You can codify writing like Heinlein, Herbert, Dickens and Rand.
No matter how many average writers you put together in a room, you won't end up with the Dune saga.
Complexity is the enemy of elegance and power.
C, Lisp, python are so popular because they are elegant, simple, and thus powerful.
It's not its complexity that makes a system great, it's its simplicity.
Likewise Shakespeare.
>Coding is not an art. It's a science. No matter how good the code is, it can be taken apart and understood by others.
Likewise Shakespeare, Heinlein, Asimov, etc. Yet still art. Because while you can reduce it to 26 + punctuation, it's the organization in time and space that makes them unique.
Great code just works, and nobody needs to go back and fix it later, because it's never going to be broken.
If it needs to be modified, you say.
I reply, why?
Because it no longer performs the needed business function you say.
I ask: And that means its broken?
You say: No, it means it needs to do something else.
I Reply: You mean, a different function?
Exactly, you beam.
I counter: Follow the Unix Way: Each program does one thing: What you need is another program.
Red Hat makes money because they license their enterprise offering. They don't make it available for free.
And they got a lot of flak for that, which is why they're not the darling of the open-source community they used to be.
And not very many people are out contibuting to their distro. Hardcore hackers have moved on, which means they are developing in-house, which is unsustainable, because you can't pay the best programmers to work for you, so your product stagnates. I say IBM is going to buy them.
Just because your manager and the junior asp programmer can't understand the code and your explanation of the code does not mean it's not perfect for the job.
If you want to make your boss happy, code something so wicked that it is already done by the time the design specs are out, so simple that it fits on a piece of paper, and so robust that its uptime will outlast you.
Anything else, and you're not good enough as a programmer, so you'd better learn, and stick to the design docs. Remember the Unix Way.
Do you think my boss understands SSL? or MD5? Should I not use them then?
Beside the fact that you post as AC, which is most reprehensible, you should then be content to hear that f-16 computer code will never be cheap, simple, elegant, and developed quickly. In short: J2EE with session EJBs or some awful monstrosity from the Sir Redmond's bestiary.
It's like english. You know, the annotated book because the author really went all out and the reader has no fucking clue:
Ye whimsical faerie of yore Whence came thee upon me? Forlorn sit I stilled, Prey to thy designs.
Now, the author wrote about his helplessness at dealing with his past.
Just because you can't understand what he said does not mean he should not have said it. Perhaps it is the skill of the reader that must rise to match that of the author?
Perhaps it should be rewritten like this:
Memories from a hidden place make me sad?
Still too poetic, less descriptive?
How about: I am saddened by a memory.
You can make good code go bad by writing for the least common denominator in your organization (always the worst programmers)
Managers: You can raise code quality by letting go your bad coders. Not because they won't be writing bad code, but because the other coders will be able to write more powerful code.
The idea is that great code resembles a picasso more than a f-16 fighter.
Picasso could not tell people how he did it, or rather people could not understand picasso's explanation.
An F-16 fighter, however, given enough years of schooling, could be explaned in great detail to anyone. This is why, although incredibly complex, there are thousands of F-16s out there. Yet there are only Picasso's picassos.
Likewise a great coder can't really explain how he wrote the great code. He just could. You can see the result, admire it, copy it even. But to apply the same "creative process" to a different problem, you'd have to be the original programmer.
I say this is why great programming is art and bad programming is not. Just like picasso is an artist and the guy who repainted the wall is not. It's because the "creative process" can't be passed on. It has to be self-invented.
Anything Shakespeare is Shakespeare. Nobody else can write Shakespeare, because they don't have the same creative process he did.
You can study Shakespeare, Picasso, Beethoven all your life and never be able to emulate them. Likewise a great coder's code can be copied, but the process that made the code can't be replicated.
If I stole 50 billion dollars from the American Public by lying and cheating and fudding and monopolizing and embrace-and-extending, and then gave 10 billion to starving children in Africa, keeping the rest mind you, would I too be awarded the KBE?
Microsoft broke the law, Bill Gates profited, and now is being rewarded.
We're seeing the last thrashing about of British royalty. What's next? The prince with a swastika? Oh, been there done that.
The French and the American had it right all along: "No King over us!"
If Gates had any balls he would refuse it on grounds that as an American Citizen, he does not indebt himself to foreign potentates.
Yeah, and if you want to bypass the hype, go to the source and read the mailing list archives at http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/, for some good old-fashion dead horse beating.
