"manage users, etc. It DOES take a bit of intelligence and planning to set up more complex things like roaming user profiles and some of the more advanced NT things, and I've never met an "NT Administrator" that could perform these tasks."
Not sure what you mean here. I taught myself to do this, and taught other NT admins as well. Admittedly, I had many years of Netware, mainframe, and before that VMS and Unix experience to draw on. But it's not that hard. Anyone who cares to dig up the documentation can do it. That would include any MCSE's who want to move "beyond the book".
"They'll appear someday. Yes, I heard ext2 had support for it too. But without the _kernel_ support, it's useless" [in reference to access controls lists (ACL) and/or Netware file permissions]
Well, that's something to think about. In my (corporate) networking experience, Netware file permissions are critical to any usable and supportable security scheme. NT ACL's, too, if you can't get Netware {;-) }. If Linux doesn't have the equivalent that would be a significant negative.
IMHO, you are rolling several very different questions into one. That is, as network service models to be analyzed,
*nix vs. {NT, Netware} Linux vs. {NT, Netware} NT vs. Netware Linux vs. NT Linux vs. Netware
cross many domains and will yield different answers depending on the problem to be solved and the way the questions are phrased.
In my experience, for example, NT has about 3x the resource cost of Netware in a large departmental environment (200-400 corporate users in 1-2 locations, 20% mobile users). But administration costs for NT go up exponentially as the number of sites and mobile users, while Netware administration costs go up linearly with the same variables.
So if you are trying to convince me to replace NT with Linux, you need to demonstrate that in the equation c = n ** p (c = cost, n = number of sites), p is But if you are trying to replace Netware with Linux, you are going to have to prove that p Others have made the argument about NDS, so I won't beat that one to death. But please keep in mind that if you haven't administered a large corporate network, you shouldn't knock NDS until you have used it.
"I take it you are talking about 4.x NetWare? 3.x should be restarted about once a month, and thats a Novell recomendation (if you ever have need for their support)."
I agree statements to that effect are found in the Novell documentation. However, IMHO that was more of a cover-your-ass recommendation. We used to reboot our 3.11 servers every six months to be safe (assuming no hardware failures or changes); the longest uptime I saw was 9 months. That was with 200 clients on a 486/33 EISA machine, 15 GB total storage at the end (although I also remember having to appear before a division vice-president to justify my request for a massive 1000 MB disk drive!). Admittedly this was with few NLM's running; mostly file and print. But as we ran Win 3.11 off the server (not the swap files), file service was pretty heavy.
Why? Properly set up (same as with Linux), I have seen Netware uptimes of 8 months with Mon-Fri loads of 200 users logged in, 20 GB/day files served, 5000 print jobs/day. We have no qualms about leaving Netware servers at sites it takes 2-3 days to get a support person to; the servers run fine with no attention at all for months at a time. And that includes running Btrieve, which is not the most stable NLM in the world.
The key of course is proper setup (and before that , proper network engineering). If you have never worked with a well-engineered Netware setup, you might not have seen what I am describing. But then the same could be said about Linux.
"Well Our Novell servers Do use a DOS base, and as far as I know, Dos is required for Novell 3.1 and 4.11. Given you almost never see the Dos base once you get a Novell server"
Novell uses DOS (typically MS-DOS, although I understand DR-DOS is possible) as a boot loader. After SERVER.EXE loads, you can run the REMOVE DOS command and remove all traces of DOS from memory. At that point you are running pure Netware, not DOS. Netware is it's own operating system, with its own API's, filesystems, and so on.
The use of DOS as a boot loader historically has had many advantages: A) Most low end Intel boxes do not have a monitor running at the firmware level as do higher end Unix machines (e.g. Sun). This was particularly true back in the 1980-1985 time period when Novell brought the concept of networking to the DOS-tel world. Use of DOS as a boot loader provides an emergency startup capability if the box truely falls over. B) Simple to install and set up the boot sequence using DOS tools (this applies more to the 3.11 days as most of this is automated today). Plus everyone has a set of MS-DOS 5.0 disks around somewhere. C) File and directory manipulation tools available under MS-DOS are crude, but simple and usable for the few tasks that need (or needed, as again this is mostly gone with NW 4.x/5) to be done with them. D) You are always able to boot a server back to DOS and run minimal utilities (de-upgrade a driver, run a virus scanner, etc.).
Again, there is no absolute reason that DOS has to be used, as once Netware is running all traces of the boot loader are gone. Anything could have been used: CP/M-86, p-System, Forth, you name it. For historical reasons DOS was chosen, but don't let that fool you into thinking that DOS runs under Netware in the same manner as it runs under Windows 95. It doesn't.
