Software does age. As a program grows older, people change it, its inputs and how it is used, and the older a program gets, the less the people making the changes are likely to understand it.
In addition, some bugs don't manifest themselves under usage patterns from 20 years ago, or when the software is run on hardware from 20 years ago, but they do manifest themselves under usage patterns or on hardware that's in use now. The more you change, especially without understanding all of the ramifications of that change, the greater the risk for error.
I love the open source movement but I wonder why the following comment is OK for open source projects and not close source?
quote "That said, no one should expect a "point-oh-point-oh" release to deliver the full potential of a product, particularly when it comes to a software system with the complexity of GCC."
I bet no one would dare say that about certain product from Redmond.
Is this an actual question, or clever use of irony?
It's said about all kinds of products from Redmond, all the time. Microsoft products epitomize the "point-oh-point-oh" view of a release.
Generally speaking, open source "point-oh-point-oh" products are more likely to be of high quality (than "point-oh-point-oh" closed source products), because many open source products have had a long and extensive life in "zero-point-whatever" land prior to their first "point-oh-point-oh" release.
Exceptions were only mentioned in one or two posts; the theme of the conversation is that goto "is also exceedingly useful for error handling, in that it allows you to skip the bulk of a function and still hit the cleanup section of the function."
Somebody suggested that that's what exception handling is for, but C doesn't have exception handling, so the conversation is clearly not about exceptions.
No, collisions kill. Sometimes. Speeding sometimes, but not always, makes collisions more likely and/or worse. Sometimes, not speeding makes collisions more likely and/or worse.
Where the previous poster was stunningly wrong was when they stated "As the goto statement does not exist in Java, it is a given that we're talking about C++." We could just as easily be talking about C.
To me, having 1 or 2 guys on your team that are like that is "a lot"
Oh, I see. To me, "a lot" is mostly meaningless, because there are a lot of people in IT period. For "a lot" to mean something, it has to be different than "a few" or "a handful" or "1 or 2". Otherwise you may as well just omit those words.
My first year Intro to CS instructor put it this way:
"Computer Science is to programming as mechanical engineering is to operating a drill press"
Do mechanical engineering programs have multiple courses about operating a drill press? Is the ability to operate a drill press an essential part of being a mechanical engineer? Do people who hire drill press operators want them to have a mechanical engineering degree?
I read some interesting letters to the editor on this topic recently. Somebody did a survey to find the difference between perceptions of "CS", "IT" and "SE" (software engineering) and wrote up the results. Two of the responses:
"CS people are the ones who laugh at IT people"
"IT people are the ones who will be the bosses of the CS people"
I think the conclusion of the article was "Things are messed up; somebody think of something!" That's starting to seem like a common theme.
If writing code is all the CS program expects from majors...
Fortunately it's not, and the previous poster didn't suggest that it was. It's logically incorrect to jump from "programming exists" to "programming is all that exists".
And also, for the record, there are a lot of self-righteous, pompous IT folks, who while being quite intelligent have ZERO people skills and look down their noses at those of us who scratched and clawed our way into the industry because we loved it.
This sounds extremely exaggerated to me. The IT folks who look down on the unqualified far outnumber the IT folks who look down on the qualified, in my experience.
My last job involved learning someone else's big system, and debugging it. I also wrote SQL queries that were several pages long. I personally think its easier to create your own system from scratch than it is to try and trace down thousands of access violations in someone else's code.
True, but the flip side is also true. My first job out of school involved taking someone else's big, well-architected and well-written system, supporting it and adding functionality to it, and it was a very valuable learning experience for me.
Add in common sense, and its pretty obvious that when everyone predicts doom and gloom in IT in the US as India and China take over the world, nobody's interested in sinking $100,000 into a university degree for a career that may not exist when they get out.
Common sense says "What does that paragraph have to do with the topic at hand?" There will be IT careers in 4 years. Not everybody's predicting doom and gloom; I expect things to be better in 4 years than they were two years ago.
I think those conversations do come up. What I'm saying is that just because somebody's heterosexual doesn't make it ok for them to tell me about their sex life.
There is a double standard: I think that people in general dislike hearing about homosexual escapades more than they dislike hearing about heterosexual escapades. My preferred solution is to not talk about your sexual escapades (or problems, or likes and dislikes, or whatever) at work.
That doesn't mean we keep a dildo as a paperweight, or have a cat'o'nine tails and some handcuffs, or a picture from the last "Dykes on Bikes" parade on the wall next to the generic "Perserverance" workplace art.
I was thinking of everyday things like a coworker's romantic problems, or how much fun Jim in marketing had at the titty bar last night. Leave me out of it.
The whole point, which you obviously missed, is that A PERSON SHOULDN'T HAVE TO HIDE their sexual orientation.
I disagree slightly: in the workplace, everybody should hide their sexual orientation. Among other things, it would dramatically decrease sexual harassment.
I prefer to know as little about the sex lives of my coworkers as possible. A "don't ask, don't tell" policy covering everything sexual would be just great.
Even if CS came up with a scientific solution to improve code quality, it would be an interesting exercise to see if the industry will be willing to absorb the costs associated with such a solution.
I think they would, if it were cost effective. Industry spends tons of money and wastes tons of time on "process" that I'm sure they'd rather spend on other stuff.
