The only rule I've ever seen that matters: if you modify a file, keep the file's style consistent. Either code to match the rest of the file or (if you are making enough of a change to justify it), reformat/refactor everything.
Other than that, as a lead or manager I list "stop words" that should tell a programmer to show the code to someone else and explain why they did something unexpected (goto, operator->*, returns nested deep in the middle of a function, etc.) and pick whatever naming and indenting standard is common on the platform, but don't get worked up over it.
And the #2 rule (after in-file consistency): no standards discussion in code reviews. If someone violates common standards, tell them separately. Otherwise reviews can turn into nit-picky "move this here and change that prefix" 3p33n waggles.
I use a Vaio PCG F490 All In One. Great machines (we have two). Especially if multimedia matters (FireWire, big screen, DVD player).
The Vaio line in general has great selection to cover most laptop tradeoffs (I went with super heavy, super big, replaced three desktop machines). With 802.11b, it's everything you want. Add a few 1394 hard drives (cheap these days) and a USB CDRW.
Downsides: it's big and heavy (which *does* matter, but I'm not giving up the DVD ROM). The keyboard has troubles (I'm told by tech support it's common to lose keys after about a year and I don't want to be without it for up to 2 weeks while I send it in for repairs, so I haven't fixed it for six months -- try having no underscore or tilde and needing the fake numeric keypad for - and 6, plus losing F2, F4, F6, F10, and maybe F9... oh, and delete). But it was under warranty if I was willing to have it replaced.
Also, the battery died after a year ($250 to buy it quick, no ebay) and the warranty is just one year.
But even with those, I love the Vaios and just bought a Vaio desktop machine as well.
I always tell people that *something* in the Vaio line will appeal to them (if they can come up with the money, they aren't the cheapest on the market).
I'm impulsive. I usually just go get things at the Sony Style Store in SF rather than deal with the online ordering.
I often find it interesting that so many people assume "open source" means *nix. DOS and Windows have had open source applications (some new, some ported from Unix) since before Linux was around, but didn't call them that. Most were games or toys, and we often called them PD back in the 80's, becuase the idea of hiring lawyers and fighting over the license was less entertaining that writing and releasing code.
The first opened source (not Open Source(TM), a division of People Known By Their Three Initials Ltd.) applications I used were, IMHO, the most successful, well maintained, well released, and interesting open source projects I still know (with absolutley no insult meant to the Open Source(TM) community, which is standing on the shoulders of some great giants).
Best example is Fractint. 100% DOS (and Windows) open source. If you haven't looked at it, check out the Stone Soup Group. They know more about what open source is about than even sourceforge. Their motto ("don't want money. got money. want recognition.") is wonderful.
Even most early opened source apps were not afraid of supporting DOS/Windows (as too many Open Source(TM) projects today are, perhaps being afraid that having end users, as opposed to sysadmins, would require usability, documentation, stability, rational versioning, and other things that only the "big boys" --e xcluding Mozilla -- of the OS movement bother with)
The nethack/roguelike family of games. Opened source, built for Unix and ported to DOS/Windows very early. (All is needed was a curses/ANSI package.)
PGP worked on DOS from the getgo.
DKBTrace (became POVRay). I don't know if this ran on Unix, but I'm pretty sure it did.
Open Source doesn't/shouldn't mean "linux software" or "freeBSD software". It means open source. It doesn't even mean "portable software", actually.
The idea that any open source application shouldn't be rleased if it doesn't run on Linux (not what the original poster said, BTW!!!! I'm not flaming him/her, I'm commenting on a general trend) is ridiculous.
And the idea that this is new is just part of the myopia the OS community seems to have. OS seems to build a tall "NIH" wall around it.
In January of '99, we got a DSL line here in the Bay Area. We ordered from a SoCal ISP named Orconet (orconet.com), based on a review of their service in a DSL roundup article in some gaming magazine. It was cheap, we got multiple IPs (not many, but enough to skip NAT for now) and they dealt with ordering the line from Pac Bell, arranging installation, etc.
All in all, we were up in 5 days. I was impressed. The price was great, and the service was good. We had daily 5 minute outages for a while, but they eventually went away, and our site doesn't get that much traffic, so I wasn't too worried (it's strictly noncommerical anyway).
