What you say is fine - and it actually fits in with my original reply - what you did can be seen as part of the QA/Testing phase. This is however one of the weaknesses I see in FPA - (remember I said i did not agree with all of it). All phases of a program have to be analysed from initial concept and design onwards - yes that falls into the "peer review" camp. This has to be done to ensure that FPs assigned are realistic and that excess 'logic' has not been built into a flawed design. No theory / metrics / methodology is perfect. You always have to use whatever is appropriate to the situation - which will depend on the size and importance of the program being developed. There's an old management saying that "you can't manage, what you can't measure". FPs are only one way of giving management something to measure - they are not a complete solution in their own right - which is kinda what I meant in part of the original reply.
This question has bugged (if you'll pardon the pun) developers, and development managers since Grace Hopper was pulling moths out from between the valves! You are right to say that lines of code is not a good way, as it encourages verbose coding, nor is time taken to complete the code a suitable measure as you must take quality into account.
In short you need to look at your whole development methodology. One of the more successful ones I have come across was based on Function Point Analysis - now there have been whole tomes written on that subject (not all of which I agree with but it may help you get some ideas). The basis of it is that each project / program is split into a number of function points, where each funciton of the program is awarded a value - eg drop down boxes might rate a "2" whereas a text input might only be a "1". Complex SQL might get a 5 - and so on (there are probably point charts somewhere on the net if you search for them). Total up the program and then the score for the program is what the coder is being asked to deliver. Now obviously there is a whole lot of stuff that can come out of this - if you know the average FPs delivered by a coder you can work out the time required etc, but what you are looking for is a measurement of productivity - so you need to look at how many FPs a coder can deliver in a day (or whatever timeframe you want really). The important thingt is that in your case you can not 'award' any points to the coder until your QA / Testing has assured you that each FP is working and can therefore be counted for that coder.
Sort out your overall development methodology and all the rest will fall into place.
I work for a major co. that has its own intranet which includes discussion forums. These are not regulated/moderated in any way,as the Co. believes that anyone who has access to the discussion groups has the right to post (very enlightened). There is however NO ACCESS to anyone from 'outside' the corporate network. (so I can not post a link here to non - corporate personnell)
So what does I mean - well to be honest I have submitted questiones several times on some other obscure questions and got relevant answers by which we allowed me top do what I wanted to go,
The average person in the street will always go for something from the 'big boys'. Reading your post I think you know that anyway. Your niche has to be aimed at the specialist or more discerning. Personally I would come to you if.....
You offer a fully customised build
You do not force any software - esp operationg system on me
You REALLY know / understand PCs - ie you do not have sales staff that are little more than acne ridden school kids
Another area you might think about - aim for the growing 'older computer user'. More and more folk in their 60's are getting into computers as they see everyone else doing it (and also sometimes for a home business. A lot of these have no experience whatsoever and can be easily conned / confused by some PC sales staff that I have seen. They would really benefit from friendly, knowledgeable, even caring help. They are often also more willing to pay the little extra to get that level of service. Why not look at the complete package, deliver set up at home, install software for them (of their choosing of course) Possibly even go as far as some basic lessons!
After reading both of the posted articles I am still not even mildly convinced that any of this is realistically applicable.
Someone please calculate - what is the worldwide capacity of the network to hold data based in this article?
Sure it's a neat technical idea and I am not against that, but get real guys - storage should be on STORAGE devices - disk, tape whatever....... What level of reliability, backup etc could ever be given to this concept?
Having worked both in the UK and now in New Zealand I know from personal exsperience that you can not easily compare remuneration. You have to take into account....
1) What are you happy earning - based on your experience etc. If you are not being paid in your home currency you may find that the exchange rate may help you with this but look at the following points too.
2) Cost of living varies incredibly between countries for example petrol (gasoline to the majority of you) costs three times as much in the UK as it does here in NZ. The cost of a beer varies almost as much. In many cases you pay in Pounds Sterling waht you pay in NZ dollars. I.E if it costs 3 kiwi dollars it will cost 3 pounds too! and yet the exchange rate put the NZ $ at around 0.3 pounds. Obviously things will vary - esp if you are starting out in the US.
