If you write a good user-type program it should not NEED much support because of your excellent user interface and docs. What you suggest is to encourage developers to make our programs hard to use and needing of constant hand-holding so we can squeeze the users for cash flow. How is that any morally better than just selling the program in the first place?
Cars are a bad analogy. Cars need regular maintenance no matter what kind of car it is. I have programs that I got years ago that still work just fine today, with never a dollar more of support or docs.
What *is* so freakin hard to understand? People do NOT want to buy a dozen t-shirts with your program name on them.
Re:ethics and programming...
on
Database Nation
·
· Score: 2
I've done a little defense work, and tried to consider the ramifacations each time. In the end, I'll never work for a defense-related org again, but to be honest that's because they're mostly liars and cheats, ask you to defraud the govt, etc.
As an intern I did some work for SAIC on rocket exhaust. Some of the work went to the shuttle effort (good) others went to the MX missile (probably bad). One good thing about that experience is when people make a comment like "well, it isn't rocket science" I can say "yeah, I know, I've done that."
I answered an ad for some async comm and database work in '91, turned out to be a BBS for the Navy. All logistics, no targeting, and a lot of it was just getting messages back and forth between sailors and their families. I thought that was OK. Having completely avoided real military service myself I felt I could make a contribution w/o blowing anyone up. That project was later taken over by a company that really just defrauded the Navy to the tune of millions.
When I was consulting at MITRE one of the guys was talking about smart minefields; I wasn't too comfortable with that. I wouldn't do any real missile work, especially targeting. (After all, rockets have peaceful uses too.)
If you really feel that your work is going to be used for evil purposes the ethical thing is to get out as soon as possible. Let's face it, your not going to quit if you can't pay rent, but there are no shortage of normal business gigs out there these days. One cool thing about being a programmer is we can do cool stuff without a big-bucks backer, as the development of Linux surely illustrates.
> will we start to refrain ourselvers from posting notes that may be used in some court of law?
*I* sure do. And just because I don't post an email address in public it doesn't mean SlashDot can't be subpoenaed to hand it over.
I've wondered what the SlashDot response would be if one of the whack jobs out there kills another poster, say over religous sentiment. I've seen what amounts to death threats here by an Anonymous Coward - posts that would be considered terroristic threats if sent via email. When I emailed Rob to ask what would be done - are there logs that could be used, etc. I didn't receive a response. Not that I was surprised at that, but I still wonder.
Btw, does anybody know wht they're putting in CmdrTaco's coffee these days? He's posting some real crap (sensationalized) stories. This "story" for instance might be a good reminder to some, but there's nothing new in the reality that your computer, email, etc. can all be grabbed by the courts during discovery.
Beaver College is really a nice place. You can't deny the jokes - when I was at Dow Jones we had a girl from Beaver College and it gave everybody a chuckle. More so because she was absolutely beautiful and smart. Btw, Glenside also has one of the coolest places to see a show - the Keswick Theatre. (http://www.thekeswicktheatre.com) I caught Dr. John there a couple of weeks ago.
Thanks for the clarification - it sure was worded differently in the original post, so perhaps you'll forgive me if I misunderstood.
> most of those non-Christians belong to religions that evangelize.
Well maybe, but none of the non-Christians I know have. Not ever. None have ever come to my door, and they don't try to repeal Roe vs Wade, have books banned, or make the locals teach junk science like the "young earth" stuff.
There's a lot of good in the true Christian tradition. I just think that most people - usually the ones who yell "praise the Lord" the loudest - don't get it, or they wouldn't seem so intolerant.
> but the simple fact is that before God no one has the right to believe just anything they want
Well you do, don't you? You seem to think you own or can speak for the creator of the universe. That's ridiculous, on the face of it. Arrogant and probably heretical in many places.
> God instituted civil government
Oh, so we should blame God for high taxes. And God, creator of the universe, needs a civil government to keep people in line. Why not a little heart pain with a big booming voice in his ear? Wouldn't that be more effective and straightforward?
> He got what he deserved.
Right, he deserved to be burned at the stake for thinking for himself and talking to people. Gee, sounds a lot like what that Jesus guy did. Did he deserve that crucifix? I guess that's why it's OK for Christians to shoot gynecologists who perform abortions.
Judge: "Sheriff, why'd you kill Jeb?"
Sheriff: "Yer Honor, that man just needed killin'!"
Well, I wasn't the one who said "go live with Buddhists...". I didn't suggest he should go live in the Bible Belt did I? I just made the observation that people who are secure in their beliefs generally don't need to wear them on their sleeve.
> you respond by attacking him.
