> 1: Research > 2: Open Source your results > 3: No profit!
standard_method invokes 3-Steps-To-Profit! tcopeland counters with Obligatory-Simpsons!
The problem, I think, is that it might be revolutionary... or maybe it's not. It's hard to tell, since I can't read much about it other than meta-interfaces. It'd be fine if they have a closed-source implementation or some such... but not even knowing what the public interfaces are makes it hard to get a handle on it.
I guess it's the broad, sweeping nature of the announcement. I mean, if they announced "we've got a great new way for a shipping company to track container delivery", sure, fine, let Evergreen contact them and give them money if they've got a track record in that market. But to say "we've invented a wonderful new way of communicating between devices, now pay us to tell you about it", well, there are a lot more players in that field and people are working on those rather tricky problems all the time.
> offering it for free in an Open Source > fashion is going to mean.. they're out of a > lot of money.
Hm, maybe, but if they're hoping to spread a new standard for communicating between devices, publishing it so folks can implement/analyze/understand it might be a better way to go.
To me it's as if they're saying "we've invented something very nifty, please give us some money and we'll show it to you". It's just hard to make a compelling argument that way. Or maybe I'm missing some point in their pitch...
Q. What does an equipment manufacturer or service provider need to do to Obje-enable a device, service, or product line? A. Please contact us for co-development and licensing information.
Right on, it's not a new idea, it's an implementation of an old idea.
> a synchronization system for distributed > system rather then a data moving middleware
Yup. I think I misunderstood the original question - I thought we were trying to figure out how to run a server farm for the game, but I see most folks are discussed client/server comms. So I probably missed the point.
> It's hard to "tune" it
Hm. Probably.... you could do some Externalizable stuff, and maybe rewrite some things using NIO, but, you're right, three public operations doesn't leave much room...
JavaSpaces is more or less Sun's Jini take on distributed processing.
From a programmer point of view, you start up a "space", and then you can write objects in, take them out, and read them. And that's all. So there are a very few simple operations, and you structure your app around those.
Anyhow, it seems like a couple of JavaSpaces on a rack of servers might serve as a good way to distribute processing/notification/etc. Of course, you're limited to Java and to moving around Serializable objects....
Before the project stops, the team plans to do at least one more release. Release 2.06 will see FreeS/WAN making a late step toward its goal of being a simple, secure OE product with the removal of Transport Mode. This in keeping with one of Neils Fergusson's and Bruce Schneier's security recommendations, in A Cryptographic Evaluation of IPsec. 2.06 will also feature KLIPS (FreeS/WAN's Kernel Layer IPsec machinery) changes to faciliate use with the 2.6 kernel series.
They've got good info on each country - i.e., here's the page on Malaysia. They also serve as a mirror for Open Office, various BSDs, multiple RedHat releases, and so forth, so they're doing more than just gathering news. No banner ads, either.
I'm not sure if this is a troll or not... but, what the heck.
> Extra code == extra bloat
Writing tests helps student understand their code and track down bugs. If you don't want students to submit tests, tell them not to.
> Too much documentation
What does JavaDoc - which the compiler discards - have to do with unit tests?
> Unit tests are written with no extra > skill than the code they test
Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. If a student is writing tests, at least he's trying to improve his code quality. You're a grad student; show him how to write better code _and_ better tests.
I use a slew of JUnit tests for a project I work on (PMD) - you can see all the code for the tests here (thanks JXR!).
Here's an example of one of the PMD JUnit tests that checks the command line option processing:
public void testShortNames() {
CommandLineOptions opt = new CommandLineOptions(new String[] {"file", "format", "ruleset", "-shortnames"});
assertTrue(opt.shortNamesEnabled());
}
and another that makes sure that an Exception is thrown in another case:
public void testNullArgs() {
try {
new CommandLineOptions(null);
fail("Should have thrown an exception when null passed to constructor");
} catch (RuntimeException re) { // cool
}
}
When I make a code change, I just rerun all the tests to make sure I didn't break anything. If someone reports a bug, I add a test so that bug won't reappear. Sweet.
Especially helpful was a small appendix which listed various recipes; i.e., the series of 3 or 4 steps necessary to merge a bugfix from one branch to another or whatever. I always forget the order of those cvs -j options...