So the deal was that Pac Bell added DSL service to my (4 year old) second line and billed my $40/month for it. Orconet billed me $20/month for the ISP service and additional IPs. Great.
About a month ago, we got an email around 8 PM on a Thursday informing us that orconet was out of business and our service was going off the next day. There was a number to call for more information, which was the same as the orconet main line. We called it the next morning.
A recording told us that no calls were being returned, that colo customers were being sold to someone else, dial-up customers should find a local ISP, and DSL customers should call Pac Bell.
So, I called Pac Bell. It seemed like a good idea to switch my ISP to them, since they already had the line and I didn't have to wait for a covad installation (months). They took the order for ISP service on my line and said they couldn't process it until my current ISP service was cancelled, and that would take 5 business days, then 10 business days to turn on the Pac Bell service. I grumbled, but it was faster than Covad and I told them to do it.
The next friday, I waited for my line to go off.
When it didn't, I called on Monday to see what the dealy was (I was worried that if I held out too long the DSLAM would fill again and I'd be waitlisted). They told me there was no order to cancel my ISP service. I placed another.
Then someone with a slight clue got on the line and told me they couldn't cancel my ISP with the now defunct orconet! That I didn't own the line, because the DSL service had been ordered on my line by orconet and therefore they had to cancel it. Of course, orconet wasn't returning any calls, so I couldn't get that done. The fact that I paid directly to Pac Bell didn't matter, and the fact that I had the line for 4 years before adding DSL didn't matter. I was screwed.
I could get waitlisted for DSL on my main line and get Pac Bell as an ISP, but that didn't appeal to me. I didn't want a one year contract, and I didn't want more hardware floating around. And even then, I might have had to cancel the whole phone service on the second line to get rid of the $40/month DSL charge.
So I waited. For some reason, our DSL was still active. The orconet nameservers (which held SOA on my domain) died, so I switched to a friends. (They've since been coming up sometimes, which can cause me problems.) But my connection only went down once, for 5 minutes.
My girlfriend suggested we wait until a month went by, figuring that by that point someone would have discovered us in a billing cycle and either disconnected us or billed us.
Last week, we got a bill from the phone company listing SBC Advanced Solutions for DSL service. I don't know if SBC knows they're our connection yet, and I'm a little afraid to call them and discuss bandwidth, DNS, and IP options.
So, the short is:
* I love the always-on connection (the speed is not that material, actually)
* I love hosting everything at home (except when something goes wrong:-)
* I've had good service I recommend for 20 months
* I recommend new people out here use a major ISP or (preferably) the hated Pac Bell, becuase Pac Bell doesn't throttle bandwidth to what you pay for. I have friends getting three times the bandwidth I am
* Watch out for who owns what and consider what you do if the line goes dark for some reason
* KEEP A DIAL-UP ACCOUNT ALWAYS
* Have a second phone line if you can
* Don't let the ISP end up owning anything you can avoid
* Make sure you are Guardian and a technical or administrative contact on all domains and address ranges you own
And I have a question for you all:
* Should I call SBC? I haven't gotten a bill from them and my fear is them having to cut me off to make an order for me, or them charging me hundreds a month because I have multiple IPs. Anyone have any advice about them?
* I was being billed for DSL service I couldn't use and couldn't cancel. Is there a regulatory body that I can complain to about this? This seems like a great scam for Pac Bell if they figure it out -- create bogus ISPs, run them for a few months, go chapter 11, cancel the line but keep people paying for it. If they get too unhappy, convert them to Pac Bell ISP and charge them a couple of hundred installation.
I was in a very similar circumstance about six months ago. The company I worked for (one that gets a lot of/. press -- and boycotts) was patenting something I worked on that was AMAZINGLY obvious and broad.
Of course, the company lawyers in a Northern State decided to patent it. They worked over the patent disclosure, sent it to me to sign, and acted as though they were expecting me to be excited to have my name on the patent, rather than ashamed.
My response took some time, but I reread my emplyment agreement and the NDA/etc. I had signed. I had given them the right to patent anything I did for them and it was their work -- fine. I agree with that, I just don't want to be a party to the abuse of the patent system. I decided from my reading (like everyone else here, IANAL) that they could patent it without me, especially since a developer at the company who should know better was quite excited to work on the patent (we had worked together on the project, and her background was PARC, so I should have expected her attitude).