"#1) You'd have to be an idiot not to capitolize on your own creation, because somebody will in a CAPITOLIST society. Deal with it. It's called reality"
If you are poor and starving, sure. If you want enough money and publicity to continue your life's work, sure. For plenty of other reasons, sure.
Lucas has >1,000,000,000 USD in the bank, and complete ownership of his movies and creative direction. _He_ dictated terms to the studio and distributors, which is unheard of in the movie industry.
Now, with that kind of money and power, couldn't he have made one for his fans' sake - for art's sake? I like to think I would have. And you know what? He _still_ would have made 2 billion this time.
"#2) Lucas did not sell out. He could easily turn Star Wars into a television show or saturday morning cartoon, and he hasn't (yet)"
See this week's _Newsweek_ for a list of the Saturday morning cartoons and shows that Lucas has been involved in. Most capitalizing on those lovable (not) Ewoks. _Newsweek_ at least claims, BTW, that they refused Lucas' list of conditions for an interview, and he refused to talk to them.
"The master author of "1945" himself. Wow! [...] Seriously, I can't think of Toffler without thinking about Newt Gingrich."
The first 2/3 of "1945" wasn't bad. Not up to what Harry Turtledove and Steve Sterling could have done, but reasonable for a first effort.
The last third was unbelievably bad. A few interesting ideas spun to utterly extreme and totally unworkable conclusions.
Not too much different from the Newtster's career in the House, if you think about it. And not too different from what happens to most futurists, either, although very few have as much power in their hands as Newt did.
I think the key is that even the most successful/perceptive futurists need to keep a sense of proportion and also a sense of humour about their own work. IMHO that's where Newt fell apart - he started to believe too deeply in too many of his own ideas, and lost his sense of what is ridiculous.
Of couse, Toffler has never actually been in a position of social power, so even if he makes the same mistake he can't do as much damage as a Speaker of the US House.
"Did you just happen to read that in the jargon file"
Nope - it actually happened to me. I was never at MIT and my PDP-11 days were long before the Jargon File was known to the outside world. I shredded those check registers last time I moved (3 years ago), though, so you will have to take my word for it. My concentration level is nowhere near as high as real hackers I have known; if it happened to me I imagine it must have happened to many others as well.
"written my entire name in one block (each letter on top of each other), and in graffiti. It certenly shakes up the bank teller"
Back in my PDP-11 assembler days I spent three hours trying to figure out why my checkbook didn't balance, only to find that at some point I had started doing the arithmetic in octal. I fixed that problem - I stopped balancing my checkbook.
"but the "hype" has been practically non-existant"
Stop by a toy store, Target, or even a chain bookstore. Half of the floor space in my local Borders is currently taken up by TPM books, calendars, guides, etc. Target has a stack of TPM toys up the the ceiling, and that's a 30 ft. ceiling! The pressure on the toy market has been intense.
Also, I don't think even "Titanic" managed to get a 10 page puff piece planted in Time Magazine _before_ the opening.
Personally, I wish GL had held himself back a little on the hype machine and product tie-ins. He has personal wealth and total independence in filmmaking. Does he really need another billion or so in royalities?
"If Linux clobbers Microsoft, it'll be nice that we've finally clawed our way back up to the 1970's, but wouldn't you like to start moving ahead for a change? If UNIX is not "obsolete","
I for one would like to get back some of the funcationality we had under TOPS-20, and that OS traces its roots into the 1960's. I never used Multics myself, but I am told that it had many useful features that have never been duplicated. The utter lack of a sense of history in 98% of the software world today has its good points, but its bad points as well.
"[1] COBOL has been around longer than UNIX, but note that I said "useful" and "life". COBOL is doubly disqualified.:)"
Here I would have to respectfully disagree. I don't do COBOL myself, and I would guess most slashdotters don't either. But if you enjoy certain activities such as cashing paychecks, turning on your electric appliances, and making telephone calls, I would have to say that COBOL is not only useful but absolutely essential to modern life. And it's not going away, either.
"Who would you rather fixed the brakes on your car, somebody with 3 years of classes or someone with ten years of fixing cars."
Who would you rather have fixing the brakes on your car: a guy who just walked in off the street , with no experience, looking for his first job as a mechanic? Or the guy no with experience but three years in a nationally certified training program?
