true, but the european governments had similar problems until they realised that coalition rule was the only way things were going to be in the future. In other words, they were as argumentative and self-centred until the electorate bitch-slapped them into cooperating with each other.
In the UK, this is new to us, we're still in the argumentative, self-centered, un-cooperative phase. If the electoral system was changed to be a little more fair to the voters (ie a more proportionate representation system is established) then they will realise they have to work together and hopefully start to do that.
At least we have a load of new MPs now, after chucking the really corrupt ones.
you'd buy a 600hz plasma. The whole screen changes from one image to the next in 1/600 of a second
technically, the source input is still running at 25 frames a second, not 600, so while it can change the whole image in 1/600 second... it doesn't. The 600hz thing is more marketing hype, which does perform interpolation to try and get you a smooter image. I find that the image processing doesn't work so well and results in jaggy movement instead.
Best look to the plasma's black levels and contrast ratios instead when comparing to LCDs. Plasmas are better in these regards.
that's because there aren't any high profile web sites written in Java - they're too slow, buggy and useless. Even assuming what you say is 100% true, how come vendors patch security flaws in Java itself and they never get exploited?
We had our corporate system breached due to a flaw in a very big, expensive 'Enterprise' java web system so I know it from experience.
How about a quick google for information. This one has a table of java web framework security features. This one (pdf) describes "Our static analysis found 29 security vulnerabilities in nine large, popular open-source applications, with two of the vulnerabilities residing in widely-used Java libraries. In fact, all but one application inour benchmark suite had at least one vulnerability."
as well as "A recent penetration testing study performed by the Imperva Application Defense Center included more than 250 Web applications from e-commerce, online banking, enterprise collaboration, and supply chain management sites [54]. Their vulnerability assessment concluded that at least 92% of Web applications are vulnerable to some form of hacker attacks"
Ho hum. I guess you think Java is completely secure. What a fool. Hope no-one hires you to write any of them, well, not until you go to java.net and look up all the 'how to make your java app secure' tutorials. Sounds like "fucking morons" like you need them more than most.
errr. no, I'd rather not an example of a tree that can wrape duct tape around itself thanks.
(serious point: all kinds of things happen out there that we don't quite understand. While grafting trees together is a human intervention that doesn't occur in nature, the fact that we can do it suggests that we'd better be a lot more careful when we intervene in other areas, like genetically modifying crops and then assuming they will always behave exxactly like their non-modified cousins).
Unfortunately, the # of patents idea wouldn;t necessarily work. Big companies have lots of accountants who would just start up a subsidiary company and let them file their first patent. So Microsoft would still have millions of patents, but they'd be held by a thousand sub companies. They'd probably end up paying less than mom n pop innovators inc.
Still, charging for crap patent applications is a good idea - that'd shift the cost burden to 3rd party lawyers who'd charge you to ensure your application wasn't crappy. The patent office could then start to give such pre-verified applications a less rigourous overview (like they do currently with all patents:)
Yes, that's dangerous... Microsoft lawyers inc would pre-verify a patent on glass panes used to provide visibility of operating system function for human interaction.
The only way to proplerly solve the issue is to better define what a patent is. Say "software or software algorithms of any kind are not patentable items" would rip that backlog to shreds. And save business innovation as well, which would be nice.
It is perhaps a sharper blade than Java, but were professionals.
No, we're not. We're the cheapest, project-managed bunch of attention-deficit fools that ever wore a suit. Once we tried to do things right, to code correctly and bugs were a major source of embarrassment and shame. Now, we can't wipe our bums without a framework and instructions copied from the internet. And once we have learned how to do that, we decide its not good enough and we need another new framework, possibly language and architecture and start all over again.
I have a feeling the masses of choice has made us like this. Once we did it all in a couple of langauages and all was ok - but now, there are so many languages that we are locked into a never-ending cycle of always looking for something else. Never satisfied with what we've got, possibly because once we do become settled (and happy), the world changes and its time to get back on that merry-go-round and learn something else that is the 'new big thing'. Which often turns out not to be quite so good as it was hyped up to be. which often makes us look for something else to satisfy that void the marketing men promised us we'd have.
