Keep it simple. Mission-critical applications should be lean applications that do nothing more than their designated task. In the OO model, you need a main collection of objects that perform very specialized tasks relating directly to the business process. I'm sure you probably have a good idea of what those processes are right now, and as long as you can isolate them, you're home free. Once isolated, you can quickly/easily wrap them in a traditional GUI, web front end with PHP or Perl, and any number of "other" interfaces such as eMail. Make sure you're core logic is tested well, and put in shareable modules (DLL's on windows), and use that logic many ways. If you ever have performance problems, it's due to the technology you're using. Just switch to another type of interface (different development tool, etc.) and see how that works out.
You're absolutely right. I bought nearly 200 CD's over the course of several years, and they were in a Case Logic 200 CD case in my car. You guessed it, the whole car got stolen, CD's and all. Last year I finally got up the nerve to throw out my empty jewel cases. A full trash-bag full of them. It wasn't easy.
If the industry is going in the direction of "no copies", then I sould be able to get free or nearly free replacement CD's for an empty jewel case. If I spent $15 per CD, that's $3000 that I got fucked out of, and the music industry just says "sorry, be more careful next time". HA! Next time? I've bought about 3 CD's. That's it. Just what I need is to be fucked out of another $3000.
I've said that ever since the Athlon was released, but as it turns out, my next computer will be Intel. Why? I'm buying a laptop. As a matter of fact, it will be my sole machine as I'm getting rid of my three desktops, so I needed something powerful with a good screen. The biggest screen with the highest resolution I could find was on a Dell Inspiron 8100 or an IBM A22P. Both of these are available with Intel only. HP doesn't make a 15" UXGA laptop, but they do make AMD laptops.
I would have gone with the AMD solution if I had the choice, but for now, my needs dictate an Intel.
I almost completely agree with you. A new GUI tool is needed, just not for you and I. I want a box with an interface that my Grandmother could use with her current training. Said training is the concept of a piece of paper and a pencil, but it's training. An example product would be a thin tablet (the size of a small stack of printer paper) that was one big LCD screen. Not color, just black on bright white. A pen that you could use to write on it and at the top, a send-to section where you could write an eMail address. It would either OCR and send, or just send a picture of the writing. My Grandma could just pick this up, start writing, write an eMail address, and push the send button (which would look like a stamp since that's what she'd do with a piece of paper). I know this isn't a novel concept, but something this easy would be perfect for her. No frills, just the essence of an electronic letter without all the dial-up username password stuff that confuses people who simply don't care to know that. My Grandma uses checks and goes to the bank to get money because she doesn't want to bother remembering her PIN for the ATM. If you force her to use a password, you're just ensuring she won't use what you get her. Keeping it simple also forces programmers (me) to take care of the mundain stuff so the user can get the most use out of the least amount of work.
You're right, a new screwdriver isn't needed, but the screwdriver with the built-in flashlight or flexible shaft to get to hard-to-reach places were needed twists (I made a funny...) on an old concept.
I'm not saying replace the GUI, I'm saying simplify it. Although not quite to the level of MS Bob.
The GUI became popular because it really made most things that users need to do on a computer far easier than cryptic command lines. For years GUI's have been refined for ease of use. We're now coming to the limit of current icon-oriented design. There's just so many ways that an icon-based system can be presented to the user before usability starts going into the toilet.
We moved to GUI's because command line interfaces only got us so far, and some day someone will come up with a better-than-icon based system that is more logical. We'll all say "gosh, why didn't I think of that?" and everyone will jump into the "new way" of thinking.
I have visions of time-oriented interfaces that respond to "get me the spec sheet for the network I did last week sometime" and "set a new meeting for next Tuesday with Jim and Bob in the conference room". These new interfaces will be able to store and retrieve information based upon how we think, not in the traditional tree-like-structures we're currently used to. The concepts behind OO/RDBMS systems have some potential, such as nested tables and object oriented models, but don't present their information to a user very easily.