I told the lawyer that they didn't need me. I sent them an email stating that I would have nothing to do with the patent in any way and that satisfied the lawyers. They knew that they could patent it without me. They realized that I wasn't going to contest the patent and try to steal it from them. I keep my hands clean as I could find a way to. Everyone's happy(ish).
I *did* have the priveledge of telling the Head Cheese of the company off about it in a public forum he created to discuss patent issues shortly after he appeared on the cover of a major national magazine. That was fun. Then, I quit in a few months (over many things, not just that).
I never checked to see if they kept my name on the patent or not. But they didn't use my signature.
And now I make sure any client knows that if they want to patent something I do for them, they can't count on my help. I'll read the patent paperwork and make sure there's no technical mistakes, but I won't sign anything for them on it.
Shop around for DSL ISPs. Other providers offer less expensive service at higher bitrates. You can use the Pacbell line and other ISPs rather cheaply in the last few months.
And while PacBell will only promise 128, you may often get more.
I like the DSL solution and find that my prices are low and my bandwidth acceptable. I wouldn't run LOB apps on it, of course, but for personal and small business use it's great and cheap.
I use OrcoNet (orconet.com). My opinion of them is mixed (getting DNS set up was a PITA, and PacBell makes it very hard on other ISP by changing requirements without warning), but it's met my needs enough of the time.
Interestingly, this article is dated June 4th, before the big problems on the 9th. So it isn't an attempt to capitalize on the egg on eBay currently, but to comment on general problems they've had.
Some campanies (for example, CDuctive) are allowing you to order custom CD's. You can hear RA clips of the tracks and then mix a CD at a cost-per-track. Great idea for people who don't want to wait for someone to send an MP3 and burn their own mixes. No clue on their legality and royalty sitch. I haven't used them yet, but they do have Mojo Nixon and the Toadliquors.... Xowl.
Slashdot Mirror
The only rule I've ever seen that matters: if you modify a file, keep the file's style consistent. Either code to match the rest of the file or (if you are making enough of a change to justify it), reformat/refactor everything.
Other than that, as a lead or manager I list "stop words" that should tell a programmer to show the code to someone else and explain why they did something unexpected (goto, operator->*, returns nested deep in the middle of a function, etc.) and pick whatever naming and indenting standard is common on the platform, but don't get worked up over it.
And the #2 rule (after in-file consistency): no standards discussion in code reviews. If someone violates common standards, tell them separately. Otherwise reviews can turn into nit-picky "move this here and change that prefix" 3p33n waggles.
I use a Vaio PCG F490 All In One. Great machines (we have two). Especially if multimedia matters (FireWire, big screen, DVD player).
The Vaio line in general has great selection to cover most laptop tradeoffs (I went with super heavy, super big, replaced three desktop machines). With 802.11b, it's everything you want. Add a few 1394 hard drives (cheap these days) and a USB CDRW.
Downsides: it's big and heavy (which *does* matter, but I'm not giving up the DVD ROM). The keyboard has troubles (I'm told by tech support it's common to lose keys after about a year and I don't want to be without it for up to 2 weeks while I send it in for repairs, so I haven't fixed it for six months -- try having no underscore or tilde and needing the fake numeric keypad for - and 6, plus losing F2, F4, F6, F10, and maybe F9... oh, and delete). But it was under warranty if I was willing to have it replaced.
Also, the battery died after a year ($250 to buy it quick, no ebay) and the warranty is just one year.
But even with those, I love the Vaios and just bought a Vaio desktop machine as well.
I always tell people that *something* in the Vaio line will appeal to them (if they can come up with the money, they aren't the cheapest on the market).
I'm impulsive. I usually just go get things at the Sony Style Store in SF rather than deal with the online ordering.
- Xowl
I often find it interesting that so many people assume "open source" means *nix. DOS and Windows have had open source applications (some new, some ported from Unix) since before Linux was around, but didn't call them that. Most were games or toys, and we often called them PD back in the 80's, becuase the idea of hiring lawyers and fighting over the license was less entertaining that writing and releasing code.
