I think I agree with Paul Graham here, rather than the author. Business types who dont know anything about programming are going to have trouble picking good programmers.
Here are some nitpicks with the article:
#1
Passion is important, although I disagree with "Good programmers will have a tendency to talk your ear off about some technical detail of what they're working on".
If asked, a programmer should tell you about things with passion, but having them blather on about an arbitrary thing just means they probably are spending too much time on it in general.
I should mention, hearing good criticisms and bitching about what should be different, I see as good.
"Dammit, why doesn't apple's Cocoa documentation list all of a particular classes APIs in one place somewhere? There's NSString, and AppKit's NSString, ugh" and "Drawing text on OS X is a pain in the ass -- there's at least 5 APIs that all fail in some way or another" would be two examples of what I consider good criticism.
#2
Yes, wanting to learn and self teaching are great qualities. Although:
"In fact, the great programmer will be the one talking your ear off about a new technology that you haven't even heard of, explaining to you why you must use it in your business, even if none of your staff knows how to use it. Even if it's a technology he doesn't know how to use yet."
This is idiotic. A good programmer should be sensible and reasonable-- not fearing change, but not changing for no good reason (and certainly not for something he doesnt know himself!). And again, talking your ear off about any particular technology is a warning sign. "OH, you just HAVE to use X". BAD.
#4
Yeah I really want to see code that they've created (either for fun or otherwise). That says everything.
#5
I don't think bleeding edge is worth anything. Variety is good, although I must admit the scope of my programming is mostly limited to assembly and C-like languages, so (rationalizing) it isn't everything, as long as you're willing to learn.
Of course, the article misses a key point:
Programming is a medium to accomplish goals. Having someone who understands the goals and vision, and can program worth a shit, is worth more than anything else.
If this article is correct, and Apple still wanted to use PPC, on Intel processors, they could have Intel make a VLIW software translator for the PPC instruction set, and then not have to go to x86. No? I don't buy it. THAT wouldn't make sense.:) Running PPC (via Rosetta) on x86 on VLIW seems like it would be retarded.
"IT IS HARD, PEOPLE, to replicate something which people love on an emotional level, differentiate yourself enough so as to not be seen as just a knock-off, and yet have it be close enough to the original to be seen as 'good'."
But you're missing the point. A decent UI should be somewhat usable (in control and speed) and somewhat powerful. Many portable devices these days are neither. Getting a decently fast, decently usable UI that is decently powerful is EASY. If you spend any time on it, anyway. Trying to replicate the iPod's UI is not what was meant.
making a W2K replacement just for the sake of it will never work financially-- what OEM would preload that? Which IHV would really REALLY risk pissing off MS just to save the few bucks they pay in royalties to MS?
Ultimately, I think the quality of the win2k clone would either make or break it. If it really rocked, and was completely solid with room to improve in ways that MS doesn't care about, it could be very interesting.
Also, it wouldn't have to be completely OSS, it could be even completely proprietary (not based on any GPL code, just BSD licensed and acquired).
I guess we better change the name of our beep: http://www.nullsoft.com/free/nbeep/
to avoid confusion...?
What about the implications for the company?
on
Abusing the GPL?
·
· Score: 1
The company can't even sell the product, since they don't own the exclusive copyright to it. Which means everybody else has just as many rights to do whatever they please with the software as the company. So really, even if it is a crappy and shady thing for them to do, it's also very stupid and not very well thought through. They'll get what's coming to them anyway.
For the past 48 hours my XO DSL (formerly concentric) has been blocking port 80 traffic. Originally all port 80 traffic was blocked, and on and off parts have been open, but now outbound is open. But my hosted sites here are down, and have been for nearly 48 hours. Here is a copy of the email I got from xo:
As a consequence of the increased traffic generated by NIMDA worm, XO will
continue to use filters for Internet traffic on some of our networks. We
will continue to monitor these filters and remove them from the network as
the traffic decreases. In addition, we will continue to investigate
alternative options to filter this traffic.
