But do make backups of anything you don't want to lose.
That's good advice, and I do that. All my really imporant data still fits on two DVDs. That basically means emails, papers, and photos.
The thing is, before I had the RAID server, I felt that I needed to back up software install disks and mp3s and stuff like that. That was a pain. Well, I don't have to do that now. Now I just keep it on the server.
Doesn't this make you think that you might want an offsite backup?
All my really imporant data still fits on two DVDs. That basically means emails, papers, and photos.
I don't keep them off site. I keep them in a closet (and, in all honesty, I haven't made a backup in nearly a year, I'll do it this weekend). The closet is ok though because it's unlikely that a hurricane will sneak up on me.
Ivan was the worst hurricane I've ever seen. When it came, I evacuated my file server. It wasn't hard to do. It's just a tower case.
That's what I do, except that I don't even bother to spin them down (they go into sleep mode but what I mean is, I don't make a big deal of it).
I have four 250G disks on a highpoint RAID controller (forgot the model number) set up as a RAID 5 array. One disk went bad after two months. I tried to get a warranty replacement but they hassled me so I just bought another disk. As you say, they are so cheap that it's no problem to buy another one and throw it into the array.
This computer has been up since the last hurricane came through back in August. Among the data on the array, I have all of my mp3s and I listen to them all the time, so the disks are spinning constantly. I also have an image of every install disk I "own" (lol) and lots of other data (if you know what I mean).
This setup is great. I don't worry about backing up things like mp3s. I still back up some things, but I don't worry about mp3s and the like. I just write something to the network and I know it's taken care of. If a drive goes bad I'll replace it and keep trucking.
Laziness and selfishness are not determined just by how many comments programmers write, but by the quality of their job.
In my opinion, a large part of the quality of a job is how long it lasts. It's like a bridge. I don't care if you build me a beautiful bridge today, if I have to throw it away in two years and build a whole new bridge, it's worthless to me. I want something that lasts.
For code to last, it has to be maintainable. The single largest factor in determining what is maintainable is documentation.
Many, many times I've been asked to look at something and advise as to the possibility of adding new features. Frequently I have to report back that the system is so horrible that messing with it will cause more problems than it will solve. Maybe you don't believe me? That's ok, there are people here at work that don't believe me too. So they take on the project, and 9 times out of 10 they end up regretting it, because they just have to rewrite the whole thing from scratch.
Code that isn't maintainable is practically worthless. In the modern world, things change so fast. You have to anticipate the need to add features to a software project. You have to anticipate it and build it so that changes are possible.
If we had a space elevator, we could take a little waste of the elevator with every trip. Maybe just a beer can sized container or something. You release it above geo sync and it is flung away from Earth. The best thing to do with it is to pick one existing crater on the Moon and make that the world's nuclear dumping ground. We can build bases everywhere else on the moon except that one tiny crater.
You either know how to program/code, and commenting is part of that, or you don't. Either your staff knows same or doesn't.
Spot on!
Write un-obfuscated code, have peer reviews and walkthroughs, and have staff that know how to create... It's really all you need.
*stands up and cheers*
I totally agree. You can't take someone who is, frankly, lazy and selfish - and that's what we're talking about here. Anybody can write code. When you write a comment, you are doing more than coding, you are developing a product, you are making sure that product is maintainable. You are helping people who will come after you, maybe years later, people you'll never meet. People who flat refuse to think that way are lazy and selfish - you can't take someone like that and make them comply. They are worthless. Just fire them.
You need a business culture that values documentation. You need people who have maintained someone else's code. Those kind of people understand and care. The kind of people who have only ever written new stuff don't get it. They don't understand why this is important. They don't realize that the wiz-bang program they wrote today will have to be thrown away in a year or two when the boss asks for just one little button to be added. It will have to be thrown away because it'll be cheaper to rewrite it than to decode it and add the button. Some people just don't get that.
Look, commenting is not rocket science. You don't need strict rules. A comment is a communication with someone in the future. It's like a time capsule. You just need to comment things when it's reasonable to think that a person looking at the code might need help. You don't need comments like//add one to x and store it in x. But you might need a comment like,//increment x because this procedure pushs the stack.
