Of course mine will work and do what its supposed to do, yours will be buggy, not meet the design requirements, not function as expected in random ways.
Exactly true. I've found over many years of engineering that there is a vast difference between something that nominally works and something that works perfectly under all conditions. Once you've achieved the former, you've done perhaps 1/3 or less of the work required to get to the latter.
I think you confuse "the art of programming" with "the craft of programming." If it were the former, you'd be allowed to put the noses on sideways, like Picasso, and call it "art". But as a craft, you need to produce the best work possible, even though it certainly contains an element of art.
I work on safety-critical software. We are required to do rigorous unit testing on every line of code by The Authorities. And I regularly find bugs in my code in the process. In fact, since I will be developing unit tests anyway, I (try to) make it a practice to do develop a module and its test simultaneously, which is more efficient than doing the unit test at the end, as is the common instinct by those who regard unit tests as "useless."
I also think you confuse "useless" with "efficient." Depending on the use of the software, unit tests may be an inefficient use of development time - as the Linux folks evidently believe. So, I don't do unit tests for every category of software. For example, there's no need to do that for a simple utility script. But I wouldn't want to fly in an airplane whose autopilot code was never unit-tested, and whose developers instead simply assumed that all the code they write is bug-free.
Yes, it's hard to imagine how anything could be better - until someone invents it.
Here's my wish list: wouldn't it be nice if Git had some mechanism for ad-hoc sharing of individual files? Where I work, we replaced an older commercial version control system that was excellent at that with Git a couple of years ago. Git is an improvement overall, but we still lost something significant along the way. Git's submodules are a great design for sharing large blobs of code but they don't serve quite the same need. In effect, the transition to Git has made us change major aspects of how we develop software.
I know there are various systems for bolting-on ad-hoc sharing to Git, but I'm looking for that as a feature of Git itself. I'm sure Git meets its original purpose of managing the gigantic Linux code base very well, but in a corporate setting, it would be nice to be able to share little blobs of code in any combination, as we used to. That causes some problems of its own - namely, divergence over time - but it's a major benefit if done judiciously. I'm not sure if ad-hoc sharing is 1) something that's anathema to Git, 2) something they don't care about, or 3) something they just haven't done yet.
What part of "building permit" and "property taxes" don't you understand? If you folks let Apple build a giant doughnut in Cupertino without the city collecting adequate local taxes on it, you can hardly blame us, can you...?
A puzzle unsolved is far more interesting than a puzzle solved.
I always think of the JFK assassination in these cases. The fact that Lee Harvey Oswald appears to have done it, yet we have numerous things that don't quite seem to add up, e.g. "the magic bullet," "the grassy knoll," etc., makes it far more interesting than the Lincoln assassination, where all the basic facts are pretty cut-and-dried.
Regardless of whether Wright is a con man or the real deal, he's clearly toying with us: his most recent statement seems more likely to spark our interest than to quell it.
I think one thing we've learned from all this is it's not about money, it's about airtime. And if you can get that for free, it no longer matters which side the Koch brothers are on - which somehow is kind of reassuring, despite the obvious negative consequences in this case.
I've watched a lot of CNN throughout all this, and they're clearly biased against Trump. Yet they've fueled his campaign with the wall-to-wall free airtime they give him. (And yes, as a CNN viewer, I'm part of the problem.) In fact, on their "Reliable Sources" program the other day, someone mentioned that CNN's ratings were up dramatically throughout all this, which isn't surprising. It's a win-win for both: Trump gets airtime, CNN gets ratings. I guess we could call that the "media-troll complex."
There appears to be a choice between someone who is conniving and self serving, and someone who is nasty and under handed.
Can you tell which is which?
That's easy: one wears a bad haircut and the other wears a bad pantsuit.
As a historical comparison, Richard Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover may have been just as conniving/self-serving/nasty/underhanded or whatever, but at least Nixon's haircut wasn't half bad. And however bad Hoover's pantsuit might be, at least he never wore it in public...
