For those who are interested in technical details and IBM's likely semiconductor future, goto http://www.ibm.com and type in "POWER4" in the search box. POWER4 is their next major semiconductor thrust, variants of which will likely play a major role in all of their near-term future marketing efforts.
As an aside, I personally think the POWER4 design is wicked-cool. It's on-die SMP with some VERY FANCY ultra-high bandwidth, transputer-like, symmetric, point-to-point lattice IO interconnect. This is a VERY HOT chip.
This is completely and utterly incorrect. Modern GPU's *CANNOT* do photorealistic rendering at 30 fps, we're still 1,000's of times too slow for that. CPU's could be *1000* times faster, and 3d developers would still be able to EASILY use the processing power.
<I>"...creating a sort of Dept of Agriculture/Cotton Moth arms race, where the government is forced to continually develop new sorts of sterile moths. All in all, waste of time."</I><P><P>
I disagree; the day is coming in which "scientific time" will be substantially faster than "evolutionary time". Furthermore, you're assuming that moths will have discernment for the modified species. That's not at all clear.<P><P>
C//
It's actually really common for contractors to reserve commercial rights for all software these days. It's common enough that it's routine: the government gets rights for government use, the contractor keeps rights for all other uses.
They just don't get it: the software industry is increasingly a services business. Commercial software is on its way out. Services -- custom solutions -- will dominate.
But I was most amused by how the article closed: "We can build a better product than Linux." You mean after all that commercial development so far, you haven't yet?
The bad news is that they have the same rights.
This really isn't true. Employment law regarding
prior employees is nightmarish. That's why most
HR departments won't give any more information in
a reference regarding a prior employee other than "yes, he worked here."
C//
I wonder if that's an error in the description of their grammar? The reason I say this is that I've read comments which specifically state that C# will offer M.I. (something I've been looking forward to, as I use a "mixin" approach to M.I.).
This problem *already* exists; for example,
if the girl looks 15 but is actually 18, there
is no case. This is particularly relevant because
there is a lot of porn made with youngish looking
but neverthelessa adult girls.
C//
"The truth is messier, and OO is no better optimized to deal with dynamic feature relationships than competitor paradigms".
---------
This was an astute observation. The author also
observes that many OOP newbies and zealots alike have a tendency to attempt to jam their class definitions into a forced hierarchy. He's right.
Note, of course, that this doesn't at all invalidate OO languages. The author also doesn't address newer OO patterns which are coming into popularity, such as attributes, dynamic relationships, and so on.
He seems to not understand that experienced OO
programmers like myself already know what he's saying and we've begun moving on to different patterns of design using our OO languages.
C//
What you're proposing is somewhat similar to the Pirranha architecture that the Alpha folks have experimented with. But aside from that, the main advantage of SMT is it allows a single complex CPU to offer as much implicit parallelism as it can, and then, when it fails at that during low-multiple-execution-unit-use-rate-periods, it can make use of explicit parallelism. It's the best of both worlds, in other words.
Sure. I relate. Having worked in the defense industry for 8 years, I know exactly what you're talking about. You'd think, however, that a company working almost exclusively in the research and development domain would be able to attract at least some talent. Full time R&D jobs do have their appeal to some.
Echo that on the politics, however. It's the Achilles heel of the defense industry -- research or not. Perhaps it's worst in research, even, where the government program managers can't even keep their objectives straight for 6 months. I've enough mid-project about-faces to make me start losing hair.
You'd think that "men trained in the leadership of men" (these good ole' boys, put into research management positions) would understand the importance of not projecting an air of indecision. It's not so, however.
C//
You should never even consider continuing to work for an employer who threatens you. The amount of disrespect and disregard for your feelings -- as well as pure, plain arrogance this requires -- is enormous.
Document everything carefully, get copies of all your prior annual reviews, get a new job and simultaneously go to your local state's employment law office.
Get out of there, QUICK.
C//
It's true; when I conduct interviews, I ask questions to which there are concrete, objective answers. I get a lot of people who blow smoke; their resumes are as if from Shakespeare: "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
I work in the defense industry and also happen to conduct quite a few interviews. I'm not seeing this "dot.com" flight that's being reported here, really, or if I am, it's only the worst who are fleeing. The overall caliber of all our job applicants is really very low in any case. It's quite dismaying.
Yeah, but your hiney dang well knows he's
right. If the candidate didn't have the
exact skills, you'd take the graduate first.
You and I both know it's true. The graduate
wants less money, often is more willing to
work longer hours, and is more impressionable.
1 in 10 people in the IT industry are stressed
out or depressed, they say, without offering
how stressed out and depressed the standard
normal population is. For all we know, people
in the IT industry could be less depressed on
average than everyone else.
Slashdot Mirror
"I got the impression that SMP was still better".
A processor can be 4-way SMT for only 10% extra silicon cost. SMT makes processors more EFFICIENT.
C//
For those who are interested in technical details and IBM's likely semiconductor future, goto http://www.ibm.com and type in "POWER4" in the search box. POWER4 is their next major semiconductor thrust, variants of which will likely play a major role in all of their near-term future marketing efforts.