In an interview with a prospective programmer ask the following question: "what is the most expensive part of the development lifecycle" If they say anything else except maintenance, don't give them a job. They don't get it. They aren't going to do it.
I also want to add something to the story, where it says this: dictating the formatting of the code (an issue on which there is widespread agreement)
I was thinking, "yeah right, there is widespread agreement on the idea, but when you sit down and try to do it you'll find widespread disagreement." Everybody likes the idea of forcing the other programmers to write code the same way that you do. Nobody likes the idea of having to write code a certain way. Where I work, there was widespread agreement too, but we never got past the issue of capitalizing the first letter of functions. Seriously.
If I had to do it again, I would get some premade coding standards. Creating your own is too hard.
Their claims of massive error reduction are, at best, anecdotal. Let's see them do this after taking over a half-coded project with minimal design requirements, a hard deadline, and a budget that can be cut by governmental forces at will.
uh huh. That's like saying, "sure the Golden Gate Bridge is nice and strong, but let's see them build a bridge across the Straights of Gibraltar using only legos and silly string - oh and let's see them have it finished by close of business today."
The point is, a REAL engineer wouldn't take that kind of project, because a REAL engineer would understand that it's not reasonable.
So the question is, why do software engineers accept projects that aren't reasonable? Why do we volunteer for death march projects? How do we change the culture of software so that customers don't feel entitled to demand the impossible, and software companies don't feel compelled to take on the impossible?
Software development is hard. Believe me, I know. But this culture we have created is just making it harder.
the receipt id may have nothing to do with you, but it can be retreived through a simple search warrant
no you don't understand. The receipt is physically not traceable to you. You showed your ID to a person in order to enter to voting place, but you didn't log on to the machine. The machine doesn't know who you are. There's no way to link a receipt with a person.
Once you leave the polling place, you should not be able to verify your vote to yourself or anyone else.
Fine, in that case, a voter must be shown the master log and allowed to compare his receipt with it. That way, he can be sure that his vote was recorded. Then the voter is required to dispose of the receipt. No voter is allowed to carry a receipt out of the voting place.
Just off the top of my head, I would say: Give the voter a receipt that consists of, 1) a long randomly generated ReceiptID, 2) a plaintext record of the vote (as in, "you voted for Kodos"), and 3) a cryptographic signature.
So in other words, I have a peice of paper that I get to take home with me and on that peice of paper is written: ------ Begin PHP Signed Text ----- ReceiptID 243524534523423454345234234 Voted For: Kodos ------ Begin PHP Signatre Block ----- (signature here) ------ End PHP Signatre Block ----- ------ End PHP Signed Text -----
After the election, you can publish the ReceiptIDs and vote records on a website. Anyone who wants to verify the authenticity of the election can tally all the votes themselves. If I want to make sure that MY vote counted, I can look it up. If I see that they changed my vote, I can come forward with my reciept. I can't change my receipt because it's crytographically signed. Nobody can find out who I am because my reciept number has nothing at all to do with me, it's just a random unique number.
(why is it that this stuff always seems easy to us slashdotians? Why do corporations always make it so complicated and broken??)
Why not? a: it's better than detonating nukes on Earth b: everyone would be able to SEE it. It would seem more real than just reading about or watching videos of nukes. Maybe it would have a positive effect on us all.
And you know this because you have witnessed the entirety of nature?
What a pissy, arrogant thing to say. What are you, 12 years old?
I can imagine what it must be like for a teacher to have you as one of his students. teacher: "All life evolved from simpler life forms." pedrito: "AND U KNOW THIS B/C U PERSONALY WITNES IT??? NO! I THINK NOT!!!!111"
lol. get over yourself dude. What I said was a fact. This telescope isn't going to produce the kind of image that hubble does. Nobody is going to have a picture of an extrasolar planet on his desktop. The planets will only be a couple of pixels. So what's the point in going through all the trouble and expense of imaging them? The point, as I've already said, is to run the light through a spectroscope and see what elements are there.
Surprise surprise, scientists are smarter than you.
You wont be able to see any surface details, but the point, for those who don't already know, is that if you can look at just the light that's reflected, then you can run that light through a spectroscope. If you see in the spectroscope that there is free oxygen in the atmosphere, then you've probably found life. See, free oxygen (O2) doesn't occur anywhere in nature - except where it's created by life. So, if you find lots of O2 in the atmosphere, you've found a living planet (and a reason to build daedelus)
It's too bad that now fundamentalists are going to have this news story as a weapon against proponents of science.
