I don't normally feed the trolls, but I'll make an exception in your case. I'm tired of hearing how great Java is especially compared to C#. I honestly don't know which is faster - I haven't tested them myself. But, I would guess that java, being much older then C#, has had time to do a good bit of optimization and may very well be as much as 20% to 30% faster.
But who cares?
If you need balls to the wall performance, you use C, C++ or assembly - plain and simple. It's not about performance. If it were, no one would have ever heard of Perl, Python, PHP, or Ruby. You don't need blistering speed for 99% of the apps you use in a day. And computer time is a thousand times cheaper then developer time. So unless you're writing an OS or crunching numbers speed is usually a secondary concern.
IMHO Java's only useful feature is that it has the best platform portability in computing history (although it isn't perfect). Java apps run about as well on OS X as on Linux as on Windows as on Solaris on their various hardware. That is a wonderful thing. However, Java GUIs pretty much suck on every platform.
As for C#, Ballmer had it right when he said Developers! Developers! Developers!. C# has a completely awesome IDE and a consistent and elegant language that hasn't been patched and tinkered with haphazardly a dozen times. And although I think C# is syntactically and semantically more elegant and consistent and well though out, those facts are irrelevant as well. VB didn't take the lion's share of professional software development because people loved the ascetics of the language. It was all about more easy it made a programmers job. You could do in a day in VB what would take you a week with C and the Win32 API and have fewer bugs to boot. How awesome is that. So now we have the wonderful rapid easy development environment of the VBs of yore mixed with the sugary love of consistent syntax and semantics that is the C# language.
That's what Java didn't have and doesn't have, and probably never will
DISCLAMER: My experience is mostly based on running things in windows. I have tried Eclipse and NetBeans as recently as a couple months ago. I'm a fan of Linux and open source and tinker with Debian at home. But, I am an independent software contractor and value my time and Visual Studio kicks ass.
And remember kids, Linux is only free if your time has no value.
No forms at all, gtk or windows. As I said I whipped up a console (cmd line) front end just for the mono test. I should also mention that this webserver was heavily multithreaded - which is another important yardstick for the maturity and stability of their code.
About a year ago, I wrote a C# webserver that did basic authentication, cgi, and directory browsing. It had a GUI but I partitioned it so that the webserver wasn't depenent on the GUI interface. I downloaded mono, created a console front end, compiled and ran it. Flawless. I didn't have to change one single line of code in the webserver class. Thats all I need to know. (BTW, this was on a windows box.)
This has been available in VB for years. Its known as anchoring a control.
As for horrible method of gui design, I must strongly disagree with you there. I've noticed most programers actually perform better when giving the visual stimulation of looking at the GUI before writing much backend code, It helps them think through the use cases before they start to code. And you must also remember that its meant to be a rapid development tool. Its a lot easier to drag and drop and click then to type.
You my friend, are the one in complete denial. Kerry basically said that if we balence the budget and stop dipping into the fund every time a righty feels an itch to cut taxes and then still has to spend 110% of the budget, that we wont have to worry so much about it. Bush's response, on the otherhand, made so much more sense - "I say we should let everyone opt out who wants to, and then were sure to have enough in the fund." My "special" cousin could find the faulty logic in that little theorum.
Sorry, Im just fed with right wing mega-spin. Its not your parties beliefs that amaze me, its their inability to defend them logically and then have the unwashed masses follow your leaders around like their the damn pied piper.
Announcement to the poverty stricken and lower middle class: THERE ARE MORE IMPORTANT ISSUES THEN GOD, GUNS, AND GAYS!!!
First let me say that I almost agree with you. Almost. I know you are an 20wmp extra so your feelings are not based on being unable to use the code. And let me tell you that I hardly ever use the code myself so you know exactly where I am coming from.
