actually, I'd say you would get more contributors - if the company you work for uses a permissive open-source project, some people will learn all about it at work, and will then scratch whatever itches they have with it at home, and release that code back to the community.
its not the GC that allows you to develop faster, its the surrounding infrstructure that does that. Imagien writing your C# code in notepad - you just wouldn't do it, it'd be painfully slow. That's where the development productivity comes from.
GC can be a huge burden though, not only does it encourage sloppy 'the GC will take care of that' style attitude that hurts performance badly (as prime example consider why there is a StringBuilder class at all, if the GC is so fantastic and fast at memory management). If you need to manage something that is not memory, whatever that is, you start to have to worry quite alot about how to trap and free the resource correctly.
I recall an old WCF program I wrote, I implemented IDispose correctly in the handler object, yet if anything thew an exception (which I wanted, to pass to the client as a SOAPFault) it wouldn't clean up the server-side state correctly, and the next call would contain a little bit (of logging state in my case) from the previous call. Bummer. Worse bummer - figuring out how to force the GC to correctly finalise my object when I wanted it done. Ended up having to manage all that object lifecycle manually. Manually! It ended up like coding C again and remembering where to put the delete() call.
So no, GC in the real world is handy, but doesn't increase developer productivity, or code performance (except for benchmarks or simple stuff that don't use it like the real world). Fewer bugs - hardly, you just shift them elsewhere.
FYI, take a look at Microsoft's SafeHandle class. That shows exactly the problem with GC systems. If you have to create a low-level reference counting class to work around the GC, but the creators of the entire VM, then you know GC is not a silver bullet.
C++ is better off without it, stick to RAII and be happy.
What I found very strange, as a C++ dev going to a C# shop, was that the practice of having a separate file to define the interface remains, even in a language like C# that generates the header metadata definition behind the scenes (yes, its still there, the compiler just hides it from you)
The best practice method we followed (and I believe it is a best practice too) in C# was to have everything we used in a class defined in an interface. This interface was written out in a separate.cs file. So really, there's no pragmatic difference between what I did as a C# dev and a C++ dev (in this regard).
You see a lot of interfaces used in C# by the unit testing boys because the test tools require them to be there if you want to mock them.
I don't mind writing it out twice, partly because I don't mind doing things right, and partly because I like to see the 'summary' of my code without resorting to nasty, nasty bodges like #region directives..
there are lots of "other jobs" out there - lawyers, accountants, architects, loads of professional professions. If you can't hack computing, then maybe these other types of job are also not for you and you should try something requiring less knowledge-based and more of a craft or manual job instead.
I know programming is becoming more and more like a manual skilled job, where anyone with minimum training can perform the basic tasks required, but I feel we would be better served if it were more formalised as a profession, like accountancy for example. Its just as boring and maths based, and requires you to keep up to date with the latest rules that everyone uses.
I think the point is so Google gets VP9 support out there, mainstream.
See, we all know it'll be so highly compressed it'll look crap. I'm sure that's intentional partly to save bandwidth, but also to encourage you to buy stuff instead of just youtube streaming it all the time.
But the 4k over VP9 only, that's a message to producers that they must start to make their stuff available in VP9 format if they don't want to be "left behind" in the future video technology, and they will. And once that's the only format natively supported on all 4k playback devices, and all content gets produced in it, they will start to make content available in VP9 for all formats, and we'll have royalty-free video everywhere. 4k has nothing to do with it except as a way to kick the industry in the right direction.
Oh and 4k porn... I wouldn't, slightly fuzzy images are better for your intended purpose in watching it, than the "full gynaecologist" video version.
as always, you forget the social aspect - while we could make a sexbot, its far cheaper and easier just to use eastern european and asian girls.
Just like its easier and cheaper to use immigrant workers for things that robots could do. Maybe if we stopped the psychopaths from getting in charge, we could change this, but I doubt they'll let us.
yet we still don't have flying cars, and everyone wants one of those!
Its easy to consider cordless phones as super easy after they've been invented. The idea that someone would put the necessary infrastructure everywhere to enable such things.... crazy talk. Ubiquitous mobile phones were the stuff of sci-fi only 25 years ago (yes, I know we still had radio telecoms before then, but they weren't quite the same thing as universal phone service)
Predicting remote charging - that's not a prediction, that's something that almost happens today (ie could if you bought the right kit. Its false to predict "smart homes" appearing because Bill Gates already has one - its not much of a prediction). Try again, this time with something that we don't have today.
to be fair, he wasn't so far off on population control - China's only just relaxed its one-child policy. A lot of Africa's kids still get "controlled" by natural causes, and a lot of western society's kids simply don't get born like they used to because of the financial or social constraints many in the West subject themselves to (ie rich and middle class families are not having many kids because they can't afford it, or couldn't support children in their oh-so-important careers).
