Good comment. The problem I have is that I did graduation work on parallel, shared memory systems 1971! It was of ( still classified? ) shell sorting parallel machines to process the radar data coming in. It had to be parallel, computers at that time were not fast enough otherwise. 128 ( or more, I never found out ) processors sharing the load coming in, sorting / filtering / transforming it and giving it to the backend. Now, of course 70's vector processors did a lot same kind tasks, just even faster, weird?
"It is possible to have good brainstorming sessions." I agree to that. Now, after 35+ years in business and thinking back to all the succesful projects / products, they all came out of brainstorming. Sometimes it was me proposing how and what, sometimes someone else but always a group working together. And then weekly status meetings like 15 minutes ( or preferably a beer bust on Friday ) just to follow up and/or change small things but never the whole project. Of course projects sometimes got canceled for external reasons but never for inefficiency or internal problems. I think the secret of that is that we either do it or we don't - kind of agile before it's time. This is the luxury ( I have been mostly lucky ) when you have a management that supports his/her people instead of own agenda. The ( higher ) managers are always welcome to brainstorming if they have something to contribute but they have to follow same "brainsorming" rules anybody else, no exceptions, they are there as resource, not to dictate anything. And to the other answeres to the parent - this is not a theory, it is hard, cold fact that intelligent project / process works. It is the people who either make or break it.
Maybe OT but so true.. Just came home from work, someone asked me to write a test program for our product. So - 1h with Delphi ( works in Wine perfectly and compiles in Kylix for Linux people ) and I had a test performance program emulating 5000+ ( any number IP addresses.. ) terminals through raw sockets ( you build the headers.. ) creating tunneled test traffic and keeping statistics/timings/random test patterns/,, Now - the product doesn't do much except route the requests / replies, etc.. --- My 2.4GHz dual system is ~2% busy when the product running in a decent size IBM / AIX system tops 100%, 110tx / sec ( not bad BUT..) So - it is the sad truth, we do need faster programs !! It is not difficult, just KISS ! But unfortunately I have heard that faster HW solves the problem, what!!, 35+ years in this busines and never seen it - still waiting.. Now, of course as so many have said, this technology is ( at least ) not yet valid for faster computers but for digital processing ( big difference. ) Anyway - I think that the SW skills have somehow gone "a little" down lately - just IMHO.. And, of course, this is OT..
I love F1, so.. How this can happem ? I would understand any of these DOD realtime system providers for fighter planes, etc.. but MS ? They have no experience of this types of systems. They have a lot of bright people,etc.. but it takes time to understand (realtime)systems where you can not make even one mistake. And - as far as I know, none of the current Windows flawors is realtime ( anybody? ). Scary, I hope they can make it.
By experience. You get experience by trying it, be it on work, home, user groups, etc.. Belive me - I'm as familiar with AIX, HP-UX, Solaris, Linux as with EXEC8, MVS, OS/Z or 390, VM, GCOS, Guardian, etc.. or DOS ( the PC version ), Windows, PSOS, other "toy" systems.. because I got the basic training on computer/system architecture from IBM. So as far as I know - for Unix LISA is a good start, first year just listen, second year figure out some questions, third year you may be able to help some new people coming to Unix - same with any system / architecture. Actually much faster than taking some university courses, nothing against that but.. The difference is that dealing with real world you don't have those 2-nnn number of years just to learn one thing. I still miss the two-three week 24h/day intensive/internate training IBM used to have. Hard but if you can do that you will have very good basics. Sadly - I don't see that kind of training offered much today.
Very insightful (IMHO). This is a technical problem ( or not so much a problem, check IBM VM over years. ) and whatever MS is but they are not short of very talented people ( on technical level, I don't say anything about management.. ) So - once Bill puts his focus on virtualization and gives the right people the task I think VMWare has a fight. Now - of course, they have started very well, I just hope that they continue that way, not all bright architects live in MS ( or IBM ) world. And I run Linux and Xen when I develope in Delphi the HA communication/roaming/transaction/store&forward/ne twork management systems to support.NET / C# applications on win2K3 servers ( or next in Linux Mono ) interfacing AIX wireless servers ( had to say that - heh ! ) Why - SPEED, RELIABILITY, EASY TO DEVELOPE, and so on..... have a nice day.
