Honestly, I think the biggest crisis in software development is the "function follows form" problem. People are choosing implementation parameters before the problem is even designed!
It's the "I don't know what it is we're going to do exactly, but I know it'll be done in Java" problem.
The second-biggest crisis in software development today is the bloat problem, IMO. The fact that hardware speeds & memory capacities are following Moore's Law is no reason for us to bloat the code so badly.
Re-writing things that used to function just fine in a new paradigm just for the sake of rewriting it is asinine!
The concept of "Webifying" everything is just silly. Whoever thinks that stateful tasks should be done with a stateless protocol (HTTP) is insane!
Anyway, enough ranting.:) These are just my personal feelings about software development today........
And you are completely correct. We need to learn not only the lessons of our mentors, but their mistakes too. Mistakes like C shouldn't ever be repeated...
Oh, did I just say that?
Sorry, I'm letting my personal feelings out again;)
For those of us who have chosen the fields of computer science & engineering as our professions, this is a time to reflect and realize just how lucky we are.
We're getting in on the ground floor. The folks who were there in the VERY BEGINNING of our field are still around to teach us something. We need to remember just how privileged we are to have these fantastic people with us to "pass the torch" so to speak.
Look at how far the medical field has come in its history. Or chemistry. Or physics. And these are just scientific professions.
Think about other things, like teaching or agriculture.
We're the next group to advance CS/E. We've got to adopt these folks as our mentors and learn all we can from them.
Not just _how_ their stuff works, but _why_ they did it. Fundamental practices 30 years ago are as fundamental today as they were then.
"Those who fail to learn from their past tend to repeat it."
RIP, Mr. Dijkstra. And thanks for being such a great mentor.
I hope Ziff Davis folds up completely and collapses.
Their magazines don't offer any straight journalism; they're just pure advertising, page-for-page. All their product reviews and reports read just like the ads that follow on the next page!
Maybe if they fold and these awful rags go away, the CIO-types of the world will actually get some literate, technical information instead of marketing BS!... Nah, I'm dreaming too much.
MacWorld isn't run by Apple. IDG is in charge of the show, and revoked the press passes.
Even sites like MacFixIt (which is NOT a rumor site) got their credentials pulled at first (but read below):
Get the facts please. Not saying I agree with IDG, but this is their doing, not Apple's. Maybe Apple's leaning on them, but they didn't pull the passes...
--NBVB
Snippet from MacFixIt:
Macworld Expo pulls press passes of Web sites Macworld Expo (apparently acting at Apple's request) has banned numerous Web sites (including MacFixIt) from getting press passes for Macworld Expo. This is so even in cases where the press pass had been previously approved.
Update: One press pass for MacFixIt arrived late today, despite our previously being told that MacFixIt was on a ban list. We are still waiting for one other. Perhaps there has been a change of position on this matter.
Just another reason to use an Apple. Love it, hate it, or otherwise, at least Apple isn't trampling your rights.
--NBVB
Jobs also stressed that the iPod and iTunes did not include any built-in digital rights management (DRM) features. "Piracy is not a technology issue; it's a behavior issue," he said, noting that every security scheme based on technology and secrets has so far been defeated.
Apple still *does* ship the compilers. On the newer machines go to/Applications/Utilities/Installers and install the "Developer Tools.pkg" file. That will do it:-)
I don't know why they don't install it with the base OS, but at least they put the installer on the disk for you!
The question you just asked above is programmer-specific.
I know Slashdot is very programmer-oriented, but we do need to remember that there _are_ other disciplines within IT/IS/CS/EE/whatever.
I'm a sysadmin by trade --- I don't have an algorithm I use most often. If you asked me what my favorite was, I'd probably get into transactional two-phase locking protocols, just 'cuz I think they're neat. But I'm not a DBA, so what does it matter?
You need to tailor the interview to the specific position that's open. You also should have real, honest-to-goodness technical people conduct the interview --- ideally, people from the team on which the position resides.
It really makes a difference. I hate interviews with HR pukes. Give me a good technical interview anyway. The interview for my current job took 3 1/2 hours. It was a roundtable discussion with 3 members of the team I'm now a member of. Fantastic way to conduct an interview. Basically, we just shot the breeze discussing various sysadmin things from volume management to SunOS 4.1.whatever to stupid eeprom tricks... and of course, it all proves that I know what the heck I'm talking about. You can't talk that talk without walking the walk!