The analogy is closer than one might think. Nationally certified mechanics (I forget the acronym at the moment), as well as those certified as dealer mechanics, are now spending 100 hours per year or more in class to try to keep up with technology changes. The generation of cars coming into the market today essentially has the equivalent of a small LAN built-in, so this isn't just brute force technology either. There is a major shortage of mechanics and salaries are rising...
"CEOs of Companies? Yes. Chefs? Yes. ... They try to use the stigma of using non-licensed professional is foolish. Now, can you imagine any five-star restaurant having such an attitude? Don't eat at the Palm! They're chefs are unlicensed!"
Most states in the US have a kitchen hygiene certification. In order to be the manager of a commercial kitchen (and I can't imagine any 5 star chef who wouldn't demand to be the kitchen manager), you must hold that certificate. Is it hard to get that certificate? No. Does it prove you can cook good food? No? Will the state close down your restaurant if you don't have one? In about 60 seconds. Will your competitors let the world know if you have been cited for running an "unhygenic kitchen"? You bet - I have seen it many times.
Similiarly with CEOs. They must be bonded and carry D&O insurance, and they must be appointed by the Board of Directors or other owners. Does it prove they can run a company? Of course not. Does it show that someone has at least looked at whether they have some of the basics to do the job? Yes.
I could go on about driver's licenses and similar hurdles proving minimal ability but not quality, but I think you get the point.
"The people who code for the radar systems in airports, for example, do you want these people to walk in with bare minimum of knowledge and write faulty code?"
Software along the lines of an airport radar controller is going to be contracted out as part of a total system design (if the contracting authority has any competence at all). Hardware, software, backup systems, performance specs, acceptance criteria, etc. are all going to be part of a single project, and the ultimate documents for that project are going to be signed off by a registered Professional Engineer (PE).
The PE can be held individually liable for his work, so he is going to need indemnification by his employer. His employer in turn will lay off that risk to an insurance company, and the insurance company will demand audits, proof of competence, demonstrated capability to carry out similar projects, etc. That's how it goes in the real world of Big Stuff.
The PE (slash project management team) probably isn't going to be able to examine every line of code, or necessarily _any_ of the code him(them)self. But you can bet he will take steps to make sure that quality and capability are there.
Even as a person on the PE track (which I am), I acknowledge that there is an element of market control / guild-ism in the process. However, before you squeeze the trigger on the flamethrower, please spend a few minutes in a good engineering library reading back issues of Scientific American from the 1870-1890 time period. Read carefully the accounts of steam boiler explosions and the death and destruction they caused for many years. Then if you have a few extra hours, scan through the "History of the ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code". Those boiler explosions, and the effort that had to be undertaken to get them under control, are the direct ancestors of the PE process. And brutal, heavy-handed government regulation turned out to be the only way to bring the body count down.
Hmmm, in terms of accepting responsibility for quality of work, does that sound like any industry we know today? I am personally not advocating that the PE regulations be extended to the software world, but after rebooting Windows 95 for the 5th time today I can see why some might.
"One of those pieces of GNU (or at least GPL'd) software that's older than NT is... Linux"
Not to mention VMS - I remember a lot of VAX VMS machines on the 'net in the old days. I think it would have been kind of difficult for the VMS team to have released NT before they finished with VMS and decamped for Microsoft. Maybe that's why Bill hired them though;-).
Coates is usually a pretty good computer beat writer, given that he admits he is not a propeller head, and his audience is the general PC user, not the expert. He is usually pretty good at explaining the what & why to non-techies, and he has taken unstable/unreliable software to task on more than one occasion.
So I think it is worth putting some more thought into why he decided to submit this column. Does he really believe what he said? If so, why? Is he saying something we should be listening to? If he doesn't believe what he said, why did he print it? Is he trying to generate flames for an "I told you so" column?
I confess I have no good insight myself. I am just a bit curious as to what his agenda is/was.
"Remember the mainframe days? Shortly after the PC came out, a torrent of similar "debate" emerged from the mainframe community. First they laughed, then they fought, then the PC community won. Suprise. History repeats itself."
Well, you have to define "won" pretty carefully. If you mean that the group that controlled the centralized (mainframe) resources was forced to give up complete control of information management services, then yes, the PC "won".
But keep in mind that big dollar, mega-user, high-bit-rate applications are almost always run on IBM (or compatible) mainframes. Or on mainframe-class minis (Sun, etc) that are designed, installed, and operated using mainframe class operations discipline. And centralization seems to be on the rise at the moment, not on the decline.
