I appologise - I should have made it clear that indeed I was just speculating. You can quite easily see more and more programs keeping the data 'secure' by using palidum. Imagine your tax records program, your photo program, your databases. I can quite easily see MS-SQL defaulting to protecting your data. The only programs that can then gain access to the data are other signed programs. This would be flaunted as way to stop viruses modifying the data.
Also note that even if the OS allows unsigned apps etc, your unsigned app sure won't be allowed access to the data that you want to manipulate, since that will probably be in some signed database program.
When you say "'I exist'...is provable", do you mean instead by definition I exist - that is how I define existance? Otherwise I'm not sure what you mean - physically I might not exist - I observe my existance merely through senses (think Matrix). Or do I exist 'mentally' as such - a soul so to speak.
Applying what you said to the assumptions stated by the parent, I suddenly feel humbled, and see the purpose of a belief in God.
I would cling very dearly to the notion that the universe exists in the same sense that I exist, and trying to ponder the posibility that this might not be so gives me some insight into why people believe in God.
It reminds me of douglas adams where he talks about how huge the universe is, and how people just cannot get round how mind-boggling it is, and how it drove people mad when they caught a glimpse of the bigger picture.
I remember trying to format one a hard disk, and having to do it in debug. The hard disk had the format program on the drive in one of the sectors, and the idea was that you just loaded up that sector in debug and ran it. It was apparently very common, just I'd never tried or done it before.
Don't be so quick to dismiss - humans are stupid and gullible and placebos work.
Just because you think something shouldn't work, and that there is no scientific basis to something doesn't mean it isn't possible. In particular with anything to do with humans - humans are wierd and wacky things.
The scientific community doesn't have that many axioms (And I'm finding it hard pressed to think of any good example). Having an "all seeing all powerful invisible god" seems a little larger an axiom.
When you install the windows patch it asks whether to make a copy of the original files so that it can restore your system afterwards. You can then uninstall the patch like any other software from the remove programs thing in the control panel.
We weren't allowed to install any software on the machines connected to the internet (for obvious reasons the research machines and internet machines were seperate). This of course has the side effect that we couldn't encrypt software.
They were sometimes a bit overly protective about not install other software - someone got into trouble for applying a windws security patch, and had to uninstall it.
Ditto here - I was installing exchange servers by 17 (I was young, I needed the money, mkay!) Hell I was doing C at college by 12 - and it was dead easy. The "Advanced C" city and guilds course was joke - the people in my class were all at least twice the age of me, and just "didn't get it".
I always get offended by people saying "and some 14 year old kid fixing the machine" in a negative way - like in the slashdot article.
I wouldn't mind if they asked generic questions - things I would expect an expert to know. But not when they ask things that I could and would just look up quickly, For example I remember an MCSE question that asked for the parameters to the setup program on the win98 cd - they would be shown if you just did setup/?, so why bother remembering them?
I would guess that in 99% of cases you should assume the user input can be anything. It would also be nice to assume as little as you can about the data being fed in from hardware and drivers and filters.
Handling multiple allowable ranges is trivial, and I never said anything about restricting it to just min,max. You are right you have to allow for multiple ranges (like 1-2,140-700,800-900) but that is trivial.
Just another quick point.. I've never liked the whole 90% of conversation is non-verbal thing. I suppose that applies to marketteers and car-salesman, but most of my conversations tend to be fairly technical. You need to pick up the skill of communicating cleary and effectively through writing - a good skill for documenting your work. If they've misunderstood you in a two way chat, then what hope do you have in writing clear one-way documentation? I'm trolling a bit on that last line, but only to make a small point.
I think it depends a lot on the conversation. For intensive talking, then sure face-to-face wins everytime. However what about when you are idling with several friends at the same time while reading/.? Or when you are helping 5-6 people on irc at the same time?
Everyone knows why face-to-face conversation is good, so I'll just say why it sucks:
*) I can read faster and pick up the details better while reading than I can in face-to-face conversation. *) I can't recall exactly the wording they used. *) I can't talk to them at the same they talk to me. *) I can only engage in one conversation at a time (many ppl here I'm sure have handled several conversations on different topics at the same time on irc) *) Accent can be too thick to understand someone. *) I have to be near the person I'm talking to
The trouble, as I see it, is that practically there is a huge amount of inertia when it comes to programming languages and methods. People still don't use debuggers (not saying good or bad, just stating it factly), people still use C very heavily, few people use lisp (although I do find more ppl using than I expected), and so on. Visual programming never seemed to take off that well (the whole 'a routine is a box, connect the boxes' type thing), etc.
