to him using "CEO-speak"
Hire someone who's sole goal is to sit between the developers and the bosses and translate.
Figure out what the programmers needs and goals are for their lives, and figure out a way to help them, rather than present some static employment deal that requires them to fabricate need as a means leveraging their career.
Donate money to local causes. A lot of money.
Let developers work from home.
Cover 100% of their health benefits.
Honestly, there is no technical limitation that a skilled individual can't overcome. Now, market and interpersonal limitations... That's where the real road block comes in. It doesn't matter how good your code or environment is - no matter how smart your people are. If you boss is a dumb ass, that's the person who will stop you project from being successful.
What is the incentive in becoming a programmer then if you know that your skills are only going to be worth less with time. This is some pretty old fashioned thinking. What will die is the "sale" of copyrighted software. That is the model used by the mega-corps. Which is great, but is of no use to me, as I have never gotten hired by any of them.
What will thrive is software-as-a-service. Custom applications. Small business development. One-on-one. Relationship based. Very personal.
I have been successful in making a living in that market. And this market is not getting less valuable, because there is no "product". It is a service and must be sold as such.
There is nothing managers strive for more than to be in a vacuum. Having the freedom to make decisions without being encumbered by acres of details allows projects to move forward.
Unfortunately, the details managers don't consider get moved onto my shoulders.
Try telling your boss to include you before making a significant business decision - see how far you get with that.
I don't think the demands of customers matter. What matters is how customers vote - with their dollars. And Microsoft gives businesses EXACTLY what they want - crappy software are low prices.
Online surveys and customer wish/demand lists are meaningless - all people want is "cheap". The key to happiness is a short-term ROI.
Microsoft's "successes" include control of: 1. The desktop operating system 2. much of the embedded/mobile operating system, including kiosks, such as at borders and DVDPlay devices 3. MOST of the small-business file server market 4. most of the small business development-tool market 5. Pretty much the only option for Sarbanes-Oxly compliant email server (Exchange). This product alone GUARANTEES market domination for Microsoft. EVERY consulting firm I have spoken to requires experience w/ Microsoft Server 2003 and Exchange.
The demand for Linux in the small-business is almost zilch - development costs are just too high. I develop for Linux exclusively and NOBODY in so-cal wants to dish out the green to get a customized, efficient and future-proof Linux solution when they can pay WAY less for a crappy, short-lived Microsoft solution. (And by less, I mean 10% of what it would cost me to custom code their solution. Even outsourcing to India wouldn't fix that margin!)
Screw customer demands. Screw the European Union's laws. Screw anti-trust. At this point, MS doesn't even have to trap people. They are the only ones with an AFFORDABLE platform-level product that an executive can understand.
This is seriously painful for me. I really love Linux and wouldn't want to do development for anything else. Yet, the small business market is what it is.
It is not an issue of Republican vs. Democrat. Whatever Interest buys the politician enough whiskey gets to whisper the Interest's interests in the politicians ear. Interesting?
napster is competitive. they charge nothing. cd's cost a lot. if the recording industry is to compete, it must be competitive. but how can one compete against something free? simple. read on! all it takes is an analysis of the oportunity cost. if i wanted a cd of metallica's music, i could download it and write it to a cd. or i could buy the cd. to buy the cd takes 5 minutes on line and 15 bucks. to write the cd myself, i must buy the blank cd for 50 cents, spend 30 minutes of download time (or more, for slow connections), around an hour to set up the songs and convert them and write the songs to cd. total time: over an hour. since i get paid 12 bucks an hour, it is cheaper for me to copy that cd. if, however, the studios and musicians would get their heads out of their greedy asses and drop the price of the cd's to 10 dollars, they will be out competing napster. all it takes is an analysis of opportunity cost. it is cheaper for me to spend an hour on a cd and copy the cd than to buy the cd. when the oportunity cost is such that it becomes cheaper for me to buy the cd than to copy it, i will buy the cd.
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The rockets don't have to be as big as the V2 bec. the rockets don't have to fly as far (across the english channel.)
Also, the Germans were famous for their "big guns". They wasted a lot of resources on their cannons/rockets, when they should have been developing low-cost and easily-assembled battle rifles (Like the AK-47).
