Ten years ago I was extremely skilled at programming and systems/application development. I was also payed (adjusted for 2000 dollar) around $35K. Now, I have forgotten a vast majority of what I knew (yes, I could get it back with a little bit of effort) however I'm worth a minimum of $85K. The real difference is that my overall knowledge and understanding of the technology and the industry is far greater now that ever. Plus I have more contacts in the profession. Don't ever count this resource out. The best technical people I know aren't the ones that "think" they know everything but are the ones who say, "I have no idea, but I know this guy..."
It's funny... When I read the question it didn't make sense to me. I had to read it three times before I understood what was being asked. The idea of programming for any reason other than to program seems alian to me.
I code, therefor I am!
I like to write programs that do things that need to be done as well as programs that do nothing, "but in a really cool way." I like learning different languages. I like using anything from awk to COBOL to Eiffel to whatever comes next. I have enjoyed writing programs for DOS, Linux, WinXX, MVS...
Born 2 Code!
System programming, applications programming, database programming, it's all good. Learn everything. Do as much as you can. Try not to get locked into one language or paradigm.
And if someone questions why you choose a particular programming solution just tell them, "No reason. I just like doin' things like that." Extra credit for those who know from where the above quote comes from.
It's not Digital UNIX anymore, it's True64. OC, that could change within the next 25 minutes. DEC... uh, er, Compaq seems to change the name of this OS more often than most people change underware.
This is one potential situation where the legality of the DMCA could be challanged./. should NOT remove the referred to posts or links. Let's get this [DMCA] overturned by the courts.
It's always a shame when someone dies young (hell, I'm 37!). The reasons are never black and white, and "complications from alcoholism" is about as vague as it can get. There's no doubt that Phil helped the progression of modern computing. However...
There's been a lot of gushing about how great Phil was. I never met the man but there were plenty of reasons why I refused to allow ZIP files on my BBS 10 years ago. One small one is that v2.04g was broken. PKWare knew it was broken yet they refused to fix it. It would lockup a number of systems and this caused a many SysOps a lot of trouble. But that was just a little thing. The major issue, for me, was the who fiasco dealing with the law suite by SEA. Phil Katz did, in fact, steal the compression algorithms. Plus he played the thing like a David and Goliath. "Poor little guy being sued by the big corporation!" PKWare was just as big a company, if not bigger, than SEA. And Phil's tactic of drawing out the suite while working to make PKZip the defacto standard just made it a moot point when he settled. Very Microsoftian.
The quality of people posting on/. has really dropped over the year(s). It's getting so very old listening/reading all these blabberings about how "Open Source is the only way" and the "GPL/BSD/XYZ license is best" and "All commercial/closed anything are evil".
Open Source is good but it is not the only way. Everything in the universe has both good and bad potential. The bottom line is getting the job done. If it can be done with Open or Closed solutions then it should be done with them. Linux is great but it is not the answer to everything. Mr. Love seems to be trying to say that everything has it's place (and saying it in a way that the suites can understand, something that is anathma to/. readers it seems).
I think the biggest thing that really gets to me is the complete lack of knowledge that is prevelent in the posts any more.:-(
This is a good thing. Linux on some really powerfull machines, not little dinky things like I64's and Alphas. Big-time power for Linux systems will help bring it into the coorporate world.
I do not have the time or resources to actually do any work (plus my spelling and grammer suck, totally) but I would still like to do something to help. My question is -
Is there a way to donate funds/money to help the documentation cause?
In addition to demanding the removal of the decryption utility, Mattel is also seeking the logfiles of the Swedish ISP that hosts the decryption utility, to identify everyone who has downloaded it to date.
Time to run out and d/l it from all the computers I have accounts on. I say that every/. reader do the same, too. Let's see them try and track all of us down.
What we need is to get these distribution makers to get us avege users some "ServicePacks" that are easy to install and would fix recent holes that someone has found.
I know that this information can be found from somewhere, but haven't got the time to look for it.
Ok, I can't let this one go...
All the major (and most of the minor) distributions have easy access to get all the updates/fixes for their product. You have to make an effort to not trip over this information in the readme's and manuals and default web pages.