If there were no way to get a license without the code, I would say abolish the requirement. But, I think there are times when it is useful. I think there might be times when it could save lives. I would probably even go along with making it a requirement for the amature extra class only. But, in my opinion, it still has its merits and should be kept alive by some sort of FCC mandate. Take ADA as an example. I think the DoD made a huge mistake there. The ADA mandate helped to keep up interest and commercial investments it ADA related tools and technology. I spent six years of my life programming in ADA, and would rather be shot in the head then do it again. But, when im flying in a 737, i'm glad its ADA code and not C onboard.
Thats all I can muster. I know the requirement will go away eventually and have accepted it. It will probably fall away soon. It just saddens me. An era has passed.
And finally, let me say I appreciate everything you have done for open source community.
Im sorry you feel you must belong to the group before you could empathize with their situation. I have a few ham friends who are no coders. They enjoy the hobby greatly and contribute to the community. Its a shame that you *CHOOSE* not to.
I don't understand why you say the requirement has kept you from the hobby. You can receive an entry level license without learning code. As for not having an ear for the code - thats just an excuse. Unless you have a medical condition related to auditory procession, there is no reason in the world why you couldn't pick up cw at 5wpm. Heck, I taught my 8 yo stepson 10 letters in one evening. Its like programming in basic, so simple a child could do it. If I recall, you only need answer 7 out of 10 questions correctly to pass. I started out as a no code tech. On my first try at the morse code test I wasn't even planning on taking the test until I arrived at the testing location. Some other hams talked me into trying the test even though I had just learned a few letters. I got 6/10 correct with only knowing about 8 letters.
Ham radio serves two main purposes to the public at large. First, many advances in antenna, receiver, and transmitter design have be made by hams in their experimentation. Its part of our charter - to expand the art and science of radio. In fact, there are a serveral hams currently experimenting with 802.11 related technology trying to extend its pratical range through antenna design an the like. Its like radio theory R&D for the public good for FREE.
Second, it time of emergence such as natural disaster, and power outages, and what not, hams serve the community by providing reliable communication services for free, and help save many lives and large amounts of property each year. This is also part of the charter.
You choose not to support our concerns and best intrests. Thats fine, your entitled to it. But just remember, you reap what you sow. I pray you never find yourself or a member of your family in need of dire medical services when the phones are out and there is no such thing as a ham radio any more. Hope you satellite phone is charge up, and quickly found, and the satellites are still up there and functioning. In war, communication channles are among the first attacked. Ever heard of an electromagnetic pulse? Many hams I know still have vacuum tube based equipment. If knowlegde serves, tubes are unaffected by EMPs.
I like that fact you have to want to be a ham to become one. It takes a little hard work. Good. If you didnt have to have any knowledge or proficencies, then it would just be CB. Do you own a CB since you say ham radio is too hard? If anyone could transmit, the hobby would be reduced to nothing more then a wireless internet chatroom.
As for my license, im proud of having my callsign. For myself, and for many other hams, the pride in my license is that I received my general class ticket with a 13wpm code test - not without. That is I passed the test before they dropped the requirements to 5wpm. I did something that many claim is too hard or impossible for them. I can do something something that less than about 0.1% of the population of the US can do. Is it an intellectual acomplishment? No. Ham radio doesn't need more intellectuals. We need more people who want to be there and make a positive contribution. If 5wpm is to high a barrier for you - good - you don't want to be here bad enough.
I am a ham. I have a general class license. I passed the 13wpm exam before the requirements were dropped to 5wmp a few years ago. I just wanted to mentions a few points that no one seems to be making.
A similar rule change has been made before, and MANY MANY hams felt that it had a negative effect. Around 1989, I believe, the morse code requirement for the technication class license was removed. After that, there was a flood of bad, inconsiderate, and disrespectful new hams. Many of them were CBers who didn't want to take the time and effort to learn the code. It let in the riff raff, more Anonymous Cowards and first posters if you will.
The are several good reasons why the cw requirement should still kept after all these years. Apologies to Bruce Perens.