Fascinating, Captain...can the politician who got where he is by defying all conventional wisdom about how to be a successful politician then expand on that success by suddenly employing the primary tactic of all conventional politicians?
Speaking of "master key," I once read about some sort of principle or rule-of-thumb that every security device has to have an escape hatch of some kind. For example, car doors could be opened with a "slim jim," safes and padlocks could be cracked by a qualified locksmith, and most password systems have a "password recovery" option of some kind. Does anybody know if there's a name and/or Wikipedia page for that principle?
BTW, I'm not suggesting that government should have a master key, but I've been saved in a couple of cases when someone could open a car door, and I've benefited from password recovery options many times, even though the fact that such things exist at all is an obvious security issue.
But these articles that talk about jobs being replaced by AIs and Robots are misleading as those technologies are years away from being day-to-day reality. If an AI does replace my job, I'll be ready to change to a different job.
I see it as more of a gradual thing. My favorite example of this involves 'trash collectors' - which used to be the archetypal job that humans that would forever provide employment for the unskilled. Not so: many trash trucks today are manned by a single skilled driver who operates a (fairly dumb) trash-truck robot that picks up the (now standardized) trash cans. So, instead have having one skilled driver and one or two unskilled trash guys, we now have just the skilled driver. And it isn't hard to foresee even the driver being replaced in the next decade.
For taking a old & tired (in internet years) company and helping drive it into the ground. And insignificance. And being a woman helps 'cause you can do no wrong.
With a track record like that, I predict she'll run for President one day.
Don't all public companies have fiduciary duty (whatever that means) to do everything in the best interest of the shareholders?
Therein lies the rub: it's hard to prosecute on "whatever that means." So, all that we investors can do is vote with our dollars. However, looking at YHOO's major owners, the top ones seem to be S&P 500 funds, which presumably aren't any more activist than S&P itself. I guess that's anecdotal evidence that those of us who are (mostly) stock pickers have a good shot at doing better in that portion of our investments.
A TV pundit recently observed that each CEO of Yahoo has walked away with significant compensation after a short term, yet the stockholders have gotten nada in the form of dividends. And they may not get much when it's eventually sold off, or will get nothing if it goes bankrupt (which is less likely.)
Ironically, I rely on Yahoo's "Finance" section for much of my own stock-picking: its "Key Statistics" page is by far my favorite one-page stock statistic summary. Here are some highlights (read: lowlights) for YHOO itself:
Profit Margin (ttm): -87.74%
Return on Assets (ttm): -0.16%
Return on Equity (ttm): -12.82%
Trailing Annual Dividend Yield3: N/A
This paints a picture of a company that is losing money (negative profit margin), hasn't managed its assets well (negative return on assets and return on equity), and doesn't treat stockholders well (see ROA and ROE, together with no dividend.) Next, throw in a history of expensive golden parachutes to short-term CEOs and you've got a stock that no one (IMHO) should ever own.
Sadly, those of us who have part of our money in S&P 500 funds have a few bucks that get to go along on this horrifying ride.
And one that will not be accepted by the public when they see how ugly the money is becoming.
Yup, I saw a picture of Harriet Tubman today, and I think both Susan B. Anthony or Frederick Douglas were prettier. I'm not saying that Andrew Jackson was any great looker either, but this seems to be a step in the wrong direction in terms of pure cosmetics - unless they have Halle Berry or somebody model for Harriet. Even Oprah.
Cult: incipient form of religion. May be persecuted by the state until transformed into religion (see belowe). In most cases used to get power and money for the leader/priests.
You forgot sex: although the term "cult" doesn't seem to have an exact, well accepted definition, sex seems to be an important element of most groups that have been labelled as "cults." It's not a coincidence that many "prophets," both ancient and contemporary, have had lots of wives. I won't name any names here, but I can think of at least two contemporary established world religions that either currently or once allowed and encouraged polygamy, aka "plural marriage."
Since polygamy really isn't practical on a large scale due to the fact that men and women are born in approximately equal numbers, it's notable that prophets who have encouraged that seem to have more wives than the average adherent of their faith. Go figure.