I agree. This guy should be ashamed of himself. What century is this? 21st? Only asshats demonize people who disagree with them.
People who believe ID in spite of the overwhelming evidence of evolution really bug me, I will admit it, but since I'm not in the forth grade, I am mature enough not to call them names. I don't stoop to that level. I think it's really cheap.
Hey everyone, look at me! I'm running for president, and I'm absolutely *not* a liberal at all. No sir (or ma'am), I am a moderate and I care. I care so much, that sometimes care oozes out of my pores and drips onto the ground. And I mop it up because I don't want anyone to slip and fall. That's how much I care.
Want another example? I care about your little son, Timberland, whom you drive to Soccer practice every day in your 30 ton SUV. I care about him so much that I'm going to get those evil game companies that push violent games on him. I'm going to get them. I'm going to make them pay. Don't you see how much I care?
separation of concerns means you can get away from some of the nastier (and kludgy) template languages like PHP, Cold Fusion, and their ilk.
What?? How do you plan to produce all that pretty xml if not with a server-side language?
I use AJAX with coldfusion all the time. I have an AJAX Service (is that what we're calling them?) that returns the answer to a FAQ question. The AJAX app shows the list of questions. When the user clicks one, it calls the service. The service has to query the database to get the answer to that question. The service is written in coldfusion. php or perl or whatever would work too.
Yeah. I had a cable modem go bad and they wouldn't give me a new one until I was referred by a tech. That meant I had to go through the standard telephone troubleshoot procedure, reset it, reboot, etc.
While waiting for my machine to reboot, the tech says to me, out of the blue, "So Mr. Oni, do you like to play video games?"
I busted out laughing. I guess there's a line in his script, "during uncomfortable silence: So Mr./Mrs. (Customer Name) do you like to play video games?"
uh huh. But here's the problem. Hubble has four gyros. They are absolutely vital to its operation. Without them, you can't point at the star you want to see, but more importantly, you can't point the solar panels at the sun when it's time to recharge.
Two of the gyroscopes have already broken. If the other two break, hubble will be space junk - and we just don't allow that to happen anymore. It's better to de-orbit something than to allow it to stay up there, risk having peices fall off, and just generally adding to the clutter that already makes low earth orbit dangerous. With me so far? You cannot allow a broken HST to remain in orbit. You have to clean up your trash.
Well guess what. You need a gyro in order to align the thrusters retrograde in order to deorbit. You *cannot* keep using the telescope until that last gyro goes bad, because then it will be stranded up there and pose yet another hazard to future missions to LEO. Guess what that means... it means that when the third gyro breaks, when you are down to only one gyro left, you have to deorbit the HST right then and there.
So... there are two gyros left. The third one could break today or tomorrow or next year. But when it does, that's it. Do you understand? That's why there is talk of getting rid of the HST.
We could use the shuttle to replace the gyros, but after the columbia accident the public is just too much of a collective pussy to allow a manned mission for something like that. I don't agree with it either, but basically the only two options for hubble are, 1. a manned mission. 2. throw it away.
You can say, "I'd like to adopt it" if you want to. That's fine. But unless you have a space shuttle in your garage, you cannot extend the life of the thing.
Here is a better plan: take the $500 million that we would have to spend on a shuttle mission, and spend that on a newer, better telescope. Doesn't that sound like a good idea?
What about the newer generation of deisel cars like the Volkswagens? They seem to squeeze more energy per unit volume of fuel. Sounds to me like that would be good for the environment.
Slashdot Mirror
Brain Training is fun, but the end guy is really hard. Fortunately, there are cheat codes you can use.
mathematically proving that noone that can't factor huge primes can get your secrets
I think you'll find that factoring large prime numbers is rather easy.
I think you mean to say, "find the prime factors of large integers."
But do make backups of anything you don't want to lose.
That's good advice, and I do that. All my really imporant data still fits on two DVDs. That basically means emails, papers, and photos.
The thing is, before I had the RAID server, I felt that I needed to back up software install disks and mp3s and stuff like that. That was a pain. Well, I don't have to do that now. Now I just keep it on the server.