I belive that.. ( used to work for banks, stocks, insurance ( even more paranoid of money. ) in 70's-80's ) My problem with security is now when I'm just a user of those systems - nothing has changed or maybe gone even worse ? We solved many of these (kinds of) problems in 70's and now they pop up again ? Bad training ? Forgetting the history ? Our security checks in 75 found the computers / terminals safe ( belive me, try to break to a CICS, IMS, PATHWAY, whatever system.. ) - BUT trashcans were full of highly confidential documents - go figure? No laptops to steal but briefcases full of contracts, loan papers, investment plans, etc. were lost - no change ? Now working in homeland security - scary !! None of the financial institutions would even look these system - they would loose their money in a second but gov/state/etc.. are happy - weird again ?? On other hand - after my long carier I ( slowly ) start understanding that nobody likes easy solutions, no glory, no fame, plah. plah. plah.. So - happily collecting my decent paycheck ( and trying to tell kids, don't do that - except if you want to be rich.. )
Too bad not too many get this - funny. I have been in UK a couple of times and love it. Can't always understand ( I'm a finn living in US who has no grasp of different english dialects but.. ) Slough was a little difficult, from Brighton through London to Leicester not too bad.. Of topic, I know, but I don't think that the coal miners in Leicester pubs or dock workers in London pubs or even the horse race people in Brighton care much except have very funny comments ( love them for that.) A rethorical question - why doesnt't the rest of the world have Brittish humor, we could avoid a lot conflicts that way ( political, financial, personal, etc.. IMHO ) ( it only takes a couple of hunders of years to get that.. ) have a nice day..
Just tired but after 35+ years programming.. Forget the languages, easy. Try to get some idea what ( and how ) you want to do. Yes - different languages have different schematics - and that's all. The language really isn't the the problem, how and what is (IMHO ). Maybe it is just me but I see no difference in any dialect ( a language term ) except one is more suitable for the task in hand than some other. You can do all you want in 'C' or in COBOL or Python or FORTRAN or DELPHI or C# or REXX or TK/TCL or plain old assembler or... ( and even in VB. ) Actually a memory address calculation in COBOL is easier than decimal arithmetic in 'C' ( think financial applications, money! ) or that FORTRAN compiler generates much more efficient code for cluster / parallel systems than any other or that LISP is a perfect solution when you need a flexible system that can bootstrap itself - so, it really depends what you want, how fast, and.. - now the problem today is if it can be supported, not too many people know APL, TAL, BAL, Prolog,... ask about SNOBOL, RGP or if you go to modeling, how about SIMULA ( OO anybody ? ) So - SQL is easy if you know relational algebra, HTML is just a presentation, Javascript is ???, and so on. Unfortunately ( IMHO ) most coding has gone how to use API, not how to solve a problem. Once you learn how to solve a problem the language really can be whatever you select or in worst case whatever you are required to use. So have fun - I have had ( and still do! most of the time.. ) But don't forget - coding is like a data entry or a ghost writer job - someone else tells you what to do. Maybe not what you want in future. Nothing against the very skilled people doing those jobs ( under rated IMHO ) but not for me, hown about you ?
Actually most of the answers are good - it depends! I would define it ( as many alreay ) to be able to use a computer to whatever tasks they have been assigned to do - period. The problem (IMHO) is that in todays world the HR or whatever are making the definitions. I was tempted to seek a CIO job where the most important skill was MS Project ( $500K/year + bonus promised.. ) Can you believe that ? Of course after 35+ years working on computers / systems / networks / installations I know that any secretary types faster than I so I didn't ! Now - this question is really different in/. world - how many knows how the disk controller reorders the requests and when, what is the difference between byte and bit multiplexing on channel, why and how to reorder the execution order on pipeline, why you code account numbers in 2's completemente in SQL database, why and when you access sequentially and filter your queries instead of using keys, why you optimize mtu's based on your latency calculations on a network, why you find the customer network configuration BEFORE you go installing your system in that, and so on.. So (IMHO again) we should forget terms like "computer literate" and start defining what the real thing is. The downside - a lot of HR and middle management people would be out of work - bad thing ??
