How about: When the typical open-source developer has the income and complex finances to require something more sophisticated than a checkbook balancing program.
If you think about the values and culture that drive Free Software and contrast with the values and culture that drive Quicken and QuickBooks, you'll see the immediate disconnect.
A high rating by a society of mathematicians is just that: a measure of how much it appeals to that sector. That by no means implies that the students who are sent forth to purchase a $100+ book and then to try to glean insight into the topic will actually find it useful or even tolerable.
To be held in high esteem by the elite of the subject does not confer upon the book educational value for the casual or tangential apprentice.
I thought from the original announcement that we were getting a redesign. If the "top 3" so far are the leading candidates for the final change, we get a few minor updates but overall a big yawn for a "new and improved" version with about as much change as the latest laundry soap.
I'd like to quote this whole thing and spread it around. Mr. Stewart you should blog this (if you have a blog) or just make it into an article for your website. Do I have your permission to forward this, with attribution, to my friends?
I studied journalism in college (long story) and I have to agree 100% that the forms and techniques from that discipline are far more applicable to engineering and technical writing than English composition or even academic style writing.
Journalism writing emphasizes
* Writing with clear but not obsessively English-teacher perfect expressions. * The process of review, revision, and editing. * Focusing on the content over the form. Newspaper stories have a simple and consistent form, meaning the writer doesn't get distracted by the details of how to organize the ideas.
This isn't especially new. For a number of reasons (most of which I no longer subscribe to) I did not have blood given when I had major open heart surgery in 1979. Of course, I had one of the world's best surgeons in a top pediatric cardiological facility, so the difference may be mainstream vs. high-risk, but there's nothing but the medical field's tradition that would keep the practice from becoming common.
What's actually happened though, is that most surgery now is minimally invasive -- except for a few procedures (cardiac being an obvious one, though even that is changing) surgeons generally use laproscopic techniques anyway.
You need dual core or even dual CPU if you have Windows. As I tell people at work, one processor to run the applications you need to get your work done and a second one to run all the extra anti- virus/spam/hacking software you have to have to keep the thing from melting down into a rootkitted spambot relay DDoS attacking puddle.
pubdate: after 1992 and title: days and
(title: learn or title: teach yourself)... The conclusion is that either people are in a big rush to learn about computers, or that computers are somehow fabulously easier to learn than anything else. There are no books on how to learn Beethoven, or Quantum Physics, or even Dog Grooming in a few days."
That's just frelling stupid. Like the MS QC talking head I heard a the PNSQC conference recently who said he didn't use any open source testing tools because if he did then he would be forced to give away the source to Windows.
Look at this way. The folks who were your predecessors at the other companies probably thought the same things you're thinking now. They figured they'd "do it right", and now you're the one who is saying they all stink so bad that starting from scratch is better. You think that 5-10 years down the line anyone is going to appreciate what you did and think, "wow, whoever set up this infrastructure sure was smart"? Hell no they won't. They'll curse you and try to justify their jobs and make their lives easier using the same arguments you want to use now.
My advice -- save yourself a lot of angst. Just buy whatever the vendors tell you will work, from whoever will treat you to the best negotiation perqs, and throw it out there. Take the accolades and raises from your management who think you worked miracles with their IT stuff because you have all the best powerpoint slides and slick glossy brochures from vendors, and cut out, move on to the next job, and start over again.
Nobody will care when the technology moves on and whatever solution you thought you were so elegantly rolling out is now the biggest, smelliest pile of steaming...
...if you don't mind changing the way you have been doing everything effectively for the past decade or two. David Gelernter, in Machine Beauty, derides this situation, reminding us how bad it is to deal with "a complex or weak program that forces you to bend to its worldview instead of accomodating yours."
There's a mistake in the number of negations somewhere, too. As near as my pre-coffee brain can puzzle out, it says the Ministers just voted for software patents. But that's wrong. I hated it when I missed a question on a math test because of an error in sign!
Slashdot Mirror
Because "irregardless" is not a word, anything else you might have said in your comment went into my bitbucket the moment I hit that abomination.
http://www.eeggs.com/items/37085.html
How about: When the typical open-source developer has the income and complex finances to require something more sophisticated than a checkbook balancing program.
If you think about the values and culture that drive Free Software and contrast with the values and culture that drive Quicken and QuickBooks, you'll see the immediate disconnect.
While having tools to assist in the actual task of navigating through the codebase is important, a firm handle on the HOW is more critical.
c ts.html#EFoCS-33-98 section 5.
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?TipsForReadingCode
"Comprehension and Visualisation of Object-Oriented Code for Inspections" http://www.cis.strath.ac.uk/research/efocs/abstra
Demeyer, Serge. Ducasse, Stephane. Nierstrasz, Oscar. Object Oriented Reengineering Patterns ISBN: 1558606394
Feathers, Michael. Working Effectively with Legacy Code ISBN: 0131177052
Glass, Robert L. Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering, section in Chapter 2 on Maintenance ISBN: 0321117425
Spinellis, Diomidis. Code Reading: The Open Source Perspective ISBN: 0201799405
Good thing the "new new thing" is remarkably indistinguishable from the "old dead thing", as I noted before.