I guess the societal changes were much more difficult to predict, given the complexity of society and cultures.
gormÂless (gÃrmls) adj. Chiefly British Lacking intelligence and vitality; dull. [From dialectal gawm, sense, from Middle English gome, notice, from Old Norse gaumr.]
at the last place I worked the middle tier didn't have select access to the DB either - only execute. That way it was easier to control all access to the DB. It had other benefits in terms of being able to restructure the DB if we wanted, and to keep the SQL in 1 place. In a way its exactly like your prepared statements idea, only it adds an additional layers of security by hiding and controlling those SQL statements.
As for not storing CC data, well this place stored a lot more than that! Sometimes you have to store sensitive data and then you need to properly secure everything, and make sure you keep it all secured. So if they could store all the data they did, then you can store CC data too.
I should add there was more to it - like the middle tier was split into services each of which only had access to limited parts of the DB API, and those sprocs only had access to specific parts of the DB schema. In turn each was locked down with login-based security roles and so on. It was actually quite easy to develop for as everything was nicely split into its vertical tiers and horizontal components.
... is all about DB security, simply do not allow any access to the DB from the webserver at all. Assume your webserver is already compromised and build from there, is not difficult to do.
Last place I worked, my boss had a pet website thing written in the usual way - client web code running on the web server that directly read DB tables. When he told the admin guys to put it live they told him they couldn't - there wasn't access to the DB from the webserver, so he told them to "just punch a hole in the firewall"... and they told him there was no firewall. There was no physical cabling between these servers.
That's the way to do it. you always go through a middle box, and you create an API on that middle tier that your web code can access, and that is tightly locked down. Then you also expose your DB as an API (via stored procedures) that only the middle tier can access.
Then, if (ha! when) someone hacks your web server, all they can do is call the API methods on the middle tier, and even if they manage to hack the middle tier too, all they can do is call the DB API methods. None of those methods will have a routine that returns more than 1 CC data, at best.
This stuff isn't hard, but requires a little more discipline than web devs are used to. It also requires that the only code you run on the web server is presentation stuff, no slapping it all on there like most code and frameworks guide you into doing.
as always in good old America, lobbying stopped the production of the dollar bills in 2011. God knows why, but American vested interests seem to have a habit of promoting the most gormless values.
No more will be made even though, as every other country knows, replacing dollar bills with dollar coins would save the government a load of money (between $5.5 billion and $58 billion over the next 30 years - it depends who you talk to and what their position is on the idea of changing to coins) as coins are much cheaper to produce than paper money.
Apparently the cost of making a dollar coin is 8 cents, compared to a bill which costs 4 cents. However, the coin lasts 30 years v the paper which typically lasts 18 months.
yes I do, but then we have £1 and £2 coins as well as the usual shrapnel.
I've never found it to be a problem unless I have accumulated so many I need to change them for a couple of notes. Some people even carry around little magazines that you can slot the coins into (in a stack formation), something like that is no more hassle than the USB pendrive I have on my keyring.
For the MAC, you could install xrdp which provides the same protocol to access linux/osx.
RDP is a very lightweight protocol, originally created by Citrix way back and bought or licenced by Microsoft, as they do with the bits of Windows that are any good.
Godel, Escher, Bach is not a simple read. The ideas are complex and the logic subtle. But it is a completely satisfying book, and reading it is one of those rare experiences when you leave feeling smarter than when you started.
its true, though I felt like a complete simpleton after reading it - its an awesome piece of writing. Its not something to read casually though, you're gonna have to think, a lot.
ah, but my point is they've diversified so much that they, as a whole entity, cannot disappear.
DuckDuckGo has taken over as my search engine, and openstreetmaps as my mapping views, but I still use Android. Even if Android goes away and is replaced by.. Jolla, say, then they'll still have advertising and all the other bits n bobs that'll keep them in the game while they come up with something new.
DEC, Yahoo, IBM, even Microsoft to a large extent, are all 1-trick ponies. They may have had huge tricks, but it was still 1 trick.
PS. You're only too big to fail if *you* owe the government money.. they'll want it back before letting you fail:-)
Unfortunately Microsoft does a lot of HCI testing, yet they still produced Windows 8 and Windows Phone. (I will refer you to a recent episode of the Gadget Show (4:00 in) where they had a face-off between 3 phone OSes, the ordinary people using Windows didn't do too well, and disliked it a lot)
True, the ral companies who succeed are the ones who reach that critical mass, and then realise that they have to keep on moving and produce something else, possibly related to their original field (as that makes it easier to convert the existing userbase).