Did you actually read what I wrote, or what *you* imagined? All I did was say that nobody had made ANY mention whatsoever of attacking any Christian anything due to the Inquisition, much less his faith. In other words, I told him he had not *been* attacked at all, and it was silly to respond like that to an event that hadn't actually happened! Be honest, he just totally imagined this slight and accused us of it before anyone said "boo". So who's being attacked? Y'know, the Christian vs. lion martyr thing is really a little played out by now. You need to understand that people don't attack you because you're Christian, they just get pissed when you try to tell them how to live their lives and constantly bring up "your" God, as if any one people could have exclusive rights to the creator of the universe, life, and everything.
> I also know that faith is not a popularity contest.
Then why try to convert everybody?! I'm guessing most of the people in the world at least realize there are other religions in existence. If they want to change, they'll look you up. But wait, wouldn't that be leaving it in God's hands? The supreme arrogance of supposing that a being who created the universe would need any human assistance amazes me.
> If you are against prosletyzation, you should live amongst Buddhists.
I see, I'm not welcome in *your* America, eh?
Funny, as a matter-of-fact both myself and my cube-mate ARE Buddhists. I don't ask people about their religion, but I'm guessing a good deal of the Asians and Indians working here ARE NOT Christians either, so I guess I'm already there.
It may bother YOU to know this, but at least 2/3 of the world is NOT Christian. Unless of course China, Korea, Japan, India, Malaysia et al don't count to you.
Dude, get with the program - global warming is for real. And overall, I think Sagan's career was much more about communicating science to the public than about global warming.
Btw, if it makes you feel better I had a girlfriend who was his assistant at Princeton, and she assured me he was a total asshole.:-)
> misguided people abusing Jesus' name 400 years ago have nothing to do with my faith now
"They" haven't said anything about your faith. In fact, one of the really annoying things about "Christians" is how often they seem to have to tell the world about it. Most of us are not regularly shopping for a new religion or advertising our own. If your faith is strong, who cares what people say?
As Mel Brooks wrote:
The Inquisition - here we go The Inquisition - what a show We know you're wishin' - that we go away! The Inquisition's here - and it's here to stay!
SonicWall makes a nice little personal firewall starting at about $400. Easy to setup and use, works great, doesn't care what kind of OS you're using because it's a stand-alone box.
> And the really interesting developments in the Internet today are server side languages, trusted transactions, online applications, etc. These are things done by the 20-30 year olds of today.
Well, you pretty much prove my point. Ok, so Jerry Wang isn't a grey-beard, but I'm 40, and I've been doing quite a bit of those online applications, etc. myself in the last 5 years. Did you really think only *your* generation does this stuff? I mean really, just because I knew how to program 6 assembly languages 20 years ago doesn't mean I can't do this, does it? My neighbor was tapped by Kozmo.com to do their back-end systems because they needed somebody who *really* knows how to make a bullet-proof processing system. They specifically did NOT hire a 25 yr old who can do cool JavaScript on slightly more than one platform. (see how easy it is to generalize? and how wrong it might be?)
> Guess what, we're all 20-30 years old now.
Yeah, no kidding. And Tim Berners-Lee is 42. Wouldn't you say he had something to do with it?
Do you see the silliness in describing people by which decade they grew up in? "Aging baby boomer" is as much of an insult as "snot-nosed kid". Wouldn't you object if that's how I referred to Gen-X?
Oh, I guess being an "aging baby boomer" is Bad. That's a shame, because no matter what Jon Katz thinks they were the people who REALLY built the Internet. The rest of us are just using it.
For what it's worth, the definition I've seen most is Boomers go from 1945-1960, with Gen X starting next.
Yes, and while I can understand their desire to control the TV rights and whatnot if you read the small print it actually forbids you to make "an account" of the game, so if you actually paid for a ticket and went you're not allowed to publish a description of the event. THAT I find completely incredible.
> undercutting his own value for no other reason than enjoying the programming...
I think we have to give Metcalfe the benefit of the doubt - do you think when he was inventing Ethernet he was just doing it for the bucks or possibly also "enjoyed the programming"?
> He can feel it breathing down his neck
I doubt if Bob's doing too much coding for a living these days. Or indeed, even has to do anything for a living. I *do* agree that as a writer he makes a great engineer, but the issue is fair game.
> Sad when a computer pundit appears not understand what x86 code is.
I think it's sad Hemos either has no idea how much more Bob Metcalfe has done for computing than almost anyone he's ever met or he's just an ass. My respect for Hemos and SlashDot has just dropped quite a bit. Metcalfe's point is one a lot of us have been trying to address for a long time - the distance between open source ideals and money, i.e. the "real" world.