Of course, it will be informative in showing the nature of the kind of people that participate heavily in the Wikipedia, yours truly included.
And doesn't the operating system load the device drivers into memory and access their functionality through predefined, although complex, set of api that makes them function together as one program?
Ah, that would be the LGPL. The GPL requires that all software that is _required_for the operation of the GPL software to also be GPL'd. And device drivers are a required part of an OS.
This is why for example Sun had/has a hard time including its drivers in open solaris.
A GPL'd program can run on a proprietary OS. No question about it. But if you want to take a GPL OS like Linux and add proprietary drivers and release it as a product, you're in violation of the GPL and you automatically lose the rights granted in the GPL, meaning, that Microsoft would not have the right to use Linux in their software at all.
However, if they did release the drivers in the GPL, then the next hacker with broadband could say: Gimme all the source code (a requirement of the GPL) and make install, make, cut.iso and torrent the whole thing from his website. Then, how many copies of the MS-Linux Operating System do you think they could sell if there was an legal iso on the net?
They can't. Because they can't. Not only would they make absolutely no money from it, but they would also lose all the money they woud have made selling binary windows software.
They've screwed themselves in a corner, and they know it. They can't deliver longhorn. (I mean a stable operating system, secure, fast, and able to compete on price/features with linux). They won't be able to. In december 2005, it will be painfully obvious that nobody's lining up to buy it, and they'll not release it because it would cost too much to market it. Rememebr that by that time, Gnome and KDE will have iterated throught another enhencement cycle and that suse and redhat will have deployed desktops enterprise-wide at large companies.
Sun will be fried already, and either MS will buy it to get Java and J2EE, or it will collapse in bankruptcy court and sun.com will be taken by a domain-monger.
Microsoft is very bad at adapting to business conditions. They have a high and mighty attitude like "We know what people want and we're going to make sure they get it". Firefox has completely disproved that theory by making the browser people want, because MS wasn't. MS is flying high at 80,000 feet, thinking that their market valuation and excellent products will enable them to not only ride the wave but win. I say the opposite is true. Their cash is a liability. It's not their money. It belongs to the shareholders. The shareholders either want the money put to good use, or returned to them so they can put it elsewhere (like wheat futures or whatever). Their products are outdated, riddled with fundamental security flaws, and too expensive.
Their cash cows are Windows and Office. Both are tenatiously riding on the need by companies and individuals to maintain business continuity with existing applications and documents.
All new application development at companies are browser-based or OS-agnostic (python, java, ruby) , and one can do just fine with knoppix for browser-only.
Word and powerpoint are going to OO.org. Excel spreadsheets on analyst desktops are going into more robust and extensible database back ends. The custom access and vb applications are being phased out in favor of web apps, and finally, old office documents will be zipped and burned to CD, only to be looked at when auditors show up).
Then, companies will have no need for windows and office. Do you think home users can support 2 billion dollars a month in revenue? Nah, it's over.
MS could not do that. They'd have to release the MS-Linux (I feel icky just saying that) in the GPL, and that would just chafe them big time.
It would probably mean that manufacturers would say: Heck, leenooks people want drivers, microsoft wants drivers, let's just write linus drivers, since MS can use their MS-Linux.
That woul dbe the death of the current windows Codebase.
OT: Longhorn will not be released. Microsoft will have collapsed enough by then that they won't be able to support the core dev team.
Fine, don't believe me. Just remember that windows 2003 server is already 2 years old, it is an overkill already.
That, and if you want real enterprise-grade software, you go Linux (free as in Zero Dollars)
You can't kill linux. Even Linus can't kill Linux. If Linus decided he had had enough of the rat race and decided to spend all his time at home with his wife, Linux would go on withour missing a beat. Microsoft can't kill linux for the very same reasons.
Yeah, and that's why I say it stinks: That their management is so obtuse that the devs felt like they had to create a layer of politics to insulate themselves from irresponsible slave-drivers.
I wonder whether loki was really a giant honeypot...
Mmm...
Too sneaky for the MPAA...
In any case... I think the reverse would be fun. A honey pot for the MPAA. name a bunch of linux files after celebrities names and movie titles. So that they will sue for Independece_Day.exe, Madonna.c, and Eminem.class, bittorented all over the internet.
Actually, no. I think what needs to happen is that people stop bying movies and music for a month. Pick a month, like July, and advertise the "NO MPAA PURCHASE MONTH", and buy only independents and so on. The press will eat that up as "Public Decries MPAA Tactics, Boycotts DVDs!"