I don't see new interfaces becoming popular until they target the non-computer user market. I envision voice-activated systems, but they tend to be annoying to other people around. Mouse navigation doesn't seem to be viable because of it's limited 2D space, and thus the 2D GUI. The 3D systems (see spaceball on google) look neat, but aren't very intuitive to users. We may wind up with virtual filing cabinets, but hopefully we'll stay away from the Packard Bell Navigator!
Is there anyone (university or other) that is working on a new interface concept? I'd be interested in hearing what works and what doesn't. I know M$ and (Cr)Apple invest millions into GUI research, so I wouldn't be surprised if we saw something new out of those camps in the next few years.
And no, I don't count XP's "new and improved" GUI anything more than an over-hyped icon-based system.
[/random thoughts]
Good move for IBM
on
IBM Wants Linux
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I think IBM's doing this for one very good reason. The more linux hackers there are at home running linux on their personal boxes, the more workers there will be in the industry that say "IBM makes this big box that will do all we need for our web and/or accounting needs, and it runs an OS I already know."
Managers like to hear that so they don't buy something their IT people don't know how to run.
Buy the VIA chipset. You should jump on it quick though. In a month or two, VIA will be so buried in legal paperwork that they won't be able to put a resistor in a box without a court injunction. It's really too bad that Intel can't let this slide, but I'm guessing that Intel and Rambus(t) have been in bed together so long that someone forgot where the key to the handcuffs is. Some Intel CPO woke up one day to find himself gagged and bent over a box, and his lawyers told him they couldn't do anything, but that they'd take some pictures to remind him in the future that KY and a condem aren't all that's needed in the corporate world.
</speculation>
On a more serious note, several years ago I heard of a promising technology where a silicon chip was put through a normal manufacturing process, then dipped in one additional solution that "polished" the traces into light-carrying troughs. Supposedly the process was able to make optical chips (at lower speeds...) from standard silicon processes.
This is not meant as a flame. Please do not read it as such.
I'm an avid Win2K user, and your post follows the/. FUD tradition quite nicely. You said that "[Linux] blows NT/2000 out of the water in security and stability." then go on to say that "and do the BIND upgrade, since most older Linux/UNIX distros ship with a fairly dangerous DNS server vulnerability.".
Isn't this a little contradictory?
2K has security problems, yes. So does RedHat. So do most other distributions of Linux. It's always a matter of patches/updates to the latest bug-free code. Yes, Linux usually gets fixes quicker than 2K, but at the same time, Microsoft was (as they should be) quick to jump on the fix to IIS5 with all the Code Red viri running around.
Please try not to bash 2K just because it's made by MS. It works. It works better than any other OS that MS has produced. MS took a clue about stability from Linux, just as Linux should take a clue about usability.
It's all about options, not "my dad can beat up your dad".
WOHOO - NO MORE "YOU'VE GOT RYTHIM" COMMERCIALS!
on
Rhythms Flatlines
·
· Score: 1
They're almost like Disney's "It's A Small World" song...
I've worked in the embedded field for quite a while and have used BASIC stamps from Parallax. Some of the optional extras available in their catalog are RF modules. Look at the catalog and see if anything fits your project. Bi-directional? Get two transcievers. They're $120 each, and support 9600,N,8,1 serial communication. See the manual for specific details on design and spec.
"Pretty silly to have 3MB of docs for a 983K ROM. It smacks of Windows Bloated thinking."
Bullshit.
The more documentation the better. I'd much rather open up an organized, searchable PDF than go searching through 5 years of newsgroup posts to find out how to change the default color of the pointer thingy. Poorly documented applications better come with very well documented code.
