I don't think this fits with the UNIX philosophy. Let's face it, all of the important aspects of UNIX have been hammered out many years ago and we're just adding sprinkles right now. There are still pipes, signals, and processes, and we're probably going to have to deal with them for the rest of its lifetime.
But let's not assume that we're going to be using UNIX-like OS's for the next 100 years (please dear God no)... What our next OS needs to have is processes that can tell the outside world what they're doing. For instance, grep would say "I'm working on this stream of data, with these options, and I'm this percent complete..." and the GUI could display this info, perhaps in a flow graph format.
I would like a system where the user could graphically drill down into a script and see the execution flow, monitor the data being slung around, and have some control over what is happening. My big beef with UNIX GUI commands (and Windows programs) is that they spawn off processes that spew output into some remote terminal somewhere, or terminate for no reason and you can't find out why. (Witness the RedHat installer -- at least the old versions)
UNIX UIs aren't "all wrong". They're simply a reflection of the environment in which they must exist. We'll have something different when we build a different OS world for a UI to live in.
Robert Wise directed "The Day The Earth Stood Still" (great '50's flick, if a little slow) and "Andromeda Strain" (an OK book, not a great movie, very slow)... so is it any wonder STTMP is a bit tedious?
<nerd type="trekkie">
In spite of this I kinda like STTMP... the cloud scenes are cool, bald chicks are cool, and the Jerry Goldsmith score is the best of any Trek film. Nicholas Meyer just does a better job with the characters.
</nerd>
Simple, but unforgiving. You were peeking & poking directly into the computer's memory. I would hope nowadays that a little higher-level interface would be desired.
Of course, if you need to patch around a bug in the software in the final few minutes before descent (which actually happened in one of the Apollo missions), there's no substitute for a good hex editor:)
Hear hear. Tech workers are not like skilled workers doing manual work... you can only weld so fast, or lay so many bricks/hour, or fix an engine so fast etc.
OTOH, a tech worker with the right skills can sometimes do a job 1000%-10000% faster/better than someone lacking those skills. And you can't expect training and a bumper sticker to magically teach someone to be the kind of creative problem solver that is valuable in the tech biz.
Maybe the majority of/.ers are heartless technocrats, but we just don't want our highly specialized and arcane jobs lumped in with someone who inserts Windows-2K CD's in a drive all day and clicks Ok. (no offense to the humble MSCE:) )
Commercial software developers that make a living broadcasting little bits to their customers and have to contend with piracy, bootlegging, and serialz disagree with you.
I agree... though I believe you shouldn't comment every single function you create, if they are obvious, because it dilutes the value of the REAL valuable comments that explain difficult-to-understand sections. Like one comment in the JDK I remember:
I agree that for some applications, making an object->relational mapping is just a giant pain in the flipper. For the kind of timelines project managers impose on web projects, and the terrible ever-changing specifications given, it's usually easier to fill up an Oracle table and worry about elegancy later. This guy is probably recovering from wounds from some sort of overanalyzing OO web consultancy, having been forced to wear UML diagrams as underwear.
Technology is rarely the problem -- the usual problem with projects and OO is that the zealots win, and centrists who want to use the most-suited technology for the specific application get ignored or called "hacks". The over-ambitious 3-tier agent-based project gets canned, and the "hacks" get called in to fix it using a less long-bearded method.
Anybody remember the old Dr Doolittle books, where the Doctor would open up an atlas (or was it a globe?), close his eyes, point a finger at the page, and go wherever his finger pointed? That's what this reminds me of.
Of course, the Doctor always happened to choose somewhere remote and tropical, yet fantastically interesting...
1. Apple enforces patents on TrueType fonts, barring any open source implementations;
2. Web pages become more dependent on TrueType fonts to be viewed properly;
3. Non-MS-or-Apple web platforms lose even more market share;
4. Total chaos ensues.
Already this is happening... most designer-y fixed-column-width web pages look like a huge amount of suck on X platforms.
So is this an example of a prosecutable hacking offense? Or is it just a different way of playing the game? Be kinda weird if Quake bot authors started disappearing under vague circumstances...
Unless you're extremely handy with electronics and tv circuits, it might be more trouble than its worth. I tried using an arcade monitor with MAME for DOS (the -ntsc option) and although it looked good for some games, many would not play because of too-high resolution or inexplicable v-hold flipping. It is cool to see the little scan lines, but it's also nice to be able to play Tron on the same box as Robotron.
The way most Word documents are embedded with objects, you'd almost need to reverse-engineer the entire Windows OS. Embed this Visio graph, this equation, this COM object. Bleh!
I used to work for a consulting firm who had a lot of startup online-store-making clients. One of these folks emailed us a plaintext file full of credit card numbers from their database. They just didn't know any better! Your credit card number, like your CC# and favorite member of Wham, are not safe.
Neural network supervised learning experts blah blah... just give me a robot that can vacuum dammit! And not suck up my headphone cable in the process, that's the tricky part...
Slashdot Mirror
Huge wet sloppy props to Google. Now if they just get a news & stock ticker, I won't have to go anywhere else (well, except /. :) )
I don't think this fits with the UNIX philosophy. Let's face it, all of the important aspects of UNIX have been hammered out many years ago and we're just adding sprinkles right now. There are still pipes, signals, and processes, and we're probably going to have to deal with them for the rest of its lifetime.
... What our next OS needs to have is processes that can tell the outside world what they're doing. For instance, grep would say "I'm working on this stream of data, with these options, and I'm this percent complete..." and the GUI could display this info, perhaps in a flow graph format.