My neighbor has been nice to share his GM truck ( the work of love and art ) with me a couple of times and SEE - thousands loosing jobs. We must stopt that criminal / terrorist act before anyone catches us. It must be worth of more than two years in jail..
"The US government normally does not insure launches." Maybe today ( I wouldn't know ) but I can tell that they used to - the insurance company I used to work did end up paying A LOT - "a software glitch" ( I love the term !! - e.g. a management fuck up !! ) caused us to take too big chunk of a shared insurance ( a normal routine ) and the rocket blew up. Actually used to be profitable insurances but as I said, it's years ago..
A very good and important question (IMHO) because nobody knows everything. Unfortunately many corporations don't like the idea of sharing, they don't trust their own employes(?) and you can't just go to any of these meetings, seminars, etc.. without sharing. Not sharing your business secrets but your experience! Enough of that - I would say it depends, for a coder the peer and Google may be enough, for a programmer I would recommend LUGs, TUGs, SHARE, SUN and other user groups and for a developer IEEE, MOMS, ACM, SHARE, E3 and any possible seminars where you can start networking, you will find your peers! Of course - if you code games, get to know gamers, if you code stock transactions, get to know stock trading, if you code insurance applications, get to know insurance business, etc.. The business has user groups also, they may not speak 'C' but the information will be invaluable.
Who are they kidding ? I just bought AMD 64 X2 at the price it takes to upgrade one Dell to dual core / processor ? Actually I bought two, upgraded memory on each to 2GB, added 6800GS to both, added 300GB to one of them ( 550GB together ) and I'm still under one Dell with comparable configuration? Dell servers can be nice, got very nice deals on those but desktops/workstations? Maybe their laptop - haven't tried one for a while. I just hope to get one to run Linux ( and VMWare, whatever for virtual machines, have to use Windows sometimes ).
I should have been more clear - actually Delphi ( I'm using version 4 for reasons.. ) natively doesn't support 64bit but because Windows has 64bit API available for I/O I can use it with no changes to the language - this is the part I like in Delphi a lot. Some memory mapped files I was using did need to grow from 0.5GB to some 9-12GB ( number of users did go from 1500 to 10K+ and so on ), no problem, replace the mapping with real 64bit I/O. Fast, clean and easy change even in very old version of Delphi. And it still works under Wine. I didn't know that Wine has support for some of those APIs or am I just lucky ?
How is this troll ?? Sorry - have used both VB and Delphi from day one and Delphi is way ahead. And the benefit - see who made Delphi and who is now creating C# in MS. Now - if Kylix would be there - I need something for Linux ( and other Unix type enviroment especially AIX ) that would be perfect. Also - in Delphi you can write very fast low level code, try that in VB. The funny thing - the Delphi version 4 using most of the windows tricks ( win32 API ) runs very nicely under Wine. It uses 64bit file access by the way, it uses memory mapped files, it has n+1 threading based on dynamic configuration. Wine has gone a long way. And of course in Delphi any screen ( native and HTTP ) is just drawing - take a look amount of the code you need for that in other systems ( almost brings to my mind the days of Motif / X coding.. )
59 and still "programming", %30/70 programming/design today. Languages - there must be some I don't have to use but just can't think one - ADA or Haskell or not much Ruby or ??? There seems to be a small confusion who is a developer (a developer of what?), a programmer, an analyst, a systems programmer, a software engineer (a term I don't understand?), and so on and the computer languages ? Maybe most of current developers haven't heard of languages like Algol (see Burroughs and operating systems) and it's derivates, like Simula, or LISP or PL/S or APL, ( just mainstream.. ) whatever. Or maybe it is not widely known that first multiprocessor systems came at the time current 40 year old were born ? And some had OS coded in Cobol, running perfectly 10+ years without reboot ? Or that relative databases existed/were used before SQL ? Or that virtual machines, multi-tasking ( not to be confused to threading, etc.. ), virtual addressing and networks, etc.. were every day life for developers and systems programmers a long time ago. Actually - at that time, if you only knew Cobol or PL/I, etc.. in business environments you were called a programmer, not a developer. If you did Fortran you were either an engineer or statistican, some economists. Writing assembler, PL/S ( and variants ) and you propably were either a developer ( OS, I/O systems, microcode, controllers, etc.. ) or a systems programmer in some decent size installation who had to know most of everything.