The first opened source (not Open Source(TM), a division of People Known By Their Three Initials Ltd.) applications I used were, IMHO, the most successful, well maintained, well released, and interesting open source projects I still know (with absolutley no insult meant to the Open Source(TM) community, which is standing on the shoulders of some great giants).
Best example is Fractint. 100% DOS (and Windows) open source. If you haven't looked at it, check out the Stone Soup Group. They know more about what open source is about than even sourceforge. Their motto ("don't want money. got money. want recognition.") is wonderful.
Even most early opened source apps were not afraid of supporting DOS/Windows (as too many Open Source(TM) projects today are, perhaps being afraid that having end users, as opposed to sysadmins, would require usability, documentation, stability, rational versioning, and other things that only the "big boys" --e xcluding Mozilla -- of the OS movement bother with)
The nethack/roguelike family of games. Opened source, built for Unix and ported to DOS/Windows very early. (All is needed was a curses/ANSI package.)
PGP worked on DOS from the getgo.
DKBTrace (became POVRay). I don't know if this ran on Unix, but I'm pretty sure it did.
Open Source doesn't/shouldn't mean "linux software" or "freeBSD software". It means open source. It doesn't even mean "portable software", actually.
The idea that any open source application shouldn't be rleased if it doesn't run on Linux (not what the original poster said, BTW!!!! I'm not flaming him/her, I'm commenting on a general trend) is ridiculous.
And the idea that this is new is just part of the myopia the OS community seems to have. OS seems to build a tall "NIH" wall around it.
-- Xowl.
Watch out for who owns your DSL line. Really.
:-)
In January of '99, we got a DSL line here in the Bay Area. We ordered from a SoCal ISP named Orconet (orconet.com), based on a review of their service in a DSL roundup article in some gaming magazine. It was cheap, we got multiple IPs (not many, but enough to skip NAT for now) and they dealt with ordering the line from Pac Bell, arranging installation, etc.
All in all, we were up in 5 days. I was impressed. The price was great, and the service was good. We had daily 5 minute outages for a while, but they eventually went away, and our site doesn't get that much traffic, so I wasn't too worried (it's strictly noncommerical anyway).
So the deal was that Pac Bell added DSL service to my (4 year old) second line and billed my $40/month for it. Orconet billed me $20/month for the ISP service and additional IPs. Great.
About a month ago, we got an email around 8 PM on a Thursday informing us that orconet was out of business and our service was going off the next day. There was a number to call for more information, which was the same as the orconet main line. We called it the next morning.
A recording told us that no calls were being returned, that colo customers were being sold to someone else, dial-up customers should find a local ISP, and DSL customers should call Pac Bell.
So, I called Pac Bell. It seemed like a good idea to switch my ISP to them, since they already had the line and I didn't have to wait for a covad installation (months). They took the order for ISP service on my line and said they couldn't process it until my current ISP service was cancelled, and that would take 5 business days, then 10 business days to turn on the Pac Bell service. I grumbled, but it was faster than Covad and I told them to do it.
The next friday, I waited for my line to go off.
When it didn't, I called on Monday to see what the dealy was (I was worried that if I held out too long the DSLAM would fill again and I'd be waitlisted). They told me there was no order to cancel my ISP service. I placed another.
Then someone with a slight clue got on the line and told me they couldn't cancel my ISP with the now defunct orconet! That I didn't own the line, because the DSL service had been ordered on my line by orconet and therefore they had to cancel it. Of course, orconet wasn't returning any calls, so I couldn't get that done. The fact that I paid directly to Pac Bell didn't matter, and the fact that I had the line for 4 years before adding DSL didn't matter. I was screwed.
I could get waitlisted for DSL on my main line and get Pac Bell as an ISP, but that didn't appeal to me. I didn't want a one year contract, and I didn't want more hardware floating around. And even then, I might have had to cancel the whole phone service on the second line to get rid of the $40/month DSL charge.
So I waited. For some reason, our DSL was still active. The orconet nameservers (which held SOA on my domain) died, so I switched to a friends. (They've since been coming up sometimes, which can cause me problems.) But my connection only went down once, for 5 minutes.
My girlfriend suggested we wait until a month went by, figuring that by that point someone would have discovered us in a billing cycle and either disconnected us or billed us.
