Changing over to automobiles [from horse-drawn carriages] required throwing away a lot of existing technology. Well, they kept the dashboard.
The question should be "Is the new technology inherently superior enough to what we've got now to justify changing?" Exactly right. Now the questions are when and how. I suspect that Lindows will play a role similar to the Tin Lizzie.
Re:WRONG! POSIX does some really dumb things!!
on
LSB & Posix Conflicts
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· Score: 0, Offtopic
Computer instructions include arithmetic operations such as ADD or SUB. Computer instructions include logical operations such as AND or OR. Logical AND is maybe a bit redundant, (illogical AND?), but avoids confusion as a synonym for ADD as in "2 and 2 are 4". & is a binary operator which produces the logical AND of its two evaluated parameters. && is a flow control operator which evaluates its right-hand parameter only if required to determine the truth value. This is NOT what was referred to.
ASM goes something like: LOAD flags AND FLAG_CONSTANT JZ around_blah
C could be as simple as: if ( flags & FLAG_CONSTANT ) { blah ; }
At one point way back when, the norm was to buy the license from AT&T and get the software from Berkeley. AT&T did attempt to bring its own UNIX back up to par and it's very credible that (without attribution) they included stuff from Berkeley (and MIT etc.). There's a lot of creative power in a bunch of graduate students.
It's funny how people download Talkback builds of Mozilla just to be able to let your computer report problems to the Mozilla team so they can improve the browser, while others refuse to enable the similar feature in Windows.
It has to do with trust, as well as the likelyhood of actually making a difference. With Microsoft, there's too much data about too many people's sytems going to an unknown place where it's researchable for too many attributes by too many people.
Once again, ever used XP? Yep. I have two computers at work. A Gateway 400MHz with 19" screen and NT4. A Dell 2.4gHz with 20" screen and XP Pro. If I have to give up one of them, it'll be the Dell, for exactly the reasons the parent stated.
One thing I've learned the hard way. When it starts acting funny, kill the power. Do not let the system turn a temporary brain damage into a permanent brain damage by writing it do disk.
You don't know what you don't know. True on multiple levels.
Programming's no different from anything else, except that strange things are done with the timing. A baby crawling and a jet from NYC to LA are both means of locomotion, but have almost nothing in common. Programming and all things computer tend to be extremely inbred. It may look difficult, but everything else is really much harder.
I find it hard to imagine that there's only some 30 different ways to lay bricks. Same bricks in same order in same place. I build a wall. A master bricklayer build a wall. His will stay up a lot longer. I don't know why, but my lack of knowledge isn't going to help my wall.
greatest coders in the world still have bugs in their code.(*)
My inability to run into any of the bugs does not mean that the bugs aren't there. I've seen too many cases where it requires a bug in A and a bug in B to result in anything visible. Fix either and the bug disapears, but one's still lurking. Fix both and after a while it becomes extremely difficult for the remaining bugs to show themselves. But they are still there.
I bet lots of houses fell down during the first 50 years of bricklaying too. And lots of people looked over the rubble to get some idea of why the house fell down. Lots of people. Lots of debris. Sounds like the "With enough eyes all bugs are shallow" aphorism. Note this is not necessarily lots of eyes to fix the problem. You need lots of eyes so that someone looks just the right way and can actually see the problem. "My house fell down" is just as useless as "My computer crashed" to anyone actually trying to solve the problem.
Hmmmm. Microsquish makes a poor David. Sony and Phillips make a pair of Goliaths.
Sony and Philips are not exactly monolithic enterprises, but consist of two distinct competitors in anything with regard to entertainment products. However, Sony and Philips have always been interested in establishing firm and open standards
The advantage of competition is that I do not need to trust either of the competitors. They will tend to keep each other honest and prevent too heavy a concentration of control in anyone's hands. I would imagine that both Goliaths know quite a bit about patent litigation.
I'd like to know what use is having the source if you can't compile it.
Documentation. Cheap. Accurate. Effective.
I know several cases where a product (usually a library) was chosen because full source was included in the deal. A fast look at the source gives accurate answers to questions that inevitably arise after you get into it somewhat deeply.