A very good question (IMHO) and I know "something" about IPv6. Now, of course, if that estimate is like many other I have seen in government/corporation contarcs, like $1 million modem programs, $2 million for simple SQL queries, and so on, it may even be a low estimate. I have real problems with companies billing millions of standard UDP/TCP/IP, encryption, compress, etc interfaces. But what do I know - I just write those as slow and as complicated as I'm told. IPv6 is not "rocket sciense" but a rather well defined protocoll which, amazingly, works with IPv4.
Can't resist - I hope none ! Or we will see even more fat ( and slow ) players scratching their other enlarged organs on the field. No - I'm not a baseball fan, not even in sports, but I like actions if it is the right kind like tactical skills, speed, even strength and endurance. Scratching your body parts and spitting are not my favorites, different people, different tastes maybe?
Hi - thanks. I agree but I am lazy and have other things to do today. I also used to remember not just my passwords but N number of others when I was a systems programmer and/or contractor responsible of thousands of applications used in many systems by X number of departments / organizations. Today I'm a developer / analyst / user of the IT systems / etc.. - and it is a real pain. And you are right, we are too dependent on computers and excuses but there are only so many hours in a day and if the IT has some insane change password intervals instead of secure key devices ( I have some of those to access my customer sites ) I will waste the company time / my own time managing passwords instead of doing my work. Fortunately I'm paid to do that so not too much a problem.
Well said. It is in the law in most countiers also ( as far as I know.. ). And it is as it should be - at least then there will be some cool heads behind the action. For two reasons, the "worst" pacifists seem to be in Army - suits me well and leave the action to professionals.
A question - do you just audit or do you make recommendations ? Anybody (almost) can make an audit but I wouldn't pay a cent if there would be no recommendations how to make things work AND to back it up with some results. Sorry - used to be a customer but a difficult one.
A good comment! Isn't it called authorization ? Any and all the systems I have designed require also application authorization top of the user authentication / authorization + network authentication / authorization, device authentication / authorization and the locality, i.e. where you are and what you can do there.. Kind of secure - if anything is and very easy to do.
Please - not funny.. There is no way in the world that a ( normal ) person can remember all the passwords needed today ( not even me after 30+ years with computers ). I have to have over one hudred passwords to different systems - how can I remember those ? One way, not very secure but.., I have those on my secure USB stick and backed up on my own system protected with strong password / encryption but if the main security methods are broken - you will get them all ! Passwords are a bad way to secure anything, yes, part of security but there must be more. I still think that the best (easy) way to authenticate is what you have, what you like, where you are, and so on - i.e. personal things, not just an artifical word. It also has other benefits like where you are - in London you are allowed to print on a printer next to you but nowhere else, in N.Y. you are not allowed to print anything, in your local office you can use printers in your floor, etc.. Also - in finacial world - your transaction in Hongkong is not allowed to use that bank account or maybe it is allowed but alerts an investication, be careful ! So - the question of passwords and security is not that simple, we did catch a lot of people when I was doing that kind of work.