Everything you ever wanted to know about Linux is on the CD you got for your distribution and it's at the Linux Documentation Project site.
Ignorance is no excuse.
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Let's reclaim some seriuos bandwidth
on
Is Usenet Dying?
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· Score: 1
Yes, USENET is dying. It's nearly totally useless at this point. If we shut down all the news servers and turn off all the groups the amount of bandwidth and processing savings boggles the mind.
That was my favorite. "I see a little sillowet-oh of a can..." Well, that and, "Whaaaaasssssuuuuuaahhhhh". Personally I think this should be adopted as the official greeting for all Open Source people.:-)
BTW, did you know that all the "DOT COM" companies had to pay their fees up front in cash? Not the normal way the commercials are sold.
Definitely this is more fantasy than hard SF but still worth the read. I haven't run through the tons of other posts in here but I'm sure that all the standard authors have been covered.
I really like that you're starting with Azimov's "Foundation". I read that book in 6th grade and it hooked me on SF for life (and Ike is still #1 for me).
Games are, for me, non-essential. I haven't played a computer/video game since the first SSI D&D game "Pool of Radiance".
I'm game for pong.
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Re:What does the lack of mention of FreeBSD...
on
Red Hat Finishes Last
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· Score: 2
...tell you about the reviewers?
It tells me the same thing that the lack of mentioning OS390 and their choice of Red Hat Linux as the only Linux representitive. The media and corporate world still don't really understand the technology that exists. Hell, MVS kicks the $#!% out of all the reviewed NOS's in many areas.
As with the majority of reviews like this, they are basically worthless to the technical people and are only geared towards management.
...it's a cheap Unix hack. That's all it was designed to be, that's all it will ever be, until they make it "user-friendly." "Intuitive". It's not, and no one can successfully argue with me.
Ah, you're one of those kind, huh. Nothing anyone can say will change your mind so why even try. The only thing I want to comment on your post is that in the world of usability design and ergonomic interfaces the WinXX GUI is one of the worst at being "user-friendly" or "intuitive". It's only user-friendly to people who have never known anything else and it's never been intuitive to any degree. There's even been more than enough proof of this in data studies that show how it takes as much time and money to train someone on WinXX as it does to train them on CDE or MWM. The Mac Finder is really the best user interface as far as intuitiveness and friendlyness goes.
So, next time you want to yell the "Misrepresenting the Truth" banner, try doing some research and actually learn what the truth is first.
Linux Weekley News does a pretty good job of this right now on their site. I think it would be counter productive to spend the effort to come up with basically the same results. Maybe there could be a/. referral of announcements to lwn.
Anyway, as the song goes, "Whatever it is, I'm against it!":-)
The Futurological Congress also touches upon this topic, but even goes a little further in that it describes a world where there is not one but many levels of nested virtual realities.
This concept was also the basis of the Zelazney series "Nine Princes in Amber". Perception of reality is a strong thread in many F&SF books.
But the fact that the Matrix is being used is important, not because it's being choosen over numerous "better" options, but because it had the mass appiel to break through the F&SF barrier into the real conciousness of the public. Now that people have seen the tip of the iceberg they might try looking at more F&SF as serious litriture. Thus the circle from phylosophy to fantasy to study to phylosophy.
Cute. Here we keep hearing about how maybe Linux is an OK server OS but Win* is the only choice of the desktop, and what happens? We get a big push towards using an NT server with Linux desktops!
Actually the cool thing here is that you can use a Linux server with Samba to run MS-Office over the LAN to a Corel Linux desktop with Bridge. The only MS part of the equation is Office. Right now the only thing really keeping businesses from mass-installing Linux on the desktop is the "requirement" to run Office.
I think that's cute. Let's turn MS into a little app company.
...growing their old Ultrix (hey, that was BSD) and OSF-1/Digital Unix/Tru64 (that's BSD too) market. That's where they've been pushing things.
As someone who has started working on an Alpha Cluster running True64 I have to say that, while it may have had it's origins in BSD, is about as close to it now as AIX is to either BSD or SV. True64 is as much it's own *NIX as anything else.