I am sorry, but that is just on crack (and so is whoever modded you "Insightful".) In fact, with Terminal Services and the rdesktop client program, you can even administer a Windows desktop or server from a Linux or Mac box. Yes, you can do remote reboots, remote software patches, remote software upgrades, and pretty much everything else.
IF You have a responsive high-speed connection. Cell phone is pretty slow, makes dial-up look like a speed demon. For anything but trivial, driving there would be faster.
Ergo, I think intrusion tolerance is a meritless approach. The way you get the larger system to be intrusion tolerant is to make the subsystems intrusion intolerant. The time to 'fall on the sword' isn't when complete failure is immenent, it's when it's working in the wrong direction. You can build reliable systems from unreliable components. Unfortunately the norm seems to be building unreliable systems from reliable components.
My point is, Linux security is questionable. Agreed. There are surely more holes and errors to be fixed. Whether there are any left that are worth the trouble of exploiting is questionable. With Microsoft, the security is unquestionable. It isn't. If you really want to be annoyed, listen to the OpenBSD folks, and it isn't BS.
And I'm sure there isn't a whole lot of personal style that makes it through from the source to the machine language - but I *guarentee* there are cases when it does. It is possible to identify people just from the way they walk. The compiler will do a good job of muddling the distinctions among programmers, but most of the organizational proclivities of the programmers will still get through into the machine code. For the exact same partial order implied by the algorithm and the data, the programmers will repeatedly choose a distinctive linear order. Oddly enough, if the programmers are good enough, and there is a determinable optimum linear order or a cannonical linear order, two programmers can produce identical programs down to the exact spelling of the comments.
Right on target. Microsoft know this and their current strategy to avoid it is to evolve a technical and legal wall around the hardware That's Microsoft's wall around my computer.
Ever notice how intrusive that damned butterfly is?;-)
Yes, we're reducing our Linux deployment, eliminating Linux entirely -- or at least we're thinking about it: 9 percent.
No, SCO's threats are having no effect on our plans: 91 percent
Wildly inaccurate but considering how the choices are phrased, 9 percent is an awfully low value.
If they weren't planning to deploy linux anyway, it doesn't mean much. I'd read it differently. The phrasing of the questions is extremely biased. Methinks that if the same respondents were asked if they were deploying or planned to deploy Linux, the results would be substantially less than 91%. What the results do is give some indication of the ill will that SCO has engendered toward itself.
Both times the results were laughable. Not a single coupon was for somethind I used, or wanted to use, or might have been persuaded to use, based on the data they've 'gathered'.
But The gatherers of the data were able to convince the store to send you a mess of useless coupons. The problem isn't with complete and accurate information. The problem is with drawing unwaranted conclusions based on incomplete and inaccurate information.
When was the last time cookies were used to betray your privacy? How would I know? How would I know if my cookies got mixed up with someone else's cookies?
Bingo. 1) Domain knowledge. If you've got that wrong, you're solving the wrong problem. Being better at being wrong is not equivalent to being better. 2) Solid data modeling ability. No argument there. You need as accurate as possible a mapping from the domain to and from the bits, bytes, and structures within the computer. The operations within the computer need to model the corresponding operations in the "real world". What number system are you using? (2+NULL has at least 3 interpretations: 2, NULL, THE END OF THE WORLD)
Buzzword compliance attempts to have the easy magic solution to a difficult problem. Doesn't work.
The thing is to be aware of this before coding and take steps to compensate and reduce the damage from those bugs. An excuse after the fact, the canard seems infantile.
All software has bugs. They are most certainly not created equal. Just because there is no way to expose them, doesn't mean they're not there.
("it works for me, so it's done!") OUCH! There is a big difference between partially working for a few things for a few people and never failing for everything for everybody. Some of the critical knowledge lies in the application area and is neither achieved readily or even necessarily consistent.
From an old fart, that sounds like what we use to call a timing error. Set the threads off running and quite often you can get random results. Just a guess, but I would not be at all surprised if it didn't crash on VMware.
Slashdot Mirror
Changing over to automobiles [from horse-drawn carriages] required throwing away a lot of existing technology.
Well, they kept the dashboard.
The question should be "Is the new technology inherently superior enough to what we've got now to justify changing?"
Exactly right.
Now the questions are when and how.