And you don't believe in how many languages. I used to support some installations in many countries - most of the the manager passwords ( on whatever level ) used to be manager in local language - go figure ?? Made my life easier (LOL) - we are human after all ( even managers? )
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Good comment. The problem I have is that I did graduation work on parallel, shared memory systems 1971! It was of ( still classified? ) shell sorting parallel machines to process the radar data coming in. It had to be parallel, computers at that time were not fast enough otherwise. 128 ( or more, I never found out ) processors sharing the load coming in, sorting / filtering / transforming it and giving it to the backend. Now, of course 70's vector processors did a lot same kind tasks, just even faster, weird?
"It is possible to have good brainstorming sessions." I agree to that. Now, after 35+ years in business and thinking back to all the succesful projects / products, they all came out of brainstorming. Sometimes it was me proposing how and what, sometimes someone else but always a group working together. And then weekly status meetings like 15 minutes ( or preferably a beer bust on Friday ) just to follow up and/or change small things but never the whole project. Of course projects sometimes got canceled for external reasons but never for inefficiency or internal problems. I think the secret of that is that we either do it or we don't - kind of agile before it's time. This is the luxury ( I have been mostly lucky ) when you have a management that supports his/her people instead of own agenda. The ( higher ) managers are always welcome to brainstorming if they have something to contribute but they have to follow same "brainsorming" rules anybody else, no exceptions, they are there as resource, not to dictate anything. And to the other answeres to the parent - this is not a theory, it is hard, cold fact that intelligent project / process works. It is the people who either make or break it.
Maybe OT but so true.. Just came home from work, someone asked me to write a test program for our product. So - 1h with Delphi ( works in Wine perfectly and compiles in Kylix for Linux people ) and I had a test performance program emulating 5000+ ( any number IP addresses.. ) terminals through raw sockets ( you build the headers.. ) creating tunneled test traffic and keeping statistics/timings/random test patterns/,, Now - the product doesn't do much except route the requests / replies, etc.. --- My 2.4GHz dual system is ~2% busy when the product running in a decent size IBM / AIX system tops 100%, 110tx / sec ( not bad BUT..) So - it is the sad truth, we do need faster programs !! It is not difficult, just KISS ! But unfortunately I have heard that faster HW solves the problem, what!!, 35+ years in this busines and never seen it - still waiting..
Now, of course as so many have said, this technology is ( at least ) not yet valid for faster computers but for digital processing ( big difference. ) Anyway - I think that the SW skills have somehow gone "a little" down lately - just IMHO.. And, of course, this is OT..
I love F1, so.. How this can happem ? I would understand any of these DOD realtime system providers for fighter planes, etc.. but MS ? They have no experience of this types of systems. They have a lot of bright people,etc.. but it takes time to understand (realtime)systems where you can not make even one mistake. And - as far as I know, none of the current Windows flawors is realtime ( anybody? ). Scary, I hope they can make it.
By experience. You get experience by trying it, be it on work, home, user groups, etc.. Belive me - I'm as familiar with AIX, HP-UX, Solaris, Linux as with EXEC8, MVS, OS/Z or 390, VM, GCOS, Guardian, etc.. or DOS ( the PC version ), Windows, PSOS, other "toy" systems.. because I got the basic training on computer/system architecture from IBM. So as far as I know - for Unix LISA is a good start, first year just listen, second year figure out some questions, third year you may be able to help some new people coming to Unix - same with any system / architecture. Actually much faster than taking some university courses, nothing against that but.. The difference is that dealing with real world you don't have those 2-nnn number of years just to learn one thing. I still miss the two-three week 24h/day intensive/internate training IBM used to have. Hard but if you can do that you will have very good basics. Sadly - I don't see that kind of training offered much today.
Very insightful (IMHO). This is a technical problem ( or not so much a problem, check IBM VM over years. ) and whatever MS is but they are not short of very talented people ( on technical level, I don't say anything about management.. ) So - once Bill puts his focus on virtualization and gives the right people the task I think VMWare has a fight. Now - of course, they have started very well, I just hope that they continue that way, not all bright architects live in MS ( or IBM ) world. And I run Linux and Xen when I develope in Delphi the HA communication/roaming/transaction/store&forward/ne twork management systems to support .NET / C# applications on win2K3 servers ( or next in Linux Mono ) interfacing AIX wireless servers ( had to say that - heh ! ) Why - SPEED, RELIABILITY, EASY TO DEVELOPE, and so on..... have a nice day.