I understand what you've said, but here's another suggestion. How about one of those jog-dial things like Sony uses. Ignoring licensing for a minute, you could wheel to the right app and click, and your PDA could then have a larger screen. In addition, you could still have soft buttons on-screen in the same locations that the hard buttons are presently, it's just the fact that an app (like a word processor or spreadsheet, hell even a week view calendar)/could/ use the additional space if needed. I would just like the flexibility, the choice if you will, of being able to reconfigure the interface to suit my needs.
Just a rant I guess. Maybe I need to get a patent... hmm....:)
Does anyone know where I can find a PDA that's just touch-screen only? i.e. NO BUTTONS. I don't understand why the manufacturers of PDA's build all these great devices, and then blow a few inches of space on some buttons that seldom get used.
Look at the Palm series: every one of them has the four "hot link" buttons and an up-down button. I know they're used some of the time, but most people just turn on their PDA and go straight to the touch-screen.
ATTENTION PDA MAKERS! Shrink the device a little more by cutting those buttons off the bottom and give me a device that's all touch screen. Let the developers worry about ease-of-use. Give me the most screen real-estate in the smallest package possible! THIS GOES FOR ALL YOU POCKET PC, PALM, AND OTHER DEVELOPERS AS WELL!
I can't wait for a Handspring Edge with a CF slot for ethernet, modem, or memory that's all screen. QVGA res would be nice, and don't burn my batteries up with color. Just gray or B&W thanks.
I see a lot of people suggesting that an Oracle DBA is a full time position. I don't really believe that. My company has several hundred (maybe a thousand or so) Oracle servers scattered all over the world. We have one DBA. Period. If you set the server up right the first time (sizing tables, tablespaces, indexes, etc.) with the proper growth rates for the application, Oracle is pretty much self-sufficient. I just finished writing a monitoring program that sends an e-mail if performance drops in one or more of 12 areas, and we rarely need to do much more than extend (and defrag) a tablespace. Anything like this should make your servers a fairly hands-off deal. JUST REMEMBER THAT THE $150/HR YOU SPEND FOR THE CONTRACT DBA IS WORTH IT TO GET SET UP RIGHT TO BEGIN WITH! If you screw the database up the first time, you'll be fighting it for the rest of its existence.
For all the Windows flames that get thrown around here, I think MS hit the nail on the head with the Windows 9x series. (Well, boot screens that is...) The Windows 9x series had the best of both worlds: A pretty picture (animated even!) that was shown while the system was booting, but if you wanted to see DOS messages, just hit escape and you're greeted with the standard DOS bootup.
I think Linux should do the same thing - leave the bootup messages, debug messages, and whatever else there, but cover it up with a penguin sitting in a speedboat. For 95% of the time that I don't care what happens as long as the thing boots, I'll see my happy Tux, but for the other 5% of the time, I can just hit escape to see all the messages I've grown to know and lov^H^H^Hhate.
Windows 2000 doesn't offer this functionality. Yes, yes, I know about Windows 2000's/CRASHDEBUG option. It's not particularly pretty, but serves kind of the same purpose. It's just not available with an escape key. You can't set the option (easily) if you can't boot the system, so what's the point?
"Of course that's just my opinion, I could be wrong." - Dennis Miller
No, I actually own a copy. I don't use it for more than playing, but I got a student edition so it wasn't too expensive. I saw the 6.5 upgrade but didn't realize what new features were in the package. I guess I'll be upgrading when I get some time...:)
I have a copy of Lightwave 3D and it supports OpenGL for realtime previews of animations. It uses its own internal renderer (or screamernet) to do the final rendering, but loading a scene in layout and hitting the realtime preview looks pretty neat on a GF2. I'd really like to see if some of the additional textures and lighting capabilities will be supported in LW6 in the future...
If AOL bitches about *AIM* then just change the name to AlM (lowercase L in the middle). All of their searches will fail to uncover the product and their lawyers will just pass you by!
</humor>
Slashdot Mirror
Did you do any research on security?
Keep it simple. Mission-critical applications should be lean applications that do nothing more than their designated task. In the OO model, you need a main collection of objects that perform very specialized tasks relating directly to the business process.