The filters we have recently implemented block the most common methods used
by the worm to spread via the UDP port 69 (used for TFTP or Trivial File
Transfer Protocol) and inbound TCP traffic on port 80 (used for HTTP or
Hyper Text Transfer Protocol). This filter set may prevent others from
accessing sites on your web servers. These filters will remain in place
until the attacks have been brought under control.
XO customers are encouraged to secure their systems. If the worm has
affected a machine on your network, it must be removed from the network and
reformatted. You can find more information on these attacks and available
remedies from the following links, using an alternate Internet connection if
necessary:
Note that even if I was never infected (I wasn't -- mainly I run FreeBSD, and my win32 machines were patched months ago), I have no option to have them turn it on by telling them I'm clean. I confirmed this on the phone, there's nothing I can do. I am going to call and bitch and make them refund part of my monthly fee. This is bullshit.
I can see blocking people who appear to be infected, but blocking everybody? Ick.
...says that Icecast "devours fewer CPU cycles and uses less memory?"..
Maybe he should actually do some testing if he wants to make those claims...
-Justin
Hardware is so much amazingly more simple than software. The tasks it accomplishes are much more specific, much more defined.
Software is more of an open book. Many applications/OSes/etc do MANY things, and the overall number of states the application can be in is millions of times more than the states a CPU can be in, for example.
Mainly what the issue is, is that the whole gnutella "protocol" was pushed too quickly into a "standard", so it can't be adapted to the changing environment that it has endured. Primarily because the people who created it can't touch it, and nobody else can really take a leadership role and be followed. So a proof of concept system stagnates and never really advances. Unfortunate, if you ask me, but hey, ultimately it won't matter. Poo on file sharing apps.
Slashdot Mirror
I think I agree with Paul Graham here, rather than the author. Business types who dont know anything about programming are going to have trouble picking good programmers.
Here are some nitpicks with the article:
#1
Passion is important, although I disagree with "Good programmers will have a tendency to
talk your ear off about some technical detail of what they're working on".
If asked, a programmer should tell you about things with passion, but having them blather on about an arbitrary thing just means they probably are spending too much time on it in general.
I should mention, hearing good criticisms and bitching about what should be different, I see as good.
"Dammit, why doesn't apple's Cocoa documentation list all of a particular classes APIs in one place somewhere? There's NSString, and AppKit's NSString, ugh" and "Drawing text on OS X is a pain in the ass -- there's at least 5 APIs that all fail in some way or another" would be two examples of what I consider good criticism.
#2
Yes, wanting to learn and self teaching are great qualities. Although:
"In fact, the great programmer will be the one talking your ear off about a new technology that you haven't even heard of, explaining to you why you must use it in your business, even if none of your staff knows how to use it. Even if it's a technology he doesn't know how to use yet."
This is idiotic. A good programmer should be sensible and reasonable-- not fearing change, but not changing for no good reason (and certainly not for something he doesnt know himself!). And again, talking your ear off about any particular technology is a warning sign. "OH, you just HAVE to use X". BAD.
#4
Yeah I really want to see code that they've created (either for fun or otherwise). That says everything.
#5
I don't think bleeding edge is worth anything. Variety is good, although I must admit the scope of my programming is mostly limited to assembly and C-like languages, so (rationalizing) it isn't everything, as long as you're willing to learn.
Of course, the article misses a key point:
Programming is a medium to accomplish goals. Having someone who understands the goals and vision, and can program worth a shit, is worth more than anything else.
First to file?!? So Microsoft and IBM are going to own everything that other people invent, who don't have the budget to patent?
Fucking assholes.
If this article is correct, and Apple still wanted to use PPC, on Intel processors, they could have Intel make a VLIW software translator for the PPC instruction set, and then not have to go to x86. No? I don't buy it. THAT wouldn't make sense. :) Running PPC (via Rosetta) on x86 on VLIW seems like it would be retarded.
...almost no keyboard shortcuts... You're kidding me?
"IT IS HARD, PEOPLE, to replicate something which people love on an emotional level, differentiate yourself enough so as to not be seen as just a knock-off, and yet have it be close enough to the original to be seen as 'good'."