I belive that.. ( used to work for banks, stocks, insurance ( even more paranoid of money. ) in 70's-80's ) My problem with security is now when I'm just a user of those systems - nothing has changed or maybe gone even worse ? We solved many of these (kinds of) problems in 70's and now they pop up again ? Bad training ? Forgetting the history ? Our security checks in 75 found the computers / terminals safe ( belive me, try to break to a CICS, IMS, PATHWAY, whatever system.. ) - BUT trashcans were full of highly confidential documents - go figure? No laptops to steal but briefcases full of contracts, loan papers, investment plans, etc. were lost - no change ? Now working in homeland security - scary !! None of the financial institutions would even look these system - they would loose their money in a second but gov/state/etc.. are happy - weird again ?? On other hand - after my long carier I ( slowly ) start understanding that nobody likes easy solutions, no glory, no fame, plah. plah. plah.. So - happily collecting my decent paycheck ( and trying to tell kids, don't do that - except if you want to be rich.. )
Too bad not too many get this - funny. I have been in UK a couple of times and love it. Can't always understand ( I'm a finn living in US who has no grasp of different english dialects but.. ) Slough was a little difficult, from Brighton through London to Leicester not too bad.. Of topic, I know, but I don't think that the coal miners in Leicester pubs or dock workers in London pubs or even the horse race people in Brighton care much except have very funny comments ( love them for that.) A rethorical question - why doesnt't the rest of the world have Brittish humor, we could avoid a lot conflicts that way ( political, financial, personal, etc.. IMHO ) ( it only takes a couple of hunders of years to get that.. ) have a nice day..
Just tired but after 35+ years programming.. Forget the languages, easy. Try to get some idea what ( and how ) you want to do. Yes - different languages have different schematics - and that's all. The language really isn't the the problem, how and what is (IMHO ). Maybe it is just me but I see no difference in any dialect ( a language term ) except one is more suitable for the task in hand than some other. You can do all you want in 'C' or in COBOL or Python or FORTRAN or DELPHI or C# or REXX or TK/TCL or plain old assembler or ... ( and even in VB. ) Actually a memory address calculation in COBOL is easier than decimal arithmetic in 'C' ( think financial applications, money! ) or that FORTRAN compiler generates much more efficient code for cluster / parallel systems than any other or that LISP is a perfect solution when you need a flexible system that can bootstrap itself - so, it really depends what you want, how fast, and .. - now the problem today is if it can be supported, not too many people know APL, TAL, BAL, Prolog, ... ask about SNOBOL, RGP or if you go to modeling, how about SIMULA ( OO anybody ? ) So - SQL is easy if you know relational algebra, HTML is just a presentation, Javascript is ???, and so on. Unfortunately ( IMHO ) most coding has gone how to use API, not how to solve a problem. Once you learn how to solve a problem the language really can be whatever you select or in worst case whatever you are required to use. So have fun - I have had ( and still do! most of the time.. ) But don't forget - coding is like a data entry or a ghost writer job - someone else tells you what to do. Maybe not what you want in future. Nothing against the very skilled people doing those jobs ( under rated IMHO ) but not for me, hown about you ?
Actually most of the answers are good - it depends! I would define it ( as many alreay ) to be able to use a computer to whatever tasks they have been assigned to do - period. The problem (IMHO) is that in todays world the HR or whatever are making the definitions. I was tempted to seek a CIO job where the most important skill was MS Project ( $500K/year + bonus promised.. ) Can you believe that ? Of course after 35+ years working on computers / systems / networks / installations I know that any secretary types faster than I so I didn't ! Now - this question is really different in /. world - how many knows how the disk controller reorders the requests and when, what is the difference between byte and bit multiplexing on channel, why and how to reorder the execution order on pipeline, why you code account numbers in 2's completemente in SQL database, why and when you access sequentially and filter your queries instead of using keys, why you optimize mtu's based on your latency calculations on a network, why you find the customer network configuration BEFORE you go installing your system in that, and so on.. So (IMHO again) we should forget terms like "computer literate" and start defining what the real thing is. The downside - a lot of HR and middle management people would be out of work - bad thing ??