All of this is just my personal opinion of course, but I think anything that says "generic interview" anything is useless!
Well, part of the problem is the NIMBY's who don't want towers in _their_ town!
Of course, they want the best cell reception money can buy, but don't you dare irradiate my kids with your lousy towers!
Sheesh. Study the numbers. Each foot you move away from the transmitter, the RF output goes down _exponentially_.
Of course, these same NIMBY's are the ones who have _lots_ of time on their hands and go to the planning board meetings, so you don't get your cell coverage.
Blame them --- they're what stop the cellco's more than anything:)
I've received several interesting parts from Sun over the years.....
Way back when I had ordered a replacement 2.1g SCSI HD to replace one in my SPARC 10 that had failed.
Anyway, one day a BIG box showed up (big compared to the size of a 2.1g disk, anyway). ever see the boxes they used to ship VMEbus boards in?
Anywho, inside that box was.... get this.... a 0.5amp slow-blow fuse!
An eentsy-weentsy fuse in that HUGE VMEbus box!
My personal favorite though is Sun part # 414-1100-01. Every time we get a new sales rep on our account, we make them try to quote us a dozen of them for purchase.
The 414-1100-01 is a 2x4. You know, a block of wood. It's part of the shipping crate that Exx00 equipment shows up in. Each and every piece of wood and foam in that thing has a part number.:)
Our poor sales reps.... the part # isn't listed on _any_ sales sheets... they go _crazy_ trying to figure it out!:)
OK, now for the Big Questions (tm) regarding this merger...
The desktop business isn't interesting. Neither are the handhelds, or the printer business.
What _IS_ interesting is the Big Iron stuff...
What happens to the PA-RISC stuff? All the HP-UX boxes? Superdome?
How about the AlphaServers? The GS160's? The Wildfire clusters?
OpenVMS?
Himalaya NonStop? Where does _that_ stuff go?
HP's got a history of taking stuff down the cul-de-sac and strangling it in favor of their own products (look up Apollo if you're curious)...
So what happens to all the great technologies that Compaq's bought over the years??
I hope they keep it alive. There's nothing (and I mean NOTHING) that clusters like OVMS. Transaction processing runs like a top on the Himalaya. SuperDome's got some neat functions too.
This is where the interesting stuff to this merger is going to be. Who cares about the desktop business?:-)
The A1000's stink. The firmware is awful; the RM6 management software is worse!
Be careful upgrading your firmware (which you need to do from time to time) -- the controller _can_ deadlock. And of course, if it does, you lose all your data, since the only copy of the LUN configuration is in the controller.
Seriously. They're crap. Built on the same crap as the A3000/3500 series. It's all old, re-branded Symbios stuff. Yuck-o.
You'd be better off getting an A5200 tray (or D1000 tray) and using the RAID-5 functions of Veritas Volume Manager instead. It actually has a shot at working:)
That's why they're "completely unrelated things"... They have NOTHING to do with what the servers do...
We have all those domains on the Sun E10000 frame called "thirdbase"...:-)
Ya gotta have a LITTLE fun with your hostnames!
Besides, it's kinda cool to tell someone to login to what. Or can you reboot who?
I need to upgrade idontknow.
Can you upgrade tomorrow? upgrade what tomorrow? No, tomorrow, today. Who? I said tomorrow! Do what tomorrow? No, just upgrade tomorrow today. upgrade today? No tomorrow!!!
It gets really comical... Good thing that frame is only a system test environment:-)
It's simply amazing to me how much we take for granted our water supply....
That said, I hope there's still water to run through the aqueduct come May.... we're having a SERIOUS drought condition here in the Northeast...
In fact, both Jersey and New York (ever notice how Jersey is the only "New" state that can be named without the "new"? Anyway...) Anyway, both Jersey and New York are in a "Stage 3" water emergency.... and it's only early March!
This is gonna be a bad one.... let's hope the little yellow submarine finds some secret cache of a few billion gallons:-)
You have to have some FUN with it!! Hostnames are an extension of the system. Any real sysadmin picks up on a system's personality; a unique hostname only adds to that.
We have some servers named after function, i.e. sales-prod0 sales-prod1 sales-prod2
I can't stand those. They're boring.
Then we have some named after things related to their function: zuul gozer keymaster (all firewalls)
OK, we're getting better...