That, or send letters (on paper) to the President, hum, to your local representative... No, to his political party headquarter, and tell them that the situation is untenable and that you will... Hum, nothing... They don't CARE about you.
So I guess P2Ping is an Act of Civil Disobedience and thus the Voice of the People calling for Redress from an Oppressive and Corrupt Government!!!
whew, need to catch my breath...
Ok, that's better.
And now, [with my finest british accent:] "Gentlemen, synchronize your servers. We attack at oh-six-hundred."
Yeah, I know, and same here. I'm just picky of my work environment.
I think his solution stinks to high heavens.
You know what writers say? "The story needs to be as long as it takes to tell the story well."
I say that trying to make all software development fit the 3-week cycle, is akin to making all software development fit the J2EE Way. I need more flexibility.
Google gets better than 5 nines. They don't run sparc machines, but lots of cheaper ones. What this I hear? Could it be the sound of 100,000 servers? All hot-swappable?
When you can get a complete server, with ram, nic, cpu and disk-storage, for less than a sparc cpu, my friend, you don't cluster cpus, you cluster servers.
right, and you can point people to godaddy's and check the registrant on the domain.
If it's ShadyCorp Domains in the bahamas, then does not matter whether their cert is from an authority or not. Likewise if it's "Tom Trusted" in This Town and You're at tomtrusted.com, then I gather the certificate is up to snuff.
Slashdot Mirror
Writing is not a science, it's an art.
You can codify writing like Heinlein, Herbert, Dickens and Rand.
No matter how many average writers you put together in a room, you won't end up with the Dune saga.
Complexity is the enemy of elegance and power.
C, Lisp, python are so popular because they are elegant, simple, and thus powerful.
It's not its complexity that makes a system great, it's its simplicity.
Likewise Shakespeare.
>Coding is not an art. It's a science. No matter how good the code is, it can be taken apart and understood by others.
Likewise Shakespeare, Heinlein, Asimov, etc. Yet still art. Because while you can reduce it to 26 + punctuation, it's the organization in time and space that makes them unique.
Great code just works, and nobody needs to go back and fix it later, because it's never going to be broken.
If it needs to be modified, you say.
I reply, why?
Because it no longer performs the needed business function you say.
I ask: And that means its broken?
You say: No, it means it needs to do something else.
I Reply: You mean, a different function?
Exactly, you beam.
I counter: Follow the Unix Way: Each program does one thing: What you need is another program.
You slouch. You know I am right.
Zen lesson over.
Red Hat makes money because they license their enterprise offering.
They don't make it available for free.
And they got a lot of flak for that, which is why they're not the darling of the open-source community they used to be.
And not very many people are out contibuting to their distro. Hardcore hackers have moved on, which means they are developing in-house, which is unsustainable, because you can't pay the best programmers to work for you, so your product stagnates. I say IBM is going to buy them.
Is that why so few people understand regression?
Just because your manager and the junior asp programmer can't understand the code and your explanation of the code does not mean it's not perfect for the job.
If you want to make your boss happy, code something so wicked that it is already done by the time the design specs are out, so simple that it fits on a piece of paper, and so robust that its uptime will outlast you.
Anything else, and you're not good enough as a programmer, so you'd better learn, and stick to the design docs. Remember the Unix Way.
Do you think my boss understands SSL? or MD5? Should I not use them then?
Beside the fact that you post as AC, which is most reprehensible, you should then be content to hear that f-16 computer code will never be cheap, simple, elegant, and developed quickly. In short: J2EE with session EJBs or some awful monstrosity from the Sir Redmond's bestiary.
It's like english. You know, the annotated book because the author really went all out and the reader has no fucking clue:
Ye whimsical faerie of yore
Whence came thee upon me?
Forlorn sit I stilled,
Prey to thy designs.
Now, the author wrote about his helplessness at dealing with his past.
Just because you can't understand what he said does not mean he should not have said it.
Perhaps it is the skill of the reader that must rise to match that of the author?
Perhaps it should be rewritten like this:
Memories from a hidden place make me sad?
Still too poetic, less descriptive?
How about: I am saddened by a memory.
You can make good code go bad by writing for the least common denominator in your organization (always the worst programmers)
Managers: You can raise code quality by letting go your bad coders. Not because they won't be writing bad code, but because the other coders will be able to write more powerful code.
The idea is that great code resembles a picasso more than a f-16 fighter.
Picasso could not tell people how he did it, or rather people could not understand picasso's explanation.