Google did this - search was popular, reached critical mass, then started doing lots of other things, and now no-one would say they will disappear.
Facebook did some crap about social communication, then spent any additional innovation "being more facebook", its hardly surprising they're on their way out.
I wonder if they do become a tiny shade of their former selves, what the knock-on effect on the silicon valley/startup scene will become. If investors lose their shirts with FB stock, will the negative publicity and "shock, horror, stocks can go down too" mean other companies will not be able to . I don't know, produce a website that rates turds, and get a billion dollars in VC funding.
1st: "wave boobies in face of passing caveman, say "ug ugg want it bb". That's Marketing. 2nd: refuse advances until ugg has handed over shiny rock. That's Sales. 3rd oldest profession happens next, and is possibly the most reputable of the 3.
Now as for the QT comparison that's a slightly different beast. Most of the time (almost all the time in mobile) you're going to want to spend some time retouching your UI to match the base os' way of doing things.
This raises the question - does your Mono UI look different on these platforms (in which case, why do you care about retouching your Qt UIs) or does it look the same.NET-based UI (in which case, why do you care about retouching your Qt UIs) or do you just not care about retouching your Mono UIs and are trying to spread a little FUD about how perfect it is compared to an alternative cross-platform toolkit?
na, I'm a C++ dev really.. though in today's job market, I'm a bit of whatever the client needs guy.. though fortunately not java.
I say the same things to those guys too though - mainly because they too think that their favourite language is the only that should be used *everywhere*. I think this is the problem with javascript - its ideal place is in the browser, not writing servers.
but we can, come back when you know something else - preferably 2 or 3 other things. Then you'll know how narrow the design of js really is, just like the rest of us. Using it for everything just isn't the best idea.
Slashdot Mirror
actually, I'd say you would get more contributors - if the company you work for uses a permissive open-source project, some people will learn all about it at work, and will then scratch whatever itches they have with it at home, and release that code back to the community.
its not the GC that allows you to develop faster, its the surrounding infrstructure that does that. Imagien writing your C# code in notepad - you just wouldn't do it, it'd be painfully slow. That's where the development productivity comes from.
GC can be a huge burden though, not only does it encourage sloppy 'the GC will take care of that' style attitude that hurts performance badly (as prime example consider why there is a StringBuilder class at all, if the GC is so fantastic and fast at memory management). If you need to manage something that is not memory, whatever that is, you start to have to worry quite alot about how to trap and free the resource correctly.
I recall an old WCF program I wrote, I implemented IDispose correctly in the handler object, yet if anything thew an exception (which I wanted, to pass to the client as a SOAPFault) it wouldn't clean up the server-side state correctly, and the next call would contain a little bit (of logging state in my case) from the previous call. Bummer. Worse bummer - figuring out how to force the GC to correctly finalise my object when I wanted it done. Ended up having to manage all that object lifecycle manually. Manually! It ended up like coding C again and remembering where to put the delete() call.
So no, GC in the real world is handy, but doesn't increase developer productivity, or code performance (except for benchmarks or simple stuff that don't use it like the real world). Fewer bugs - hardly, you just shift them elsewhere.
FYI, take a look at Microsoft's SafeHandle class. That shows exactly the problem with GC systems. If you have to create a low-level reference counting class to work around the GC, but the creators of the entire VM, then you know GC is not a silver bullet.
C++ is better off without it, stick to RAII and be happy.
What I found very strange, as a C++ dev going to a C# shop, was that the practice of having a separate file to define the interface remains, even in a language like C# that generates the header metadata definition behind the scenes (yes, its still there, the compiler just hides it from you)
The best practice method we followed (and I believe it is a best practice too) in C# was to have everything we used in a class defined in an interface. This interface was written out in a separate .cs file. So really, there's no pragmatic difference between what I did as a C# dev and a C++ dev (in this regard).
You see a lot of interfaces used in C# by the unit testing boys because the test tools require them to be there if you want to mock them.
I don't mind writing it out twice, partly because I don't mind doing things right, and partly because I like to see the 'summary' of my code without resorting to nasty, nasty bodges like #region directives..
So, get rid of header files... hahahahaha.
there are lots of "other jobs" out there - lawyers, accountants, architects, loads of professional professions. If you can't hack computing, then maybe these other types of job are also not for you and you should try something requiring less knowledge-based and more of a craft or manual job instead.