Not my business, really. But you might want to look a little more closely at the details. He used 1.2 q of water/glycol as the heat transfer medium. A drop of liquid nitrogen is one thing; a quart of glycol at -50C is another.
Of couse, accidents always happen to the other guy, so there really is nothing to worry about:-(.
I would suggest being very (very) careful with your pipefitting & pressure testing, and thinking about what kind of containment you have in place. There is clearly enough thermal energy (actually, lack of thermal energy) in that reservior to kill you in a few hundredths of a second if you get a faceful of it.
It appears that the author of the article either knew what he was doing, or took the time to figure out what he didn't know and learn it in great detail. Be sure to do the same if you try something like this yourself.
"Not quite. You are automatically assuming everyone wants to learn. I can show you a whole crowd who don't. Not because they're ignorant or clueless, but because they have more important things to do with life."
Interestingly, that turns out not to be the case. I have done end user tech support for more than 10 years now, and have also acted as an end user representative to a centralized IT organization. So I have made this very argument to computer professionals many times.
However, I have also seen many cases over the last two years (and their frequency is increasing), where people damage their own work and/or their organization with computerized tools. This damage is caused primarily by lack of fundamental knowledge of the tools they are using. OK - not necessarily their fault. Maybe they need better training/education. But it is very hard to give them that training, because the tools beneath the tools (the machine tools, if you will) aren't there to explain what is going on and build understanding.
OTOH, I have basically concluded that I can no longer teach beginners, because I have too much knowledge and am not able to emphathize with their level of knowledge. So maybe I am just talking through my hat.
"Arnett's example of weather tries to set up Stephenson as saying something he's not. It would be a valid analogy if looking at a weather report somehow prevented you from looking at the indivdual molecules in the atmosphere. Stephenson is not against GUIs. He's against them replacing CLIs."
Another way to look at it: even on the most bubble-headed TV weather forecast, they usually show the charts and graphs with the technical data in the background, and even explain what those funny isobar things are every once in a while. The viewer who just wants to see "rain tomorrow" gets that, but the viewer who becomes interested in the technical matter can find some of that also. And maybe go beyond that: check out the weather page in the 'Chicago Tribune' sometime - detailed discussions of the five major computer models in use by US meteorologists and how they differ(!).
But if the deeper complexity is totally hidden from the viewer (GUI user), then they will never have the chance to learn more, because they won't even know it is there to be learned.
And eventually, this knowledge disappears totally, leaving a big hole. If you don't think this is happening today, put out an ad for a 2nd level support technician with four years' experience and interview the people who respond. MCSEs who don't know the first thing about how a computer actually works are a little scary to me, personally.
Milwaukee, Bosch, Makita, etc. do now sell the low end of their contractor-grade equipment through homeowner hells. They also sell consumer-grade products with the same _name_ as the high end stuff. I would imagine the margin on those sales props up entire product lines quite nicely. But they also have true high end products that are sold only through contractor supply stores and a few catalogs.
As with just about everything in modern society, the aura of mystery and power about this type of equipment is gradually fading as more information becomes available and more channels open up to the average joe, and the Internet is playing a large part in that. But I believe Stephenson's description of the Hole Hawg was and remains pretty accurate.
I have also known a few kids who have grown up with contractor (or auto mechanic) parents, and in the cases where the parents were actively engaged in passing on knowledge to their kids, the result was pretty much as Stephenson imagines. The accuracy of that vigenette was fairly telling, I thought.
It remains to be seen, though, whether this applies to computers or not. My 7 y.o. is pretty active with the PC, and he showed me some tricks I didn't know in Win95 the other day. But what I do at work is so far beyond what we do on the Wintel box at home, and so abstract, that I doubt I am passing much/any of my accumulated knowledge on to him. Anyone else have a different experience?
sPh
Server and laptop service is pretty good, though
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Compaq's CEO Resigns
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Have to agree with you on the Compaq desktop boxes. But in the laptop and server (Proliant) market, where everything is pretty much propriatary anyway, my coworkers and I have found Compaq's service and support to be pretty good. Their 800 support for server has talked me through some bizarre problems (usually of my own making) at 4 AM on Sunday morning more than once.
sPh
OT: Wow - where did you get that tag line?
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Mozilla M4 is Out
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"...I'm not one of those who think Bill Gates is the devil. I simply suspect that if Microsoft ever met up with the devil, it wouldn't need an interpreter." --
Slashdot Mirror
"manage users, etc. It DOES take a bit of intelligence and planning to set up more complex things like roaming user profiles and some of the more advanced NT things, and I've never met an "NT Administrator" that could perform these tasks."