I'm sure you probably have a good idea of what those processes are right now, and as long as you can isolate them, you're home free. Once isolated, you can quickly/easily wrap them in a traditional GUI, web front end with PHP or Perl, and any number of "other" interfaces such as eMail.
Make sure you're core logic is tested well, and put in shareable modules (DLL's on windows), and use that logic many ways. If you ever have performance problems, it's due to the technology you're using. Just switch to another type of interface (different development tool, etc.) and see how that works out.
You're absolutely right. I bought nearly 200 CD's over the course of several years, and they were in a Case Logic 200 CD case in my car. You guessed it, the whole car got stolen, CD's and all. Last year I finally got up the nerve to throw out my empty jewel cases. A full trash-bag full of them. It wasn't easy.
If the industry is going in the direction of "no copies", then I sould be able to get free or nearly free replacement CD's for an empty jewel case. If I spent $15 per CD, that's $3000 that I got fucked out of, and the music industry just says "sorry, be more careful next time". HA! Next time? I've bought about 3 CD's. That's it. Just what I need is to be fucked out of another $3000.
I hope they invested in a UPS.
"My next computer will be an AMD."
I've said that ever since the Athlon was released, but as it turns out, my next computer will be Intel. Why? I'm buying a laptop. As a matter of fact, it will be my sole machine as I'm getting rid of my three desktops, so I needed something powerful with a good screen. The biggest screen with the highest resolution I could find was on a Dell Inspiron 8100 or an IBM A22P. Both of these are available with Intel only. HP doesn't make a 15" UXGA laptop, but they do make AMD laptops.
I would have gone with the AMD solution if I had the choice, but for now, my needs dictate an Intel.
I almost completely agree with you. A new GUI tool is needed, just not for you and I. I want a box with an interface that my Grandmother could use with her current training. Said training is the concept of a piece of paper and a pencil, but it's training. An example product would be a thin tablet (the size of a small stack of printer paper) that was one big LCD screen. Not color, just black on bright white. A pen that you could use to write on it and at the top, a send-to section where you could write an eMail address. It would either OCR and send, or just send a picture of the writing. My Grandma could just pick this up, start writing, write an eMail address, and push the send button (which would look like a stamp since that's what she'd do with a piece of paper). I know this isn't a novel concept, but something this easy would be perfect for her. No frills, just the essence of an electronic letter without all the dial-up username password stuff that confuses people who simply don't care to know that. My Grandma uses checks and goes to the bank to get money because she doesn't want to bother remembering her PIN for the ATM. If you force her to use a password, you're just ensuring she won't use what you get her. Keeping it simple also forces programmers (me) to take care of the mundain stuff so the user can get the most use out of the least amount of work.
You're right, a new screwdriver isn't needed, but the screwdriver with the built-in flashlight or flexible shaft to get to hard-to-reach places were needed twists (I made a funny...) on an old concept.
I'm not saying replace the GUI, I'm saying simplify it. Although not quite to the level of MS Bob.
[random thoughts]
The GUI became popular because it really made most things that users need to do on a computer far easier than cryptic command lines. For years GUI's have been refined for ease of use. We're now coming to the limit of current icon-oriented design. There's just so many ways that an icon-based system can be presented to the user before usability starts going into the toilet.
We moved to GUI's because command line interfaces only got us so far, and some day someone will come up with a better-than-icon based system that is more logical. We'll all say "gosh, why didn't I think of that?" and everyone will jump into the "new way" of thinking.
I have visions of time-oriented interfaces that respond to "get me the spec sheet for the network I did last week sometime" and "set a new meeting for next Tuesday with Jim and Bob in the conference room". These new interfaces will be able to store and retrieve information based upon how we think, not in the traditional tree-like-structures we're currently used to. The concepts behind OO/RDBMS systems have some potential, such as nested tables and object oriented models, but don't present their information to a user very easily.