3) Does the deal include accomodation and expenses - nice if you can get them!
4)Are there any other benefits included - a lot of overseas contracts include x number of flights home per year - thats a great perk.
5) Of course the reverse of 2 above applies. If you go to a country where the cost of living is cheaper your $50 US goes a lot further. $50 US an hour would equate to over $200,000 p.a. in local currency here in NZ - which is WAY above what most IT personel would dream of! and boy - would it go a long way!
One of the standard outputs from any version of lilypond is a midi file. It can not yet go the other way and pull in a midi to produce the typeset output. There is a large discussion re this on their mailing list archive. Of course if you are meaning an OCR tool to read non-lilypond 'traditional' sheet music this won't help! Have you tried joining their mailing list / discussion group to see if anyone out there has any ideas about how to OCR into lilypond?
Always thought of Snort as an IDS and alert/reporting monitor rather than a kernel absed firewall. Also is Snort not pushed as a LIGHTWEIGHT tool for relatively small networks?
Its a great improvement over what was there before, but I wonder if they are ever going to look at active content filtering. At least in a corporate firewall environment it would be great if we could allow active content such as Javascript, Java, Activex only from specific hosts, or thru specific interfaces. To be able to do this in one place, rather than relying on another product would be awesome.
Sure its a huge leap from where it is now to move to active content filtering, but the gains would also be huge. I can see that it would probably add a lot to the processing requirements, but if its rule based then the admin can decide whether or not to implement it.
Not the same MUD - the one I refer to was simply called MUD. I think it was written by Richard Bartle (?) - the name rings a bell anyway - and may have been written in something like BCPL(?)
I remember playing MUD on a decsystem 10 - or 20 (i am not sure now) back in the early 1980s. It was developed at Essex University in England. I could only run after all other 'legitimate' processing was completed, which meant it was only available from around midnight GMT till 6 am. This did mean we saw a lot of international visitors due to the time differences, thru the JANET (joint academic network?). The same MUD was also run on other DECs at other unis - I seem to remember it was sometimes available at OSLO in Norway too.
When I first wrote a computer program (c. 1975) it was hand-written on coding sheets, then punched up on cards and later entered into 'the
machine' through a card reader! You got the printout back a couple of days later. If there were any errors you had to go through the whole rigmarole once again.
This was using a version of BASIC that anyone who is used to the current Visual Basic (any version) would pull their hair out at! Variables were limited to 2 characters
and you had to use "LET". The only use of windows in those days was as a useful way of passing the trays of cards from the data keying area through to the
operators in the 'inner sanctum', the computer room! How things have changed in the quarter century or so since then!
We had to carry the rolls of paper tape from a digitizer in one department to the computer centre where there was a tape reader. After I started work
in the early 80's The Mainframe was somewhat limited. The disks were large removable hard drives holding between 5 and 30 MB) and resembled small spin dryers. They made a noise a bit like spin dryers too when you started them up!
And do I miss any of the above - not a bit. Give me a good linux box with KDE any day!
Checking out the internet appiances section on e-bay (pure coincidence - honest!) I came across this ad http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem& item=1208382162 25 I-opener for sale at one hit!. Odd thing is some of the wording is rather similar to the URL in the original post at http://www.phoenixgarage.net/. Oh how strange there is also a link there from E-Bay. Is someone here trying to get/.rs to check out the add on e-bay.
Or worse still have I just fallen for it and now helped in his plan?
As many if not all of the companies listed in the article currently provide some for of security notifications to their customers, how is this going to really change anything? Many of these companies are rivals, and have not in the past freely given out information, especially on security flaws in their products - will this new "openness' Really come to pass?
It is also often common that rivalry will mean that in a sales situation your local 'friendly' Corporate salesperson will quote flaws, vulnerabilities in a rivals product - will this new group simply give sales guys more ammunition, or will it really help cure problems before they escalate. (I do believe this is the original intent, but simply can't believe it will work).