An F-16 fighter, however, given enough years of schooling, could be explaned in great detail to anyone. This is why, although incredibly complex, there are thousands of F-16s out there. Yet there are only Picasso's picassos.
Likewise a great coder can't really explain how he wrote the great code. He just could. You can see the result, admire it, copy it even. But to apply the same "creative process" to a different problem, you'd have to be the original programmer.
I say this is why great programming is art and bad programming is not. Just like picasso is an artist and the guy who repainted the wall is not. It's because the "creative process" can't be passed on. It has to be self-invented.
Anything Shakespeare is Shakespeare. Nobody else can write Shakespeare, because they don't have the same creative process he did.
You can study Shakespeare, Picasso, Beethoven all your life and never be able to emulate them. Likewise a great coder's code can be copied, but the process that made the code can't be replicated.
> The game creators have the same moral responsibility as any other media, which is nearly none except to the "market".
Not even. Tolkien wrote LOTR for himself. That others also happened to enjoy it was a side effect.
Yes, Gerv, we know.
Now, can we go back to news for nerds ?
Thanks.
If I stole 50 billion dollars from the American Public by lying and cheating and fudding and monopolizing and embrace-and-extending, and then gave 10 billion to starving children in Africa, keeping the rest mind you, would I too be awarded the KBE?
Microsoft broke the law, Bill Gates profited, and now is being rewarded.
We're seeing the last thrashing about of British royalty. What's next? The prince with a swastika? Oh, been there done that.
The French and the American had it right all along: "No King over us!"
If Gates had any balls he would refuse it on grounds that as an American Citizen, he does not indebt himself to foreign potentates.
>It just has to provide it pre-installed on every x86 machine sold,
That's going to be hard with the knoppix cds I'm peppering my friends with.
Since management is able to speak out of both sides of their mouths, it works out :)
Well,
Tables are not useless. They should be used to display data that is in tabular format, such as database query results and lists of things.
As far as finding developers, it's only a matter of money.
Remember that anything you build today will have to compete with things built next year.
Yeah, and if you want to bypass the hype, go to the source and read the mailing list archives at http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/, for some good old-fashion dead horse beating.
Of course, it will be informative in showing the nature of the kind of people that participate heavily in the Wikipedia, yours truly included.
See:g gregation
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#TOCMereA
Can you run a device driver as a separate program?
Mmm...?
And doesn't the operating system load the device drivers into memory and access their functionality through predefined, although complex, set of api that makes them function together as one program?
Also: on LGPL: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl-java.html
Ah, that would be the LGPL. The GPL requires that all software that is _required_for the operation of the GPL software to also be GPL'd. And device drivers are a required part of an OS.
.iso and torrent the whole thing from his website. Then, how many copies of the MS-Linux Operating System do you think they could sell if there was an legal iso on the net?
This is why for example Sun had/has a hard time including its drivers in open solaris.
A GPL'd program can run on a proprietary OS. No question about it.
But if you want to take a GPL OS like Linux and add proprietary drivers and release it as a product, you're in violation of the GPL and you automatically lose the rights granted in the GPL, meaning, that Microsoft would not have the right to use Linux in their software at all.
However, if they did release the drivers in the GPL, then the next hacker with broadband could say: Gimme all the source code (a requirement of the GPL) and make install, make, cut
They can't. Because they can't. Not only would they make absolutely no money from it, but they would also lose all the money they woud have made selling binary windows software.
They've screwed themselves in a corner, and they know it. They can't deliver longhorn. (I mean a stable operating system, secure, fast, and able to compete on price/features with linux). They won't be able to. In december 2005, it will be painfully obvious that nobody's lining up to buy it, and they'll not release it because it would cost too much to market it. Rememebr that by that time, Gnome and KDE will have iterated throught another enhencement cycle and that suse and redhat will have deployed desktops enterprise-wide at large companies.
Sun will be fried already, and either MS will buy it to get Java and J2EE, or it will collapse in bankruptcy court and sun.com will be taken by a domain-monger.
Microsoft is very bad at adapting to business conditions. They have a high and mighty attitude like "We know what people want and we're going to make sure they get it". Firefox has completely disproved that theory by making the browser people want, because MS wasn't.
MS is flying high at 80,000 feet, thinking that their market valuation and excellent products will enable them to not only ride the wave but win. I say the opposite is true. Their cash is a liability. It's not their money. It belongs to the shareholders. The shareholders either want the money put to good use, or returned to them so they can put it elsewhere (like wheat futures or whatever). Their products are outdated, riddled with fundamental security flaws, and too expensive.