Currently males and females are treated the same vis-a-vis marriage - that is, neither can legally "marry" someone of the same sex. It's not discrimination since both are treated equally.
> Under the constitution there are things > the law CANNOT do
The difficulty here is that I'm not sure what statute defining or governing marriage we're talking about, so I can't read it myself. Googling produces the Defense of Marriage Act and various references to Murphy vs Ramsay, 114 U.S. 15, 45 (1885). But those aren't what we're talking about.
> is it a "redefinition" when the first black > and white stand up and announce they are > getting married?
Only if they are of the same sex.
Religion/morality:
> revising the interpretation of the Bible
Of course. Explaining misunderstandings, opposing current heresies, etc. Apologetics, so 'tis.
> You lose the ability to ever prove > any other religion is wrong about anything.
To the contrary, we disproved Tomism by observing I was burned by a candle. Thus we can indeed judge a religion by its claims.
> That does not make everything a good idea.
"Good" implies a moral judgement. To make a moral judgement, you must have a standard to judge against.
> I think [..] I think [..] I think [..]
Although those are reasonable thoughts, they don't constitute any sort of binding moral code. Furthermore, a bad person could come along and oppose you on any of those points and you'd be unable to appeal to any higher authority. This leads back to the law of the jungle - whoever is strongest, wins.
> I don't need to pick some random > religion to tell me how to be a good person
In a sense, I agree - God's placed within us a conscience that tells us that stealing is wrong, and charity is right, and so forth. The problem is that if we don't acknowledge the source of those moral feelings is God, we can ignore them whenever it's inconvenient. We can just ascribe them to society or our upbringing or some such and go blithely on our way.
> due to absolute uncertianty of your > gods intentions
Ah, but he's made it pretty certain that I should take care of folks, so I'll lay in with the shovel right alongside of you.
A lack of absolute certaintly isn't a lack of some knowledge; I'm not absolutely certain that the sun will come up tomorrow, but I'll still get a good night's sleep in preparation for work.
> god implies relativistic moral confusion, > while atheists should maim child abusers
In other news, Torvalds installs Windows XP and Bill Gates runs Linux.
> beyond getting dumped by the most > wonderful girlfreind i'll ever have
Argh..... my sympathies. I recall being dumped by my girlfriend shortly after heading off to college; ack. That's a nice thing about being married; the uncertainty is gone. Hey, why don't I give you a paper cut and pour lemon juice in there while I'm at it?
> They rely instead upon the application of > reason, the lessons of history, and > personal experience to form an > ethical/moral foundation and to create > meaning in life.
The problem is that these are arbitrary sources of morals, and thus any code generated from them can be tweaked at will to fit your desires. Furthermore, even if _my_ personal experience tells me something, why should _you_ regard that as binding?
Hm. I think there's two rather different "marriage" concepts we're discussing. The first is the traditional man-woman marriage which has been practiced all over the world for quite a while and is given in the Bible. The second is the govt-sponsored legal arrangement which provides visitation rights and tax exemptions and all that.
It seems to me that the former can't be redefined, because it wasn't defined by people. And the latter can be redefined at will, because it's a matter of public policy.
Does that sound about right - am I missing something there?
As far as Christianity goes, yup, you guessed it. And I'd be happy to discuss various controversies which have arisen around it. The specific example you brought up of Galileo is an instance of the Catholic Church leadership of the time straying from the Bible and into areas they didn't understand. The Bible doesn't say much about solar system geography.
The burning house argument wasn't directed toward the marriage redefinition question - it was directed towards the point that if you feel that your neighbor is in danger and doesn't even know it, you have a duty to aid him, or at least make him aware of his danger. I expect the Mormons or Scientologists to try to convince me of their views, and it's an act of kindness on their part to reach out to me.
If I can interject a point - it seems to me that you're out on a limb and you're sawing away at the side closest to the trunk. That is, on the question of marriage redefinition, you're saying the law should do this and that and the law can't do the other thing. That it's, you're asserting moral imperatives. At the same time, you appear to be denying the existence of any overarching authority that could possibly give you a basis to make moral statements at all. Back to Nietzsche: "If there is no God, everything is permissible".