Not sure what you mean here. I taught myself to do this, and taught other NT admins as well. Admittedly, I had many years of Netware, mainframe, and before that VMS and Unix experience to draw on. But it's not that hard. Anyone who cares to dig up the documentation can do it. That would include any MCSE's who want to move "beyond the book".
sPh
"They'll appear someday. Yes, I heard ext2 had support for it too. But without the _kernel_ support, it's useless"
;-) }. If Linux doesn't have the equivalent that would be a significant negative.
[in reference to access controls lists (ACL) and/or Netware file permissions]
Well, that's something to think about. In my (corporate) networking experience, Netware file permissions are critical to any usable and supportable security scheme. NT ACL's, too, if you can't get Netware {
sPh
IMHO, you are rolling several very different questions into one. That is, as network service models to be analyzed,
*nix vs. {NT, Netware}
Linux vs. {NT, Netware}
NT vs. Netware
Linux vs. NT
Linux vs. Netware
cross many domains and will yield different answers depending on the problem to be solved and the way the questions are phrased.
In my experience, for example, NT has about 3x the resource cost of Netware in a large departmental environment (200-400 corporate users in 1-2 locations, 20% mobile users). But administration costs for NT go up exponentially as the number of sites and mobile users, while Netware administration costs go up linearly with the same variables.
So if you are trying to convince me to replace NT with Linux, you need to demonstrate that in the equation c = n ** p (c = cost, n = number of sites), p is
But if you are trying to replace Netware with Linux, you are going to have to prove that p
Others have made the argument about NDS, so I won't beat that one to death. But please keep in mind that if you haven't administered a large corporate network, you shouldn't knock NDS until you have used it.
sPh
"I take it you are talking about 4.x NetWare? 3.x should be restarted about once a month, and thats a Novell recomendation (if you ever have need for their support)."
I agree statements to that effect are found in the Novell documentation. However, IMHO that was more of a cover-your-ass recommendation. We used to reboot our 3.11 servers every six months to be safe (assuming no hardware failures or changes); the longest uptime I saw was 9 months. That was with 200 clients on a 486/33 EISA machine, 15 GB total storage at the end (although I also remember having to appear before a division vice-president to justify my request for a massive 1000 MB disk drive!). Admittedly this was with few NLM's running; mostly file and print. But as we ran Win 3.11 off the server (not the swap files), file service was pretty heavy.
As always, YMMV.
sPh
"You've got to be kidding."
Why? Properly set up (same as with Linux), I have seen Netware uptimes of 8 months with Mon-Fri loads of 200 users logged in, 20 GB/day files served, 5000 print jobs/day. We have no qualms about leaving Netware servers at sites it takes 2-3 days to get a support person to; the servers run fine with no attention at all for months at a time. And that includes running Btrieve, which is not the most stable NLM in the world.
The key of course is proper setup (and before that , proper network engineering). If you have never worked with a well-engineered Netware setup, you might not have seen what I am describing. But then the same could be said about Linux.
sPh
"Well Our Novell servers Do use a DOS base, and as far as I know, Dos is required for Novell 3.1 and 4.11. Given you almost never see the Dos base once you get a Novell server"
Novell uses DOS (typically MS-DOS, although I understand DR-DOS is possible) as a boot loader. After SERVER.EXE loads, you can run the REMOVE DOS command and remove all traces of DOS from memory. At that point you are running pure Netware, not DOS. Netware is it's own operating system, with its own API's, filesystems, and so on.
The use of DOS as a boot loader historically has had many advantages:
A) Most low end Intel boxes do not have a monitor running at the firmware level as do higher end Unix machines (e.g. Sun). This was particularly true back in the 1980-1985 time period when Novell brought the concept of networking to the DOS-tel world. Use of DOS as a boot loader provides an emergency startup capability if the box truely falls over.
B) Simple to install and set up the boot sequence using DOS tools (this applies more to the 3.11 days as most of this is automated today). Plus everyone has a set of MS-DOS 5.0 disks around somewhere.
C) File and directory manipulation tools available under MS-DOS are crude, but simple and usable for the few tasks that need (or needed, as again this is mostly gone with NW 4.x/5) to be done with them.
D) You are always able to boot a server back to DOS and run minimal utilities (de-upgrade a driver, run a virus scanner, etc.).
