Ok I am going to admit it: I had serious doubts that NASA went to the moon after seeing the Fox special. I didnt know enough (and still dont)about lunar physics or photography to be able to make a judgement call on a lot of the claims. The one claim that struck a chord with me was the crosshairs missing from the pictures. That one I could understand. Unfortuneately the NASA spokeman was not cast in a good light at all. He was evasive on a lot of the issues and came across as someone who was trying to hide something. Now whether this was the producers' fault or whether this guy was just weasley in real life, I dont know. But I thought they raised valid concerns and I couldnt find anything that refuted the claims put forward in the special.
That was until I saw this article: http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html They could save themselves 15k and just link to that. He refutes all the claims of the doubters with very rational explanations.
He didnt talk about adding people to the end of a project to get it done on time. He talked about expanding the developer base because there is now extra work that needs to be done on an ongoing basis.
By your logic there should only be one programmer in the world, because adding any others would not get any more code written faster.
This isnt about who dictates policy. This is about a company lie^H^H^H misrepresenting (either intentionally or unintentionally) the capabilities of a product. In other industries this is called "false advertising" and is against the law, but the tech industry doesnt seem to have to follow rules that other industries do.
You know I would love to see the accuracy of these "analysts" predictions. When I talk machines with my friends, flat-panel monitors arent usually mentioned, but 21-inch monitors are. Its not worth the $$. (You could buy a lot more ram for the difference)
If you read some of the code you will notice that there is the ability to run SQL of your choice on the page. For those not ASP literate the line is this:
strSQL = "SELECT TOP 2 id, dateposted, title, body " &_ "FROM journal WHERE dateposted < " &_ "(SELECT dateposted FROM journal WHERE id = " & Request.QueryString("id") & ") " &_
"ORDER BY dateposted DESC"
Set objRS = objConn.Execute(strSQL)
The problem is the "Request.QueryString("id")". He is injecting what he gets from the querystring right into his SQL and then running it. That is a HORRIBLE security flaw, because a bad person could inject some SQL to destroy his database.
Its kind of ironic because how to remove this type of attack was the topic of the Security column
cramming is just memorization which is different then learning. I crammed a lot for physics when I was in high school (which got me the grades I wanted) but took the time to learn math (which also gave me the grades I wanted). I remember the math, but not the physics.
All of these ideas come from your developers using the tools to do development themselves. If you dont like your tools, why will anyone else?
so here are some things that bug me about current sites: 1) REAL WORLD applications built by using your development tools (these should be done internally by your best engineers). 2) The complete API which include:
- the name
- the input parameters (lists of all possible values (if reasonable))
- the output
- when to use this, when NOT to use this.
- a link (or links) to where the api is used in the real application(s) from above. 3) A forum where people can show off the programs they created using your tools. 4) A regular set of columns describing solutions to challenges that the users of your tools are experiencing. (If you eat your own dog food, these should be pretty self-evident, but feedback from your users will go a long way as well)
I dont want to rain on your parade here, but it sounds like you know very little about Linux in general. No offense to the/. crowd , but i dont think this is the best place to get the type of information that you are looking for. And after reading a little bit about your goals I would say that if you tried to do that based on what you read here is capital K Krazy.
If this were me, I would hit a Linux User Group meeting in Seattle (Greater Seattle User Group is the first one that appears on google) and get to know some of the local geeks so that you could get one of the local companies to give you a hand answering the questions you have.
Interesting point missing from the story is the response to the statement "'IT has now been proven to be a waste of money'".
Wouldnt this be a good time to whip out your spreadsheet telling how much you saved the company because you implemented a custom built app that filled a need the users had. Dont have one? Gee, what is your justification for building those apps then? Where is the business case? Where is the follow up to the business case that tracks the amount you have spent on the app in comparison to what you were spending doing it manually? Dont have either of those figures? Maybe you should start getting them.
I think the whole idea is to give the company all the time thats needed. You let the company know and then (maybe) the Gov't and NO ONE ELSE. I understand that this is just embracing security through obscurity, but that seems to be the only way you can find security exploits and not go to jail for doing it.
...is to leave the company. Upper management isnt listening to reason, the project managers got hired with "no previous experience of anything" so the hiring practices are suspect, and you are being told to produce crappy software. This is not the place to learn about project management. This is the place to learn where exactly on the wall it hurts the most when you bang your head against it. Find some place that is interested in quality people. (and when you do, let all of us know about it so we can apply there too 8^)
Hey, if you arent working right now, I have never seen anyone go wrong by volunteering those handy tech skills to a needy organisation. It gets you both experience and contacts. It also keeps your skills sharp.
Now thats unwarranted. I ask you (only if you contribute source code to Linux, of course you do dont you?) if YOU feel personally responsible/remorseful when someone using the product YOU helped create is screwed over because YOU didnt do your job of finding/repairng security holes. Isnt that what makes open source great? (The many eyeballs make all bugs shallow?)
Slashdot Mirror
Ok I am going to admit it: I had serious doubts that NASA went to the moon after seeing the Fox special. I didnt know enough (and still dont)about lunar physics or photography to be able to make a judgement call on a lot of the claims. The one claim that struck a chord with me was the crosshairs missing from the pictures. That one I could understand. Unfortuneately the NASA spokeman was not cast in a good light at all. He was evasive on a lot of the issues and came across as someone who was trying to hide something. Now whether this was the producers' fault or whether this guy was just weasley in real life, I dont know. But I thought they raised valid concerns and I couldnt find anything that refuted the claims put forward in the special.