As an aside, I personally think the POWER4 design is wicked-cool. It's on-die SMP with some VERY FANCY ultra-high bandwidth, transputer-like, symmetric, point-to-point lattice IO interconnect. This is a VERY HOT chip.
C//
This is completely and utterly incorrect. Modern GPU's *CANNOT* do photorealistic rendering at 30 fps, we're still 1,000's of times too slow for that. CPU's could be *1000* times faster, and 3d developers would still be able to EASILY use the processing power.
C//
<I>"...creating a sort of Dept of Agriculture/Cotton Moth arms race, where the government is forced to continually develop new sorts of sterile moths. All in all, waste of time."</I><P><P>
I disagree; the day is coming in which "scientific time" will be substantially faster than "evolutionary time". Furthermore, you're assuming that moths will have discernment for the modified species. That's not at all clear.<P><P>
C//
So I just have to know. What the devil is this stuff supposed to be, anyway?
//C
They just don't get it: the software industry is increasingly a services business. Commercial software is on its way out. Services -- custom solutions -- will dominate.
But I was most amused by how the article closed: "We can build a better product than Linux." You mean after all that commercial development so far, you haven't yet?
Har har har.
C//
The bad news is that they have the same rights. This really isn't true. Employment law regarding prior employees is nightmarish. That's why most HR departments won't give any more information in a reference regarding a prior employee other than "yes, he worked here." C//
Um... if he sends them a cease and desist, to continue without legimate cause is harrassment, and could give him reasonable cause on civil grounds.
I wonder if that's an error in the description of their grammar? The reason I say this is that I've read comments which specifically state that C# will offer M.I. (something I've been looking forward to, as I use a "mixin" approach to M.I.).
".NET will even have some of the same annoyances as the Java architecture, like no multiple inheritance" --> I don't believe this is correct.
This problem *already* exists; for example, if the girl looks 15 but is actually 18, there is no case. This is particularly relevant because there is a lot of porn made with youngish looking but neverthelessa adult girls. C//
"The truth is messier, and OO is no better optimized to deal with dynamic feature relationships than competitor paradigms". --------- This was an astute observation. The author also observes that many OOP newbies and zealots alike have a tendency to attempt to jam their class definitions into a forced hierarchy. He's right. Note, of course, that this doesn't at all invalidate OO languages. The author also doesn't address newer OO patterns which are coming into popularity, such as attributes, dynamic relationships, and so on. He seems to not understand that experienced OO programmers like myself already know what he's saying and we've begun moving on to different patterns of design using our OO languages. C//
"The best was logging into the firewalls and adding a cron job that..." ONE WORD: *FELONY*
*quick snag* "Hey, thanks for the keys! The car will be at my place, you're welcome to come get it. By now!" C// p.s., thanks for your keys too! :-)
What you're proposing is somewhat similar to the Pirranha architecture that the Alpha folks have experimented with. But aside from that, the main advantage of SMT is it allows a single complex CPU to offer as much implicit parallelism as it can, and then, when it fails at that during low-multiple-execution-unit-use-rate-periods, it can make use of explicit parallelism. It's the best of both worlds, in other words.
Sure. I relate. Having worked in the defense industry for 8 years, I know exactly what you're talking about. You'd think, however, that a company working almost exclusively in the research and development domain would be able to attract at least some talent. Full time R&D jobs do have their appeal to some. Echo that on the politics, however. It's the Achilles heel of the defense industry -- research or not. Perhaps it's worst in research, even, where the government program managers can't even keep their objectives straight for 6 months. I've enough mid-project about-faces to make me start losing hair. You'd think that "men trained in the leadership of men" (these good ole' boys, put into research management positions) would understand the importance of not projecting an air of indecision. It's not so, however. C//
You should never even consider continuing to work for an employer who threatens you. The amount of disrespect and disregard for your feelings -- as well as pure, plain arrogance this requires -- is enormous. Document everything carefully, get copies of all your prior annual reviews, get a new job and simultaneously go to your local state's employment law office. Get out of there, QUICK. C//
It's true; when I conduct interviews, I ask questions to which there are concrete, objective answers. I get a lot of people who blow smoke; their resumes are as if from Shakespeare: "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
I work in the defense industry and also happen to conduct quite a few interviews. I'm not seeing this "dot.com" flight that's being reported here, really, or if I am, it's only the worst who are fleeing. The overall caliber of all our job applicants is really very low in any case. It's quite dismaying.
Comments like this are why the founding fathers decided to have a republic rather than a democracy.
Bill Gates would have a spell checker. :)
Yeah, but your hiney dang well knows he's right. If the candidate didn't have the exact skills, you'd take the graduate first. You and I both know it's true. The graduate wants less money, often is more willing to work longer hours, and is more impressionable.
1 in 10 people in the IT industry are stressed out or depressed, they say, without offering how stressed out and depressed the standard normal population is. For all we know, people in the IT industry could be less depressed on average than everyone else.
SPANK! SPANK! SPANK! (That was awful)