Yeah, I've read him quite a bit and thought initially he was getting somewhere, but over time I've come to see him as more of another media parasite than anyone with genuine insight. Too bad. I guess the exclusion is only for his columns, because the SlashDot crew has started pumping up his books, movie plans and this "interview" ad nauseum, and I guess they think it qualifies as "news". Jeez, a guy they call the resident windbag needs an interview too?
Well at least we don't tell our citizens they're not allowed to watch too many French movies! There certainly are groups here who tend towards fascism, and fortunately many of us vote against them. There are also groups that tend towards anarchy, and they occasionally get their way too. We're a BIG country with a lot of people, and you can still drive from one end to the other without being bothered. (Unless maybe you're a black man in a nice car. That's another story.)
> and NOT a true friend of us Europeans
I really didn't want to bring this up, but this is kind of a funny remark from a guy in a country that tried to take over ALL of Europe. Twice! I have news for you, if we wanted to own Europe we could have done so already.
> here in Europe it's illegal to spy on the citizens without reasons
It's illegal to spy on US citizens without reasons here too. We have laws against it, the NSA is NOT allowed to do it and to give the individuals who work there the benefit of the doubt I'm certain most of them take that seriously. We also have the ACLU to vigorously sue the government when they go too far. Too often law enforcement is over-zealous. The FBI and Martin Luther King, for instance, or the LA cops that planted evidence and even shot people. Note they're now on trial. Nothing's perfect, but the fight goes on.
> dictatorship of total surveillance
Agreed! Unfortunately, there are many here (as in other countries) who seem to be willing to give up their freedom to catch the "bad guys". If this wasn't being fought everyday by independent journalists, the ACLU, etc etc it would've happened already.
I recently got tired enough of Mr. Katz to exclude him with my personal settings. After doing that, I've seen about 4 Katz things. WTF? Why have these settings if they're going to be ignored?
Slashdot Mirror
If you write a good user-type program it should not NEED much support because of your excellent user interface and docs. What you suggest is to encourage developers to make our programs hard to use and needing of constant hand-holding so we can squeeze the users for cash flow. How is that any morally better than just selling the program in the first place?
Cars are a bad analogy. Cars need regular maintenance no matter what kind of car it is. I have programs that I got years ago that still work just fine today, with never a dollar more of support or docs.
What *is* so freakin hard to understand? People do NOT want to buy a dozen t-shirts with your program name on them.
I've done a little defense work, and tried to consider the ramifacations each time. In the end, I'll never work for a defense-related org again, but to be honest that's because they're mostly liars and cheats, ask you to defraud the govt, etc.
As an intern I did some work for SAIC on rocket exhaust. Some of the work went to the shuttle effort (good) others went to the MX missile (probably bad). One good thing about that experience is when people make a comment like "well, it isn't rocket science" I can say "yeah, I know, I've done that."
I answered an ad for some async comm and database work in '91, turned out to be a BBS for the Navy. All logistics, no targeting, and a lot of it was just getting messages back and forth between sailors and their families. I thought that was OK. Having completely avoided real military service myself I felt I could make a contribution w/o blowing anyone up. That project was later taken over by a company that really just defrauded the Navy to the tune of millions.
When I was consulting at MITRE one of the guys was talking about smart minefields; I wasn't too comfortable with that. I wouldn't do any real missile work, especially targeting. (After all, rockets have peaceful uses too.)
If you really feel that your work is going to be used for evil purposes the ethical thing is to get out as soon as possible. Let's face it, your not going to quit if you can't pay rent, but there are no shortage of normal business gigs out there these days. One cool thing about being a programmer is we can do cool stuff without a big-bucks backer, as the development of Linux surely illustrates.
> will we start to refrain ourselvers from posting notes that may be used in some court of law?
*I* sure do. And just because I don't post an email address in public it doesn't mean SlashDot can't be subpoenaed to hand it over.
I've wondered what the SlashDot response would be if one of the whack jobs out there kills another poster, say over religous sentiment. I've seen what amounts to death threats here by an Anonymous Coward - posts that would be considered terroristic threats if sent via email. When I emailed Rob to ask what would be done - are there logs that could be used, etc. I didn't receive a response. Not that I was surprised at that, but I still wonder.
Btw, does anybody know wht they're putting in CmdrTaco's coffee these days? He's posting some real crap (sensationalized) stories. This "story" for instance might be a good reminder to some, but there's nothing new in the reality that your computer, email, etc. can all be grabbed by the courts during discovery.