Again, there is no absolute reason that DOS has to be used, as once Netware is running all traces of the boot loader are gone. Anything could have been used: CP/M-86, p-System, Forth, you name it. For historical reasons DOS was chosen, but don't let that fool you into thinking that DOS runs under Netware in the same manner as it runs under Windows 95. It doesn't.
sPh
"#1) You'd have to be an idiot not to capitolize on your own creation, because somebody will in a CAPITOLIST society. Deal with it. It's called reality"
If you are poor and starving, sure. If you want enough money and publicity to continue your life's work, sure. For plenty of other reasons, sure.
Lucas has >1,000,000,000 USD in the bank, and complete ownership of his movies and creative direction. _He_ dictated terms to the studio and distributors, which is unheard of in the movie industry.
Now, with that kind of money and power, couldn't he have made one for his fans' sake - for art's sake? I like to think I would have. And you know what? He _still_ would have made 2 billion this time.
"#2) Lucas did not sell out. He could easily turn Star Wars into a television show or saturday morning cartoon, and he hasn't (yet)"
See this week's _Newsweek_ for a list of the Saturday morning cartoons and shows that Lucas has been involved in. Most capitalizing on those lovable (not) Ewoks. _Newsweek_ at least claims, BTW, that they refused Lucas' list of conditions for an interview, and he refused to talk to them.
sPh
"The master author of "1945" himself. Wow! [...]
Seriously, I can't think of Toffler without thinking about Newt Gingrich."
The first 2/3 of "1945" wasn't bad. Not up to what Harry Turtledove and Steve Sterling could have done, but reasonable for a first effort.
The last third was unbelievably bad. A few interesting ideas spun to utterly extreme and totally unworkable conclusions.
Not too much different from the Newtster's career in the House, if you think about it. And not too different from what happens to most futurists, either, although very few have as much power in their hands as Newt did.
I think the key is that even the most successful/perceptive futurists need to keep a sense of proportion and also a sense of humour about their own work. IMHO that's where Newt fell apart - he started to believe too deeply in too many of his own ideas, and lost his sense of what is ridiculous.
Of couse, Toffler has never actually been in a position of social power, so even if he makes the same mistake he can't do as much damage as a Speaker of the US House.
My 0.02 (discounted to 1980).
sPh
"Did you just happen to read that in the jargon file"
Nope - it actually happened to me. I was never at MIT and my PDP-11 days were long before the Jargon File was known to the outside world. I shredded those check registers last time I moved (3 years ago), though, so you will have to take my word for it. My concentration level is nowhere near as high as real hackers I have known; if it happened to me I imagine it must have happened to many others as well.
sPh
"written my entire name in one block (each letter on top of each other), and in graffiti. It certenly shakes up the bank teller"
Back in my PDP-11 assembler days I spent three hours trying to figure out why my checkbook didn't balance, only to find that at some point I had started doing the arithmetic in octal. I fixed that problem - I stopped balancing my checkbook.
sPh
"but the "hype" has been practically non-existant"
Stop by a toy store, Target, or even a chain bookstore. Half of the floor space in my local Borders is currently taken up by TPM books, calendars, guides, etc. Target has a stack of TPM toys up the the ceiling, and that's a 30 ft. ceiling! The pressure on the toy market has been intense.
Also, I don't think even "Titanic" managed to get a 10 page puff piece planted in Time Magazine _before_ the opening.
Personally, I wish GL had held himself back a little on the hype machine and product tie-ins. He has personal wealth and total independence in filmmaking. Does he really need another billion or so in royalities?
Just my bitter 0.02.
sPh
"If Linux clobbers Microsoft, it'll be nice that we've finally clawed our way back up to the 1970's, but wouldn't you like to start moving ahead for a change? If UNIX is not "obsolete","
:)"
I for one would like to get back some of the funcationality we had under TOPS-20, and that OS traces its roots into the 1960's. I never used Multics myself, but I am told that it had many useful features that have never been duplicated. The utter lack of a sense of history in 98% of the software world today has its good points, but its bad points as well.
"[1] COBOL has been around longer than UNIX, but note that I said "useful" and "life". COBOL is doubly disqualified.
Here I would have to respectfully disagree. I don't do COBOL myself, and I would guess most slashdotters don't either. But if you enjoy certain activities such as cashing paychecks, turning on your electric appliances, and making telephone calls, I would have to say that COBOL is not only useful but absolutely essential to modern life. And it's not going away, either.
sPh
"Who would you rather fixed the brakes on your car, somebody with 3 years of classes or someone with ten years of fixing cars."
Who would you rather have fixing the brakes on your car: a guy who just walked in off the street , with no experience, looking for his first job as a mechanic? Or the guy no with experience but three years in a nationally certified training program?