In addition, this has turnd us from true professionals to hyper-active attention-deficit internet-addicted 'coderz', and so its no wonder management has stopped thinking of us as the boffins and started to treat us like children - one programmer is just as good as another is a mindset they have now, which in turn has led to all that outsourcing. Why pay for an expensive coder when you can get a cheap one, they're all the same nowadays, coding is easy, they have all these easy-to-use frameworks, languages and tools.
So, yes, on an individual basis its not the language its the skill of the worker. For the programming community as a whole, its not the individual it is the languages.
Anyone who promotes C/C++ over Java for a back-end enterprise application is not a professional IMO. They come across as stubborn basement hackers who can't keep their resumes up to date
anyone who promotes Java over.NET is not a professional IMHO. They come across as ex-web hackers can't keep their resumes up to date.
Place your votes for next year's 'ultimate' language.
most beginners (and some old timers) use analysis tools or 'secure' buffer manipulation functions. Its easy to write strcpy(buf, input). Its not that much more difficult to write strncpy(buf, input, max_buf_size) or in Microsoft strcpy_s(buf, max_buf_size, input) (and MS even added a macro so strcpy turns into strcpy_s with the sizeof(buf) automatically added for you).
And most people I know use CString or std::string anyway.
Given those, I'm not sure why we still have buffer overflows today.... unless its old code or copying data into an buffer only referenced by an input pointer.
Plenty of other opportunities to cock things up though:)
so your argument is that Java is secure and C isn't becuase you might write an app with a security bug in it in C without realising its there; but you could never, ever write a Java app with a security bug in it.
It might be more difficult to write security bugs in Java (though I doubt that, as you say "it only takes one simple, hard to find and debug fuck up") and we know you can write bugs in Java apps.
So really, you fail it. Security through 'crossing your fingers and hoping your language fixes everything for you' is why people like you create more insecure apps than any number of C apps.
yes, I remember another newsworthy trading mistake where the trader bought 1000 times more stock than he wanted. I think the trading keyboards have ",000" keys on them so the poor dears don't have to press 0 three times.
Of course today, 1 guy cocks it up, and then all the automated systems pick up on the trade and start selling off which quickly snowballs. This is why the stock market is so eager to drop. when they've figured it out expect the prices to rise back as suddenly. It makes it difficult for the small investor, but too bad - the big boys don't really give a damn about you.
I have a dream too... that I will be able to knock out a crappy app based on a single source base and flog it for millions of dollars on all the mobile phone app stores there are.
I think that pretty much sums up the issue we're facing here. Nobody has yet posted a message saying they're glad that their well-crafted, carefully worked applications now have more prominence on the iPhone platform. Everyone seems to want to use the lowest common denominator platform that's the cheapest possible for them to develop on.
except there is a simple fix to that... initially scroll to the bottom of the email.
In these days of fancy HTML emails and so on, how hard is it to scroll to the top of the latest message and collapse all the other ones?
How hard is it to actually allow previous messages ot be deleted. In Outlook, I find I cannot ever get rid of the last line with the little blue vertical bar that Outlook seems to think is an acceptable merker for previous messages?
How hard is it to allow collapsing message blocks?
How hard is it to allow inline comments, without having to change the colour of the text you write to make them stand out sufficiently (and no, a [GB] mark at the front isn't usually enough)
And lastly, my biggest grips with Outlook.. how hard is it to make it display words as fast as I type them!? Without long, long pauses while it does *something*.
Oh well, anyway, they could handle email messages a lot better than they currently do. That's all I'm saying.
which of course, is also the best way to see the source code for many other companies.net software, even if they didn't expect it to be quite so open:)
yeah but.... Blackberry has the largest market share of all (40+ %), only supports a Java SDK, and doesn't run Flash either. No-one gives a damn about that, but when Apple does the same with their product, everyone's suddenly kicking and screaming.
I doubt there's any anti-trust case to answer, they're not even the majority, and Google is doing better than them in growth.