I don't see new interfaces becoming popular until they target the non-computer user market. I envision voice-activated systems, but they tend to be annoying to other people around. Mouse navigation doesn't seem to be viable because of it's limited 2D space, and thus the 2D GUI. The 3D systems (see spaceball on google) look neat, but aren't very intuitive to users. We may wind up with virtual filing cabinets, but hopefully we'll stay away from the Packard Bell Navigator!
Is there anyone (university or other) that is working on a new interface concept? I'd be interested in hearing what works and what doesn't. I know M$ and (Cr)Apple invest millions into GUI research, so I wouldn't be surprised if we saw something new out of those camps in the next few years.
And no, I don't count XP's "new and improved" GUI anything more than an over-hyped icon-based system.
[/random thoughts]
I think IBM's doing this for one very good reason. The more linux hackers there are at home running linux on their personal boxes, the more workers there will be in the industry that say "IBM makes this big box that will do all we need for our web and/or accounting needs, and it runs an OS I already know."
Managers like to hear that so they don't buy something their IT people don't know how to run.
Buy the VIA chipset. You should jump on it quick though. In a month or two, VIA will be so buried in legal paperwork that they won't be able to put a resistor in a box without a court injunction. It's really too bad that Intel can't let this slide, but I'm guessing that Intel and Rambus(t) have been in bed together so long that someone forgot where the key to the handcuffs is. Some Intel CPO woke up one day to find himself gagged and bent over a box, and his lawyers told him they couldn't do anything, but that they'd take some pictures to remind him in the future that KY and a condem aren't all that's needed in the corporate world.
</speculation>
Damn Anonymous Coward. Your name's probably Chad.
On a more serious note, several years ago I heard of a promising technology where a silicon chip was put through a normal manufacturing process, then dipped in one additional solution that "polished" the traces into light-carrying troughs. Supposedly the process was able to make optical chips (at lower speeds...) from standard silicon processes.
Anyone heard of this?
This is not meant as a flame. Please do not read it as such.
/. FUD tradition quite nicely. You said that "[Linux] blows NT/2000 out of the water in security and stability." then go on to say that "and do the BIND upgrade, since most older Linux/UNIX distros ship with a fairly dangerous DNS server vulnerability.".
I'm an avid Win2K user, and your post follows the
Isn't this a little contradictory?
2K has security problems, yes. So does RedHat. So do most other distributions of Linux. It's always a matter of patches/updates to the latest bug-free code. Yes, Linux usually gets fixes quicker than 2K, but at the same time, Microsoft was (as they should be) quick to jump on the fix to IIS5 with all the Code Red viri running around.
Please try not to bash 2K just because it's made by MS. It works. It works better than any other OS that MS has produced. MS took a clue about stability from Linux, just as Linux should take a clue about usability.
It's all about options, not "my dad can beat up your dad".
They're almost like Disney's "It's A Small World" song...
...from dot-net to not -net.
I've worked in the embedded field for quite a while and have used BASIC stamps from Parallax. Some of the optional extras available in their catalog are RF modules. Look at the catalog and see if anything fits your project. Bi-directional? Get two transcievers. They're $120 each, and support 9600,N,8,1 serial communication. See the manual for specific details on design and spec.
"Pretty silly to have 3MB of docs for a 983K ROM. It smacks of Windows Bloated thinking."
Bullshit.
The more documentation the better. I'd much rather open up an organized, searchable PDF than go searching through 5 years of newsgroup posts to find out how to change the default color of the pointer thingy. Poorly documented applications better come with very well documented code.
If in a cell N phones are active and using all the available bandwidth, then each of those will only get 1/N of 115200 bps.
Does that mean that if there are 0 phones on the network the cell tower crashes with a Divide By Zero error?
Funny, I see several buttons on the bottom of the HandEra 330. This is NOT what I described.