Think of morse code as a candle. Sure, we have lightbulbs, flashlights, glow sticks, and the sun. But, if something bad happens - the lights go out, the flashlights batteries are dead, your out of glowsticks, and its the dead of night, wouldn't it be nice to have a candle. It might be boring, plain, ugly, smelly, near useless in the modern world - but when the s*** hits the fan, you'll be glad you have it.
It is a good filter. Most people have to really give an effort to learn the code. Not all but some. I studied for a couple of weeks to pass my 5wpm test. I studied a few days for the 13wpm test. Some people claim it takes them years to learn it. Maybe, i don't know. The point is, if you want to just talk to you buddy down the street, you can get a cb for $40 at radio shack and not even think twice about a license. Think of the bad operators as spam. If you had a chance to have a really good spam filter or not, would you take it. Don't get me wrong, not all no coders are bad guys and they should have a chance to use ham radio - and they do. They can get a no code tech license and use frequencies above 30mhz. What this would change is give them frequecies priviledges below 30mhz. These frequences are special because of physics and the ozone in that they can propogate thousands of miles instead of the couple hundred of the uhf (50mhz) freqencies and above.
History. Morse code and ham radio have been together since the beginning. Its almost disrespectful in my mind to push the code to the wayside. Like putting an old dog down just because he isn't good for fetching the papers anymore.
Anyway, im fairly confident that cw will be around for a long time after its required. If i had to bet, I would say that the requirement will be dropped. I'd say at least 50 years (hopefully i'll make it to my 80th birthday)
As an aside, several people have mentioned that the written tests themselves are an appropriate filter. I disagree. All the questions that appear on every test are known in advance. I could teach my 10 year old daughter the answer to the questions without her having a clue what the questions actually mean.
As others have noted, and I agree, It most certainly was written in assembler.
And I'm sure there isn't a whole lot of personal style that makes it through from the source to the machine language - but I *guarentee* there are cases when it does.
Consider:
* The fact that it more then likely was written in assembler makes my original proposition all the more valid. It won't go through a compiler and get "standardized". Any and all little nuances will end up being in the code that everyone sees.
* It was just an silly little example it C - I could think of a dozen cases off the top of my head that would affect the machine language - preference for reversed loops, a love of function pointers, defensive bounds checks or lack thereof, always maximizing for speed, always maximizing for size, preference for an obscure factoring optimization, ad nauseum.
Not that I would ever waste my time trying to hack an X box, but I can imagine a couple of reasons why the hacker might what to hide how it worked.
The big one is that the more cryptic and obfusicaed the hack is, the less likely the vulnerabitly will be fixed in a future version because its less likely to be found and understood the the engineers trying close it. From the article, it seems as if the game already has four versions that have this hole.
But to contridict myself, the article seems to indicate the big hole is a simple buffer overflow. Easily noticed and fixed. If there are other relatively unknown hacks inside the encrypted payload, it may extend their availability and usefulness.
On the other hand, the hacker my be simply trying to hide his identity, changing her code so it doesn't seem like its in her personal style. To explain, people who write software for long enough in any arbitrary language begin to develop their own consistant style. Don't get me wrong, they do use the language's idiom to a certain extent, but usually have their own bit of flair to add to them.
Lets consider the c/c++ for loop. Here are a few ways to write it - all pretty standard.
/* first example */ int i; for (i=0; i < FOO_COUNT; i++)
DoItTo(myfoos[i]);
/* second example */ for (int index=0; index < FOO_COUNT; index++) {
DoItTo(myfoos[index]); }
/* third example, assume ok to change myfoos */ for (myfoos; myfoos != NULL; myfoos++)
DoItTo(*myfoos);
Given a large enough sample of a persons code (say the did it for a living and their employer used cvs or similar), its pretty easy to tell who wrote. After about 15-20 lines of code, I can pretty well tell which of my coworker are to blame for the latest bug. Its not a finger print, but you just need a glove size to narrow down the search.