I suspect that Lindows will play a role similar to the Tin Lizzie.
Computer instructions include arithmetic operations such as ADD or SUB.
Computer instructions include logical operations such as AND or OR.
Logical AND is maybe a bit redundant, (illogical AND?), but avoids confusion as a synonym for ADD as in "2 and 2 are 4".
& is a binary operator which produces the logical AND of its two evaluated parameters.
&& is a flow control operator which evaluates its right-hand parameter only if required to determine the truth value. This is NOT what was referred to.
ASM goes something like:
LOAD flags
AND FLAG_CONSTANT
JZ around_blah
C could be as simple as:
if ( flags & FLAG_CONSTANT ) { blah ; }
At one point way back when, the norm was to buy the license from AT&T and get the software from Berkeley. AT&T did attempt to bring its own UNIX back up to par and it's very credible that (without attribution) they included stuff from Berkeley (and MIT etc.). There's a lot of creative power in a bunch of graduate students.
It's funny how people download Talkback builds of Mozilla just to be able to let your computer report problems to the Mozilla team so they can improve the browser, while others refuse to enable the similar feature in Windows.
It has to do with trust, as well as the likelyhood of actually making a difference. With Microsoft, there's too much data about too many people's sytems going to an unknown place where it's researchable for too many attributes by too many people.
Once again, ever used XP?
Yep. I have two computers at work. A Gateway 400MHz with 19" screen and NT4. A Dell 2.4gHz with 20" screen and XP Pro. If I have to give up one of them, it'll be the Dell, for exactly the reasons the parent stated.
One thing I've learned the hard way. When it starts acting funny, kill the power. Do not let the system turn a temporary brain damage into a permanent brain damage by writing it do disk.
You don't know what you don't know.
True on multiple levels.
Programming's no different from anything else, except that strange things are done with the timing. A baby crawling and a jet from NYC to LA are both means of locomotion, but have almost nothing in common. Programming and all things computer tend to be extremely inbred. It may look difficult, but everything else is really much harder.
I find it hard to imagine that there's only some 30 different ways to lay bricks. Same bricks in same order in same place. I build a wall. A master bricklayer build a wall. His will stay up a lot longer. I don't know why, but my lack of knowledge isn't going to help my wall.
greatest coders in the world still have bugs in their code.(*)
My inability to run into any of the bugs does not mean that the bugs aren't there. I've seen too many cases where it requires a bug in A and a bug in B to result in anything visible. Fix either and the bug disapears, but one's still lurking. Fix both and after a while it becomes extremely difficult for the remaining bugs to show themselves. But they are still there.
(*) with the possible exception of Don Knuth.
I bet lots of houses fell down during the first 50 years of bricklaying too.
And lots of people looked over the rubble to get some idea of why the house fell down. Lots of people. Lots of debris. Sounds like the "With enough eyes all bugs are shallow" aphorism. Note this is not necessarily lots of eyes to fix the problem. You need lots of eyes so that someone looks just the right way and can actually see the problem. "My house fell down" is just as useless as "My computer crashed" to anyone actually trying to solve the problem.
Hmmmm.
Microsquish makes a poor David.
Sony and Phillips make a pair of Goliaths.
Sony and Philips are not exactly monolithic enterprises, but consist of two distinct competitors in anything with regard to entertainment products. However, Sony and Philips have always been interested in establishing firm and open standards
The advantage of competition is that I do not need to trust either of the competitors. They will tend to keep each other honest and prevent too heavy a concentration of control in anyone's hands. I would imagine that both Goliaths know quite a bit about patent litigation.
I'd like to know what use is having the source if you can't compile it.
Documentation. Cheap. Accurate. Effective.
I know several cases where a product (usually a library) was chosen because full source was included in the deal.
A fast look at the source gives accurate answers to questions that inevitably arise after you get into it somewhat deeply.
I am sorry, but that is just on crack (and so is whoever modded you "Insightful".) In fact, with Terminal Services and the rdesktop client program, you can even administer a Windows desktop or server from a Linux or Mac box. Yes, you can do remote reboots, remote software patches, remote software upgrades, and pretty much everything else.
IF
You have a responsive high-speed connection. Cell phone is pretty slow, makes dial-up look like a speed demon. For anything but trivial, driving there would be faster.