Slashdot Mirror
What you say is fine - and it actually fits in with my original reply - what you did can be seen as part of the QA/Testing phase. This is however one of the weaknesses I see in FPA - (remember I said i did not agree with all of it). All phases of a program have to be analysed from initial concept and design onwards - yes that falls into the "peer review" camp. This has to be done to ensure that FPs assigned are realistic and that excess 'logic' has not been built into a flawed design. No theory / metrics / methodology is perfect. You always have to use whatever is appropriate to the situation - which will depend on the size and importance of the program being developed. There's an old management saying that "you can't manage, what you can't measure". FPs are only one way of giving management something to measure - they are not a complete solution in their own right - which is kinda what I meant in part of the original reply.
This question has bugged (if you'll pardon the pun) developers, and development managers since Grace Hopper was pulling moths out from between the valves! You are right to say that lines of code is not a good way, as it encourages verbose coding, nor is time taken to complete the code a suitable measure as you must take quality into account.
In short you need to look at your whole development methodology. One of the more successful ones I have come across was based on Function Point Analysis - now there have been whole tomes written on that subject (not all of which I agree with but it may help you get some ideas). The basis of it is that each project / program is split into a number of function points, where each funciton of the program is awarded a value - eg drop down boxes might rate a "2" whereas a text input might only be a "1". Complex SQL might get a 5 - and so on (there are probably point charts somewhere on the net if you search for them). Total up the program and then the score for the program is what the coder is being asked to deliver. Now obviously there is a whole lot of stuff that can come out of this - if you know the average FPs delivered by a coder you can work out the time required etc, but what you are looking for is a measurement of productivity - so you need to look at how many FPs a coder can deliver in a day (or whatever timeframe you want really). The important thingt is that in your case you can not 'award' any points to the coder until your QA / Testing has assured you that each FP is working and can therefore be counted for that coder.
Sort out your overall development methodology and all the rest will fall into place.
I work for a major co. that has its own intranet which includes discussion forums. These are not regulated /moderated in any way,as the Co. believes that anyone who has access to the discussion groups has the right to post (very enlightened). There is however NO ACCESS to anyone from 'outside' the corporate network. (so I can not post a link here to non - corporate personnell)
So what does I mean - well to be honest I have submitted questiones several times on some other obscure questions and got relevant answers by which we allowed me top do what I wanted to go,
You offer a fully customised build
You do not force any software - esp operationg system on me
You REALLY know / understand PCs - ie you do not have sales staff that are little more than acne ridden school kids
Another area you might think about - aim for the growing 'older computer user'. More and more folk in their 60's are getting into computers as they see everyone else doing it (and also sometimes for a home business. A lot of these have no experience whatsoever and can be easily conned / confused by some PC sales staff that I have seen. They would really benefit from friendly, knowledgeable, even caring help. They are often also more willing to pay the little extra to get that level of service. Why not look at the complete package, deliver set up at home, install software for them (of their choosing of course) Possibly even go as far as some basic lessons!
Someone please calculate - what is the worldwide capacity of the network to hold data based in this article?
Sure it's a neat technical idea and I am not against that, but get real guys - storage should be on STORAGE devices - disk, tape whatever....... What level of reliability, backup etc could ever be given to this concept?
how could this be used in the real world?
what are the capacity implications?
what backup could ever be made available>
Go on...
Tell me what this is really about!!!!
Having worked both in the UK and now in New Zealand I know from personal exsperience that you can not easily compare remuneration. You have to take into account....
1) What are you happy earning - based on your experience etc. If you are not being paid in your home currency you may find that the exchange rate may help you with this but look at the following points too.
2) Cost of living varies incredibly between countries for example petrol (gasoline to the majority of you) costs three times as much in the UK as it does here in NZ. The cost of a beer varies almost as much. In many cases you pay in Pounds Sterling waht you pay in NZ dollars. I.E if it costs 3 kiwi dollars it will cost 3 pounds too! and yet the exchange rate put the NZ $ at around 0.3 pounds. Obviously things will vary - esp if you are starting out in the US.
3) Does the deal include accomodation and expenses - nice if you can get them!