> instead of placing arbitrary > 'right and wrong' sets in each of us
Hm... if that were true, then what's right for you might be wrong for me, and vice versa. Which kind of puts us back to square one, where it's impossible to make any sort of moral judgements like "child abuse is wrong" because we'd have to acknowledge that it could be "right" for someone else. Yikes.
Yup, I agree that either evolution or intelligent design are about the only choices.
> the process of evolution is powerful > enough to have created life
I don't know.... seems to me that evolution is always fighting it out with the law of entropy. In the little bit of AI/artificial life programming I've done, it seems that the systems almost always go right down the tubes - and that's in a very constrained environment - 2-3 "life" forms, simple rules, etc.
> could be because a Creator tuned the > laws of this universe
Sure, yup, the "Blind Watchmaker" idea.
Funny old thing, life! I get the feeling that the Slashdot end-of-thread thing is going to cut us off here pretty shortly... but, good times!
> this implies that a moral code, even if it's > basis was given to us by the Christian God, > need not be derived from Christian authority
What would you say to someone who asks "where did our moral code come from?"? Would you just say "don't ask that, it's just there"? Probably not... you'd want to give a better answer than that.
Not at all. Instead, immorality is immorality, and societal collapse is an effect, not a cause.
> you're saying anyone who acts immorally > isn't really a Christian?
Nope, Christians sin all the time. I'm saying that anyone can say "I'm a Christian". Saying the words doesn't mean much.
> Can you name a religion with a perfect record?
Ah, but there's a difference between a religion and the followers thereof.
> acting in humanity's interest is your > most deeply-ingrained instinct
Not at all! Acting in my own interests would seem to be in my best interest. I mean, I won't live forever.
> people are more likely to hurt you > if you hurt them.
Well, that's the law of the jungle. I agree that arbitrary moral codes seem to reduce to that - whoever is strongest, wins.
> it will never be justified.
A lot of Marxists and other intellectuals thought, and still think, that it was a price they were willing to pay. "When you chop down the trees, the chips will fly" and all that. That's the problem with sacrificing the present for the future. Ack.
> Where do you think morality comes from?
Either God, or no one. As Nietzsche said: "If there is no God, then everything is permitted".
> how do you explain non-evil people who > don't subscribe to them?
I think God has given most people a conscience that lets us know when we do right and wrong.
> Are they just copying you?
It's not _me_, or any other Christian, who is good. It's God who is good. And His Son, Jesus, died for the sins of those God called to Him. So all the sins that I've committed - and continue daily to commit - were laid on Jesus. The Bible says "while we were still dead in our sins, Christ loved us".
Jesus saves, not good works. That's why the Gospel is called "the good news" - because the message is not "do good and you'll go to heaven". Instead, it's "someone else has taken the punishment for your sins".
Right, it's a codified set of behaviors, but it's an arbitrary one. It has no authority, and it's not binding in any sense other than "if you break this code, those who adhere to it will oppose you".
> the reason that we don't know how we know > is that in 95% of all situations the > awnser is obvious
You're saying that we seem to internally know right from wrong, and I agree. But where did that innate sense of right and wrong come from? If it's just habit or just societal conditioning, we can override that sense whenever we want to without feeling guilty about it. But if that sense of right and wrong was place inside us by God, that's different...
> Why on earth would you not want to prevent > from it happening to someone else?
The problem is that I can value my pleasure over someone else's pain. And that's wrong... but why is it wrong? In other words, "who says"?
> What the hell kind of moral centre is that?
But what you're proposing is that each person knows what's right or wrong and does what is right, aren't you? Doesn't that proposal break down in the face of human behavior?
> if those tablets read "Thou shalt have > sex with animals and torture small > children" (or the reverse)
I understand - it's a circular argument. "What God says is good". "But what's good?" "It's what God says". And I sympathize with your repugnance, and agree - of course these things are terribly wrong. But don't stop there! Keep using your mind! How can a concept of "goodness" exists outside of a standard? If there's no absolute authority, aren't all judgements relative? How can we make moral judgements without a moral standard?
In response to your questions, yes, I've worked a variety of jobs (scooped ice cream in a mall, planted pine trees, unpacked boxes for the local Dollar General, etc), I've felt pain, I don't like seeing others suffer, and I've got four children and don't want to see them suffer. Yet, I want them to understand why hurting others is wrong - not just _that_ it is, but _why_ it is.