Whoops! They're at http://www.keswicktheatre.com
Beaver College is really a nice place. You can't deny the jokes - when I was at Dow Jones we had a girl from Beaver College and it gave everybody a chuckle. More so because she was absolutely beautiful and smart. Btw, Glenside also has one of the coolest places to see a show - the Keswick Theatre. (http://www.thekeswicktheatre.com) I caught Dr. John there a couple of weeks ago.
I'm sure Jamie's work helped a bunch. Nice to know that people don't always get the wool pulled over their eyes.
"I had a normal life... at 14, my scrotum was ritualistically shaved by a Zoroastrian monk. Quite breathtaking, actually." - Dr. Evil
Think we could patent that? :-)
One-Button Conversion?
Thanks for the clarification - it sure was worded differently in the original post, so perhaps you'll forgive me if I misunderstood.
> most of those non-Christians belong to religions that evangelize.
Well maybe, but none of the non-Christians I know have. Not ever. None have ever come to my door, and they don't try to repeal Roe vs Wade, have books banned, or make the locals teach junk science like the "young earth" stuff.
There's a lot of good in the true Christian tradition. I just think that most people - usually the ones who yell "praise the Lord" the loudest - don't get it, or they wouldn't seem so intolerant.
> but the simple fact is that before God no one has the right to believe just anything they want
Well you do, don't you? You seem to think you own or can speak for the creator of the universe. That's ridiculous, on the face of it. Arrogant and probably heretical in many places.
> God instituted civil government
Oh, so we should blame God for high taxes. And God, creator of the universe, needs a civil government to keep people in line. Why not a little heart pain with a big booming voice in his ear? Wouldn't that be more effective and straightforward?
> He got what he deserved.
Right, he deserved to be burned at the stake for thinking for himself and talking to people. Gee, sounds a lot like what that Jesus guy did. Did he deserve that crucifix? I guess that's why it's OK for Christians to shoot gynecologists who perform abortions.
Judge: "Sheriff, why'd you kill Jeb?"
Sheriff: "Yer Honor, that man just needed killin'!"
> No, apparently he isn't welcome in yours
Well, I wasn't the one who said "go live with Buddhists...". I didn't suggest he should go live in the Bible Belt did I? I just made the observation that people who are secure in their beliefs generally don't need to wear them on their sleeve.
> you respond by attacking him.
Did you actually read what I wrote, or what *you* imagined? All I did was say that nobody had made ANY mention whatsoever of attacking any Christian anything due to the Inquisition, much less his faith. In other words, I told him he had not *been* attacked at all, and it was silly to respond like that to an event that hadn't actually happened! Be honest, he just totally imagined this slight and accused us of it before anyone said "boo". So who's being attacked? Y'know, the Christian vs. lion martyr thing is really a little played out by now. You need to understand that people don't attack you because you're Christian, they just get pissed when you try to tell them how to live their lives and constantly bring up "your" God, as if any one people could have exclusive rights to the creator of the universe, life, and everything.
> I also know that faith is not a popularity contest.
Then why try to convert everybody?! I'm guessing most of the people in the world at least realize there are other religions in existence. If they want to change, they'll look you up. But wait, wouldn't that be leaving it in God's hands? The supreme arrogance of supposing that a being who created the universe would need any human assistance amazes me.
I'd love to help you out but I got so much exercise running around in January in the NorthEast in my freakin' T-shirt and shorts that I'm still tired.
Duh.
> If you are against prosletyzation, you should live amongst Buddhists.
I see, I'm not welcome in *your* America, eh?
Funny, as a matter-of-fact both myself and my cube-mate ARE Buddhists. I don't ask people about their religion, but I'm guessing a good deal of the Asians and Indians working here ARE NOT Christians either, so I guess I'm already there.
It may bother YOU to know this, but at least 2/3 of the world is NOT Christian. Unless of course China, Korea, Japan, India, Malaysia et al don't count to you.
Dude, get with the program - global warming is for real. And overall, I think Sagan's career was much more about communicating science to the public than about global warming.
:-)
Btw, if it makes you feel better I had a girlfriend who was his assistant at Princeton, and she assured me he was a total asshole.
> misguided people abusing Jesus' name 400 years ago have nothing to do with my faith now
"They" haven't said anything about your faith. In fact, one of the really annoying things about "Christians" is how often they seem to have to tell the world about it. Most of us are not regularly shopping for a new religion or advertising our own. If your faith is strong, who cares what people say?
As Mel Brooks wrote:
The Inquisition - here we go
The Inquisition - what a show
We know you're wishin' - that we go away!