Nothing much goes wrong.
Ergo, I think intrusion tolerance is a meritless approach.
The way you get the larger system to be intrusion tolerant is to make the subsystems intrusion intolerant. The time to 'fall on the sword' isn't when complete failure is immenent, it's when it's working in the wrong direction.
You can build reliable systems from unreliable components. Unfortunately the norm seems to be building unreliable systems from reliable components.
As I have entirely too much that *is* important on my box, I'm not taking any chances. I'm not updating.
My point is, Linux security is questionable.
Agreed. There are surely more holes and errors to be fixed. Whether there are any left that are worth the trouble of exploiting is questionable.
With Microsoft, the security is unquestionable. It isn't.
If you really want to be annoyed, listen to the OpenBSD folks, and it isn't BS.
And I'm sure there isn't a whole lot of personal style that makes it through from the source to the machine language - but I *guarentee* there are cases when it does.
It is possible to identify people just from the way they walk.
The compiler will do a good job of muddling the distinctions among programmers, but most of the organizational proclivities of the programmers will still get through into the machine code. For the exact same partial order implied by the algorithm and the data, the programmers will repeatedly choose a distinctive linear order. Oddly enough, if the programmers are good enough, and there is a determinable optimum linear order or a cannonical linear order, two programmers can produce identical programs down to the exact spelling of the comments.
Right on target.
;-)
Microsoft know this and their current strategy to avoid it is to evolve a technical and legal wall around the hardware
That's Microsoft's wall around my computer.
Ever notice how intrusive that damned butterfly is?
Yes, we're reducing our Linux deployment, eliminating Linux entirely -- or at least we're thinking about it: 9 percent.
No, SCO's threats are having no effect on our plans: 91 percent
Wildly inaccurate but considering how the choices are phrased, 9 percent is an awfully low value.
If they weren't planning to deploy linux anyway, it doesn't mean much.
I'd read it differently. The phrasing of the questions is extremely biased. Methinks that if the same respondents were asked if they were deploying or planned to deploy Linux, the results would be substantially less than 91%. What the results do is give some indication of the ill will that SCO has engendered toward itself.
The bottom line is that you have very little "privacy" today anyway.
Hardly a reason to have even less.
In Scott McNealy's words, "get over it."
Why should I?
For Scott McNealy's convenience?
Both times the results were laughable. Not a single coupon was for somethind I used, or wanted to use, or might have been persuaded to use, based on the data they've 'gathered'.
But
The gatherers of the data were able to convince the store to send you a mess of useless coupons. The problem isn't with complete and accurate information. The problem is with drawing unwaranted conclusions based on incomplete and inaccurate information.
When was the last time cookies were used to betray your privacy?
How would I know?
How would I know if my cookies got mixed up with someone else's cookies?
Bingo.
1) Domain knowledge. If you've got that wrong, you're solving the wrong problem. Being better at being wrong is not equivalent to being better.
2) Solid data modeling ability. No argument there. You need as accurate as possible a mapping from the domain to and from the bits, bytes, and structures within the computer. The operations within the computer need to model the corresponding operations in the "real world". What number system are you using? (2+NULL has at least 3 interpretations: 2, NULL, THE END OF THE WORLD)
Buzzword compliance attempts to have the easy magic solution to a difficult problem. Doesn't work.
It's probably more like a $2000 computer system.
That's $500 each for cpu, monitor, keyboard, mouse.
Adds up fine, but the details are misleading.
The thing is to be aware of this before coding and take steps to compensate and reduce the damage from those bugs.
An excuse after the fact, the canard seems infantile.
All software has bugs. They are most certainly not created equal. Just because there is no way to expose them, doesn't mean they're not there.
("it works for me, so it's done!")
OUCH!
There is a big difference between partially working for a few things for a few people and never failing for everything for everybody. Some of the critical knowledge lies in the application area and is neither achieved readily or even necessarily consistent.
You know that.
... that RFID tag is radioactive. ;-)
I know that.
But but but
From an old fart, that sounds like what we use to call a timing error.
Set the threads off running and quite often you can get random results.
Just a guess, but I would not be at all surprised if it didn't crash on VMware.
...with a very sensitive geiger counter ;-)