Then we have some named after completely unrelated things: who what idontknow why today tomorro w (Those are E10k domains:-)
Then we have other things named after children's books: onefish twofish redfish bluefish
Then we have cartoon characters: boris natasha frostbitefalls wayba ck (the backup server) fred barney wilma pebbles bambam
Then we have the scifi stuff: leguin wintermute asimov
And of course, no data center would be complete without Simpson characters: homer smithers mr-burns
Of course, you could be like our west-coast data center and name your servers after mobsters...:-)
The bottom line is that you need to have FUN with your hostnames! Besides that, it's better than naming your system important-financials-here.please-own-me.megagloboc orp.com
I don't feel "locked in" at all... I can upgrade just about anything in my PowerMac, including the CPU.... And real, working USB and FireWire are a major bonus.
And not for anything, but there is NOTHING on the market even in the same ballpark as the Cinema Display.... 22" of digital LCD-y goodness! I was always a CRT guy, shunning the LCD's, till I saw this thing. Now I have one on my desk, and the Sun 21" CRT is in the closet. No comparison.
Slashdot Mirror
This is no more exciting than Verizon Wireless' "Express Network."
...
Heck, it's the same technology, basically.
And I guess this is great; Sprint has upgraded both of their cell sites to work with 1XRTT. Whee.
Sure, VZW isn't done upgrading _everything_ yet, but they've got a LOT more network coverage than sprint does
--NBVB
Honestly, I think the biggest crisis in software development is the "function follows form" problem. People are choosing implementation parameters before the problem is even designed!
:) These are just my personal feelings about software development today ........
;)
It's the "I don't know what it is we're going to do exactly, but I know it'll be done in Java" problem.
The second-biggest crisis in software development today is the bloat problem, IMO. The fact that hardware speeds & memory capacities are following Moore's Law is no reason for us to bloat the code so badly.
Re-writing things that used to function just fine in a new paradigm just for the sake of rewriting it is asinine!
The concept of "Webifying" everything is just silly. Whoever thinks that stateful tasks should be done with a stateless protocol (HTTP) is insane!
Anyway, enough ranting.
And you are completely correct. We need to learn not only the lessons of our mentors, but their mistakes too. Mistakes like C shouldn't ever be repeated...
Oh, did I just say that?
Sorry, I'm letting my personal feelings out again
--NBVB
For those of us who have chosen the fields of computer science & engineering as our professions, this is a time to reflect and realize just how lucky we are.
We're getting in on the ground floor. The folks who were there in the VERY BEGINNING of our field are still around to teach us something. We need to remember just how privileged we are to have these fantastic people with us to "pass the torch" so to speak.
Look at how far the medical field has come in its history. Or chemistry. Or physics. And these are just scientific professions.
Think about other things, like teaching or agriculture.
We're the next group to advance CS/E. We've got to adopt these folks as our mentors and learn all we can from them.
Not just _how_ their stuff works, but _why_ they did it. Fundamental practices 30 years ago are as fundamental today as they were then.
"Those who fail to learn from their past tend to repeat it."
RIP, Mr. Dijkstra. And thanks for being such a great mentor.
--NBVB
I hope Ziff Davis folds up completely and collapses.
... Nah, I'm dreaming too much.
Their magazines don't offer any straight journalism; they're just pure advertising, page-for-page. All their product reviews and reports read just like the ads that follow on the next page!
Maybe if they fold and these awful rags go away, the CIO-types of the world will actually get some literate, technical information instead of marketing BS!
Goodbye, ZD. And good riddance.
--NBVB
No.
Apple didn't blacklist anyone; IDG did.
MacWorld isn't run by Apple. IDG is in charge of the show, and revoked the press passes.
Even sites like MacFixIt (which is NOT a rumor site) got their credentials pulled at first (but read below):
Get the facts please. Not saying I agree with IDG, but this is their doing, not Apple's. Maybe Apple's leaning on them, but they didn't pull the passes...
--NBVB
Snippet from MacFixIt:
Macworld Expo pulls press passes of Web sites Macworld Expo (apparently acting at Apple's request) has banned numerous Web sites (including MacFixIt) from getting press passes for Macworld Expo. This is so even in cases where the press pass had been previously approved.
Update: One press pass for MacFixIt arrived late today, despite our previously being told that MacFixIt was on a ban list. We are still waiting for one other. Perhaps there has been a change of position on this matter.
--NBVB
www.ipfilter.org
Updated for 3.4
New to this release (3.4) of IP Filter are the following:
Round-robin redirection to spread traffic load over multple IP addresses
Check it out..... Host-based firewalling _and_ load balancing! Joy! All as a LKM!