Or, I could be completely off base. Its happened before... Once;-)
Just my $0.02
(ps, I realize that the guys fixing the hole wouldn't have the source to look at, but i would wager that enough flair gets through to the machine language)
Slashdot Mirror
The main function takes an int and char** as parameters, all the way back to K&R c. Many compiliers will barf on what you wrote.
When can I expect my check.
Thanks
I don't normally feed the trolls, but I'll make an exception in your case. I'm tired of hearing how great Java is especially compared to C#. I honestly don't know which is faster - I haven't tested them myself. But, I would guess that java, being much older then C#, has had time to do a good bit of optimization and may very well be as much as 20% to 30% faster.
But who cares?
If you need balls to the wall performance, you use C, C++ or assembly - plain and simple. It's not about performance. If it were, no one would have ever heard of Perl, Python, PHP, or Ruby. You don't need blistering speed for 99% of the apps you use in a day. And computer time is a thousand times cheaper then developer time. So unless you're writing an OS or crunching numbers speed is usually a secondary concern.
IMHO Java's only useful feature is that it has the best platform portability in computing history (although it isn't perfect). Java apps run about as well on OS X as on Linux as on Windows as on Solaris on their various hardware. That is a wonderful thing. However, Java GUIs pretty much suck on every platform.
As for C#, Ballmer had it right when he said Developers! Developers! Developers!. C# has a completely awesome IDE and a consistent and elegant language that hasn't been patched and tinkered with haphazardly a dozen times. And although I think C# is syntactically and semantically more elegant and consistent and well though out, those facts are irrelevant as well. VB didn't take the lion's share of professional software development because people loved the ascetics of the language. It was all about more easy it made a programmers job. You could do in a day in VB what would take you a week with C and the Win32 API and have fewer bugs to boot. How awesome is that. So now we have the wonderful rapid easy development environment of the VBs of yore mixed with the sugary love of consistent syntax and semantics that is the C# language.
That's what Java didn't have and doesn't have, and probably never will
DISCLAMER:
My experience is mostly based on running things in windows. I have tried Eclipse and NetBeans as recently as a couple months ago. I'm a fan of Linux and open source and tinker with Debian at home. But, I am an independent software contractor and value my time and Visual Studio kicks ass.
And remember kids, Linux is only free if your time has no value.
Daniel Carter
KC8KGU@hot?.com
?=mail
No forms at all, gtk or windows. As I said I whipped up a console (cmd line) front end just for the mono test. I should also mention that this webserver was heavily multithreaded - which is another important yardstick for the maturity and stability of their code.
About a year ago, I wrote a C# webserver that did basic authentication, cgi, and directory browsing. It had a GUI but I partitioned it so that the webserver wasn't depenent on the GUI interface. I downloaded mono, created a console front end, compiled and ran it. Flawless. I didn't have to change one single line of code in the webserver class. Thats all I need to know. (BTW, this was on a windows box.)
This has been available in VB for years. Its known as anchoring a control.
As for horrible method of gui design, I must strongly disagree with you there. I've noticed most programers actually perform better when giving the visual stimulation of looking at the GUI before writing much backend code, It helps them think through the use cases before they start to code. And you must also remember that its meant to be a rapid development tool. Its a lot easier to drag and drop and click then to type.
You my friend, are the one in complete denial. Kerry basically said that if we balence the budget and stop dipping into the fund every time a righty feels an itch to cut taxes and then still has to spend 110% of the budget, that we wont have to worry so much about it. Bush's response, on the otherhand, made so much more sense - "I say we should let everyone opt out who wants to, and then were sure to have enough in the fund." My "special" cousin could find the faulty logic in that little theorum.
Sorry, Im just fed with right wing mega-spin. Its not your parties beliefs that amaze me, its their inability to defend them logically and then have the unwashed masses follow your leaders around like their the damn pied piper.
Announcement to the poverty stricken and lower middle class: THERE ARE MORE IMPORTANT ISSUES THEN GOD, GUNS, AND GAYS!!!