Their cash cows are Windows and Office. Both are tenatiously riding on the need by companies and individuals to maintain business continuity with existing applications and documents.
All new application development at companies are browser-based or OS-agnostic (python, java, ruby) , and one can do just fine with knoppix for browser-only.
Word and powerpoint are going to OO.org. Excel spreadsheets on analyst desktops are going into more robust and extensible database back ends. The custom access and vb applications are being phased out in favor of web apps, and finally, old office documents will be zipped and burned to CD, only to be looked at when auditors show up).
Then, companies will have no need for windows and office. Do you think home users can support 2 billion dollars a month in revenue? Nah, it's over.
Sarcasm...
MS could not do that. They'd have to release the MS-Linux (I feel icky just saying that) in the GPL, and that would just chafe them big time.
g ory=
s p?kc=EWRSS03119TX1K0000594
It would probably mean that manufacturers would say: Heck, leenooks people want drivers, microsoft wants drivers, let's just write linus drivers, since MS can use their MS-Linux.
That woul dbe the death of the current windows Codebase.
OT: Longhorn will not be released. Microsoft will have collapsed enough by then that they won't be able to support the core dev team.
Fine, don't believe me. Just remember that windows 2003 server is already 2 years old, it is an overkill already.
That, and if you want real enterprise-grade software, you go Linux (free as in Zero Dollars)
For those of you who have a hard time accespting the last statement:
Oracle is the de-facto enterprise database. See http://www.itp.net/news/details.php?id=13678&cate
IBM's newest mainframe, the zSeries, supports Redhat, Suse, and Turbolinux. But no MS Windows. See http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/eserver/zseries/os/
Linux on cellphones:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1765103,00.a
Linux at Merryl Lynch, etc etc etc.
You can't kill linux. Even Linus can't kill Linux. If Linus decided he had had enough of the rat race and decided to spend all his time at home with his wife, Linux would go on withour missing a beat.
Microsoft can't kill linux for the very same reasons.
Yeah, and that's why I say it stinks: That their management is so obtuse that the devs felt like they had to create a layer of politics to insulate themselves from irresponsible slave-drivers.
The worse is that the devs think it's normal.
Bitter? Nah...
I wonder whether loki was really a giant honeypot...
Mmm...
Too sneaky for the MPAA...
In any case... I think the reverse would be fun. A honey pot for the MPAA. name a bunch of linux files after celebrities names and movie titles. So that they will sue for Independece_Day.exe, Madonna.c, and Eminem.class, bittorented all over the internet.
Actually, no. I think what needs to happen is that people stop bying movies and music for a month. Pick a month, like July, and advertise the "NO MPAA PURCHASE MONTH", and buy only independents and so on. The press will eat that up as "Public Decries MPAA Tactics, Boycotts DVDs!"
That, or send letters (on paper) to the President, hum, to your local representative... No, to his political party headquarter, and tell them that the situation is untenable and that you will... Hum, nothing... They don't CARE about you.
So I guess P2Ping is an Act of Civil Disobedience and thus the Voice of the People calling for Redress from an Oppressive and Corrupt Government!!!
whew, need to catch my breath...
Ok, that's better.
And now, [with my finest british accent:]
"Gentlemen, synchronize your servers. We attack at oh-six-hundred."
Because you still can't stand ZDNet and Cnet's forums? Admit it. You like Slashdot... ;)
Yeah, I know, and same here. I'm just picky of my work environment.
I think his solution stinks to high heavens.
You know what writers say? "The story needs to be as long as it takes to tell the story well."
I say that trying to make all software development fit the 3-week cycle, is akin to making all software development fit the J2EE Way. I need more flexibility.
Please tell me your company name, so I make sure NEVER to apply there.
Movie trivia. Which movie is this from?
"Attitude reflects leadership".
Google gets better than 5 nines.
They don't run sparc machines, but lots of cheaper ones.
What this I hear? Could it be the sound of 100,000 servers? All hot-swappable?
When you can get a complete server, with ram, nic, cpu and disk-storage, for less than a sparc cpu, my friend, you don't cluster cpus, you cluster servers.
right, and you can point people to godaddy's and check the registrant on the domain.
If it's ShadyCorp Domains in the bahamas, then does not matter whether their cert is from an authority or not.
Likewise if it's "Tom Trusted" in This Town and You're at tomtrusted.com, then I gather the certificate is up to snuff.
On Google:
Not that I want to share here, but it's been my experience.