--NBVB
NOT TRUE.
/Applications/Utilities/Installers and install the "Developer Tools.pkg" file. That will do it :-)
Apple still *does* ship the compilers. On the newer machines go to
I don't know why they don't install it with the base OS, but at least they put the installer on the disk for you!
--NBVB
The question you just asked above is programmer-specific.
I know Slashdot is very programmer-oriented, but we do need to remember that there _are_ other disciplines within IT/IS/CS/EE/whatever.
I'm a sysadmin by trade --- I don't have an algorithm I use most often. If you asked me what my favorite was, I'd probably get into transactional two-phase locking protocols, just 'cuz I think they're neat. But I'm not a DBA, so what does it matter?
You need to tailor the interview to the specific position that's open. You also should have real, honest-to-goodness technical people conduct the interview --- ideally, people from the team on which the position resides.
It really makes a difference. I hate interviews with HR pukes. Give me a good technical interview anyway. The interview for my current job took 3 1/2 hours. It was a roundtable discussion with 3 members of the team I'm now a member of. Fantastic way to conduct an interview. Basically, we just shot the breeze discussing various sysadmin things from volume management to SunOS 4.1.whatever to stupid eeprom tricks... and of course, it all proves that I know what the heck I'm talking about. You can't talk that talk without walking the walk!
All of this is just my personal opinion of course, but I think anything that says "generic interview" anything is useless!
--DM
Well, part of the problem is the NIMBY's who don't want towers in _their_ town!
:)
Of course, they want the best cell reception money can buy, but don't you dare irradiate my kids with your lousy towers!
Sheesh. Study the numbers. Each foot you move away from the transmitter, the RF output goes down _exponentially_.
Of course, these same NIMBY's are the ones who have _lots_ of time on their hands and go to the planning board meetings, so you don't get your cell coverage.
Blame them --- they're what stop the cellco's more than anything
--NBVB
I've received several interesting parts from Sun over the years.....
:)
:)
Way back when I had ordered a replacement 2.1g SCSI HD to replace one in my SPARC 10 that had failed.
Anyway, one day a BIG box showed up (big compared to the size of a 2.1g disk, anyway). ever see the boxes they used to ship VMEbus boards in?
Anywho, inside that box was.... get this.... a 0.5amp slow-blow fuse!
An eentsy-weentsy fuse in that HUGE VMEbus box!
My personal favorite though is Sun part # 414-1100-01. Every time we get a new sales rep on our account, we make them try to quote us a dozen of them for purchase.
The 414-1100-01 is a 2x4. You know, a block of wood. It's part of the shipping crate that Exx00 equipment shows up in. Each and every piece of wood and foam in that thing has a part number.
Our poor sales reps.... the part # isn't listed on _any_ sales sheets... they go _crazy_ trying to figure it out!
OK, now for the Big Questions (tm) regarding this merger...
:-)
The desktop business isn't interesting. Neither are the handhelds, or the printer business.
What _IS_ interesting is the Big Iron stuff...
What happens to the PA-RISC stuff? All the HP-UX boxes? Superdome?
How about the AlphaServers? The GS160's? The Wildfire clusters?
OpenVMS?
Himalaya NonStop? Where does _that_ stuff go?
HP's got a history of taking stuff down the cul-de-sac and strangling it in favor of their own products (look up Apollo if you're curious)...
So what happens to all the great technologies that Compaq's bought over the years??
I hope they keep it alive. There's nothing (and I mean NOTHING) that clusters like OVMS. Transaction processing runs like a top on the Himalaya. SuperDome's got some neat functions too.
This is where the interesting stuff to this merger is going to be. Who cares about the desktop business?
Damn, you beat me to it. :-)
Wish I had mod points to mod you up...
I really hope you're kidding.
:)
The A1000's stink. The firmware is awful; the RM6 management software is worse!
Be careful upgrading your firmware (which you need to do from time to time) -- the controller _can_ deadlock. And of course, if it does, you lose all your data, since the only copy of the LUN configuration is in the controller.
Seriously. They're crap. Built on the same crap as the A3000/3500 series. It's all old, re-branded Symbios stuff. Yuck-o.
You'd be better off getting an A5200 tray (or D1000 tray) and using the RAID-5 functions of Veritas Volume Manager instead. It actually has a shot at working
--NBVB
Why yes, yes they are.