Slashdot Mirror
> 1: Research
> 2: Open Source your results
> 3: No profit!
standard_method invokes 3-Steps-To-Profit! tcopeland counters with Obligatory-Simpsons!
The problem, I think, is that it might be revolutionary... or maybe it's not. It's hard to tell, since I can't read much about it other than meta-interfaces. It'd be fine if they have a closed-source implementation or some such... but not even knowing what the public interfaces are makes it hard to get a handle on it.
I guess it's the broad, sweeping nature of the announcement. I mean, if they announced "we've got a great new way for a shipping company to track container delivery", sure, fine, let Evergreen contact them and give them money if they've got a track record in that market. But to say "we've invented a wonderful new way of communicating between devices, now pay us to tell you about it", well, there are a lot more players in that field and people are working on those rather tricky problems all the time.
On the other hand, I could be mad. Mad, I say!
> offering it for free in an Open Source
> fashion is going to mean.. they're out of a
> lot of money.
Hm, maybe, but if they're hoping to spread a new standard for communicating between devices, publishing it so folks can implement/analyze/understand it might be a better way to go.
To me it's as if they're saying "we've invented something very nifty, please give us some money and we'll show it to you". It's just hard to make a compelling argument that way. Or maybe I'm missing some point in their pitch...
So, not an open standard. Well, back to SOAP...
> isn't anything new.
Right on, it's not a new idea, it's an implementation of an old idea.
> a synchronization system for distributed
> system rather then a data moving middleware
Yup. I think I misunderstood the original question - I thought we were trying to figure out how to run a server farm for the game, but I see most folks are discussed client/server comms. So I probably missed the point.
> It's hard to "tune" it
Hm. Probably.... you could do some Externalizable stuff, and maybe rewrite some things using NIO, but, you're right, three public operations doesn't leave much room...
JavaSpaces is more or less Sun's Jini take on distributed processing.
From a programmer point of view, you start up a "space", and then you can write objects in, take them out, and read them. And that's all. So there are a very few simple operations, and you structure your app around those.
Anyhow, it seems like a couple of JavaSpaces on a rack of servers might serve as a good way to distribute processing/notification/etc. Of course, you're limited to Java and to moving around Serializable objects....
...can be found at AsiaOSC.
They've got good info on each country - i.e., here's the page on Malaysia. They also serve as a mirror for Open Office, various BSDs, multiple RedHat releases, and so forth, so they're doing more than just gathering news. No banner ads, either.
I'm not sure if this is a troll or not... but, what the heck.
> Extra code == extra bloat
Writing tests helps student understand their code and track down bugs. If you don't want students to submit tests, tell them not to.
> Too much documentation
What does JavaDoc - which the compiler discards - have to do with unit tests?
> Unit tests are written with no extra
> skill than the code they test
Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. If a student is writing tests, at least he's trying to improve his code quality. You're a grad student; show him how to write better code _and_ better tests.
Here's an example of one of the PMD JUnit tests that checks the command line option processing:and another that makes sure that an Exception is thrown in another case:When I make a code change, I just rerun all the tests to make sure I didn't break anything. If someone reports a bug, I add a test so that bug won't reappear. Sweet.
...was a good one for learning about CVS.
Especially helpful was a small appendix which listed various recipes; i.e., the series of 3 or 4 steps necessary to merge a bugfix from one branch to another or whatever. I always forget the order of those cvs -j options...
Right on, we've got two threads proceeding here:
Marriage:
Currently males and females are treated the same vis-a-vis marriage - that is, neither can legally "marry" someone of the same sex. It's not discrimination since both are treated equally.
> Under the constitution there are things
> the law CANNOT do
The difficulty here is that I'm not sure what statute defining or governing marriage we're talking about, so I can't read it myself. Googling produces the Defense of Marriage Act and various references to Murphy vs Ramsay, 114 U.S. 15, 45 (1885). But those aren't what we're talking about.
> is it a "redefinition" when the first black
> and white stand up and announce they are
> getting married?
Only if they are of the same sex.
Religion/morality:
> revising the interpretation of the Bible
Of course. Explaining misunderstandings, opposing current heresies, etc. Apologetics, so 'tis.
> You lose the ability to ever prove
> any other religion is wrong about anything.
To the contrary, we disproved Tomism by observing I was burned by a candle. Thus we can indeed judge a religion by its claims.