4)Are there any other benefits included - a lot of overseas contracts include x number of flights home per year - thats a great perk.
5) Of course the reverse of 2 above applies. If you go to a country where the cost of living is cheaper your $50 US goes a lot further. $50 US an hour would equate to over $200,000 p.a. in local currency here in NZ - which is WAY above what most IT personel would dream of! and boy - would it go a long way!
Just some thoughts.
and as always YMMV!
One of the standard outputs from any version of lilypond is a midi file. It can not yet go the other way and pull in a midi to produce the typeset output. There is a large discussion re this on their mailing list archive. Of course if you are meaning an OCR tool to read non-lilypond 'traditional' sheet music this won't help! Have you tried joining their mailing list / discussion group to see if anyone out there has any ideas about how to OCR into lilypond?
Always thought of Snort as an IDS and alert/reporting monitor rather than a kernel absed firewall. Also is Snort not pushed as a LIGHTWEIGHT tool for relatively small networks?
Its a great improvement over what was there before, but I wonder if they are ever going to look at active content filtering. At least in a corporate firewall environment it would be great if we could allow active content such as Javascript, Java, Activex only from specific hosts, or thru specific interfaces. To be able to do this in one place, rather than relying on another product would be awesome.
Sure its a huge leap from where it is now to move to active content filtering, but the gains would also be huge. I can see that it would probably add a lot to the processing requirements, but if its rule based then the admin can decide whether or not to implement it.
Not the same MUD - the one I refer to was simply called MUD. I think it was written by Richard Bartle (?) - the name rings a bell anyway - and may have been written in something like BCPL(?)
I remember playing MUD on a decsystem 10 - or 20 (i am not sure now) back in the early 1980s. It was developed at Essex University in England. I could only run after all other 'legitimate' processing was completed, which meant it was only available from around midnight GMT till 6 am. This did mean we saw a lot of international visitors due to the time differences, thru the JANET (joint academic network?). The same MUD was also run on other DECs at other unis - I seem to remember it was sometimes available at OSLO in Norway too.
Was this the first real MUD?
When I first wrote a computer program (c. 1975) it was hand-written on coding sheets, then punched up on cards and later entered into 'the machine' through a card reader! You got the printout back a couple of days later. If there were any errors you had to go through the whole rigmarole once again.
This was using a version of BASIC that anyone who is used to the current Visual Basic (any version) would pull their hair out at! Variables were limited to 2 characters and you had to use "LET". The only use of windows in those days was as a useful way of passing the trays of cards from the data keying area through to the operators in the 'inner sanctum', the computer room! How things have changed in the quarter century or so since then! We had to carry the rolls of paper tape from a digitizer in one department to the computer centre where there was a tape reader. After I started work in the early 80's The Mainframe was somewhat limited. The disks were large removable hard drives holding between 5 and 30 MB) and resembled small spin dryers. They made a noise a bit like spin dryers too when you started them up!
And do I miss any of the above - not a bit. Give me a good linux box with KDE any day!
Checking out the internet appiances section on e-bay (pure coincidence - honest!) I came across this ad http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem& item=1208382162 /.rs to check out the add on e-bay.
25 I-opener for sale at one hit!. Odd thing is some of the wording is rather similar to the URL in the original post at http://www.phoenixgarage.net/.
Oh how strange there is also a link there from E-Bay. Is someone here trying to get
Or worse still have I just fallen for it and now helped in his plan?
As many if not all of the companies listed in the article currently provide some for of security notifications to their customers, how is this going to really change anything? Many of these companies are rivals, and have not in the past freely given out information, especially on security flaws in their products - will this new "openness' Really come to pass? It is also often common that rivalry will mean that in a sales situation your local 'friendly' Corporate salesperson will quote flaws, vulnerabilities in a rivals product - will this new group simply give sales guys more ammunition, or will it really help cure problems before they escalate. (I do believe this is the original intent, but simply can't believe it will work).
Grub - www.gnu.org/software/grub/ - has had support for Reiserfs since mid last year. grub also offers a lot of other goodies over and above LILO