Hamas is making a really fantastic tactical move by devoting resources to these rockets. The rockets are up to 6 feet long and made of sheet metal. Even if the rockets don't explode, they can total a car or traumatize an entire generation.
I don't endorse such evil, but the tactics are brilliant.
Yes! It isn't just the consumer that is "through with it." Many businesses I work with will go to great lengths to GET RID of computers. They just plan a business model that makes computers a minor detail, unlike in the past, where computers in the office were the wave of the future!
Think of it this way: If all the desktop computers on earth stopped working, it would be like 1982! Which is just fine.
I learned as a child, "Don't grow the hay to feed the sheep the coyotes eat." Technology is a self-fulfilling business model that is no longer self-fulling.
Guns do prevent crime.
Americans are a passionate lot. We are twitchy. We practice "road rage". Give us an inch and we try killing someone with that inch, maybe by tying it around their throat. We are not mellow. If we didn't think there might be guns next door, we would all rob and pillage one another.
You want mellow, go to Canada. Some of us here do just that (go to Canada). And sometimes, Canadians come here to America, seeking affordable housing and health care. Blast those Canadians, with their clear accents, tolerance of diversity and polite manners. Bunch of sissies!
And sometimes, people from around the word, from all sorts of different cultures, speaking different languages, with different ethnicities, values and religions, come here. They seek better lives, and a little know thing called FREEDOM and a better way of life. (Listen up, president Bush, you commie bastard who bails out jackass fake banks w/ public money and squandering the birthright of the next generation for a bowl of lentil soup).
Besides, Americans are proud, pompous jerks. Our military is always off "working" on something - if we didn't have a bunch of guns, Canada would raid us. Or that other country across the pond, known as "europe" (which rhymes with syrup). But who knows if that place really exists or not.
Warning - this posting may contain nuts.
Getting illegal guns is easy.
Getting legal guns is hard.
Just the way it should be. (???)
Same here, regarding the fond memories. Why were the intricacies of technology so easy to put up with when we were young seedlings?
I used to view those tsr's and memmaker and the 728k to 1024k "himem" stuff from the DOS days as a fun adventure.
Now, hassles like that are a crap-tacular experience, and are cursed!
Guess I'm growing old. But if anyone else says I'm old, I'll poke him with my cane!
Well engineered project work well in the areas they were designed to work well.
The don't work in areas they were not designed to work.
The is the same for EVERYTHING! If a tech manual is intended to primarily be on the web, the printed version is always out of date, and vice-versa.
So unless the app is DESIGNED and WRITTEN in a multi-platform language like java or INTENDED TO BE RUN USING WINE, there won't really be cross platform support.
WINE is therefore not a stop gap. It is an end-result environment for cross-platform development.
Write your code to run under WINE, and it will work under both Windows and Linux.
Write your code for one or the other, and the porting process will result in "different" programs, which will have mismatched features and conventions.
If a primary goal is "cross-platform" support with almost no porting, java or WINE is the way to go. But the "primary" goals of the project are the only things likely to happen.
I think, in the future, we will see more of this mismatching and feature-missing crapola, because of the insurgence of web-apps. If a mainstream app like "Quickbooks" is ported to the web (which it should be), the application version will run differently than the stand-alone.
There can only be one! Parallel development is expensive, unnecessary and unless it is a primary goal, impossible to attain/maintain/etc.
Any time spent dealing with overhead is time not spent being creative and solving problems. All the overhead keeps people frustrated.
Don't use an environment that needs makefiles. Pick an environment that manages compiling issues for you. Or one that doesn't need make files at all.
Write mini-compilers that generate code from config files for you, rather than spend hours hacking out code in languages that weren't designed for the purpose they are being used for.
Use very strong data types. That way, bugs get stopped at compile time.
Use very strict naming conventions: either camelHump or underline_no_caps - no frustration!
Should variables have plurals? Yes or no? Naming conventions for the file system: caps or no caps, underscores_or_not. If you make everything singular, there will never be confusion or the variable names.
Code review is essential. Make everything look the same, so you can't tell who wrote what.
Don't use comments - use conventions.
Use opensource. Its less likely to stop a developer over technical issues, like windows does. And opensource grows old and fades like bluejeans rather than suddenly exploding for unknown reasons, as closed source does.
"Spec" the hardware the software will run on.
"Spec" the software the hardware will run.