The Inquisition's here - and it's here to stay!
SonicWall makes a nice little personal firewall starting at about $400. Easy to setup and use, works great, doesn't care what kind of OS you're using because it's a stand-alone box.
> And the really interesting developments in the Internet today are server side languages, trusted transactions, online applications, etc. These are things done by the 20-30 year olds of today.
Well, you pretty much prove my point. Ok, so Jerry Wang isn't a grey-beard, but I'm 40, and I've been doing quite a bit of those online applications, etc. myself in the last 5 years. Did you really think only *your* generation does this stuff? I mean really, just because I knew how to program 6 assembly languages 20 years ago doesn't mean I can't do this, does it? My neighbor was tapped by Kozmo.com to do their back-end systems because they needed somebody who *really* knows how to make a bullet-proof processing system. They specifically did NOT hire a 25 yr old who can do cool JavaScript on slightly more than one platform. (see how easy it is to generalize? and how wrong it might be?)
> Guess what, we're all 20-30 years old now.
Yeah, no kidding. And Tim Berners-Lee is 42. Wouldn't you say he had something to do with it?
Do you see the silliness in describing people by which decade they grew up in? "Aging baby boomer" is as much of an insult as "snot-nosed kid". Wouldn't you object if that's how I referred to Gen-X?
Oh, I guess being an "aging baby boomer" is Bad. That's a shame, because no matter what Jon Katz thinks they were the people who REALLY built the Internet. The rest of us are just using it.
For what it's worth, the definition I've seen most is Boomers go from 1945-1960, with Gen X starting next.
Yes, and while I can understand their desire to control the TV rights and whatnot if you read the small print it actually forbids you to make "an account" of the game, so if you actually paid for a ticket and went you're not allowed to publish a description of the event. THAT I find completely incredible.
> undercutting his own value for no other reason than enjoying the programming...
I think we have to give Metcalfe the benefit of the doubt - do you think when he was inventing Ethernet he was just doing it for the bucks or possibly also "enjoyed the programming"?
> He can feel it breathing down his neck
I doubt if Bob's doing too much coding for a living these days. Or indeed, even has to do anything for a living. I *do* agree that as a writer he makes a great engineer, but the issue is fair game.
> Sad when a computer pundit appears not understand what x86 code is.
I think it's sad Hemos either has no idea how much more Bob Metcalfe has done for computing than almost anyone he's ever met or he's just an ass. My respect for Hemos and SlashDot has just dropped quite a bit. Metcalfe's point is one a lot of us have been trying to address for a long time - the distance between open source ideals and money, i.e. the "real" world.
There must be a helluva queue for posting stories here at SlashDot - this story was out on CNN or the NY Times or something days ago.
Yeah, I've read him quite a bit and thought initially he was getting somewhere, but over time I've come to see him as more of another media parasite than anyone with genuine insight. Too bad. I guess the exclusion is only for his columns, because the SlashDot crew has started pumping up his books, movie plans and this "interview" ad nauseum, and I guess they think it qualifies as "news". Jeez, a guy they call the resident windbag needs an interview too?
> is really a fascist nation
Well at least we don't tell our citizens they're not allowed to watch too many French movies! There certainly are groups here who tend towards fascism, and fortunately many of us vote against them. There are also groups that tend towards anarchy, and they occasionally get their way too. We're a BIG country with a lot of people, and you can still drive from one end to the other without being bothered. (Unless maybe you're a black man in a nice car. That's another story.)
> and NOT a true friend of us Europeans
I really didn't want to bring this up, but this is kind of a funny remark from a guy in a country that tried to take over ALL of Europe. Twice! I have news for you, if we wanted to own Europe we could have done so already.
> here in Europe it's illegal to spy on the citizens without reasons
It's illegal to spy on US citizens without reasons here too. We have laws against it, the NSA is NOT allowed to do it and to give the individuals who work there the benefit of the doubt I'm certain most of them take that seriously. We also have the ACLU to vigorously sue the government when they go too far. Too often law enforcement is over-zealous. The FBI and Martin Luther King, for instance, or the LA cops that planted evidence and even shot people. Note they're now on trial. Nothing's perfect, but the fight goes on.
> dictatorship of total surveillance
Agreed! Unfortunately, there are many here (as in other countries) who seem to be willing to give up their freedom to catch the "bad guys". If this wasn't being fought everyday by independent journalists, the ACLU, etc etc it would've happened already.
I recently got tired enough of Mr. Katz to exclude him with my personal settings. After doing that, I've seen about 4 Katz things. WTF? Why have these settings if they're going to be ignored?