So is that it? Maddog could push Linux at DEC and get away with it because it wasn't seen as a threat to Tru64? Well, damn, I wouldn't be proud of that...
With Compaq creating/porting natice C and FORTRAN compilers to Alpha Linux you can bet they see Linux as something to make money on (which is not an evil thing, BTW). Linux doesn't have to be a compeditor to True64; it is and has been a very good compliment to it.
What I want to know is, what's wrong with the old boring v1, v2, v3, etc - with sub-revisions if you really need them?
Perception. The bigger the number the more "new" it is in the mind of the "public". Think about it, if you wanted to get the newest, best version of Linux would you go for Binky's Linux v3.7 or Fred's Linux v6.3? Both could have the same kernel and packages and updates. Hell, Binky's could even be 6 months newer than Fred's. Doesn't matter; people are going to go for the big number assuming it's the newest.
Also, I should point out that, even though Newton might have been a geek, he was by no means "shunned" or "opressed". He was arrogant, ambitious and ruthless. He was Master of the Mint, Fellow of the Royal Society, and very powerful on the political establishment.
Heh, if the qualities of arrogance, ruthlessness & obnixiousness were disadvantages then RMS, ESR & a host of Open Source greats would be left out in the cold. Hell, there'd be no/. nor people to read it either.
Would things have actually been as bad as the media predicted?
As someone who spent the better part of 5 years fixing a boatload of Y2K code I can say that, at least on the projects I was working on, there would have been some very noticable and potentially drastic problems if the work wasn't done. Various parts of the US Army would be, well, let's just say "not in such good shape."
The real tragady of the Y2K hysteria is that many, many people busted their asses to get the code fixed and, because of the media hype, when it became a relitive non-event, instead of getting the praise they desirved they got the old, "What the hell am I paying you all this money for when there aren't any problems" crap.
Slashdot Mirror
That, my friends, comes with age/experiance.
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Yes. And they are really a kick ass machine. Very easy to use and they do make great office servers.
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And if someone questions why you choose a particular programming solution just tell them, "No reason. I just like doin' things like that."
Extra credit for those who know from where the above quote comes from.
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FWIW, True64 on the Alpha rocks!
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This is one potential situation where the legality of the DMCA could be challanged. /. should NOT remove the referred to posts or links. Let's get this [DMCA] overturned by the courts.
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There's been a lot of gushing about how great Phil was. I never met the man but there were plenty of reasons why I refused to allow ZIP files on my BBS 10 years ago. One small one is that v2.04g was broken. PKWare knew it was broken yet they refused to fix it. It would lockup a number of systems and this caused a many SysOps a lot of trouble. But that was just a little thing. The major issue, for me, was the who fiasco dealing with the law suite by SEA. Phil Katz did, in fact, steal the compression algorithms. Plus he played the thing like a David and Goliath. "Poor little guy being sued by the big corporation!" PKWare was just as big a company, if not bigger, than SEA. And Phil's tactic of drawing out the suite while working to make PKZip the defacto standard just made it a moot point when he settled. Very Microsoftian.
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Open Source is good but it is not the only way. Everything in the universe has both good and bad potential. The bottom line is getting the job done. If it can be done with Open or Closed solutions then it should be done with them. Linux is great but it is not the answer to everything. Mr. Love seems to be trying to say that everything has it's place (and saying it in a way that the suites can understand, something that is anathma to /. readers it seems).
I think the biggest thing that really gets to me is the complete lack of knowledge that is prevelent in the posts any more. :-(
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This is a good thing. Linux on some really powerfull machines, not little dinky things like I64's and Alphas. Big-time power for Linux systems will help bring it into the coorporate world.
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Is there a way to donate funds/money to help the documentation cause?
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I know that this information can be found from somewhere, but haven't got the time to look for it.
Ok, I can't let this one go...
Ignorance is no excuse.
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Yes, USENET is dying. It's nearly totally useless at this point. If we shut down all the news servers and turn off all the groups the amount of bandwidth and processing savings boggles the mind.