Re:Why isn't this already out?
on
Next Generation X11
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· Score: 1, Insightful
1995: We'll have really neat X11 desktops Real Soon Now(TM)! See, here's a demo!
1998: We'll have really neat X11 desktops Real Soon Now(TM)! See, here's a demo!
2000: We'll have really neat X11 desktops Real Soon Now(TM)! See, here's a demo!
2005: We'll have really neat X11 desktops Real Soon Now(TM)! See, here's a demo!
I think you're misunderstanding the question. It's a specific problem that the poster had with the extortion, bribery and politics scenario: why would the disciples willingly die horribly for something that they knew to be the result of extortion, bribery and politics?
If the whole thing is a simple matter of extortion, bribery and politics, then the disciples would have had to be added in later as pseudo-fictional characters as well. If that's so, then the "it's all made up" scenario trumps the "extortion, bribery and politics" scenario, I think.
Slashdot Mirror
Software does age. As a program grows older, people change it, its inputs and how it is used, and the older a program gets, the less the people making the changes are likely to understand it.
In addition, some bugs don't manifest themselves under usage patterns from 20 years ago, or when the software is run on hardware from 20 years ago, but they do manifest themselves under usage patterns or on hardware that's in use now. The more you change, especially without understanding all of the ramifications of that change, the greater the risk for error.
That's what software aging is.
Is this an actual question, or clever use of irony?
It's said about all kinds of products from Redmond, all the time. Microsoft products epitomize the "point-oh-point-oh" view of a release.
Generally speaking, open source "point-oh-point-oh" products are more likely to be of high quality (than "point-oh-point-oh" closed source products), because many open source products have had a long and extensive life in "zero-point-whatever" land prior to their first "point-oh-point-oh" release.
"They" would work, in reference to the team or group that actually works on whatever is being discussed at the moment.
Did they react the same way to every car that came through the checkpoint? If not, what circumstances were different?
Perhaps Italian drivers are trained to believe that speedometers are all set 30 mph high. That would explain much.
If he is, it's reasonable to think that he doesn't want his next of kin to know about it.
Somebody suggested that that's what exception handling is for, but C doesn't have exception handling, so the conversation is clearly not about exceptions.
No, collisions kill. Sometimes. Speeding sometimes, but not always, makes collisions more likely and/or worse. Sometimes, not speeding makes collisions more likely and/or worse.
Where the previous poster was stunningly wrong was when they stated "As the goto statement does not exist in Java, it is a given that we're talking about C++." We could just as easily be talking about C.
Does it support my position when a reply attacks a straw man?
Oh, I see. To me, "a lot" is mostly meaningless, because there are a lot of people in IT period. For "a lot" to mean something, it has to be different than "a few" or "a handful" or "1 or 2". Otherwise you may as well just omit those words.
For me, right out of school, it's unlikely that a system I created from scratch would have been as good as the one that I inherited.
Do mechanical engineering programs have multiple courses about operating a drill press? Is the ability to operate a drill press an essential part of being a mechanical engineer? Do people who hire drill press operators want them to have a mechanical engineering degree?
"CS people are the ones who laugh at IT people"
"IT people are the ones who will be the bosses of the CS people"
I think the conclusion of the article was "Things are messed up; somebody think of something!" That's starting to seem like a common theme.
Fortunately it's not, and the previous poster didn't suggest that it was. It's logically incorrect to jump from "programming exists" to "programming is all that exists".
This sounds extremely exaggerated to me. The IT folks who look down on the unqualified far outnumber the IT folks who look down on the qualified, in my experience.
True, but the flip side is also true. My first job out of school involved taking someone else's big, well-architected and well-written system, supporting it and adding functionality to it, and it was a very valuable learning experience for me.
Common sense says "What does that paragraph have to do with the topic at hand?" There will be IT careers in 4 years. Not everybody's predicting doom and gloom; I expect things to be better in 4 years than they were two years ago.
There is a double standard: I think that people in general dislike hearing about homosexual escapades more than they dislike hearing about heterosexual escapades. My preferred solution is to not talk about your sexual escapades (or problems, or likes and dislikes, or whatever) at work.
So am I, I think.
That doesn't mean we keep a dildo as a paperweight, or have a cat'o'nine tails and some handcuffs, or a picture from the last "Dykes on Bikes" parade on the wall next to the generic "Perserverance" workplace art.
I was thinking of everyday things like a coworker's romantic problems, or how much fun Jim in marketing had at the titty bar last night. Leave me out of it.
I disagree slightly: in the workplace, everybody should hide their sexual orientation. Among other things, it would dramatically decrease sexual harassment.
I prefer to know as little about the sex lives of my coworkers as possible. A "don't ask, don't tell" policy covering everything sexual would be just great.
I think they would, if it were cost effective. Industry spends tons of money and wastes tons of time on "process" that I'm sure they'd rather spend on other stuff.
We have really neat X11 desktops right now.
I think it's a matter of the "90/90" rule; the first 90% is the fun part, and the second 90% is the not fun part.
If the whole thing is a simple matter of extortion, bribery and politics, then the disciples would have had to be added in later as pseudo-fictional characters as well. If that's so, then the "it's all made up" scenario trumps the "extortion, bribery and politics" scenario, I think.