But let's not assume that we're going to be using UNIX-like OS's for the next 100 years (please dear God no)
I would like a system where the user could graphically drill down into a script and see the execution flow, monitor the data being slung around, and have some control over what is happening. My big beef with UNIX GUI commands (and Windows programs) is that they spawn off processes that spew output into some remote terminal somewhere, or terminate for no reason and you can't find out why. (Witness the RedHat installer -- at least the old versions)
UNIX UIs aren't "all wrong". They're simply a reflection of the environment in which they must exist. We'll have something different when we build a different OS world for a UI to live in.
Robert Wise directed "The Day The Earth Stood Still" (great '50's flick, if a little slow) and "Andromeda Strain" (an OK book, not a great movie, very slow) ... so is it any wonder STTMP is a bit tedious?
... the cloud scenes are cool, bald chicks are cool, and the Jerry Goldsmith score is the best of any Trek film. Nicholas Meyer just does a better job with the characters.
<nerd type="trekkie">
In spite of this I kinda like STTMP
</nerd>
Simple, but unforgiving. You were peeking & poking directly into the computer's memory. I would hope nowadays that a little higher-level interface would be desired.
:)
Of course, if you need to patch around a bug in the software in the final few minutes before descent (which actually happened in one of the Apollo missions), there's no substitute for a good hex editor
Just read this...
http://www.computerlaw.com/lookfeel.html
Jonesing for a +4 Informative...
The concept of retiring in Bermuda is patented by J. Laramie Lovegrass, Hamilton, Bermuda. You may retire in Portugal without violating our patent.
Why don't we sent a probe there, see if it gets captured by a tractor beam, and then we'll know if it's just an Imperial Ice Depot.
(BTW what's the radius of the Death Star?)
Hear hear. Tech workers are not like skilled workers doing manual work ... you can only weld so fast, or lay so many bricks/hour, or fix an engine so fast etc.
/.ers are heartless technocrats, but we just don't want our highly specialized and arcane jobs lumped in with someone who inserts Windows-2K CD's in a drive all day and clicks Ok. (no offense to the humble MSCE :) )
OTOH, a tech worker with the right skills can sometimes do a job 1000%-10000% faster/better than someone lacking those skills. And you can't expect training and a bumper sticker to magically teach someone to be the kind of creative problem solver that is valuable in the tech biz.
Maybe the majority of
because unions do prevent those people
from squeezing the most of their workforce...
You're right, why should a company expect to get the most out of their employees? Naw, the more lazy and surly, the better.
Does this explain all the commercials with Johhny Cochran and the guy from "America's Most Wanted"?
Commercial software developers that make a living broadcasting little bits to their customers and have to contend with piracy, bootlegging, and serialz disagree with you.
I think I saw this being demoed at KSC at the ISS exhibit. Too bad noone can download it right now. Is the server physically located on the planet?
I agree... though I believe you shouldn't comment every single function you create, if they are obvious, because it dilutes the value of the REAL valuable comments that explain difficult-to-understand sections. Like one comment in the JDK I remember:
Reference getRef()
/* gets the ref */
Or something like that... who needs it?!?
My Theory of Responsible Software Design:
If you're having fun doing it, you're probably doing it the wrong way.
I agree that for some applications, making an object->relational mapping is just a giant pain in the flipper. For the kind of timelines project managers impose on web projects, and the terrible ever-changing specifications given, it's usually easier to fill up an Oracle table and worry about elegancy later. This guy is probably recovering from wounds from some sort of overanalyzing OO web consultancy, having been forced to wear UML diagrams as underwear.
Technology is rarely the problem -- the usual problem with projects and OO is that the zealots win, and centrists who want to use the most-suited technology for the specific application get ignored or called "hacks". The over-ambitious 3-tier agent-based project gets canned, and the "hacks" get called in to fix it using a less long-bearded method.
Lots of .com's don't tell their employees about new hires either, until they see their name in /etc/passwd one day...
Anybody remember the old Dr Doolittle books, where the Doctor would open up an atlas (or was it a globe?), close his eyes, point a finger at the page, and go wherever his finger pointed? That's what this reminds me of.
Of course, the Doctor always happened to choose somewhere remote and tropical, yet fantastically interesting...
It is a shame, however, that the aliens chose English units... not that I'm Canadian or anything...
1. Apple enforces patents on TrueType fonts, barring any open source implementations;
... most designer-y fixed-column-width web pages look like a huge amount of suck on X platforms.
2. Web pages become more dependent on TrueType fonts to be viewed properly;
3. Non-MS-or-Apple web platforms lose even more market share;
4. Total chaos ensues.
Already this is happening
So is this an example of a prosecutable hacking offense? Or is it just a different way of playing the game? Be kinda weird if Quake bot authors started disappearing under vague circumstances...
Unless you're extremely handy with electronics and tv circuits, it might be more trouble than its worth. I tried using an arcade monitor with MAME for DOS (the -ntsc option) and although it looked good for some games, many would not play because of too-high resolution or inexplicable v-hold flipping. It is cool to see the little scan lines, but it's also nice to be able to play Tron on the same box as Robotron.
The way most Word documents are embedded with objects, you'd almost need to reverse-engineer the entire Windows OS. Embed this Visio graph, this equation, this COM object. Bleh!
A backup flight computer without a watchdog timer? Couldn't they rip out out of a Pac-Man machine and use it?
I used to work for a consulting firm who had a lot of startup online-store-making clients. One of these folks emailed us a plaintext file full of credit card numbers from their database. They just didn't know any better! Your credit card number, like your CC# and favorite member of Wham, are not safe.
Neural network supervised learning experts blah blah... just give me a robot that can vacuum dammit! And not suck up my headphone cable in the process, that's the tricky part...