I know programming is becoming more and more like a manual skilled job, where anyone with minimum training can perform the basic tasks required, but I feel we would be better served if it were more formalised as a profession, like accountancy for example. Its just as boring and maths based, and requires you to keep up to date with the latest rules that everyone uses.
I think the point is so Google gets VP9 support out there, mainstream.
See, we all know it'll be so highly compressed it'll look crap. I'm sure that's intentional partly to save bandwidth, but also to encourage you to buy stuff instead of just youtube streaming it all the time.
But the 4k over VP9 only, that's a message to producers that they must start to make their stuff available in VP9 format if they don't want to be "left behind" in the future video technology, and they will. And once that's the only format natively supported on all 4k playback devices, and all content gets produced in it, they will start to make content available in VP9 for all formats, and we'll have royalty-free video everywhere. 4k has nothing to do with it except as a way to kick the industry in the right direction.
Oh and 4k porn... I wouldn't, slightly fuzzy images are better for your intended purpose in watching it, than the "full gynaecologist" video version.
Dell is releasing a set of 4k monitors - 32 and 24" are already with us, a cheaper 28" version coming soon.
So you get 3,840 x 2,160 res on all of them, 99% AdobeRGB colour space, and 60Hz over Displayport 1.2.
'course I'll need a new graphics card :(
as always, you forget the social aspect - while we could make a sexbot, its far cheaper and easier just to use eastern european and asian girls.
Just like its easier and cheaper to use immigrant workers for things that robots could do. Maybe if we stopped the psychopaths from getting in charge, we could change this, but I doubt they'll let us.
yet we still don't have flying cars, and everyone wants one of those!
Its easy to consider cordless phones as super easy after they've been invented. The idea that someone would put the necessary infrastructure everywhere to enable such things.... crazy talk. Ubiquitous mobile phones were the stuff of sci-fi only 25 years ago (yes, I know we still had radio telecoms before then, but they weren't quite the same thing as universal phone service)
Predicting remote charging - that's not a prediction, that's something that almost happens today (ie could if you bought the right kit. Its false to predict "smart homes" appearing because Bill Gates already has one - its not much of a prediction). Try again, this time with something that we don't have today.
to be fair, he wasn't so far off on population control - China's only just relaxed its one-child policy. A lot of Africa's kids still get "controlled" by natural causes, and a lot of western society's kids simply don't get born like they used to because of the financial or social constraints many in the West subject themselves to (ie rich and middle class families are not having many kids because they can't afford it, or couldn't support children in their oh-so-important careers).
I guess the societal changes were much more difficult to predict, given the complexity of society and cultures.
there's this thing called the internet, it has more than porn and slashdot on it :-)
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/gormless
gormÂless (gÃrmls)
adj. Chiefly British
Lacking intelligence and vitality; dull.
[From dialectal gawm, sense, from Middle English gome, notice, from Old Norse gaumr.]
at the last place I worked the middle tier didn't have select access to the DB either - only execute. That way it was easier to control all access to the DB. It had other benefits in terms of being able to restructure the DB if we wanted, and to keep the SQL in 1 place. In a way its exactly like your prepared statements idea, only it adds an additional layers of security by hiding and controlling those SQL statements.
As for not storing CC data, well this place stored a lot more than that! Sometimes you have to store sensitive data and then you need to properly secure everything, and make sure you keep it all secured. So if they could store all the data they did, then you can store CC data too.
I should add there was more to it - like the middle tier was split into services each of which only had access to limited parts of the DB API, and those sprocs only had access to specific parts of the DB schema. In turn each was locked down with login-based security roles and so on. It was actually quite easy to develop for as everything was nicely split into its vertical tiers and horizontal components.
... is all about DB security, simply do not allow any access to the DB from the webserver at all. Assume your webserver is already compromised and build from there, is not difficult to do.
Last place I worked, my boss had a pet website thing written in the usual way - client web code running on the web server that directly read DB tables. When he told the admin guys to put it live they told him they couldn't - there wasn't access to the DB from the webserver, so he told them to "just punch a hole in the firewall"... and they told him there was no firewall. There was no physical cabling between these servers.
That's the way to do it. you always go through a middle box, and you create an API on that middle tier that your web code can access, and that is tightly locked down. Then you also expose your DB as an API (via stored procedures) that only the middle tier can access.
Then, if (ha! when) someone hacks your web server, all they can do is call the API methods on the middle tier, and even if they manage to hack the middle tier too, all they can do is call the DB API methods. None of those methods will have a routine that returns more than 1 CC data, at best.