I suppose Apple's problem was allowing a non C-family SDK in the first place and allowing any code to run at all. Silly Apple, should have locked it down to a special API right from the start and prevented all this hullabaloo.
and somewhat peculiar to all this is the fact that Blackberry has the market share of all smartphones. IIRC the iPhone is in second place now, but still along way off at about 25%.
There's no Flash on the market-leading Blackberry, but there's never been an outcry over that, nor the lack of programming language support (Java only, except for the very old models).
Also, you must not do much with your browsers, because there is no way I could shut down, even with the browser remembering my pages, and not be highly annoyed
Ah, but you forget, even if only 1 tab crashes... you're going to be highly annoyed. shutting down the browser afterwards is not even a noticeable increase in your level of annoyance. Damage done. In fact, shutting the whole thing down is probably going to help - that little hint of "die damn browser, that'll teach you to kill the page I was looking at" is the only bit of satisfaction you're going to get... and you'd forgo even that.
Still, developers are bad and lazy nowadays, its not something to encourage in any shape of form. Best you get used to it too, or you'll be spending another $200 on yet more RAM in a year or two.
though I don't see the "1 tab crashes and its fine" thing as good, see, if 1 tabs crashes on me (and the browser is ok), I'll shut it down and start it up again. And as Firefox remembers where I was, all's well and good. I'll probably do that anyway in the future as I'm conditioned to 'switch it off and on again' to resolve errors. That also gives better stability in my view than trying to continue in a potentially dicky state.
So, the 1 process per tab option isn't something I want, and I think its somewhat pointless. I'd rather they spent their efforts on something a bit more useful - like letting me switch to a different tab when on tab freezes for a while (yes, loading pdfs for example). If 1 process per tab helps with that - that's better (but I think could be better implemented)
Oh, and I'd rather they lessened memory usage. as I know RAM is cheap (though, I'd rather spend my money on beer instead of continual memory and motherboard upgrades) but I can only fit so many sticks in my mobo, and upgrading to the high capacity ones isn't as cheap as they say. I'm also pretty old skool when it comes to efficiency. I like my browser to be like my women - thin, not fat and bloated. I like that it starts up quickly instead of filling its memory caches with crap I'm never going to view again. I like that I can run other things on my PC too, and I like that I can use the same browser on a netbook or smartphone.
So no, I don't subscribe to the 'its ok to bloat it up' school of thought. I want it done properly, efficiently and well.
Memory is cheap now. I have 12MB in this computer, and it only cost me $200.
$200. I could get a better media streamer, or a bunch of DVDs to play on it for that, and have cash left over for popcorn n booze. but no, because some lazy, crap developers want to use a memory-hogging framework or poor memory management techniques, I have to drink water and watch paint dry instead:)
Over the last several years the people at Palm created good software that was delivered on marginal hardware and sold via substandard marketing.... . The real question is going to be "can HP bring the Palm name and/or technology back to the marketplace in time to be successful?"
That depends on what happens to the people who used to work at Palm, and whether HP's corporate arms can leave them alone long enough to let them do what they do. From my knowledge of corporate businesses, they'll be strangled in bureaucracy soon enough.
oh, don't worry. To be fair the country was there before those Europeans who had such poor social skills they couldn't get on with the locals left. Strangely enough, they had such poor social skills they pissed off the natives who tried to help them. And now, well, you can guess that nothing much has changed.:)
no, its the lack of an ABI that drivers are included in the 'kernel' distro. If the Linux kernel had a defined, never-changing interface for drivers, then you'd probably find them on every manufacturer's website. As it is, every so often a change is made to the interface requiring the drivers to be modified (even if slightly) but as the source code to the drivers are in the kernel source tree, the modification gets made and they get recompiled for the new kernel version.
The goals of source-only drivers is good, but I think practicality is more important - for drivers that is.
Slashdot Mirror
true, but the european governments had similar problems until they realised that coalition rule was the only way things were going to be in the future. In other words, they were as argumentative and self-centred until the electorate bitch-slapped them into cooperating with each other.