I understand what you've said, but here's another suggestion. How about one of those jog-dial things like Sony uses. Ignoring licensing for a minute, you could wheel to the right app and click, and your PDA could then have a larger screen. In addition, you could still have soft buttons on-screen in the same locations that the hard buttons are presently, it's just the fact that an app (like a word processor or spreadsheet, hell even a week view calendar) /could/ use the additional space if needed. I would just like the flexibility, the choice if you will, of being able to reconfigure the interface to suit my needs.
:)
Just a rant I guess. Maybe I need to get a patent... hmm....
Does anyone know where I can find a PDA that's just touch-screen only? i.e. NO BUTTONS. I don't understand why the manufacturers of PDA's build all these great devices, and then blow a few inches of space on some buttons that seldom get used.
Look at the Palm series: every one of them has the four "hot link" buttons and an up-down button. I know they're used some of the time, but most people just turn on their PDA and go straight to the touch-screen.
ATTENTION PDA MAKERS! Shrink the device a little more by cutting those buttons off the bottom and give me a device that's all touch screen. Let the developers worry about ease-of-use. Give me the most screen real-estate in the smallest package possible! THIS GOES FOR ALL YOU POCKET PC, PALM, AND OTHER DEVELOPERS AS WELL!
I can't wait for a Handspring Edge with a CF slot for ethernet, modem, or memory that's all screen. QVGA res would be nice, and don't burn my batteries up with color. Just gray or B&W thanks.
Insanity is my friend.
I see a lot of people suggesting that an Oracle DBA is a full time position. I don't really believe that. My company has several hundred (maybe a thousand or so) Oracle servers scattered all over the world. We have one DBA. Period. If you set the server up right the first time (sizing tables, tablespaces, indexes, etc.) with the proper growth rates for the application, Oracle is pretty much self-sufficient. I just finished writing a monitoring program that sends an e-mail if performance drops in one or more of 12 areas, and we rarely need to do much more than extend (and defrag) a tablespace. Anything like this should make your servers a fairly hands-off deal. JUST REMEMBER THAT THE $150/HR YOU SPEND FOR THE CONTRACT DBA IS WORTH IT TO GET SET UP RIGHT TO BEGIN WITH! If you screw the database up the first time, you'll be fighting it for the rest of its existence.
For all the Windows flames that get thrown around here, I think MS hit the nail on the head with the Windows 9x series. (Well, boot screens that is...) The Windows 9x series had the best of both worlds: A pretty picture (animated even!) that was shown while the system was booting, but if you wanted to see DOS messages, just hit escape and you're greeted with the standard DOS bootup.
/CRASHDEBUG option. It's not particularly pretty, but serves kind of the same purpose. It's just not available with an escape key. You can't set the option (easily) if you can't boot the system, so what's the point?
I think Linux should do the same thing - leave the bootup messages, debug messages, and whatever else there, but cover it up with a penguin sitting in a speedboat. For 95% of the time that I don't care what happens as long as the thing boots, I'll see my happy Tux, but for the other 5% of the time, I can just hit escape to see all the messages I've grown to know and lov^H^H^Hhate.
Windows 2000 doesn't offer this functionality. Yes, yes, I know about Windows 2000's
"Of course that's just my opinion, I could be wrong." - Dennis Miller
No, I actually own a copy. I don't use it for more than playing, but I got a student edition so it wasn't too expensive. I saw the 6.5 upgrade but didn't realize what new features were in the package. I guess I'll be upgrading when I get some time... :)
I have a copy of Lightwave 3D and it supports OpenGL for realtime previews of animations. It uses its own internal renderer (or screamernet) to do the final rendering, but loading a scene in layout and hitting the realtime preview looks pretty neat on a GF2. I'd really like to see if some of the additional textures and lighting capabilities will be supported in LW6 in the future...
If AOL bitches about *AIM* then just change the name to AlM (lowercase L in the middle). All of their searches will fail to uncover the product and their lawyers will just pass you by!
</humor>