Even though they get a lot of bad press, the only reason why the planes fly are Boeing and Airbus. If it were up to pilots the planes would crash more often that Windows 95 boxes.
I remember sitting inside a Lufthansa plane on the Munich airport waiting for the plane to taxi. Sudenly we hear this very loud noise from somewhere below. The plane doesn't move and the noise goes on for 10 minutes or so. Then it suddenly stops and after a short pause the pilot gets on the intercom:
(Strong German accent:) "Ladies and Gentlemen: We had zi small problem witz one of our computerz. But now we've rezetet it and everything seemz to be OK."
After a short pause he adds:
"It waz very cold tonight here on zi ground, zat must have cauzed it."
The thing that bothers me about Mondrian is that it uses only boxed data types, which are all allocated on the heap. That's gonna hurt the performance badly.
I once tested Java's int vs. class Integer for some matrix calculations. Calculations using the class Integer was 16 times (!) slower.
First of all, it looks good. Much better than any other Java program I tried.
Second, it used a single main window instead of multiple floating ones. Us stupid Windows programmers find multiple floating windows visually confusing. There is nothing worse than seeing one's desktop bitmap with all those shiny icons in betweens one's editor and one's toolbar. (Even MDI is dying out as a concept and being replaced with a single window with tabs representing open files at the top. The only people still prefering MDI are traders, because they generally set their workspaces up to view as much info as possible and then just monitor them.)
Third, it's the first well-made piece of software I've ever seen from IBM. IBM has a history of producing inferior software on the PC platform. I once heard someone from IBM refer to his colleagues as "ninjas". If they spent more time working on their programs and less time dressed in black pajamas throwing metal stars, maybe their code would be better.
Fourth, the plug-in concept is well executed. Usually abstraction and usability don't go well hand in hand, but using Eclipse was just as comfortable as using JBuilder which is a Java-only IDE.
So why an I not using Eclipse? Because their Java plug-in is still not robust enough.
I had a rather large project that I was working on. It worked fine in JBuilder and JDK with Ant. But when I loaded those same files into Eclipse, simply touching some of them caused Eclipse to puke.
Must have been some programming construct I used. But if a tool doesn't offer a simple migration path, most people are not going to switch. More to that point: Why can't Eclipse import JBuilder and Forte project files? That would also ease the transition.
I don't know if there is a shortage of programmers, but there is most certainly a shortage of programmers that can write large-scale programs.
I work as a consultant. Most companes I visit employ mediocre staff that has trouble creating anything larger than few thousand lines of code without the program falling apart because of quality problems.
Slashdot Mirror
Even though they get a lot of bad press, the only reason why the planes fly are Boeing and Airbus. If it were up to pilots the planes would crash more often that Windows 95 boxes.
I remember sitting inside a Lufthansa plane on the Munich airport waiting for the plane to taxi. Sudenly we hear this very loud noise from somewhere below. The plane doesn't move and the noise goes on for 10 minutes or so. Then it suddenly stops and after a short pause the pilot gets on the intercom:
(Strong German accent:) "Ladies and Gentlemen: We had zi small problem witz one of our computerz. But now we've rezetet it and everything seemz to be OK."
After a short pause he adds:
"It waz very cold tonight here on zi ground, zat must have cauzed it."
Oh shit.
Most programmers are much better at pumping briskly with their right hand.
Dejan
The thing that bothers me about Mondrian is that it uses only boxed data types, which are all allocated on the heap. That's gonna hurt the performance badly.
I once tested Java's int vs. class Integer for some matrix calculations. Calculations using the class Integer was 16 times (!) slower.
Dejan
When I first tried Eclipse, I was very impressed.
First of all, it looks good. Much better than any other Java program I tried.
Second, it used a single main window instead of multiple floating ones. Us stupid Windows programmers find multiple floating windows visually confusing. There is nothing worse than seeing one's desktop bitmap with all those shiny icons in betweens one's editor and one's toolbar. (Even MDI is dying out as a concept and being replaced with a single window with tabs representing open files at the top. The only people still prefering MDI are traders, because they generally set their workspaces up to view as much info as possible and then just monitor them.)
Third, it's the first well-made piece of software I've ever seen from IBM. IBM has a history of producing inferior software on the PC platform. I once heard someone from IBM refer to his colleagues as "ninjas". If they spent more time working on their programs and less time dressed in black pajamas throwing metal stars, maybe their code would be better.
Fourth, the plug-in concept is well executed. Usually abstraction and usability don't go well hand in hand, but using Eclipse was just as comfortable as using JBuilder which is a Java-only IDE.
So why an I not using Eclipse? Because their Java plug-in is still not robust enough.
I had a rather large project that I was working on. It worked fine in JBuilder and JDK with Ant. But when I loaded those same files into Eclipse, simply touching some of them caused Eclipse to puke.
Must have been some programming construct I used. But if a tool doesn't offer a simple migration path, most people are not going to switch. More to that point: Why can't Eclipse import JBuilder and Forte project files? That would also ease the transition.
Dejan
www.jelovic.com
If you found the text from the original post funny you might want to check out the Career Guide for Engineers and Computer Scientists by Philip Greenspun.
Dejan
www.jelovic.com
What are the radiation levels of 802.11a and 802.11b compared to common household appliances?
I use my laptop 10 hours per day and I'm not sure I want my brain bombarded with energy all that time.
Dejan
www.jelovic.com
I don't know if there is a shortage of programmers, but there is most certainly a shortage of programmers that can write large-scale programs.
I work as a consultant. Most companes I visit employ mediocre staff that has trouble creating anything larger than few thousand lines of code without the program falling apart because of quality problems.