The analogy is closer than one might think. Nationally certified mechanics (I forget the acronym at the moment), as well as those certified as dealer mechanics, are now spending 100 hours per year or more in class to try to keep up with technology changes. The generation of cars coming into the market today essentially has the equivalent of a small LAN built-in, so this isn't just brute force technology either. There is a major shortage of mechanics and salaries are rising...
sPh
"CEOs of Companies? Yes.
Chefs? Yes.
...
They try to use the stigma of using non-licensed professional is foolish. Now, can you imagine any five-star restaurant having such an attitude? Don't eat at the Palm! They're chefs are unlicensed!"
Most states in the US have a kitchen hygiene certification. In order to be the manager of a commercial kitchen (and I can't imagine any 5 star chef who wouldn't demand to be the kitchen manager), you must hold that certificate. Is it hard to get that certificate? No. Does it prove you can cook good food? No? Will the state close down your restaurant if you don't have one? In about 60 seconds. Will your competitors let the world know if you have been cited for running an "unhygenic kitchen"? You bet - I have seen it many times.
Similiarly with CEOs. They must be bonded and carry D&O insurance, and they must be appointed by the Board of Directors or other owners. Does it prove they can run a company? Of course not. Does it show that someone has at least looked at whether they have some of the basics to do the job? Yes.
I could go on about driver's licenses and similar hurdles proving minimal ability but not quality, but I think you get the point.
sPh
"The people who code for the radar systems in airports, for example, do you want these people to walk in with bare minimum of knowledge and write faulty code?"
Software along the lines of an airport radar controller is going to be contracted out as part of a total system design (if the contracting authority has any competence at all). Hardware, software, backup systems, performance specs, acceptance criteria, etc. are all going to be part of a single project, and the ultimate documents for that project are going to be signed off by a registered Professional Engineer (PE).
The PE can be held individually liable for his work, so he is going to need indemnification by his employer. His employer in turn will lay off that risk to an insurance company, and the insurance company will demand audits, proof of competence, demonstrated capability to carry out similar projects, etc. That's how it goes in the real world of Big Stuff.
The PE (slash project management team) probably isn't going to be able to examine every line of code, or necessarily _any_ of the code him(them)self. But you can bet he will take steps to make sure that quality and capability are there.
Even as a person on the PE track (which I am), I acknowledge that there is an element of market control / guild-ism in the process. However, before you squeeze the trigger on the flamethrower, please spend a few minutes in a good engineering library reading back issues of Scientific American from the 1870-1890 time period. Read carefully the accounts of steam boiler explosions and the death and destruction they caused for many years. Then if you have a few extra hours, scan through the "History of the ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code". Those boiler explosions, and the effort that had to be undertaken to get them under control, are the direct ancestors of the PE process. And brutal, heavy-handed government regulation turned out to be the only way to bring the body count down.
Hmmm, in terms of accepting responsibility for quality of work, does that sound like any industry we know today? I am personally not advocating that the PE regulations be extended to the software world, but after rebooting Windows 95 for the 5th time today I can see why some might.
sPh
"One of those pieces of GNU (or at least GPL'd) software that's older than NT is ... Linux"
;-).
Not to mention VMS - I remember a lot of VAX VMS machines on the 'net in the old days. I think it would have been kind of difficult for the VMS team to have released NT before they finished with VMS and decamped for Microsoft. Maybe that's why Bill hired them though
sPh
Coates is usually a pretty good computer beat writer, given that he admits he is not a propeller head, and his audience is the general PC user, not the expert. He is usually pretty good at explaining the what & why to non-techies, and he has taken unstable/unreliable software to task on more than one occasion.
So I think it is worth putting some more thought into why he decided to submit this column. Does he really believe what he said? If so, why? Is he saying something we should be listening to? If he doesn't believe what he said, why did he print it? Is he trying to generate flames for an "I told you so" column?
I confess I have no good insight myself. I am just a bit curious as to what his agenda is/was.
sPh
"Remember the mainframe days? Shortly after the PC came out, a torrent of similar "debate" emerged from the mainframe community. First they laughed, then they fought, then the PC community won. Suprise. History repeats itself."
Well, you have to define "won" pretty carefully. If you mean that the group that controlled the centralized (mainframe) resources was forced to give up complete control of information management services, then yes, the PC "won".