In the UK, this is new to us, we're still in the argumentative, self-centered, un-cooperative phase. If the electoral system was changed to be a little more fair to the voters (ie a more proportionate representation system is established) then they will realise they have to work together and hopefully start to do that.
At least we have a load of new MPs now, after chucking the really corrupt ones.
you'd buy a 600hz plasma. The whole screen changes from one image to the next in 1/600 of a second
technically, the source input is still running at 25 frames a second, not 600, so while it can change the whole image in 1/600 second... it doesn't. The 600hz thing is more marketing hype, which does perform interpolation to try and get you a smooter image. I find that the image processing doesn't work so well and results in jaggy movement instead.
Best look to the plasma's black levels and contrast ratios instead when comparing to LCDs. Plasmas are better in these regards.
that's because there aren't any high profile web sites written in Java - they're too slow, buggy and useless. Even assuming what you say is 100% true, how come vendors patch security flaws in Java itself and they never get exploited?
We had our corporate system breached due to a flaw in a very big, expensive 'Enterprise' java web system so I know it from experience.
How about a quick google for information. This one has a table of java web framework security features. This one (pdf) describes "Our static analysis found 29 security vulnerabilities in nine large, popular open-source applications, with two of the vulnerabilities residing in widely-used Java libraries. In fact, all but one application inour benchmark suite had at least one vulnerability."
as well as "A recent penetration testing study performed by the Imperva Application Defense Center included more than 250 Web applications from e-commerce, online banking, enterprise collaboration, and supply chain management sites [54]. Their vulnerability assessment concluded that at least 92% of Web applications are vulnerable to some form of hacker attacks"
Ho hum. I guess you think Java is completely secure. What a fool. Hope no-one hires you to write any of them, well, not until you go to java.net and look up all the 'how to make your java app secure' tutorials. Sounds like "fucking morons" like you need them more than most.
I understand they say this about antibiotics too.
Well, they *used* to say that until the super-antibiotics started to also stop working as well as they used to.
errr. no, I'd rather not an example of a tree that can wrape duct tape around itself thanks.
(serious point: all kinds of things happen out there that we don't quite understand. While grafting trees together is a human intervention that doesn't occur in nature, the fact that we can do it suggests that we'd better be a lot more careful when we intervene in other areas, like genetically modifying crops and then assuming they will always behave exxactly like their non-modified cousins).
Unfortunately, the # of patents idea wouldn;t necessarily work. Big companies have lots of accountants who would just start up a subsidiary company and let them file their first patent. So Microsoft would still have millions of patents, but they'd be held by a thousand sub companies. They'd probably end up paying less than mom n pop innovators inc.
Still, charging for crap patent applications is a good idea - that'd shift the cost burden to 3rd party lawyers who'd charge you to ensure your application wasn't crappy. The patent office could then start to give such pre-verified applications a less rigourous overview (like they do currently with all patents :)
Yes, that's dangerous... Microsoft lawyers inc would pre-verify a patent on glass panes used to provide visibility of operating system function for human interaction.
The only way to proplerly solve the issue is to better define what a patent is. Say "software or software algorithms of any kind are not patentable items" would rip that backlog to shreds. And save business innovation as well, which would be nice.
Looking like a human is only a valid design constraint for a sexbot. I'm not saying it's a bad idea to take some of those into space
but taking sheepbots into space is just so wrong :)
It is perhaps a sharper blade than Java, but were professionals.
No, we're not. We're the cheapest, project-managed bunch of attention-deficit fools that ever wore a suit. Once we tried to do things right, to code correctly and bugs were a major source of embarrassment and shame. Now, we can't wipe our bums without a framework and instructions copied from the internet. And once we have learned how to do that, we decide its not good enough and we need another new framework, possibly language and architecture and start all over again.
I have a feeling the masses of choice has made us like this. Once we did it all in a couple of langauages and all was ok - but now, there are so many languages that we are locked into a never-ending cycle of always looking for something else. Never satisfied with what we've got, possibly because once we do become settled (and happy), the world changes and its time to get back on that merry-go-round and learn something else that is the 'new big thing'. Which often turns out not to be quite so good as it was hyped up to be. which often makes us look for something else to satisfy that void the marketing men promised us we'd have.