But you're missing the point. A decent UI should be somewhat usable (in control and speed) and somewhat powerful. Many portable devices these days are neither. Getting a decently fast, decently usable UI that is decently powerful is EASY. If you spend any time on it, anyway. Trying to replicate the iPod's UI is not what was meant.
making a W2K replacement just for the sake of it will never work financially-- what OEM would preload that? Which IHV would really REALLY risk pissing off MS just to save the few bucks they pay in royalties to MS?
Ultimately, I think the quality of the win2k clone would either make or break it. If it really rocked, and was completely solid with room to improve in ways that MS doesn't care about, it could be very interesting. Also, it wouldn't have to be completely OSS, it could be even completely proprietary (not based on any GPL code, just BSD licensed and acquired).
I guess we better change the name of our beep: http://www.nullsoft.com/free/nbeep/
to avoid confusion...?
The company can't even sell the product, since they don't own the exclusive copyright to it. Which means everybody else has just as many rights to do whatever they please with the software as the company. So really, even if it is a crappy and shady thing for them to do, it's also very stupid and not very well thought through. They'll get what's coming to them anyway.
-Justin
If OS X wouldn't sleep everytime I shut my powerbook's lid, I'd like it a lot more.
Ooops, just a correction, it's actually been 3 days, almost 72 hours..
-Justin
For the past 48 hours my XO DSL (formerly concentric) has been blocking port 80 traffic. Originally all port 80 traffic was blocked, and on and off parts have been open, but now outbound is open. But my hosted sites here are down, and have been for nearly 48 hours. Here is a copy of the email I got from xo:
As a consequence of the increased traffic generated by NIMDA worm, XO will
continue to use filters for Internet traffic on some of our networks. We
will continue to monitor these filters and remove them from the network as
the traffic decreases. In addition, we will continue to investigate
alternative options to filter this traffic.
The filters we have recently implemented block the most common methods used
by the worm to spread via the UDP port 69 (used for TFTP or Trivial File
Transfer Protocol) and inbound TCP traffic on port 80 (used for HTTP or
Hyper Text Transfer Protocol). This filter set may prevent others from
accessing sites on your web servers. These filters will remain in place
until the attacks have been brought under control.
XO customers are encouraged to secure their systems. If the worm has
affected a machine on your network, it must be removed from the network and
reformatted. You can find more information on these attacks and available
remedies from the following links, using an alternate Internet connection if
necessary:
Note that even if I was never infected (I wasn't -- mainly I run FreeBSD, and my win32 machines were patched months ago), I have no option to have them turn it on by telling them I'm clean. I confirmed this on the phone, there's nothing I can do. I am going to call and bitch and make them refund part of my monthly fee. This is bullshit.
I can see blocking people who appear to be infected, but blocking everybody? Ick.
-Justin
Reminds me of Intel renaming the P6 Pentium Pro.
Makes sense from their end, no? Gotta keep leveraging the name..
-Justin
Uhh no.. the shoutcast server does no such transcoding either.. i.e. you can use shout with shoutcast server if you want to.. -Justin
...says that Icecast "devours fewer CPU cycles and uses less memory?".. Maybe he should actually do some testing if he wants to make those claims... -Justin
Hardware is so much amazingly more simple than software. The tasks it accomplishes are much more specific, much more defined.
Software is more of an open book. Many applications/OSes/etc do MANY things, and the overall number of states the application can be in is millions of times more than the states a CPU can be in, for example.
Just my thoughts..
-Justin
Mainly what the issue is, is that the whole gnutella "protocol" was pushed too quickly into a "standard", so it can't be adapted to the changing environment that it has endured. Primarily because the people who created it can't touch it, and nobody else can really take a leadership role and be followed. So a proof of concept system stagnates and never really advances. Unfortunate, if you ask me, but hey, ultimately it won't matter. Poo on file sharing apps.
No, the client/server portion is encrypted.. In fact, your whole mailbox is stored in an encrypted state, and ONLY decrypted in the client. -J