Going offtopic even more, I'm currently trying to redo all of the main command-line gnu tools, but am suffering from the same sort of problems. The command line tools suffer from really horrible problems that shouldn't exist, and the code is horrible for most of them, but they will never be fixed. For example, I patched 'tar' to autodetect the filetype (.gz or.bz2), but I didn't have a hope of getting the main tar changed, because ppl don't like change. Another was a cleanup of ifconfig - but the changes weren't commited, even tho there were just bug fixes etc, because it would require testing on so many different platforms and libraries, that it wasn't worth it.
My solution is to try to fix it all, break compatibility, and hope I can get enough done before I release it to have enough momentum to get somewhere.
Actually these are the cases that I hope to tackle. For example when I finish writing a function, and then notice that my editor has added a post-condition that, say, x>0, and I thought I had written my alogirithm to include x in the output, then I know I have made a mistake. Same with preconditions - If I wrote a function and it says the precondition was that x!=0, I might realise I made a mistake, or what have you.
Obviously this won't tackle all, or even most, of the cases - but it helps.
The only way you are going to check what you wrote is truely correct is to compare it against a formal specification - which is another topic entirely.
pointer arithmetic was something that bothered me. But, from a naive point of view, how hard can it be? Famous last words I know, but sure 90% of the cases are: *) Point to something of known type (easy case) *) Point to something of type void * (I don't even know what the compilier does, so I'll ignore this case) *) Increment point by one, or some smallish number (Easy again - turn it into an array reference)
You would need some kind of simulated memory to make it easier to update arrays when you update the pointer to an array.
Remember that in the areas where it gets hideously complicated I can just give up and set the variable to unknown. If that is too wide, the programmer can add special-comments.
Well I was thinking why not integrate these compile-time checks into my editor? If the checker can't do something, then let the programmer help out - it's good to do post and pre conditions on complex code anyway..
But yeah, this is actually what I want to do for phd;)
Slashdot Mirror
I appologise - I should have made it clear that indeed I was just speculating.
You can quite easily see more and more programs keeping the data 'secure' by using palidum. Imagine your tax records program, your photo program, your databases. I can quite easily see MS-SQL defaulting to protecting your data. The only programs that can then gain access to the data are other signed programs. This would be flaunted as way to stop viruses modifying the data.
Also note that even if the OS allows unsigned apps etc, your unsigned app sure won't be allowed access to the data that you want to manipulate, since that will probably be in some signed database program.
When you say "'I exist'...is provable", do you mean instead by definition I exist - that is how I define existance? Otherwise I'm not sure what you mean - physically I might not exist - I observe my existance merely through senses (think Matrix). Or do I exist 'mentally' as such - a soul so to speak.
Applying what you said to the assumptions stated by the parent, I suddenly feel humbled, and see the purpose of a belief in God.
I would cling very dearly to the notion that the universe exists in the same sense that I exist, and trying to ponder the posibility that this might not be so gives me some insight into why people believe in God.
It reminds me of douglas adams where he talks about how huge the universe is, and how people just cannot get round how mind-boggling it is, and how it drove people mad when they caught a glimpse of the bigger picture.
I remember trying to format one a hard disk, and having to do it in debug. The hard disk had the format program on the drive in one of the sectors, and the idea was that you just loaded up that sector in debug and ran it. It was apparently very common, just I'd never tried or done it before.
Don't be so quick to dismiss - humans are stupid and gullible and placebos work.
Just because you think something shouldn't work, and that there is no scientific basis to something doesn't mean it isn't possible. In particular with anything to do with humans - humans are wierd and wacky things.
The scientific community doesn't have that many axioms (And I'm finding it hard pressed to think of any good example).
Having an "all seeing all powerful invisible god" seems a little larger an axiom.
Plus what does it do that xli (aka xview) doesn't? And does anyone use xv for these extra things.
What money do they need?
Or have they incurred a high amount of debt that they hoped to get back from selling the technology?
When you install the windows patch it asks whether to make a copy of the original files so that it can restore your system afterwards. You can then uninstall the patch like any other software from the remove programs thing in the control panel.
We weren't allowed to install any software on the machines connected to the internet (for obvious reasons the research machines and internet machines were seperate).
This of course has the side effect that we couldn't encrypt software.
They were sometimes a bit overly protective about not install other software - someone got into trouble for applying a windws security patch, and had to uninstall it.
Well, I've just ordered mine.. :)
Ditto here - I was installing exchange servers by 17 (I was young, I needed the money, mkay!)
Hell I was doing C at college by 12 - and it was dead easy. The "Advanced C" city and guilds course was joke - the people in my class were all at least twice the age of me, and just "didn't get it".