In addition, this has turnd us from true professionals to hyper-active attention-deficit internet-addicted 'coderz', and so its no wonder management has stopped thinking of us as the boffins and started to treat us like children - one programmer is just as good as another is a mindset they have now, which in turn has led to all that outsourcing. Why pay for an expensive coder when you can get a cheap one, they're all the same nowadays, coding is easy, they have all these easy-to-use frameworks, languages and tools.
So, yes, on an individual basis its not the language its the skill of the worker. For the programming community as a whole, its not the individual it is the languages.
Hmm. I need to get out and find more beer!
Anyone who promotes C/C++ over Java for a back-end enterprise application is not a professional IMO. They come across as stubborn basement hackers who can't keep their resumes up to date
anyone who promotes Java over .NET is not a professional IMHO. They come across as ex-web hackers can't keep their resumes up to date.
Place your votes for next year's 'ultimate' language.
most beginners (and some old timers) use analysis tools or 'secure' buffer manipulation functions. Its easy to write strcpy(buf, input). Its not that much more difficult to write strncpy(buf, input, max_buf_size) or in Microsoft strcpy_s(buf, max_buf_size, input) (and MS even added a macro so strcpy turns into strcpy_s with the sizeof(buf) automatically added for you).
And most people I know use CString or std::string anyway.
Given those, I'm not sure why we still have buffer overflows today.... unless its old code or copying data into an buffer only referenced by an input pointer.
Plenty of other opportunities to cock things up though :)
so your argument is that Java is secure and C isn't becuase you might write an app with a security bug in it in C without realising its there; but you could never, ever write a Java app with a security bug in it.
It might be more difficult to write security bugs in Java (though I doubt that, as you say "it only takes one simple, hard to find and debug fuck up") and we know you can write bugs in Java apps.
So really, you fail it. Security through 'crossing your fingers and hoping your language fixes everything for you' is why people like you create more insecure apps than any number of C apps.
he entered it, but the garbage collector ran before he had stored it in the slashdot comment list.
It seems to me that the *three* keys for your girlfriend's place are probably somewhat redundant
Yup, there's an alternative
yes, I remember another newsworthy trading mistake where the trader bought 1000 times more stock than he wanted. I think the trading keyboards have ",000" keys on them so the poor dears don't have to press 0 three times.
Of course today, 1 guy cocks it up, and then all the automated systems pick up on the trade and start selling off which quickly snowballs. This is why the stock market is so eager to drop. when they've figured it out expect the prices to rise back as suddenly. It makes it difficult for the small investor, but too bad - the big boys don't really give a damn about you.
I have a dream too... that I will be able to knock out a crappy app based on a single source base and flog it for millions of dollars on all the mobile phone app stores there are.
I think that pretty much sums up the issue we're facing here. Nobody has yet posted a message saying they're glad that their well-crafted, carefully worked applications now have more prominence on the iPhone platform. Everyone seems to want to use the lowest common denominator platform that's the cheapest possible for them to develop on.
except there is a simple fix to that... initially scroll to the bottom of the email.
In these days of fancy HTML emails and so on, how hard is it to scroll to the top of the latest message and collapse all the other ones?
How hard is it to actually allow previous messages ot be deleted. In Outlook, I find I cannot ever get rid of the last line with the little blue vertical bar that Outlook seems to think is an acceptable merker for previous messages?
How hard is it to allow collapsing message blocks?
How hard is it to allow inline comments, without having to change the colour of the text you write to make them stand out sufficiently (and no, a [GB] mark at the front isn't usually enough)
And lastly, my biggest grips with Outlook.. how hard is it to make it display words as fast as I type them!? Without long, long pauses while it does *something*.
Oh well, anyway, they could handle email messages a lot better than they currently do. That's all I'm saying.
which of course, is also the best way to see the source code for many other companies .net software, even if they didn't expect it to be quite so open :)
yeah but.... Blackberry has the largest market share of all (40+ %), only supports a Java SDK, and doesn't run Flash either. No-one gives a damn about that, but when Apple does the same with their product, everyone's suddenly kicking and screaming.