Last week, we got a bill from the phone company listing SBC Advanced Solutions for DSL service. I don't know if SBC knows they're our connection yet, and I'm a little afraid to call them and discuss bandwidth, DNS, and IP options.
So, the short is:
* I love the always-on connection (the speed is not that material, actually)
* I love hosting everything at home (except when something goes wrong
* I've had good service I recommend for 20 months
* I recommend new people out here use a major ISP or (preferably) the hated Pac Bell, becuase Pac Bell doesn't throttle bandwidth to what you pay for. I have friends getting three times the bandwidth I am
* Watch out for who owns what and consider what you do if the line goes dark for some reason
* KEEP A DIAL-UP ACCOUNT ALWAYS
* Have a second phone line if you can
* Don't let the ISP end up owning anything you can avoid
* Make sure you are Guardian and a technical or administrative contact on all domains and address ranges you own
And I have a question for you all:
* Should I call SBC? I haven't gotten a bill from them and my fear is them having to cut me off to make an order for me, or them charging me hundreds a month because I have multiple IPs. Anyone have any advice about them?
* I was being billed for DSL service I couldn't use and couldn't cancel. Is there a regulatory body that I can complain to about this? This seems like a great scam for Pac Bell if they figure it out -- create bogus ISPs, run them for a few months, go chapter 11, cancel the line but keep people paying for it. If they get too unhappy, convert them to Pac Bell ISP and charge them a couple of hundred installation.
Xowl.
I was in a very similar circumstance about six months ago. The company I worked for (one that gets a lot of /. press -- and boycotts) was patenting something I worked on that was AMAZINGLY obvious and broad.
Of course, the company lawyers in a Northern State decided to patent it. They worked over the patent disclosure, sent it to me to sign, and acted as though they were expecting me to be excited to have my name on the patent, rather than ashamed.
My response took some time, but I reread my emplyment agreement and the NDA/etc. I had signed. I had given them the right to patent anything I did for them and it was their work -- fine. I agree with that, I just don't want to be a party to the abuse of the patent system. I decided from my reading (like everyone else here, IANAL) that they could patent it without me, especially since a developer at the company who should know better was quite excited to work on the patent (we had worked together on the project, and her background was PARC, so I should have expected her attitude).
I told the lawyer that they didn't need me. I sent them an email stating that I would have nothing to do with the patent in any way and that satisfied the lawyers. They knew that they could patent it without me. They realized that I wasn't going to contest the patent and try to steal it from them. I keep my hands clean as I could find a way to. Everyone's happy(ish).
I *did* have the priveledge of telling the Head Cheese of the company off about it in a public forum he created to discuss patent issues shortly after he appeared on the cover of a major national magazine. That was fun. Then, I quit in a few months (over many things, not just that).
I never checked to see if they kept my name on the patent or not. But they didn't use my signature.
And now I make sure any client knows that if they want to patent something I do for them, they can't count on my help. I'll read the patent paperwork and make sure there's no technical mistakes, but I won't sign anything for them on it.
Xowl
Seth Morris
Shop around for DSL ISPs. Other providers offer less expensive service at higher bitrates. You can use the Pacbell line and other ISPs rather cheaply in the last few months.
And while PacBell will only promise 128, you may often get more.
I like the DSL solution and find that my prices are low and my bandwidth acceptable. I wouldn't run LOB apps on it, of course, but for personal and small business use it's great and cheap.
I use OrcoNet (orconet.com). My opinion of them is mixed (getting DNS set up was a PITA, and PacBell makes it very hard on other ISP by changing requirements without warning), but it's met my needs enough of the time.
Xowl.
Interestingly, this article is dated June 4th, before the big problems on the 9th. So it isn't an attempt to capitalize on the egg on eBay currently, but to comment on general problems they've had.
To have written it today would be a big PR no-no.
Some campanies (for example, CDuctive) are allowing you to order custom CD's. You can hear RA clips of the tracks and then mix a CD at a cost-per-track. Great idea for people who don't want to wait for someone to send an MP3 and burn their own mixes. No clue on their legality and royalty sitch. I haven't used them yet, but they do have Mojo Nixon and the Toadliquors.... Xowl.