Before you decide, be sure to read Steve McConnell's insightful writing from a few years back at Orphans Preferred.
A high rating by a society of mathematicians is just that: a measure of how much it appeals to that sector. That by no means implies that the students who are sent forth to purchase a $100+ book and then to try to glean insight into the topic will actually find it useful or even tolerable.
To be held in high esteem by the elite of the subject does not confer upon the book educational value for the casual or tangential apprentice.
I thought from the original announcement that we were getting a redesign. If the "top 3" so far are the leading candidates for the final change, we get a few minor updates but overall a big yawn for a "new and improved" version with about as much change as the latest laundry soap.
+5 Informative, Insightful, Underrated
I'd like to quote this whole thing and spread it around. Mr. Stewart you should blog this (if you have a blog) or just make it into an article for your website. Do I have your permission to forward this, with attribution, to my friends?
I studied journalism in college (long story) and I have to agree 100% that the forms and techniques from that discipline are far more applicable to engineering and technical writing than English composition or even academic style writing.
Journalism writing emphasizes
* Writing with clear but not obsessively English-teacher perfect expressions.
* The process of review, revision, and editing.
* Focusing on the content over the form. Newspaper stories have a simple and consistent form, meaning the writer doesn't get distracted by the details of how to organize the ideas.
This isn't especially new. For a number of reasons (most of which I no longer subscribe to) I did not have blood given when I had major open heart surgery in 1979. Of course, I had one of the world's best surgeons in a top pediatric cardiological facility, so the difference may be mainstream vs. high-risk, but there's nothing but the medical field's tradition that would keep the practice from becoming common.
What's actually happened though, is that most surgery now is minimally invasive -- except for a few procedures (cardiac being an obvious one, though even that is changing) surgeons generally use laproscopic techniques anyway.
You need dual core or even dual CPU if you have Windows. As I tell people at work, one processor to run the applications you need to get your work done and a second one to run all the extra anti- virus/spam/hacking software you have to have to keep the thing from melting down into a rootkitted spambot relay DDoS attacking puddle.
From "Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years"
...
"I did the following power search at Amazon.com:
pubdate: after 1992 and title: days and
(title: learn or title: teach yourself)
The conclusion is that either people are in a big rush to learn about computers, or that computers are somehow fabulously easier to learn than anything else. There are no books on how to learn Beethoven, or Quantum Physics, or even Dog Grooming in a few days."
That's just frelling stupid. Like the MS QC talking head I heard a the PNSQC conference recently who said he didn't use any open source testing tools because if he did then he would be forced to give away the source to Windows.
I applaud your professor or thesis advisor or whoever for this real-world task. Here's a few resources which I wouldn't do without:
Code Reading: The Open Source Perspective
Object-Oriented Reengineering Patterns
Reading Computer Programs: Instructor's Guide and Exercise
Tips for Reading Code
Look at this way. The folks who were your predecessors at the other companies probably thought the same things you're thinking now. They figured they'd "do it right", and now you're the one who is saying they all stink so bad that starting from scratch is better. You think that 5-10 years down the line anyone is going to appreciate what you did and think, "wow, whoever set up this infrastructure sure was smart"? Hell no they won't. They'll curse you and try to justify their jobs and make their lives easier using the same arguments you want to use now.
My advice -- save yourself a lot of angst. Just buy whatever the vendors tell you will work, from whoever will treat you to the best negotiation perqs, and throw it out there. Take the accolades and raises from your management who think you worked miracles with their IT stuff because you have all the best powerpoint slides and slick glossy brochures from vendors, and cut out, move on to the next job, and start over again.
Nobody will care when the technology moves on and whatever solution you thought you were so elegantly rolling out is now the biggest, smelliest pile of steaming...
No, let's hire a prokaryote!
eukaryote!
Or as it is now known, wvWare. Includes wvHtml, which, "converts word documents into W3C certified HTML4.0 format." FOSS (GPL) command line.
After I use UML, I wash my hands. That whiteboard marker ink is messy.
Rosebot......
Those military surplus apostrophes though, can we do without them?
...if you don't mind changing the way you have been doing everything effectively for the past decade or two. David Gelernter, in Machine Beauty , derides this situation, reminding us how bad it is to deal with "a complex or weak program that forces you to bend to its worldview instead of accomodating yours."
There's a mistake in the number of negations somewhere, too. As near as my pre-coffee brain can puzzle out, it says the Ministers just voted for software patents. But that's wrong. I hated it when I missed a question on a math test because of an error in sign!
Although there are occasions when reports may be useful snapshots into the state of a complex system.
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