> That does not make everything a good idea.
"Good" implies a moral judgement. To make a moral judgement, you must have a standard to judge against.
> I think [..] I think [..] I think [..]
Although those are reasonable thoughts, they don't constitute any sort of binding moral code. Furthermore, a bad person could come along and oppose you on any of those points and you'd be unable to appeal to any higher authority. This leads back to the law of the jungle - whoever is strongest, wins.
> I don't need to pick some random
> religion to tell me how to be a good person
In a sense, I agree - God's placed within us a conscience that tells us that stealing is wrong, and charity is right, and so forth. The problem is that if we don't acknowledge the source of those moral feelings is God, we can ignore them whenever it's inconvenient. We can just ascribe them to society or our upbringing or some such and go blithely on our way.
> due to absolute uncertianty of your
> gods intentions
Ah, but he's made it pretty certain that I should take care of folks, so I'll lay in with the shovel right alongside of you.
A lack of absolute certaintly isn't a lack of some knowledge; I'm not absolutely certain that the sun will come up tomorrow, but I'll still get a good night's sleep in preparation for work.
> god implies relativistic moral confusion,
> while atheists should maim child abusers
In other news, Torvalds installs Windows XP and Bill Gates runs Linux.
> beyond getting dumped by the most
> wonderful girlfreind i'll ever have
Argh..... my sympathies. I recall being dumped by my girlfriend shortly after heading off to college; ack. That's a nice thing about being married; the uncertainty is gone. Hey, why don't I give you a paper cut and pour lemon juice in there while I'm at it?
From that site:
> They rely instead upon the application of
> reason, the lessons of history, and
> personal experience to form an
> ethical/moral foundation and to create
> meaning in life.
The problem is that these are arbitrary sources of morals, and thus any code generated from them can be tweaked at will to fit your desires. Furthermore, even if _my_ personal experience tells me something, why should _you_ regard that as binding?
Hm. I think there's two rather different "marriage" concepts we're discussing. The first is the traditional man-woman marriage which has been practiced all over the world for quite a while and is given in the Bible. The second is the govt-sponsored legal arrangement which provides visitation rights and tax exemptions and all that.
It seems to me that the former can't be redefined, because it wasn't defined by people. And the latter can be redefined at will, because it's a matter of public policy.
Does that sound about right - am I missing something there?
As far as Christianity goes, yup, you guessed it. And I'd be happy to discuss various controversies which have arisen around it. The specific example you brought up of Galileo is an instance of the Catholic Church leadership of the time straying from the Bible and into areas they didn't understand. The Bible doesn't say much about solar system geography.
The burning house argument wasn't directed toward the marriage redefinition question - it was directed towards the point that if you feel that your neighbor is in danger and doesn't even know it, you have a duty to aid him, or at least make him aware of his danger. I expect the Mormons or Scientologists to try to convince me of their views, and it's an act of kindness on their part to reach out to me.
If I can interject a point - it seems to me that you're out on a limb and you're sawing away at the side closest to the trunk. That is, on the question of marriage redefinition, you're saying the law should do this and that and the law can't do the other thing. That it's, you're asserting moral imperatives. At the same time, you appear to be denying the existence of any overarching authority that could possibly give you a basis to make moral statements at all. Back to Nietzsche: "If there is no God, everything is permissible".
> instead of placing arbitrary
> 'right and wrong' sets in each of us
Hm... if that were true, then what's right for you might be wrong for me, and vice versa. Which kind of puts us back to square one, where it's impossible to make any sort of moral judgements like "child abuse is wrong" because we'd have to acknowledge that it could be "right" for someone else. Yikes.
> created either by
Yup, I agree that either evolution or intelligent design are about the only choices.
> the process of evolution is powerful
> enough to have created life
I don't know.... seems to me that evolution is always fighting it out with the law of entropy. In the little bit of AI/artificial life programming I've done, it seems that the systems almost always go right down the tubes - and that's in a very constrained environment - 2-3 "life" forms, simple rules, etc.
> could be because a Creator tuned the
> laws of this universe
Sure, yup, the "Blind Watchmaker" idea.
Funny old thing, life! I get the feeling that the Slashdot end-of-thread thing is going to cut us off here pretty shortly... but, good times!