That is all.
First let me say that I almost agree with you. Almost. I know you are an 20wmp extra so your feelings are not based on being unable to use the code. And let me tell you that I hardly ever use the code myself so you know exactly where I am coming from.
If there were no way to get a license without the code, I would say abolish the requirement. But, I think there are times when it is useful. I think there might be times when it could save lives. I would probably even go along with making it a requirement for the amature extra class only. But, in my opinion, it still has its merits and should be kept alive by some sort of FCC mandate. Take ADA as an example. I think the DoD made a huge mistake there. The ADA mandate helped to keep up interest and commercial investments it ADA related tools and technology. I spent six years of my life programming in ADA, and would rather be shot in the head then do it again. But, when im flying in a 737, i'm glad its ADA code and not C onboard.
Thats all I can muster. I know the requirement will go away eventually and have accepted it. It will probably fall away soon. It just saddens me. An era has passed.
And finally, let me say I appreciate everything you have done for open source community.
Daniel
First let me say I respect your opinion.
Im sorry you feel you must belong to the group before you could empathize with their situation. I have a few ham friends who are no coders. They enjoy the hobby greatly and contribute to the community. Its a shame that you *CHOOSE* not to.
I don't understand why you say the requirement has kept you from the hobby. You can receive an entry level license without learning code. As for not having an ear for the code - thats just an excuse. Unless you have a medical condition related to auditory procession, there is no reason in the world why you couldn't pick up cw at 5wpm. Heck, I taught my 8 yo stepson 10 letters in one evening. Its like programming in basic, so simple a child could do it. If I recall, you only need answer 7 out of 10 questions correctly to pass. I started out as a no code tech. On my first try at the morse code test I wasn't even planning on taking the test until I arrived at the testing location. Some other hams talked me into trying the test even though I had just learned a few letters. I got 6/10 correct with only knowing about 8 letters.
Ham radio serves two main purposes to the public at large. First, many advances in antenna, receiver, and transmitter design have be made by hams in their experimentation. Its part of our charter - to expand the art and science of radio. In fact, there are a serveral hams currently experimenting with 802.11 related technology trying to extend its pratical range through antenna design an the like. Its like radio theory R&D for the public good for FREE.
Second, it time of emergence such as natural disaster, and power outages, and what not, hams serve the community by providing reliable communication services for free, and help save many lives and large amounts of property each year. This is also part of the charter.
You choose not to support our concerns and best intrests. Thats fine, your entitled to it. But just remember, you reap what you sow. I pray you never find yourself or a member of your family in need of dire medical services when the phones are out and there is no such thing as a ham radio any more. Hope you satellite phone is charge up, and quickly found, and the satellites are still up there and functioning. In war, communication channles are among the first attacked. Ever heard of an electromagnetic pulse? Many hams I know still have vacuum tube based equipment. If knowlegde serves, tubes are unaffected by EMPs.
I like that fact you have to want to be a ham to become one. It takes a little hard work. Good. If you didnt have to have any knowledge or proficencies, then it would just be CB. Do you own a CB since you say ham radio is too hard? If anyone could transmit, the hobby would be reduced to nothing more then a wireless internet chatroom.
As for my license, im proud of having my callsign. For myself, and for many other hams, the pride in my license is that I received my general class ticket with a 13wpm code test - not without. That is I passed the test before they dropped the requirements to 5wpm. I did something that many claim is too hard or impossible for them. I can do something something that less than about 0.1% of the population of the US can do. Is it an intellectual acomplishment? No. Ham radio doesn't need more intellectuals. We need more people who want to be there and make a positive contribution. If 5wpm is to high a barrier for you - good - you don't want to be here bad enough.
A similar rule change has been made before, and MANY MANY hams felt that it had a negative effect. Around 1989, I believe, the morse code requirement for the technication class license was removed. After that, there was a flood of bad, inconsiderate, and disrespectful new hams. Many of them were CBers who didn't want to take the time and effort to learn the code. It let in the riff raff, more Anonymous Cowards and first posters if you will.