I doubt there's any anti-trust case to answer, they're not even the majority, and Google is doing better than them in growth.
I suppose Apple's problem was allowing a non C-family SDK in the first place and allowing any code to run at all. Silly Apple, should have locked it down to a special API right from the start and prevented all this hullabaloo.
and somewhat peculiar to all this is the fact that Blackberry has the market share of all smartphones. IIRC the iPhone is in second place now, but still along way off at about 25%.
There's no Flash on the market-leading Blackberry, but there's never been an outcry over that, nor the lack of programming language support (Java only, except for the very old models).
but I *like* being in a bad mood :):)
Also, you must not do much with your browsers, because there is no way I could shut down, even with the browser remembering my pages, and not be highly annoyed
Ah, but you forget, even if only 1 tab crashes... you're going to be highly annoyed. shutting down the browser afterwards is not even a noticeable increase in your level of annoyance. Damage done. In fact, shutting the whole thing down is probably going to help - that little hint of "die damn browser, that'll teach you to kill the page I was looking at" is the only bit of satisfaction you're going to get... and you'd forgo even that.
Still, developers are bad and lazy nowadays, its not something to encourage in any shape of form. Best you get used to it too, or you'll be spending another $200 on yet more RAM in a year or two.
though I don't see the "1 tab crashes and its fine" thing as good, see, if 1 tabs crashes on me (and the browser is ok), I'll shut it down and start it up again. And as Firefox remembers where I was, all's well and good. I'll probably do that anyway in the future as I'm conditioned to 'switch it off and on again' to resolve errors. That also gives better stability in my view than trying to continue in a potentially dicky state.
So, the 1 process per tab option isn't something I want, and I think its somewhat pointless. I'd rather they spent their efforts on something a bit more useful - like letting me switch to a different tab when on tab freezes for a while (yes, loading pdfs for example). If 1 process per tab helps with that - that's better (but I think could be better implemented)
Oh, and I'd rather they lessened memory usage. as I know RAM is cheap (though, I'd rather spend my money on beer instead of continual memory and motherboard upgrades) but I can only fit so many sticks in my mobo, and upgrading to the high capacity ones isn't as cheap as they say. I'm also pretty old skool when it comes to efficiency. I like my browser to be like my women - thin, not fat and bloated. I like that it starts up quickly instead of filling its memory caches with crap I'm never going to view again. I like that I can run other things on my PC too, and I like that I can use the same browser on a netbook or smartphone.
So no, I don't subscribe to the 'its ok to bloat it up' school of thought. I want it done properly, efficiently and well.
Memory is cheap now. I have 12MB in this computer, and it only cost me $200.
$200. I could get a better media streamer, or a bunch of DVDs to play on it for that, and have cash left over for popcorn n booze. but no, because some lazy, crap developers want to use a memory-hogging framework or poor memory management techniques, I have to drink water and watch paint dry instead :)
Over the last several years the people at Palm created good software that was delivered on marginal hardware and sold via substandard marketing.
That depends on what happens to the people who used to work at Palm, and whether HP's corporate arms can leave them alone long enough to let them do what they do. From my knowledge of corporate businesses, they'll be strangled in bureaucracy soon enough.
oh, don't worry. To be fair the country was there before those Europeans who had such poor social skills they couldn't get on with the locals left. Strangely enough, they had such poor social skills they pissed off the natives who tried to help them. And now, well, you can guess that nothing much has changed. :)
no, its the lack of an ABI that drivers are included in the 'kernel' distro. If the Linux kernel had a defined, never-changing interface for drivers, then you'd probably find them on every manufacturer's website. As it is, every so often a change is made to the interface requiring the drivers to be modified (even if slightly) but as the source code to the drivers are in the kernel source tree, the modification gets made and they get recompiled for the new kernel version.
The goals of source-only drivers is good, but I think practicality is more important - for drivers that is.
For a pirate, Tom seems such a nice chap.
Good luck to you both!