:-)
:-)
That's why they're "completely unrelated things"... They have NOTHING to do with what the servers do...
We have all those domains on the Sun E10000 frame called "thirdbase"...
Ya gotta have a LITTLE fun with your hostnames!
Besides, it's kinda cool to tell someone to login to what. Or can you reboot who?
I need to upgrade idontknow.
Can you upgrade tomorrow?
upgrade what tomorrow?
No, tomorrow, today.
Who?
I said tomorrow!
Do what tomorrow?
No, just upgrade tomorrow today.
upgrade today?
No tomorrow!!!
It gets really comical... Good thing that frame is only a system test environment
--NBVB
It's simply amazing to me how much we take for granted our water supply....
:-)
That said, I hope there's still water to run through the aqueduct come May.... we're having a SERIOUS drought condition here in the Northeast...
In fact, both Jersey and New York (ever notice how Jersey is the only "New" state that can be named without the "new"? Anyway...) Anyway, both Jersey and New York are in a "Stage 3" water emergency.... and it's only early March!
This is gonna be a bad one.... let's hope the little yellow submarine finds some secret cache of a few billion gallons
--NBVB
At home, I ditched both of my hostnames (my firewall & the web server have public IP's)...
They are now called Northtower and Southtower, in honor of those two big buildings that are missing from the view out my window.....
Let's never forget.
--NBVB
You have to have some FUN with it!! Hostnames are an extension of the system. Any real sysadmin picks up on a system's personality; a unique hostname only adds to that.
o w :-)
a ck (the backup server)
:-)
c orp.com
We have some servers named after function, i.e.
sales-prod0
sales-prod1
sales-prod2
I can't stand those. They're boring.
Then we have some named after things related to their function:
zuul
gozer
keymaster
(all firewalls)
OK, we're getting better...
Then we have some named after completely unrelated things:
who
what
idontknow
why
today
tomorr
(Those are E10k domains
Then we have other things named after children's books:
onefish
twofish
redfish
bluefish
Then we have cartoon characters:
boris
natasha
frostbitefalls
wayb
fred
barney
wilma
pebbles
bambam
Then we have the scifi stuff:
leguin
wintermute
asimov
And of course, no data center would be complete without Simpson characters:
homer
smithers
mr-burns
Of course, you could be like our west-coast data center and name your servers after mobsters...
The bottom line is that you need to have FUN with your hostnames! Besides that, it's better than naming your system important-financials-here.please-own-me.megaglobo
--NBVB
http://samba.org/~anton/e10000/maketime_24
Wheeeeeee!
And seriously, I saw some comments about needed a really fast interconnect... check out Sun's Wildcat.
--NBVB
OK, while I think this is some cool technology and is Linksys Done Right (tm), I have to ask...
In this post-dot-com era, where's the business model?
How do they expect to make money? LOTS of open-source software companies are making PLENTY of money these days, right?
Kudos to them for putting together what seems to be a really nice product -- I just wouldn't expect to get rich at this one.
Linuxcare -- the Clemens fastball down the middle...
Sputnik -- The breaking ball down and out that the Babe himself couldn't hit.
So where's strike 3 coming from?
--NBVB
As my (admittedly small) brain recalls, the OMNI drivers are an offshoot of the OS/2 project.
OS/2 had some of the best printer support I'd ever seen (at the time.)
By OS/2 Warp 4 (Merlin), the Omni print driver was there for just about every printer you could get your hands on...
This is just like IBM -- make some seriously high-quality software, but never tell anyone about it...
_sigh_
--NBVB
The last time I looked at CUPS (Admittedly, 2-3 years ago), it was some Pretty Awful Software.
Is it better now than it was then?
--NBVB
Remember, Free !== Quality
My TiVo has 25 episodes' worth of Loony Tunes saved! They show like 5 episodes every Saturday & Sunday mornings.
It's the only thing worth watching on TV anymore!
--DM
I guess this counts as a First Story, not a First Post? :-)
--NBVB
(Whee, my first accepted submission, too!)
Exactly!
I don't feel "locked in" at all... I can upgrade just about anything in my PowerMac, including the CPU.... And real, working USB and FireWire are a major bonus.
And not for anything, but there is NOTHING on the market even in the same ballpark as the Cinema Display.... 22" of digital LCD-y goodness! I was always a CRT guy, shunning the LCD's, till I saw this thing. Now I have one on my desk, and the Sun 21" CRT is in the closet. No comparison.