Then again, maybe God is playing a little trick on certain false prophets who espouse plural spouses: I doubt that the pleasure they would derive from multiple wives could ever possibly compensate for the concomitant aggravation.
Good point - Everything is Awesome! I hope kids will work with the blocks in groups - Everything is cool when you're part of a team! But even if all our big ideas to change the world never pan out - Everything is awesome when we're living our dream!
Here's an even better idea: why not start kids as early as possible on this idea of making complex objects out of simple components? For example, I could create a system of interchangeable plastic blocks that very small children could put together, either free-form, using their own imaginations, or in specially designed kits that are intended to be assembled (with instructions) into an exciting macro-toy. Even better, after they get tired of the macro toy, they could tear it down and go free-form with the pieces!
I could envision such plastic blocks becoming popular world-wide, and could see them making their way into homes, daycare centers, preschools, and even elementary schools. Heck, I might even play with those myself. Imagine the educational possibilities for kids of all ages!
If my idea succeeds, I wonder how many billions Microsoft would pay me for it?
For the next study, I recommend they compare the decibels of the Dyson Airblade dryer, as experienced by the user, to the decibels of a jet engine on the tarmac, as experienced by a baggage handler wearing ear plugs.
Yawn, yet another zero day exploit in a steaming turd of a technology which has been an endless series of security holes for almost 20 years now.
Just curious: why is that? Is there something inherently insecure about the design of Flash? Or, is Adobe simply negligent? Or, is this a ploy to coax users into accidentally installing adware each time they update?
(Please don't just answer "all of the above" - I'm looking for details here, especially if there is something inherently insecure about the design of Flash.)
Slashdot Mirror
Of course mine will work and do what its supposed to do, yours will be buggy, not meet the design requirements, not function as expected in random ways.
Exactly true. I've found over many years of engineering that there is a vast difference between something that nominally works and something that works perfectly under all conditions. Once you've achieved the former, you've done perhaps 1/3 or less of the work required to get to the latter.
I think you confuse "the art of programming" with "the craft of programming." If it were the former, you'd be allowed to put the noses on sideways, like Picasso, and call it "art". But as a craft, you need to produce the best work possible, even though it certainly contains an element of art.
I work on safety-critical software. We are required to do rigorous unit testing on every line of code by The Authorities. And I regularly find bugs in my code in the process. In fact, since I will be developing unit tests anyway, I (try to) make it a practice to do develop a module and its test simultaneously, which is more efficient than doing the unit test at the end, as is the common instinct by those who regard unit tests as "useless."
I also think you confuse "useless" with "efficient." Depending on the use of the software, unit tests may be an inefficient use of development time - as the Linux folks evidently believe. So, I don't do unit tests for every category of software. For example, there's no need to do that for a simple utility script. But I wouldn't want to fly in an airplane whose autopilot code was never unit-tested, and whose developers instead simply assumed that all the code they write is bug-free.
Yes, it's hard to imagine how anything could be better - until someone invents it.
Here's my wish list: wouldn't it be nice if Git had some mechanism for ad-hoc sharing of individual files? Where I work, we replaced an older commercial version control system that was excellent at that with Git a couple of years ago. Git is an improvement overall, but we still lost something significant along the way. Git's submodules are a great design for sharing large blobs of code but they don't serve quite the same need. In effect, the transition to Git has made us change major aspects of how we develop software.
I know there are various systems for bolting-on ad-hoc sharing to Git, but I'm looking for that as a feature of Git itself. I'm sure Git meets its original purpose of managing the gigantic Linux code base very well, but in a corporate setting, it would be nice to be able to share little blobs of code in any combination, as we used to. That causes some problems of its own - namely, divergence over time - but it's a major benefit if done judiciously. I'm not sure if ad-hoc sharing is 1) something that's anathema to Git, 2) something they don't care about, or 3) something they just haven't done yet.