My neighbor has been nice to share his GM truck ( the work of love and art ) with me a couple of times and SEE - thousands loosing jobs. We must stopt that criminal / terrorist act before anyone catches us. It must be worth of more than two years in jail..
"The US government normally does not insure launches." Maybe today ( I wouldn't know ) but I can tell that they used to - the insurance company I used to work did end up paying A LOT - "a software glitch" ( I love the term !! - e.g. a management fuck up !! ) caused us to take too big chunk of a shared insurance ( a normal routine ) and the rocket blew up. Actually used to be profitable insurances but as I said, it's years ago..
A very good and important question (IMHO) because nobody knows everything. Unfortunately many corporations don't like the idea of sharing, they don't trust their own employes(?) and you can't just go to any of these meetings, seminars, etc.. without sharing. Not sharing your business secrets but your experience! Enough of that - I would say it depends, for a coder the peer and Google may be enough, for a programmer I would recommend LUGs, TUGs, SHARE, SUN and other user groups and for a developer IEEE, MOMS, ACM, SHARE, E3 and any possible seminars where you can start networking, you will find your peers! Of course - if you code games, get to know gamers, if you code stock transactions, get to know stock trading, if you code insurance applications, get to know insurance business, etc.. The business has user groups also, they may not speak 'C' but the information will be invaluable.
Who are they kidding ? I just bought AMD 64 X2 at the price it takes to upgrade one Dell to dual core / processor ? Actually I bought two, upgraded memory on each to 2GB, added 6800GS to both, added 300GB to one of them ( 550GB together ) and I'm still under one Dell with comparable configuration? Dell servers can be nice, got very nice deals on those but desktops/workstations? Maybe their laptop - haven't tried one for a while. I just hope to get one to run Linux ( and VMWare, whatever for virtual machines, have to use Windows sometimes ).
I should have been more clear - actually Delphi ( I'm using version 4 for reasons.. ) natively doesn't support 64bit but because Windows has 64bit API available for I/O I can use it with no changes to the language - this is the part I like in Delphi a lot. Some memory mapped files I was using did need to grow from 0.5GB to some 9-12GB ( number of users did go from 1500 to 10K+ and so on ), no problem, replace the mapping with real 64bit I/O. Fast, clean and easy change even in very old version of Delphi. And it still works under Wine. I didn't know that Wine has support for some of those APIs or am I just lucky ?
How is this troll ?? Sorry - have used both VB and Delphi from day one and Delphi is way ahead. And the benefit - see who made Delphi and who is now creating C# in MS. Now - if Kylix would be there - I need something for Linux ( and other Unix type enviroment especially AIX ) that would be perfect. Also - in Delphi you can write very fast low level code, try that in VB. The funny thing - the Delphi version 4 using most of the windows tricks ( win32 API ) runs very nicely under Wine. It uses 64bit file access by the way, it uses memory mapped files, it has n+1 threading based on dynamic configuration. Wine has gone a long way. And of course in Delphi any screen ( native and HTTP ) is just drawing - take a look amount of the code you need for that in other systems ( almost brings to my mind the days of Motif / X coding.. )
59 and still "programming", %30/70 programming/design today. Languages - there must be some I don't have to use but just can't think one - ADA or Haskell or not much Ruby or ??? There seems to be a small confusion who is a developer (a developer of what?), a programmer, an analyst, a systems programmer, a software engineer (a term I don't understand?), and so on and the computer languages ? Maybe most of current developers haven't heard of languages like Algol (see Burroughs and operating systems) and it's derivates, like Simula, or LISP or PL/S or APL, ( just mainstream.. ) whatever. Or maybe it is not widely known that first multiprocessor systems came at the time current 40 year old were born ? And some had OS coded in Cobol, running perfectly 10+ years without reboot ? Or that relative databases existed/were used before SQL ? Or that virtual machines, multi-tasking ( not to be confused to threading, etc.. ), virtual addressing and networks, etc.. were every day life for developers and systems programmers a long time ago. Actually - at that time, if you only knew Cobol or PL/I, etc.. in business environments you were called a programmer, not a developer. If you did Fortran you were either an engineer or statistican, some economists. Writing assembler, PL/S ( and variants ) and you propably were either a developer ( OS, I/O systems, microcode, controllers, etc.. ) or a systems programmer in some decent size installation who had to know most of everything.