Doesn't this make you think that you might want an offsite backup?
All my really imporant data still fits on two DVDs. That basically means emails, papers, and photos.
I don't keep them off site. I keep them in a closet (and, in all honesty, I haven't made a backup in nearly a year, I'll do it this weekend). The closet is ok though because it's unlikely that a hurricane will sneak up on me.
Ivan was the worst hurricane I've ever seen. When it came, I evacuated my file server. It wasn't hard to do. It's just a tower case.
That's what I do, except that I don't even bother to spin them down (they go into sleep mode but what I mean is, I don't make a big deal of it).
I have four 250G disks on a highpoint RAID controller (forgot the model number) set up as a RAID 5 array. One disk went bad after two months. I tried to get a warranty replacement but they hassled me so I just bought another disk. As you say, they are so cheap that it's no problem to buy another one and throw it into the array.
This computer has been up since the last hurricane came through back in August. Among the data on the array, I have all of my mp3s and I listen to them all the time, so the disks are spinning constantly. I also have an image of every install disk I "own" (lol) and lots of other data (if you know what I mean).
This setup is great. I don't worry about backing up things like mp3s. I still back up some things, but I don't worry about mp3s and the like. I just write something to the network and I know it's taken care of. If a drive goes bad I'll replace it and keep trucking.
Laziness and selfishness are not determined just by how many comments programmers write, but by the quality of their job.
In my opinion, a large part of the quality of a job is how long it lasts. It's like a bridge. I don't care if you build me a beautiful bridge today, if I have to throw it away in two years and build a whole new bridge, it's worthless to me. I want something that lasts.
For code to last, it has to be maintainable. The single largest factor in determining what is maintainable is documentation.
Many, many times I've been asked to look at something and advise as to the possibility of adding new features. Frequently I have to report back that the system is so horrible that messing with it will cause more problems than it will solve. Maybe you don't believe me? That's ok, there are people here at work that don't believe me too. So they take on the project, and 9 times out of 10 they end up regretting it, because they just have to rewrite the whole thing from scratch.
Code that isn't maintainable is practically worthless. In the modern world, things change so fast. You have to anticipate the need to add features to a software project. You have to anticipate it and build it so that changes are possible.
If we had a space elevator, we could take a little waste of the elevator with every trip. Maybe just a beer can sized container or something. You release it above geo sync and it is flung away from Earth. The best thing to do with it is to pick one existing crater on the Moon and make that the world's nuclear dumping ground. We can build bases everywhere else on the moon except that one tiny crater.
You either know how to program/code, and commenting is part of that, or you don't. Either your staff knows same or doesn't.
//add one to x and store it in x. But you might need a comment like, //increment x because this procedure pushs the stack.
Spot on!
Write un-obfuscated code, have peer reviews and walkthroughs, and have staff that know how to create... It's really all you need.
*stands up and cheers*
I totally agree. You can't take someone who is, frankly, lazy and selfish - and that's what we're talking about here. Anybody can write code. When you write a comment, you are doing more than coding, you are developing a product, you are making sure that product is maintainable. You are helping people who will come after you, maybe years later, people you'll never meet. People who flat refuse to think that way are lazy and selfish - you can't take someone like that and make them comply. They are worthless. Just fire them.
You need a business culture that values documentation. You need people who have maintained someone else's code. Those kind of people understand and care. The kind of people who have only ever written new stuff don't get it. They don't understand why this is important. They don't realize that the wiz-bang program they wrote today will have to be thrown away in a year or two when the boss asks for just one little button to be added. It will have to be thrown away because it'll be cheaper to rewrite it than to decode it and add the button. Some people just don't get that.
Look, commenting is not rocket science. You don't need strict rules. A comment is a communication with someone in the future. It's like a time capsule. You just need to comment things when it's reasonable to think that a person looking at the code might need help. You don't need comments like
In an interview with a prospective programmer ask the following question: "what is the most expensive part of the development lifecycle" If they say anything else except maintenance, don't give them a job. They don't get it. They aren't going to do it.