Dear Mayor Chang,
What part of "building permit" and "property taxes" don't you understand? If you folks let Apple build a giant doughnut in Cupertino without the city collecting adequate local taxes on it, you can hardly blame us, can you...?
your friend,
Tim Cook
A puzzle unsolved is far more interesting than a puzzle solved.
I always think of the JFK assassination in these cases. The fact that Lee Harvey Oswald appears to have done it, yet we have numerous things that don't quite seem to add up, e.g. "the magic bullet," "the grassy knoll," etc., makes it far more interesting than the Lincoln assassination, where all the basic facts are pretty cut-and-dried.
Regardless of whether Wright is a con man or the real deal, he's clearly toying with us: his most recent statement seems more likely to spark our interest than to quell it.
The half that downloaded that new "Phone Addiction" app on the first day it came out.
I think one thing we've learned from all this is it's not about money, it's about airtime. And if you can get that for free, it no longer matters which side the Koch brothers are on - which somehow is kind of reassuring, despite the obvious negative consequences in this case.
I've watched a lot of CNN throughout all this, and they're clearly biased against Trump. Yet they've fueled his campaign with the wall-to-wall free airtime they give him. (And yes, as a CNN viewer, I'm part of the problem.) In fact, on their "Reliable Sources" program the other day, someone mentioned that CNN's ratings were up dramatically throughout all this, which isn't surprising. It's a win-win for both: Trump gets airtime, CNN gets ratings. I guess we could call that the "media-troll complex."
There appears to be a choice between someone who is conniving and self serving, and someone who is nasty and under handed.
Can you tell which is which?
That's easy: one wears a bad haircut and the other wears a bad pantsuit.
As a historical comparison, Richard Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover may have been just as conniving/self-serving/nasty/underhanded or whatever, but at least Nixon's haircut wasn't half bad. And however bad Hoover's pantsuit might be, at least he never wore it in public...
Fascinating, Captain...can the politician who got where he is by defying all conventional wisdom about how to be a successful politician then expand on that success by suddenly employing the primary tactic of all conventional politicians?
Trump has a lot of negatives, yes.
They said the same about Ansel Adams. And just look how his career developed.
(sorry, couldn't resist)
Speaking of "master key," I once read about some sort of principle or rule-of-thumb that every security device has to have an escape hatch of some kind. For example, car doors could be opened with a "slim jim," safes and padlocks could be cracked by a qualified locksmith, and most password systems have a "password recovery" option of some kind. Does anybody know if there's a name and/or Wikipedia page for that principle?
BTW, I'm not suggesting that government should have a master key, but I've been saved in a couple of cases when someone could open a car door, and I've benefited from password recovery options many times, even though the fact that such things exist at all is an obvious security issue.
But these articles that talk about jobs being replaced by AIs and Robots are misleading as those technologies are years away from being day-to-day reality. If an AI does replace my job, I'll be ready to change to a different job.
I see it as more of a gradual thing. My favorite example of this involves 'trash collectors' - which used to be the archetypal job that humans that would forever provide employment for the unskilled. Not so: many trash trucks today are manned by a single skilled driver who operates a (fairly dumb) trash-truck robot that picks up the (now standardized) trash cans. So, instead have having one skilled driver and one or two unskilled trash guys, we now have just the skilled driver. And it isn't hard to foresee even the driver being replaced in the next decade.
For taking a old & tired (in internet years) company and
helping drive it into the ground. And insignificance.
And being a woman helps 'cause you can do no wrong.
With a track record like that, I predict she'll run for President one day.
Don't all public companies have fiduciary duty (whatever that means) to do everything in the best interest of the shareholders?
Therein lies the rub: it's hard to prosecute on "whatever that means." So, all that we investors can do is vote with our dollars. However, looking at YHOO's major owners, the top ones seem to be S&P 500 funds, which presumably aren't any more activist than S&P itself. I guess that's anecdotal evidence that those of us who are (mostly) stock pickers have a good shot at doing better in that portion of our investments.
A TV pundit recently observed that each CEO of Yahoo has walked away with significant compensation after a short term, yet the stockholders have gotten nada in the form of dividends. And they may not get much when it's eventually sold off, or will get nothing if it goes bankrupt (which is less likely.)