A very good question (IMHO) and I know "something" about IPv6. Now, of course, if that estimate is like many other I have seen in government/corporation contarcs, like $1 million modem programs, $2 million for simple SQL queries, and so on, it may even be a low estimate. I have real problems with companies billing millions of standard UDP/TCP/IP, encryption, compress, etc interfaces. But what do I know - I just write those as slow and as complicated as I'm told. IPv6 is not "rocket sciense" but a rather well defined protocoll which, amazingly, works with IPv4.
Can't resist - I hope none ! Or we will see even more fat ( and slow ) players scratching their other enlarged organs on the field. No - I'm not a baseball fan, not even in sports, but I like actions if it is the right kind like tactical skills, speed, even strength and endurance. Scratching your body parts and spitting are not my favorites, different people, different tastes maybe?
Hi - thanks. I agree but I am lazy and have other things to do today. I also used to remember not just my passwords but N number of others when I was a systems programmer and/or contractor responsible of thousands of applications used in many systems by X number of departments / organizations. Today I'm a developer / analyst / user of the IT systems / etc.. - and it is a real pain. And you are right, we are too dependent on computers and excuses but there are only so many hours in a day and if the IT has some insane change password intervals instead of secure key devices ( I have some of those to access my customer sites ) I will waste the company time / my own time managing passwords instead of doing my work. Fortunately I'm paid to do that so not too much a problem.
Well said. It is in the law in most countiers also ( as far as I know.. ). And it is as it should be - at least then there will be some cool heads behind the action. For two reasons, the "worst" pacifists seem to be in Army - suits me well and leave the action to professionals.
A question - do you just audit or do you make recommendations ? Anybody (almost) can make an audit but I wouldn't pay a cent if there would be no recommendations how to make things work AND to back it up with some results. Sorry - used to be a customer but a difficult one.
A good comment! Isn't it called authorization ? Any and all the systems I have designed require also application authorization top of the user authentication / authorization + network authentication / authorization, device authentication / authorization and the locality, i.e. where you are and what you can do there.. Kind of secure - if anything is and very easy to do.
Please - not funny.. There is no way in the world that a ( normal ) person can remember all the passwords needed today ( not even me after 30+ years with computers ). I have to have over one hudred passwords to different systems - how can I remember those ? One way, not very secure but.., I have those on my secure USB stick and backed up on my own system protected with strong password / encryption but if the main security methods are broken - you will get them all ! Passwords are a bad way to secure anything, yes, part of security but there must be more. I still think that the best (easy) way to authenticate is what you have, what you like, where you are, and so on - i.e. personal things, not just an artifical word. It also has other benefits like where you are - in London you are allowed to print on a printer next to you but nowhere else, in N.Y. you are not allowed to print anything, in your local office you can use printers in your floor, etc.. Also - in finacial world - your transaction in Hongkong is not allowed to use that bank account or maybe it is allowed but alerts an investication, be careful ! So - the question of passwords and security is not that simple, we did catch a lot of people when I was doing that kind of work.
And you don't believe in how many languages. I used to support some installations in many countries - most of the the manager passwords ( on whatever level ) used to be manager in local language - go figure ?? Made my life easier (LOL) - we are human after all ( even managers? )