I always get offended by people saying "and some 14 year old kid fixing the machine" in a negative way - like in the slashdot article.
I wouldn't mind if they asked generic questions - things I would expect an expert to know. But not when they ask things that I could and would just look up quickly, For example I remember an MCSE question that asked for the parameters to the setup program on the win98 cd - they would be shown if you just did setup /?, so why bother remembering them?
I would guess that in 99% of cases you should assume the user input can be anything. It would also be nice to assume as little as you can about the data being fed in from hardware and drivers and filters.
Handling multiple allowable ranges is trivial, and I never said anything about restricting it to just min,max. You are right you have to allow for multiple ranges (like 1-2,140-700,800-900) but that is trivial.
user and device IO is dead easy, since you should check the input and should assume that it can be anything - that's the easiest case.
I was thinking of manually adding info system calls so that you wouldn't have to parse glibc etc everytime.
Heh, I must admit I was tempted too to say "Do you have the url?" - but in the end I was too polite..
Just another quick point..
I've never liked the whole 90% of conversation is non-verbal thing. I suppose that applies to marketteers and car-salesman, but most of my conversations tend to be fairly technical.
You need to pick up the skill of communicating cleary and effectively through writing - a good skill for documenting your work. If they've misunderstood you in a two way chat, then what hope do you have in writing clear one-way documentation? I'm trolling a bit on that last line, but only to make a small point.
I think it depends a lot on the conversation. /.?
For intensive talking, then sure face-to-face wins everytime.
However what about when you are idling with several friends at the same time while reading
Or when you are helping 5-6 people on irc at the same time?
Everyone knows why face-to-face conversation is good, so I'll just say why it sucks:
*) I can read faster and pick up the details better while reading than I can in face-to-face conversation.
*) I can't recall exactly the wording they used.
*) I can't talk to them at the same they talk to me.
*) I can only engage in one conversation at a time (many ppl here I'm sure have handled several conversations on different topics at the same time on irc)
*) Accent can be too thick to understand someone.
*) I have to be near the person I'm talking to
hmm, that will do for now
Isn't there a state or town or something in the US where you are not allowed to frown in public?
The trouble, as I see it, is that practically there is a huge amount of inertia when it comes to programming languages and methods.
.bz2), but I didn't have a hope of getting the main tar changed, because ppl don't like change. Another was a cleanup of ifconfig - but the changes weren't commited, even tho there were just bug fixes etc, because it would require testing on so many different platforms and libraries, that it wasn't worth it.
People still don't use debuggers (not saying good or bad, just stating it factly), people still use C very heavily, few people use lisp (although I do find more ppl using than I expected), and so on.
Visual programming never seemed to take off that well (the whole 'a routine is a box, connect the boxes' type thing), etc.
Going offtopic even more, I'm currently trying to redo all of the main command-line gnu tools, but am suffering from the same sort of problems. The command line tools suffer from really horrible problems that shouldn't exist, and the code is horrible for most of them, but they will never be fixed. For example, I patched 'tar' to autodetect the filetype (.gz or
My solution is to try to fix it all, break compatibility, and hope I can get enough done before I release it to have enough momentum to get somewhere.
Are there any opensource versions of the ellisWEB software he points to? I've been looking for something like that - hope I'm not too offtopic here.
Actually these are the cases that I hope to tackle. For example when I finish writing a function, and then notice that my editor has added a post-condition that, say, x>0, and I thought I had written my alogirithm to include x in the output, then I know I have made a mistake.
Same with preconditions - If I wrote a function and it says the precondition was that x!=0, I might realise I made a mistake, or what have you.
Obviously this won't tackle all, or even most, of the cases - but it helps.
The only way you are going to check what you wrote is truely correct is to compare it against a formal specification - which is another topic entirely.
pointer arithmetic was something that bothered me. But, from a naive point of view, how hard can it be? Famous last words I know, but sure 90% of the cases are:
*) Point to something of known type (easy case)
*) Point to something of type void * (I don't even know what the compilier does, so I'll ignore this case)
*) Increment point by one, or some smallish number (Easy again - turn it into an array reference)
You would need some kind of simulated memory to make it easier to update arrays when you update the pointer to an array.
Remember that in the areas where it gets hideously complicated I can just give up and set the variable to unknown. If that is too wide, the programmer can add special-comments.
Well I was thinking why not integrate these compile-time checks into my editor? If the checker can't do something, then let the programmer help out - it's good to do post and pre conditions on complex code anyway..
;)
But yeah, this is actually what I want to do for phd