That was until I saw this article:
http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html
They could save themselves 15k and just link to that. He refutes all the claims of the doubters with very rational explanations.
See the internet is good for something after all!
He didnt talk about adding people to the end of a project to get it done on time. He talked about expanding the developer base because there is now extra work that needs to be done on an ongoing basis.
By your logic there should only be one programmer in the world, because adding any others would not get any more code written faster.
She may be a little more impartial than you believe..
This isnt about who dictates policy. This is about a company lie^H^H^H misrepresenting (either intentionally or unintentionally) the capabilities of a product. In other industries this is called "false advertising" and is against the law, but the tech industry doesnt seem to have to follow rules that other industries do.
You know I would love to see the accuracy of these "analysts" predictions. When I talk machines with my friends, flat-panel monitors arent usually mentioned, but 21-inch monitors are. Its not worth the $$. (You could buy a lot more ram for the difference)
Consider this:
From an MVP
If you read some of the code you will notice that there is the ability to run SQL of your choice on the page.
For those not ASP literate the line is this:
The problem is the "Request.QueryString("id")". He is injecting what he gets from the querystring right into his SQL and then running it. That is a HORRIBLE security flaw, because a bad person could inject some SQL to destroy his database.
Its kind of ironic because how to remove this type of attack was the topic of the Security column
Its kind of funny that the largest thread on the discussion board is the proper pronunciation of Linux.
If you read the article you would know that Microsoft gets first dibs to buy the company if he creates something useful and then puts it up for sale.
This is a great strategy: If he creates a great new product, buy him out. If he crashes and burns, you didnt lose anything.
cramming is just memorization which is different then learning. I crammed a lot for physics when I was in high school (which got me the grades I wanted) but took the time to learn math (which also gave me the grades I wanted). I remember the math, but not the physics.
All of these ideas come from your developers using the tools to do development themselves. If you dont like your tools, why will anyone else?
so here are some things that bug me about current sites:
1) REAL WORLD applications built by using your development tools (these should be done internally by your best engineers).
2) The complete API which include:
- the name
- the input parameters (lists of all possible values (if reasonable))
- the output
- when to use this, when NOT to use this.
- a link (or links) to where the api is used in the real application(s) from above.
3) A forum where people can show off the programs they created using your tools.
4) A regular set of columns describing solutions to challenges that the users of your tools are experiencing. (If you eat your own dog food, these should be pretty self-evident, but feedback from your users will go a long way as well)
And thus the political career of Harry Ass McGee begins...
I dont want to rain on your parade here, but it sounds like you know very little about Linux in general. No offense to the /. crowd , but i dont think this is the best place to get the type of information that you are looking for. And after reading a little bit about your goals I would say that if you tried to do that based on what you read here is capital K Krazy.
If this were me, I would hit a Linux User Group meeting in Seattle (Greater Seattle User Group is the first one that appears on google) and get to know some of the local geeks so that you could get one of the local companies to give you a hand answering the questions you have.
Interesting point missing from the story is the response to the statement "'IT has now been proven to be a waste of money'".
Wouldnt this be a good time to whip out your spreadsheet telling how much you saved the company because you implemented a custom built app that filled a need the users had. Dont have one? Gee, what is your justification for building those apps then? Where is the business case? Where is the follow up to the business case that tracks the amount you have spent on the app in comparison to what you were spending doing it manually? Dont have either of those figures? Maybe you should start getting them.
I think the whole idea is to give the company all the time thats needed. You let the company know and then (maybe) the Gov't and NO ONE ELSE. I understand that this is just embracing security through obscurity, but that seems to be the only way you can find security exploits and not go to jail for doing it.
Havent you ever heard the quote:
"the first 90% of the project takes 90% of the time, the last 10% takes the other 90%?"
But how many people download IE and Netscape from Download.com? I always go to Microsoft.com or Netscape.com to get their respective browsers.
Reminds me of something Mark Twain said, something about lies and statistics...
Which is fine to a point, but what's wrong with drawing on the collective experience of /. to figure out what to do?
because he asked a legal question and I think the most used phrase in this thread has been "IANAL".
...is to leave the company. Upper management isnt listening to reason, the project managers got hired with "no previous experience of anything" so the hiring practices are suspect, and you are being told to produce crappy software. This is not the place to learn about project management. This is the place to learn where exactly on the wall it hurts the most when you bang your head against it. Find some place that is interested in quality people. (and when you do, let all of us know about it so we can apply there too 8^)
Hey, if you arent working right now, I have never seen anyone go wrong by volunteering those handy tech skills to a needy organisation. It gets you both experience and contacts. It also keeps your skills sharp.
Thats kind of funny because I do believe that Yahoo store was originally written in Lisp. Here is the book that documents it.
Hey Congratulations to both of you.
The answer to that question is the same answer as to "WTF does it matter if you use Emacs or VI, they produce text files?"
Ahhh, but the net amount of work done is the same: 4 lines. 3 of which are from a template.
What are you talking about that you have a very fertile ground for viruses? If linux was the only OS would the ground still be as fertile?
Now thats unwarranted. I ask you (only if you contribute source code to Linux, of course you do dont you?) if YOU feel personally responsible/remorseful when someone using the product YOU helped create is screwed over because YOU didnt do your job of finding/repairng security holes. Isnt that what makes open source great? (The many eyeballs make all bugs shallow?)