I've worked primarily with display systems. Much of the complexity is in input validation and source selection. If you have a valid source, then you display the value otherwise you throw up a red "X". You don't try to guess what should be displayed like some web browsers do (and this adds complexity for the web designed since each browser guesses differently).
Since dynamic memory is forbidden or strictly controlled, the complexities of memory management are avoided. This would be for critical avionics software. Embedded software for other applications may not have this restriction and may be quite complex.
If I had to make a guess for the "most complex piece of software", I'd pick a payroll system that was first written in the 60s or 70s and has been continually updated for tax law and contract changes since then and the last 5 years of updates have been made by binary patches since the last person who had the source code died in a tragic lemur watching accident.
Then what's the harm in releasing the source code so those who are qualified to review it can do so?
How do you tell who is qualified to review it? I have worked with avionics software and I don't think that I would be qualified to review code outside of the specific part of the system that I worked on. Also, in addition to the code, you need to have the set of requirements that the code is implementing.
My response to that is, "what proprietary secrets?" If every company does the type of due-diligence you claim, then everyone in the field is already at the same level of competence and will not benefit from someone else's code. If not every company performs the same level of diligence, then that's all the more reason to have their code reviewed.
The proprietary secrets may be in the hardware and the way that the software interfaces with the hardware. Company A may do things one way that they think is great and company B may do things another way. Both ways may be completely valid, but different approaches to the problem. However, folks from company A would not be qualified to review company B's code and vice versa.
I would argue that avionics software and flight software for satellites is actually simpler than a browser. The difference is that it has unbelievable levels of documentation and testing. When I was working with avionics software, the FAA simply forbade dynamic memory allocation for critical software. They have lightened up a bit and now allow memory to be allocated at initialization, but that's it. The important thing for this type of software is that it is predictable and deterministic. If the software does something, you have to be able to explain (and point to specific requirements) why the software did that.
If you are a Christian, you should be very careful about causing environmental damage. In Revelation 11:18, it says that those who destroy the earth are, themselves going to be destroyed.
Cows (and other livestock) have been used as currency in some cultures. A cow has intrinsic value. You can get milk from a cow. If you have a bull, you can make more cows. You can get a cow to pull things (not as effectively as a horse, but better than nothing. And finally, you can kill and eat the cow and use its skin as leather.
Gold only has intrinsic value in some electronics and high tech applications. It make a good medium of exchange because it's durable, the supply is limited, it's fairly rare, and people like the look of it.
However, gold is also subject to inflation and deflation. Just look at what happened to prices during the California and Klondike gold rushes. If gold really held its value, you should be able to pick a commodity (or group of commodities), such as a loaf of bread, and it should be worth a fairly constant amount of gold over time and space.
Defining gold as the unit of value it not particularly meaningful as you can make the same definition for any sort of commodity. You've just fixed the price of one thing and the price of everything else will vary with respect to that one thing.
Really, the only thing that gold has going for it is that it has been used as a medium of exchange for so long that it has acquired a sort of mysticism.
Gold is worthless. If everything collapses, what can you do with your gold? You can't eat it. You can't build with it. You could throw it at people as a weapon, but you can do that with rocks.
As the g...p poster says, the only things with real value are canned goods and ammunition (and I suppose something to use the ammunition with).
This is Slashdot. Any sentence that begins with those words is false. With the possible exception of completing the sentence with "our coworkers suck".
I'm unemployed you insensitive clod.
Besides, even when I was employed, none of my coworkers offered me a blowjob.
MacOS as a second choice (I hate mac) however it still does lack in some places. Examples are software libs, sparse matrix solvers, r, sage, latex, root(physics).
I'm not sure about the other applications, but I have native R and LaTeX (TeXShop) sitting in the toolbar on my Mac.
Confirm the following transmission, "Snape kills Dumbledore."
Dammit! At least put a spoiler warning before you post something like this. Now there's no point in me reading the last book of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series.
I won't argue about what wikipedia and apple.com say, but I will add an anecdote. I just checked the versions and I'm posting this from Safari 4.0.5 running on MacOS X 10.4.11. I don't remember doing anything special to install Safari. I may have downloaded it separately rather than using the Software Updater, but it seems to be working fairly well. I'm also running Firefox 3.6.3 and it's running well too. This is on an iMac G5.
What part of "possibly apocryphal tale" are you having trouble with. He already said that its veracity is questionable. For the record, I have also heard the same tale.
Running red lights seems to be a bit of a pass time here in Phoenix. It's worse than other places I've lived. So, there was a serious problem here before the red light cameras were installed.
In most (all?) cases though, there are also warning signs out about the cameras. The speed cameras usually have two signs out each stating the distance to the camera. If you're at all paying attention, you shouldn't get caught by them.
Why do you want mainframes to die? Do you actually have to deal with them or is this a philosophical objection? What do you propose to replace them with?
It actually appears that market realities have led to a resurgence of mainframes after they had been mostly written off. People discovered that there were some things (not everything) that mainframes did very well.
Slashdot Mirror
Apo'strophe u'sage can be much wor'se.
I've worked primarily with display systems. Much of the complexity is in input validation and source selection. If you have a valid source, then you display the value otherwise you throw up a red "X". You don't try to guess what should be displayed like some web browsers do (and this adds complexity for the web designed since each browser guesses differently).
Since dynamic memory is forbidden or strictly controlled, the complexities of memory management are avoided. This would be for critical avionics software. Embedded software for other applications may not have this restriction and may be quite complex.
If I had to make a guess for the "most complex piece of software", I'd pick a payroll system that was first written in the 60s or 70s and has been continually updated for tax law and contract changes since then and the last 5 years of updates have been made by binary patches since the last person who had the source code died in a tragic lemur watching accident.