But keep in mind that big dollar, mega-user, high-bit-rate applications are almost always run on IBM (or compatible) mainframes. Or on mainframe-class minis (Sun, etc) that are designed, installed, and operated using mainframe class operations discipline. And centralization seems to be on the rise at the moment, not on the decline.
sPh
Not my business, really. But you might want to look a little more closely at the details. He used 1.2 q of water/glycol as the heat transfer medium. A drop of liquid nitrogen is one thing; a quart of glycol at -50C is another.
:-(.
Of couse, accidents always happen to the other guy, so there really is nothing to worry about
sPh
I would suggest being very (very) careful with your pipefitting & pressure testing, and thinking about what kind of containment you have in place. There is clearly enough thermal energy (actually, lack of thermal energy) in that reservior to kill you in a few hundredths of a second if you get a faceful of it.
It appears that the author of the article either knew what he was doing, or took the time to figure out what he didn't know and learn it in great detail. Be sure to do the same if you try something like this yourself.
sPh
"Not quite. You are automatically assuming everyone wants to learn. I can show you a whole crowd who don't. Not because they're ignorant or clueless, but because they have more important things to do with life."
Interestingly, that turns out not to be the case. I have done end user tech support for more than 10 years now, and have also acted as an end user representative to a centralized IT organization. So I have made this very argument to computer professionals many times.
However, I have also seen many cases over the last two years (and their frequency is increasing), where people damage their own work and/or their organization with computerized tools. This damage is caused primarily by lack of fundamental knowledge of the tools they are using. OK - not necessarily their fault. Maybe they need better training/education. But it is very hard to give them that training, because the tools beneath the tools (the machine tools, if you will) aren't there to explain what is going on and build understanding.
OTOH, I have basically concluded that I can no longer teach beginners, because I have too much knowledge and am not able to emphathize with their level of knowledge. So maybe I am just talking through my hat.
sPh
"Arnett's example of weather tries to set up Stephenson as saying something he's not. It would be a valid analogy if looking at a weather report somehow prevented you from looking at the indivdual molecules in the atmosphere. Stephenson is not against GUIs. He's against them replacing CLIs."
Another way to look at it: even on the most bubble-headed TV weather forecast, they usually show the charts and graphs with the technical data in the background, and even explain what those funny isobar things are every once in a while. The viewer who just wants to see "rain tomorrow" gets that, but the viewer who becomes interested in the technical matter can find some of that also. And maybe go beyond that: check out the weather page in the 'Chicago Tribune' sometime - detailed discussions of the five major computer models in use by US meteorologists and how they differ(!).
But if the deeper complexity is totally hidden from the viewer (GUI user), then they will never have the chance to learn more, because they won't even know it is there to be learned.
And eventually, this knowledge disappears totally, leaving a big hole. If you don't think this is happening today, put out an ad for a 2nd level support technician with four years' experience and interview the people who respond. MCSEs who don't know the first thing about how a computer actually works are a little scary to me, personally.
sPh
Milwaukee, Bosch, Makita, etc. do now sell the low end of their contractor-grade equipment through homeowner hells. They also sell consumer-grade products with the same _name_ as the high end stuff. I would imagine the margin on those sales props up entire product lines quite nicely. But they also have true high end products that are sold only through contractor supply stores and a few catalogs.
As with just about everything in modern society, the aura of mystery and power about this type of equipment is gradually fading as more information becomes available and more channels open up to the average joe, and the Internet is playing a large part in that. But I believe Stephenson's description of the Hole Hawg was and remains pretty accurate.
I have also known a few kids who have grown up with contractor (or auto mechanic) parents, and in the cases where the parents were actively engaged in passing on knowledge to their kids, the result was pretty much as Stephenson imagines. The accuracy of that vigenette was fairly telling, I thought.
It remains to be seen, though, whether this applies to computers or not. My 7 y.o. is pretty active with the PC, and he showed me some tricks I didn't know in Win95 the other day. But what I do at work is so far beyond what we do on the Wintel box at home, and so abstract, that I doubt I am passing much/any of my accumulated knowledge on to him. Anyone else have a different experience?
sPh
Have to agree with you on the Compaq desktop boxes. But in the laptop and server (Proliant) market, where everything is pretty much propriatary anyway, my coworkers and I have found Compaq's service and support to be pretty good. Their 800 support for server has talked me through some bizarre problems (usually of my own making) at 4 AM on Sunday morning more than once.
sPh
"...I'm not one of those who think Bill Gates is the devil. I simply suspect that if Microsoft ever met up with the devil, it wouldn't need an interpreter." --
Who/where is the source of that quote? I love it!
sPh