This stuff isn't hard, but requires a little more discipline than web devs are used to. It also requires that the only code you run on the web server is presentation stuff, no slapping it all on there like most code and frameworks guide you into doing.
as always in good old America, lobbying stopped the production of the dollar bills in 2011. God knows why, but American vested interests seem to have a habit of promoting the most gormless values.
No more will be made even though, as every other country knows, replacing dollar bills with dollar coins would save the government a load of money (between $5.5 billion and $58 billion over the next 30 years - it depends who you talk to and what their position is on the idea of changing to coins) as coins are much cheaper to produce than paper money.
Apparently the cost of making a dollar coin is 8 cents, compared to a bill which costs 4 cents. However, the coin lasts 30 years v the paper which typically lasts 18 months.
yes I do, but then we have £1 and £2 coins as well as the usual shrapnel.
I've never found it to be a problem unless I have accumulated so many I need to change them for a couple of notes. Some people even carry around little magazines that you can slot the coins into (in a stack formation), something like that is no more hassle than the USB pendrive I have on my keyring.
Microsoft's built-in remote display technology.
The best RDP client for Android is Remote RDP
For the MAC, you could install xrdp which provides the same protocol to access linux/osx.
RDP is a very lightweight protocol, originally created by Citrix way back and bought or licenced by Microsoft, as they do with the bits of Windows that are any good.
GÃdel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
Godel, Escher, Bach is not a simple read. The ideas are complex and the logic subtle. But it is a completely satisfying book, and reading it is one of those rare experiences when you leave feeling smarter than when you started.
its true, though I felt like a complete simpleton after reading it - its an awesome piece of writing. Its not something to read casually though, you're gonna have to think, a lot.
so in other words, using your brain for any creative activity, even if internal-only, is good exercise for your brain.
Playing a computer game where you mindlessly click things does not achieve the same result.
ah, but my point is they've diversified so much that they, as a whole entity, cannot disappear.
DuckDuckGo has taken over as my search engine, and openstreetmaps as my mapping views, but I still use Android. Even if Android goes away and is replaced by .. Jolla, say, then they'll still have advertising and all the other bits n bobs that'll keep them in the game while they come up with something new.
DEC, Yahoo, IBM, even Microsoft to a large extent, are all 1-trick ponies. They may have had huge tricks, but it was still 1 trick.
PS. You're only too big to fail if *you* owe the government money .. they'll want it back before letting you fail :-)
Unfortunately Microsoft does a lot of HCI testing, yet they still produced Windows 8 and Windows Phone. (I will refer you to a recent episode of the Gadget Show (4:00 in) where they had a face-off between 3 phone OSes, the ordinary people using Windows didn't do too well, and disliked it a lot)
True, the ral companies who succeed are the ones who reach that critical mass, and then realise that they have to keep on moving and produce something else, possibly related to their original field (as that makes it easier to convert the existing userbase).
Google did this - search was popular, reached critical mass, then started doing lots of other things, and now no-one would say they will disappear.
Facebook did some crap about social communication, then spent any additional innovation "being more facebook", its hardly surprising they're on their way out.
I wonder if they do become a tiny shade of their former selves, what the knock-on effect on the silicon valley/startup scene will become. If investors lose their shirts with FB stock, will the negative publicity and "shock, horror, stocks can go down too" mean other companies will not be able to . I don't know, produce a website that rates turds, and get a billion dollars in VC funding.
you're forgetting something...
1st: "wave boobies in face of passing caveman, say "ug ugg want it bb". That's Marketing.
2nd: refuse advances until ugg has handed over shiny rock. That's Sales.
3rd oldest profession happens next, and is possibly the most reputable of the 3.
Now as for the QT comparison that's a slightly different beast. Most of the time (almost all the time in mobile) you're going to want to spend some time retouching your UI to match the base os' way of doing things.
This raises the question - does your Mono UI look different on these platforms (in which case, why do you care about retouching your Qt UIs) or does it look the same .NET-based UI (in which case, why do you care about retouching your Qt UIs) or do you just not care about retouching your Mono UIs and are trying to spread a little FUD about how perfect it is compared to an alternative cross-platform toolkit?
not to mention how to pronounce aluminium - the last i is not silent!
na, I'm a C++ dev really.. though in today's job market, I'm a bit of whatever the client needs guy.. though fortunately not java.
I say the same things to those guys too though - mainly because they too think that their favourite language is the only that should be used *everywhere*. I think this is the problem with javascript - its ideal place is in the browser, not writing servers.
but we can, come back when you know something else - preferably 2 or 3 other things. Then you'll know how narrow the design of js really is, just like the rest of us. Using it for everything just isn't the best idea.