Then what's the harm in releasing the source code so those who are qualified to review it can do so?
How do you tell who is qualified to review it? I have worked with avionics software and I don't think that I would be qualified to review code outside of the specific part of the system that I worked on. Also, in addition to the code, you need to have the set of requirements that the code is implementing.
My response to that is, "what proprietary secrets?" If every company does the type of due-diligence you claim, then everyone in the field is already at the same level of competence and will not benefit from someone else's code. If not every company performs the same level of diligence, then that's all the more reason to have their code reviewed.
The proprietary secrets may be in the hardware and the way that the software interfaces with the hardware. Company A may do things one way that they think is great and company B may do things another way. Both ways may be completely valid, but different approaches to the problem. However, folks from company A would not be qualified to review company B's code and vice versa.
I would argue that avionics software and flight software for satellites is actually simpler than a browser. The difference is that it has unbelievable levels of documentation and testing. When I was working with avionics software, the FAA simply forbade dynamic memory allocation for critical software. They have lightened up a bit and now allow memory to be allocated at initialization, but that's it. The important thing for this type of software is that it is predictable and deterministic. If the software does something, you have to be able to explain (and point to specific requirements) why the software did that.
our favourite N word
Netscape?
The good news is that the patents will have expired long before we get there.
Maybe they just believed the people on Slashdot who said that nobody would want one.
Johnny was a chemist,
Johnny is no more,
for what Johnny though was H2O
was H2SO4
Come on. Nobody here can keep a secret. Have you met an Australian outside AU who knows how to shut up?
But, that's what they want you to think.
(goes to adjust tinfoil hat)
If you are a Christian, you should be very careful about causing environmental damage. In Revelation 11:18, it says that those who destroy the earth are, themselves going to be destroyed.
Cows (and other livestock) have been used as currency in some cultures. A cow has intrinsic value. You can get milk from a cow. If you have a bull, you can make more cows. You can get a cow to pull things (not as effectively as a horse, but better than nothing. And finally, you can kill and eat the cow and use its skin as leather.
Gold only has intrinsic value in some electronics and high tech applications. It make a good medium of exchange because it's durable, the supply is limited, it's fairly rare, and people like the look of it.
However, gold is also subject to inflation and deflation. Just look at what happened to prices during the California and Klondike gold rushes. If gold really held its value, you should be able to pick a commodity (or group of commodities), such as a loaf of bread, and it should be worth a fairly constant amount of gold over time and space.
Defining gold as the unit of value it not particularly meaningful as you can make the same definition for any sort of commodity. You've just fixed the price of one thing and the price of everything else will vary with respect to that one thing.
Really, the only thing that gold has going for it is that it has been used as a medium of exchange for so long that it has acquired a sort of mysticism.
Gold is worthless. If everything collapses, what can you do with your gold? You can't eat it. You can't build with it. You could throw it at people as a weapon, but you can do that with rocks.
As the g...p poster says, the only things with real value are canned goods and ammunition (and I suppose something to use the ammunition with).
"However, I think we can all agree now that.."
This is Slashdot. Any sentence that begins with those words is false. With the possible exception of completing the sentence with "our coworkers suck".
I'm unemployed you insensitive clod.
Besides, even when I was employed, none of my coworkers offered me a blowjob.
MacOS as a second choice (I hate mac) however it still does lack in some places. Examples are software libs, sparse matrix solvers, r, sage, latex, root(physics) .
I'm not sure about the other applications, but I have native R and LaTeX (TeXShop) sitting in the toolbar on my Mac.
It's really very simple. Apple is a hardware company that also makes software. Microsoft is a software company that also makes hardware.
Apple doesn't care what software you run on a Mac. Microsoft doesn't care what computer you run Windows on.
Apple wants you to buy a Mac. Microsoft wants you to buy Windows.
Confirm the following transmission, "Snape kills Dumbledore."
Dammit! At least put a spoiler warning before you post something like this. Now there's no point in me reading the last book of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series.
I won't argue about what wikipedia and apple.com say, but I will add an anecdote. I just checked the versions and I'm posting this from Safari 4.0.5 running on MacOS X 10.4.11. I don't remember doing anything special to install Safari. I may have downloaded it separately rather than using the Software Updater, but it seems to be working fairly well. I'm also running Firefox 3.6.3 and it's running well too. This is on an iMac G5.
What part of "possibly apocryphal tale" are you having trouble with. He already said that its veracity is questionable. For the record, I have also heard the same tale.
Running red lights seems to be a bit of a pass time here in Phoenix. It's worse than other places I've lived. So, there was a serious problem here before the red light cameras were installed.
In most (all?) cases though, there are also warning signs out about the cameras. The speed cameras usually have two signs out each stating the distance to the camera. If you're at all paying attention, you shouldn't get caught by them.
You missed the best part, "uncrop". That alone would be worth a fortune.
I used to have a PDP-11/10 that would do that.
Wow you're a major socialist...
I only want 3 things.
[items 1 and 2 deleted]
3 - to get the hell off my lawn!
You want to get off your own lawn? Be my guest.
Why do you want mainframes to die? Do you actually have to deal with them or is this a philosophical objection? What do you propose to replace them with?
It actually appears that market realities have led to a resurgence of mainframes after they had been mostly written off. People discovered that there were some things (not everything) that mainframes did very well.
Jobs is a vegetarian. It might look like real ham, but it's really processed soy protein.
Your glider would probably be fine in the ash cloud. Actually high performance gliders would probably be a good platform to research this.