I also want to add something to the story, where it says this:
dictating the formatting of the code (an issue on which there is widespread agreement)
I was thinking, "yeah right, there is widespread agreement on the idea, but when you sit down and try to do it you'll find widespread disagreement." Everybody likes the idea of forcing the other programmers to write code the same way that you do. Nobody likes the idea of having to write code a certain way. Where I work, there was widespread agreement too, but we never got past the issue of capitalizing the first letter of functions. Seriously.
If I had to do it again, I would get some premade coding standards. Creating your own is too hard.
Their claims of massive error reduction are, at best, anecdotal. Let's see them do this after taking over a half-coded project with minimal design requirements, a hard deadline, and a budget that can be cut by governmental forces at will.
uh huh. That's like saying, "sure the Golden Gate Bridge is nice and strong, but let's see them build a bridge across the Straights of Gibraltar using only legos and silly string - oh and let's see them have it finished by close of business today."
The point is, a REAL engineer wouldn't take that kind of project, because a REAL engineer would understand that it's not reasonable.
So the question is, why do software engineers accept projects that aren't reasonable? Why do we volunteer for death march projects? How do we change the culture of software so that customers don't feel entitled to demand the impossible, and software companies don't feel compelled to take on the impossible?
Software development is hard. Believe me, I know. But this culture we have created is just making it harder.
With the notable exception of the person's possession of the receipt.
9 9&threshold=0&commentsort=3&tid=103&tid=137&mode=t hread&pid=14396188#14396261
and you and others were absolutely right to point that out to me. I suggest one possible fix in this post:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1729
the receipt id may have nothing to do with you, but it can be retreived through a simple search warrant
no you don't understand. The receipt is physically not traceable to you. You showed your ID to a person in order to enter to voting place, but you didn't log on to the machine. The machine doesn't know who you are. There's no way to link a receipt with a person.
Once you leave the polling place, you should not be able to verify your vote to yourself or anyone else.
Fine, in that case, a voter must be shown the master log and allowed to compare his receipt with it. That way, he can be sure that his vote was recorded. Then the voter is required to dispose of the receipt. No voter is allowed to carry a receipt out of the voting place.
Just off the top of my head, I would say:
Give the voter a receipt that consists of, 1) a long randomly generated ReceiptID, 2) a plaintext record of the vote (as in, "you voted for Kodos"), and 3) a cryptographic signature.
So in other words, I have a peice of paper that I get to take home with me and on that peice of paper is written:
------ Begin PHP Signed Text -----
ReceiptID 243524534523423454345234234
Voted For: Kodos
------ Begin PHP Signatre Block -----
(signature here)
------ End PHP Signatre Block -----
------ End PHP Signed Text -----
After the election, you can publish the ReceiptIDs and vote records on a website. Anyone who wants to verify the authenticity of the election can tally all the votes themselves. If I want to make sure that MY vote counted, I can look it up. If I see that they changed my vote, I can come forward with my reciept. I can't change my receipt because it's crytographically signed. Nobody can find out who I am because my reciept number has nothing at all to do with me, it's just a random unique number.
(why is it that this stuff always seems easy to us slashdotians? Why do corporations always make it so complicated and broken??)
I'm waiting for the bootable 1GB thumbdrive with a mini-distro of Slackware
Ask and ye shall receive (sort of).
http://www.projectblackdog.com/
Thank god they never went through with it.
Why not? a: it's better than detonating nukes on Earth
b: everyone would be able to SEE it. It would seem more real than just reading about or watching videos of nukes. Maybe it would have a positive effect on us all.
And you know this because you have witnessed the entirety of nature?
What a pissy, arrogant thing to say. What are you, 12 years old?
I can imagine what it must be like for a teacher to have you as one of his students.
teacher: "All life evolved from simpler life forms."
pedrito: "AND U KNOW THIS B/C U PERSONALY WITNES IT??? NO! I THINK NOT!!!!111"
lol. get over yourself dude. What I said was a fact. This telescope isn't going to produce the kind of image that hubble does. Nobody is going to have a picture of an extrasolar planet on his desktop. The planets will only be a couple of pixels. So what's the point in going through all the trouble and expense of imaging them? The point, as I've already said, is to run the light through a spectroscope and see what elements are there.
Surprise surprise, scientists are smarter than you.