Stop pretending databases can effectively abstract data and still maintain acceptable performance. Just spec the hardware.
Publish performance expectations, rather than just say "We'll optimize as needed". What the hell kind of spec is that?
Plan the project around remote developement techniques.
Make part of the project GPL/commercial licensed and roll the code into a Linux distro.
Be proactive in keeping one individual from having too much influence and becoming so important that the project can't function without him.
Find people dedicated to helping one another at all costs, instead of jerks who want to do it their way, is nice (hire some women).
Get rid of the CEO who didn't used to be a techie.
Get rid of the CEO who thinks the engineers should speak to him using "CEO-speak"
Hire someone who's sole goal is to sit between the developers and the bosses and translate.
Figure out what the programmers needs and goals are for their lives, and figure out a way to help them, rather than present some static employment deal that requires them to fabricate need as a means leveraging their career.
Donate money to local causes. A lot of money.
Let developers work from home.
Cover 100% of their health benefits.
Honestly, there is no technical limitation that a skilled individual can't overcome. Now, market and interpersonal limitations... That's where the real road block comes in. It doesn't matter how good your code or environment is - no matter how smart your people are. If you boss is a dumb ass, that's the person who will stop you project from being successful.
What will thrive is software-as-a-service. Custom applications. Small business development. One-on-one. Relationship based. Very personal.
I have been successful in making a living in that market. And this market is not getting less valuable, because there is no "product". It is a service and must be sold as such.
Thanks for reading!
In regards to being in a vacuum:
There is nothing managers strive for more than to be in a vacuum. Having the freedom to make decisions without being encumbered by acres of details allows projects to move forward.
Unfortunately, the details managers don't consider get moved onto my shoulders.
Try telling your boss to include you before making a significant business decision - see how far you get with that.
Vacuums sell.
I don't think the demands of customers matter. What matters is how customers vote - with their dollars. And Microsoft gives businesses EXACTLY what they want - crappy software are low prices.
Online surveys and customer wish/demand lists are meaningless - all people want is "cheap". The key to happiness is a short-term ROI.
Microsoft's "successes" include control of:
1. The desktop operating system
2. much of the embedded/mobile operating system, including kiosks, such as at borders and DVDPlay devices
3. MOST of the small-business file server market
4. most of the small business development-tool market
5. Pretty much the only option for Sarbanes-Oxly compliant email server (Exchange). This product alone GUARANTEES market domination for Microsoft. EVERY consulting firm I have spoken to requires experience w/ Microsoft Server 2003 and Exchange.
The demand for Linux in the small-business is almost zilch - development costs are just too high. I develop for Linux exclusively and NOBODY in so-cal wants to dish out the green to get a customized, efficient and future-proof Linux solution when they can pay WAY less for a crappy, short-lived Microsoft solution. (And by less, I mean 10% of what it would cost me to custom code their solution. Even outsourcing to India wouldn't fix that margin!)
Screw customer demands. Screw the European Union's laws. Screw anti-trust. At this point, MS doesn't even have to trap people. They are the only ones with an AFFORDABLE platform-level product that an executive can understand.
This is seriously painful for me. I really love Linux and wouldn't want to do development for anything else. Yet, the small business market is what it is.
It is not an issue of Republican vs. Democrat. Whatever Interest buys the politician enough whiskey gets to whisper the Interest's interests in the politicians ear. Interesting?
napster is competitive. they charge nothing. cd's cost a lot. if the recording industry is to compete, it must be competitive. but how can one compete against something free? simple. read on! all it takes is an analysis of the oportunity cost. if i wanted a cd of metallica's music, i could download it and write it to a cd. or i could buy the cd. to buy the cd takes 5 minutes on line and 15 bucks. to write the cd myself, i must buy the blank cd for 50 cents, spend 30 minutes of download time (or more, for slow connections), around an hour to set up the songs and convert them and write the songs to cd. total time: over an hour. since i get paid 12 bucks an hour, it is cheaper for me to copy that cd. if, however, the studios and musicians would get their heads out of their greedy asses and drop the price of the cd's to 10 dollars, they will be out competing napster. all it takes is an analysis of opportunity cost. it is cheaper for me to spend an hour on a cd and copy the cd than to buy the cd. when the oportunity cost is such that it becomes cheaper for me to buy the cd than to copy it, i will buy the cd.