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Didn't they use something like this in 2010 with the breaking thingie (that's a technical term) they used in Jupiters atmosphear?
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Well, that and, "Whaaaaasssssuuuuuaahhhhh". Personally I think this should be adopted as the official greeting for all Open Source people.
BTW, did you know that all the "DOT COM" companies had to pay their fees up front in cash? Not the normal way the commercials are sold.
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I really like that you're starting with Azimov's "Foundation". I read that book in 6th grade and it hooked me on SF for life (and Ike is still #1 for me).
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I'm game for pong.
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It tells me the same thing that the lack of mentioning OS390 and their choice of Red Hat Linux as the only Linux representitive. The media and corporate world still don't really understand the technology that exists. Hell, MVS kicks the $#!% out of all the reviewed NOS's in many areas.
As with the majority of reviews like this, they are basically worthless to the technical people and are only geared towards management.
---
Ah, you're one of those kind, huh. Nothing anyone can say will change your mind so why even try. The only thing I want to comment on your post is that in the world of usability design and ergonomic interfaces the WinXX GUI is one of the worst at being "user-friendly" or "intuitive". It's only user-friendly to people who have never known anything else and it's never been intuitive to any degree. There's even been more than enough proof of this in data studies that show how it takes as much time and money to train someone on WinXX as it does to train them on CDE or MWM. The Mac Finder is really the best user interface as far as intuitiveness and friendlyness goes.
So, next time you want to yell the "Misrepresenting the Truth" banner, try doing some research and actually learn what the truth is first.
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Anyway, as the song goes, "Whatever it is, I'm against it!" :-)
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This concept was also the basis of the Zelazney series "Nine Princes in Amber". Perception of reality is a strong thread in many F&SF books.
But the fact that the Matrix is being used is important, not because it's being choosen over numerous "better" options, but because it had the mass appiel to break through the F&SF barrier into the real conciousness of the public. Now that people have seen the tip of the iceberg they might try looking at more F&SF as serious litriture. Thus the circle from phylosophy to fantasy to study to phylosophy.
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Actually the cool thing here is that you can use a Linux server with Samba to run MS-Office over the LAN to a Corel Linux desktop with Bridge. The only MS part of the equation is Office. Right now the only thing really keeping businesses from mass-installing Linux on the desktop is the "requirement" to run Office.
I think that's cute. Let's turn MS into a little app company.
---
As someone who has started working on an Alpha Cluster running True64 I have to say that, while it may have had it's origins in BSD, is about as close to it now as AIX is to either BSD or SV. True64 is as much it's own *NIX as anything else.
So is that it? Maddog could push Linux at DEC and get away with it because it wasn't seen as a threat to Tru64? Well, damn, I wouldn't be proud of that...
With Compaq creating/porting natice C and FORTRAN compilers to Alpha Linux you can bet they see Linux as something to make money on (which is not an evil thing, BTW). Linux doesn't have to be a compeditor to True64; it is and has been a very good compliment to it.
---
Perception. The bigger the number the more "new" it is in the mind of the "public". Think about it, if you wanted to get the newest, best version of Linux would you go for Binky's Linux v3.7 or Fred's Linux v6.3? Both could have the same kernel and packages and updates. Hell, Binky's could even be 6 months newer than Fred's. Doesn't matter; people are going to go for the big number assuming it's the newest.
Why do you think Slackware jumped from 3.x to 7?
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Heh, if the qualities of arrogance, ruthlessness & obnixiousness were disadvantages then RMS, ESR & a host of Open Source greats would be left out in the cold. Hell, there'd be no /. nor people to read it either.
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As someone who spent the better part of 5 years fixing a boatload of Y2K code I can say that, at least on the projects I was working on, there would have been some very noticable and potentially drastic problems if the work wasn't done. Various parts of the US Army would be, well, let's just say "not in such good shape."
The real tragady of the Y2K hysteria is that many, many people busted their asses to get the code fixed and, because of the media hype, when it became a relitive non-event, instead of getting the praise they desirved they got the old, "What the hell am I paying you all this money for when there aren't any problems" crap.
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