You wont be able to see any surface details, but the point, for those who don't already know, is that if you can look at just the light that's reflected, then you can run that light through a spectroscope. If you see in the spectroscope that there is free oxygen in the atmosphere, then you've probably found life. See, free oxygen (O2) doesn't occur anywhere in nature - except where it's created by life. So, if you find lots of O2 in the atmosphere, you've found a living planet (and a reason to build daedelus)
It's too bad that now fundamentalists are going to have this news story as a weapon against proponents of science.
I agree. This guy should be ashamed of himself. What century is this? 21st? Only asshats demonize people who disagree with them.
People who believe ID in spite of the overwhelming evidence of evolution really bug me, I will admit it, but since I'm not in the forth grade, I am mature enough not to call them names. I don't stoop to that level. I think it's really cheap.
Every time NASA feels it's missing from the public eye, and needs to beg for more money, they amazingly find water on mars.
So, you think that the ESA is part of NASA? From this we know that we can disregard everything that you say.
(thanks for playing)
Hey everyone, look at me! I'm running for president, and I'm absolutely *not* a liberal at all. No sir (or ma'am), I am a moderate and I care. I care so much, that sometimes care oozes out of my pores and drips onto the ground. And I mop it up because I don't want anyone to slip and fall. That's how much I care.
Want another example? I care about your little son, Timberland, whom you drive to Soccer practice every day in your 30 ton SUV. I care about him so much that I'm going to get those evil game companies that push violent games on him. I'm going to get them. I'm going to make them pay. Don't you see how much I care?
VOTE FOR ME!
separation of concerns means you can get away from some of the nastier (and kludgy) template languages like PHP, Cold Fusion, and their ilk.
What?? How do you plan to produce all that pretty xml if not with a server-side language?
I use AJAX with coldfusion all the time. I have an AJAX Service (is that what we're calling them?) that returns the answer to a FAQ question. The AJAX app shows the list of questions. When the user clicks one, it calls the service. The service has to query the database to get the answer to that question. The service is written in coldfusion. php or perl or whatever would work too.
Yeah. I had a cable modem go bad and they wouldn't give me a new one until I was referred by a tech. That meant I had to go through the standard telephone troubleshoot procedure, reset it, reboot, etc.
While waiting for my machine to reboot, the tech says to me, out of the blue, "So Mr. Oni, do you like to play video games?"
I busted out laughing. I guess there's a line in his script, "during uncomfortable silence: So Mr./Mrs. (Customer Name) do you like to play video games?"
God, how lame.
uh huh. But here's the problem. Hubble has four gyros. They are absolutely vital to its operation. Without them, you can't point at the star you want to see, but more importantly, you can't point the solar panels at the sun when it's time to recharge.
Two of the gyroscopes have already broken. If the other two break, hubble will be space junk - and we just don't allow that to happen anymore. It's better to de-orbit something than to allow it to stay up there, risk having peices fall off, and just generally adding to the clutter that already makes low earth orbit dangerous. With me so far? You cannot allow a broken HST to remain in orbit. You have to clean up your trash.
Well guess what. You need a gyro in order to align the thrusters retrograde in order to deorbit. You *cannot* keep using the telescope until that last gyro goes bad, because then it will be stranded up there and pose yet another hazard to future missions to LEO. Guess what that means... it means that when the third gyro breaks, when you are down to only one gyro left, you have to deorbit the HST right then and there.
So... there are two gyros left. The third one could break today or tomorrow or next year. But when it does, that's it. Do you understand? That's why there is talk of getting rid of the HST.
We could use the shuttle to replace the gyros, but after the columbia accident the public is just too much of a collective pussy to allow a manned mission for something like that. I don't agree with it either, but basically the only two options for hubble are, 1. a manned mission. 2. throw it away.
You can say, "I'd like to adopt it" if you want to. That's fine. But unless you have a space shuttle in your garage, you cannot extend the life of the thing.
Here is a better plan: take the $500 million that we would have to spend on a shuttle mission, and spend that on a newer, better telescope. Doesn't that sound like a good idea?
What about the newer generation of deisel cars like the Volkswagens? They seem to squeeze more energy per unit volume of fuel. Sounds to me like that would be good for the environment.
My problem with consoles is that I like FPS games and I just can't play a FPS with my thumbs. Can I plug a usb mouse in an use that to play halo?