Ironically, I rely on Yahoo's "Finance" section for much of my own stock-picking: its "Key Statistics" page is by far my favorite one-page stock statistic summary. Here are some highlights (read: lowlights) for YHOO itself:
Profit Margin (ttm): -87.74%
Return on Assets (ttm): -0.16%
Return on Equity (ttm): -12.82%
Trailing Annual Dividend Yield3: N/A
This paints a picture of a company that is losing money (negative profit margin), hasn't managed its assets well (negative return on assets and return on equity), and doesn't treat stockholders well (see ROA and ROE, together with no dividend.) Next, throw in a history of expensive golden parachutes to short-term CEOs and you've got a stock that no one (IMHO) should ever own.
Sadly, those of us who have part of our money in S&P 500 funds have a few bucks that get to go along on this horrifying ride.
And one that will not be accepted by the public when they see how ugly the money is becoming.
Yup, I saw a picture of Harriet Tubman today, and I think both Susan B. Anthony or Frederick Douglas were prettier. I'm not saying that Andrew Jackson was any great looker either, but this seems to be a step in the wrong direction in terms of pure cosmetics - unless they have Halle Berry or somebody model for Harriet. Even Oprah.
As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.
Cult: incipient form of religion. May be persecuted by the state until transformed into religion (see belowe). In most cases used to get power and money for the leader/priests.
You forgot sex: although the term "cult" doesn't seem to have an exact, well accepted definition, sex seems to be an important element of most groups that have been labelled as "cults." It's not a coincidence that many "prophets," both ancient and contemporary, have had lots of wives. I won't name any names here, but I can think of at least two contemporary established world religions that either currently or once allowed and encouraged polygamy, aka "plural marriage."
Since polygamy really isn't practical on a large scale due to the fact that men and women are born in approximately equal numbers, it's notable that prophets who have encouraged that seem to have more wives than the average adherent of their faith. Go figure.
Then again, maybe God is playing a little trick on certain false prophets who espouse plural spouses: I doubt that the pleasure they would derive from multiple wives could ever possibly compensate for the concomitant aggravation.
Good point - Everything is Awesome!
I hope kids will work with the blocks in groups - Everything is cool when you're part of a team!
But even if all our big ideas to change the world never pan out - Everything is awesome when we're living our dream!
Here's an even better idea: why not start kids as early as possible on this idea of making complex objects out of simple components? For example, I could create a system of interchangeable plastic blocks that very small children could put together, either free-form, using their own imaginations, or in specially designed kits that are intended to be assembled (with instructions) into an exciting macro-toy. Even better, after they get tired of the macro toy, they could tear it down and go free-form with the pieces!
I could envision such plastic blocks becoming popular world-wide, and could see them making their way into homes, daycare centers, preschools, and even elementary schools. Heck, I might even play with those myself. Imagine the educational possibilities for kids of all ages!
If my idea succeeds, I wonder how many billions Microsoft would pay me for it?
For the next study, I recommend they compare the decibels of the Dyson Airblade dryer, as experienced by the user, to the decibels of a jet engine on the tarmac, as experienced by a baggage handler wearing ear plugs.
I'm betting the dryer would win.
Donald Trump is a staunch supporter of torture
Evidently CNN is too, based on how often they subject their viewers to him...
I like your term "commentariat" - very clever. To that, we might add "curserati" and maybe even "conspirocracy."
Yawn, yet another zero day exploit in a steaming turd of a technology which has been an endless series of security holes for almost 20 years now.
Just curious: why is that? Is there something inherently insecure about the design of Flash? Or, is Adobe simply negligent? Or, is this a ploy to coax users into accidentally installing adware each time they update?
(Please don't just answer "all of the above" - I'm looking for details here, especially if there is something inherently insecure about the design of Flash.)
Apple designs for idiots and only the idiots will buy the devices and pay extra for that privilege.
I can just hear the ghost of Steve Jobs quoting Librace on such criticism: "I cried all the way to the bank."