> this implies that a moral code, even if it's
> basis was given to us by the Christian God,
> need not be derived from Christian authority
What would you say to someone who asks "where did our moral code come from?"? Would you just say "don't ask that, it's just there"? Probably not... you'd want to give a better answer than that.
> prove that
Right, it's important to examine the Bible's claims to see if they're true. What criteria can we apply?
> you most probably wouldn't like someone
> to do it to you either
Right. But why is it wrong to hurt other people? The question isn't whether it's right or wrong, but _why_?
> we agree that morals exist in the hearts
> and minds of individuals, and hence,
> outside religion
Not at all! Rather, the sense of right and wrong was put there by God.
...I can assure you that Windows has had its share of warts in this area too. Local browser elections, anyone? Yikes.
WinXP does seem to have cleaned things up considerably, though. Hopefully folks can just see this article as food for thought...
> Societal collapse causes immorality
Not at all. Instead, immorality is immorality, and societal collapse is an effect, not a cause.
> you're saying anyone who acts immorally
> isn't really a Christian?
Nope, Christians sin all the time. I'm saying that anyone can say "I'm a Christian". Saying the words doesn't mean much.
> Can you name a religion with a perfect record?
Ah, but there's a difference between a religion and the followers thereof.
> acting in humanity's interest is your
> most deeply-ingrained instinct
Not at all! Acting in my own interests would seem to be in my best interest. I mean, I won't live forever.
> people are more likely to hurt you
> if you hurt them.
Well, that's the law of the jungle. I agree that arbitrary moral codes seem to reduce to that - whoever is strongest, wins.
> it will never be justified.
A lot of Marxists and other intellectuals thought, and still think, that it was a price they were willing to pay. "When you chop down the trees, the chips will fly" and all that. That's the problem with sacrificing the present for the future. Ack.
> Where do you think morality comes from?
Either God, or no one. As Nietzsche said: "If there is no God, then everything is permitted".
> how do you explain non-evil people who
> don't subscribe to them?
I think God has given most people a conscience that lets us know when we do right and wrong.
> Are they just copying you?
It's not _me_, or any other Christian, who is good. It's God who is good. And His Son, Jesus, died for the sins of those God called to Him. So all the sins that I've committed - and continue daily to commit - were laid on Jesus. The Bible says "while we were still dead in our sins, Christ loved us".
Jesus saves, not good works. That's why the Gospel is called "the good news" - because the message is not "do good and you'll go to heaven". Instead, it's "someone else has taken the punishment for your sins".
> another rite of passage in perl
Don't feel bad, it's the same way for Ruby folks.
Maybe it's a scripting language thing in general.
> it's a codified set of behaviors.
Right, it's a codified set of behaviors, but it's an arbitrary one. It has no authority, and it's not binding in any sense other than "if you break this code, those who adhere to it will oppose you".
> the reason that we don't know how we know
> is that in 95% of all situations the
> awnser is obvious
You're saying that we seem to internally know right from wrong, and I agree. But where did that innate sense of right and wrong come from? If it's just habit or just societal conditioning, we can override that sense whenever we want to without feeling guilty about it. But if that sense of right and wrong was place inside us by God, that's different...
> Why on earth would you not want to prevent
> from it happening to someone else?
The problem is that I can value my pleasure over someone else's pain. And that's wrong... but why is it wrong? In other words, "who says"?
> What the hell kind of moral centre is that?
But what you're proposing is that each person knows what's right or wrong and does what is right, aren't you? Doesn't that proposal break down in the face of human behavior?
> if those tablets read "Thou shalt have
> sex with animals and torture small
> children" (or the reverse)
I understand - it's a circular argument. "What God says is good". "But what's good?" "It's what God says". And I sympathize with your repugnance, and agree - of course these things are terribly wrong. But don't stop there! Keep using your mind! How can a concept of "goodness" exists outside of a standard? If there's no absolute authority, aren't all judgements relative? How can we make moral judgements without a moral standard?
In response to your questions, yes, I've worked a variety of jobs (scooped ice cream in a mall, planted pine trees, unpacked boxes for the local Dollar General, etc), I've felt pain, I don't like seeing others suffer, and I've got four children and don't want to see them suffer. Yet, I want them to understand why hurting others is wrong - not just _that_ it is, but _why_ it is.