The are several good reasons why the cw requirement should still kept after all these years. Apologies to Bruce Perens.
Think of morse code as a candle. Sure, we have lightbulbs, flashlights, glow sticks, and the sun. But, if something bad happens - the lights go out, the flashlights batteries are dead, your out of glowsticks, and its the dead of night, wouldn't it be nice to have a candle. It might be boring, plain, ugly, smelly, near useless in the modern world - but when the s*** hits the fan, you'll be glad you have it.
It is a good filter. Most people have to really give an effort to learn the code. Not all but some. I studied for a couple of weeks to pass my 5wpm test. I studied a few days for the 13wpm test. Some people claim it takes them years to learn it. Maybe, i don't know. The point is, if you want to just talk to you buddy down the street, you can get a cb for $40 at radio shack and not even think twice about a license. Think of the bad operators as spam. If you had a chance to have a really good spam filter or not, would you take it. Don't get me wrong, not all no coders are bad guys and they should have a chance to use ham radio - and they do. They can get a no code tech license and use frequencies above 30mhz. What this would change is give them frequecies priviledges below 30mhz. These frequences are special because of physics and the ozone in that they can propogate thousands of miles instead of the couple hundred of the uhf (50mhz) freqencies and above.
History. Morse code and ham radio have been together since the beginning. Its almost disrespectful in my mind to push the code to the wayside. Like putting an old dog down just because he isn't good for fetching the papers anymore.
Anyway, im fairly confident that cw will be around for a long time after its required. If i had to bet, I would say that the requirement will be dropped. I'd say at least 50 years (hopefully i'll make it to my 80th birthday)
As an aside, several people have mentioned that the written tests themselves are an appropriate filter. I disagree. All the questions that appear on every test are known in advance. I could teach my 10 year old daughter the answer to the questions without her having a clue what the questions actually mean.
A few points:
As others have noted, and I agree, It most certainly was written in assembler.
And I'm sure there isn't a whole lot of personal style that makes it through from the source to the machine language - but I *guarentee* there are cases when it does.
Consider:
* The fact that it more then likely was written in assembler makes my original proposition all the more valid. It won't go through a compiler and get "standardized". Any and all little nuances will end up being in the code that everyone sees.
* It was just an silly little example it C - I could think of a dozen cases off the top of my head that would affect the machine language - preference for reversed loops, a love of function pointers, defensive bounds checks or lack thereof, always maximizing for speed, always maximizing for size, preference for an obscure factoring optimization, ad nauseum.
QED
The big one is that the more cryptic and obfusicaed the hack is, the less likely the vulnerabitly will be fixed in a future version because its less likely to be found and understood the the engineers trying close it. From the article, it seems as if the game already has four versions that have this hole.
But to contridict myself, the article seems to indicate the big hole is a simple buffer overflow. Easily noticed and fixed. If there are other relatively unknown hacks inside the encrypted payload, it may extend their availability and usefulness.
On the other hand, the hacker my be simply trying to hide his identity, changing her code so it doesn't seem like its in her personal style. To explain, people who write software for long enough in any arbitrary language begin to develop their own consistant style. Don't get me wrong, they do use the language's idiom to a certain extent, but usually have their own bit of flair to add to them.
Lets consider the c/c++ for loop. Here are a few ways to write it - all pretty standard.Given a large enough sample of a persons code (say the did it for a living and their employer used cvs or similar), its pretty easy to tell who wrote. After about 15-20 lines of code, I can pretty well tell which of my coworker are to blame for the latest bug. Its not a finger print, but you just need a glove size to narrow down the search.
Or, I could be completely off base. Its happened before... Once
Just my $0.02
(ps, I realize that the guys fixing the hole wouldn't have the source to look at, but i would wager that enough flair gets through to the machine language)