Not to be too negative, but the idea of relying on an IDE for code maintenance and documentation is crazy. Not everyone using/supporting your code will even use an IDE, much less the same one you do. There is some sound reasoning behind self-documenting code, just as long as it's taken with a grain of salt, much like everything else in the world.
Agreed. The absolute worse is when someone takes a reasonably good idea, gets a small or misguided grasp of the concept (but not the reasoning behind it), and tries to enforce it as a strict policy.
As an ugly example, I worked on a C++ project where someone ran across the idea to use a 3-letter prefix for all classes/files to indicate what package/subsystem they belonged in and decided to enforce in on our project. It was reasonable at first, but after we had the usual package-explosion (before refactoring), we ran short of *meaningful* prefixes, and were reduced to using a large spreadsheet to keep track of them all and what they represented. For example "gbl_" was global (ok), but "xrf" was slow-rate tracker (srt_ was already taken.) It became a nightmare. But the whole build system was built around the concept, it couldn't be dropped or even modified to allow more letters, etc.
For the last two years, I have had to use a Dell laptop at work running Windows 2000 in a mid size company with 300-400 employees. After suffering through several complete rebuilds, blue screens, as well as dealing with patches and security upgrades, I decided that enough is enough.
In all honesty, if your company PC suffers like this, your IT department is to blame. [anecdotal evidence warning:] I've been using Win2k for over a year now at work, and I do a large amount of *dangerous* work (editing several large files, running 30+ applications simultaneously, writing I/O programs, allocating GBs of memory, etc) and have yet to have my box become unstable or crash.
Most companies realize that PC downtime costs bigtime $$$. A workstation should be stable as a rock. Your IT should have a current disk image that contains a company-wide standard, with all stable drivers, etc, and should be sufficiently *locked-down* that users cannot fubar the system easily. Joe Employee shouldn't be downloading the leaked HL2 source from Kazaa while installing experimental DX9 drivers for his 4MB S3 Virge.
"+5 Funny," my ass. I have started to believe this "joke" to be entirely true. You cannot imagine the amount of resistance some company's IT show when you start mentioning replacing some of the Windows boxes with Linux and running Samba. (No one needs a Win2k server and Backup Domain Controller for a ~10 PC, closed-net lab) The only defense they have is that they can't support it. And when you tell them that you don't need theer support, you can handle it, they get extra defensive. Interesting, and sad. Maybe they enjoyed the 36-hour marathon of cleaning up our msblaster problem.
Are you saying that "_f_m_computedAreaOfCircle" is not a good name for the private member floating point variable that holds the computed area of the containing circle object? =)
Let me answer that for you, since this is a story *about* an interview that has already taken place, not a story for gathering questions for an interview:
Case..... $100 AMD Processor $100 Motherboard $100 512 MB ram $100 80Gb hard drive $150 Linux Distro $50 (or $50 in bandwidth bills if you want to apt-get shit)
Total : $600! Conclusion! SHUT UP NERD!
----- Case & 350W PS $50 AMD Processor $70 Motherboard $60 256MB ram $40 80GB HD $80 Linux CD $8
Total: $308 -----
Now add a TV tuner for ~$50, NIC for $10, and mouse/KB for $15 and you have a complete PC that you can use for DVR, email, browsing, writing, music, etc for the same price as this box.
An 80GB hard drive can be had for $71, shipped. An HDTV tuner card runs $200-$300. Which is cheaper?
Irrelavant, as "HDTV" is nowhere to be found in that article. Therefore I assume it doesn't support it. I can configure a PC with a standard TV tuner and MythTV for about the same price. Granted, I don't get a remote, but I get a lot more functionality.
I can appreciate the "proof of concept" of these packaged Linux DVR boxes, but the manufacturers are not offering anything "above and beyond" for the relatively high price tags.
I don't know about that. I've had Sprint PCS for about 3 1/2 years now. I first signed up for a 1 year contract for $34.99/month. After a year, nothing changed. They still charge me the same thing, I didn't have to renew any contracts or anything.
And even if you decide to quit (at least with Sprint), you'll be immediately transferred to a "Customer Retention Representative" who is ready and authorized to bargain with you. Just give them the terms of the competitor you're thinking about switching to, and they will probably match it.
This is another example of government's "good" intentions about to go awry. If cell carriers can't count on a consistent base of customers, some of which consistency was predicated on people not switching due to losing their phone number, then the only logical result is that the cost of the service will rise. I hereby predict that a year from now we will be paying more for the same service we have now.
But what reason would one have to stay with their current service if they raise prices? For existing long-time cell users, there is no longer any need to stay with your current provider if they start raising fees. The only apparent problem occurs if the cell companies start working together to consistently increase service charges and impose significant fees for keeping your old number.
True, but some people do prefer quality over quantity. Like Apple or not, iTunes was a rather well-designed, well-planned, and well-implemented venture. The copy-cat Windows clones, to date, have had loads of shortcomings and problems, and were generally met with ho-hum enthusiasm.
Now, whether this was due to the quality of the service, or the general differences between Apple and PC users remains to be seen.
That's odd. I guess some people just come from different worlds.
I can easily never buy another CD again. No sweat. Granted, even if the RIAA gave 95% of it's profits to charity, the FSF, NASA, and anti-spammers, I would still buy very few CDs. But, I have recently wanted a CD (Evanescence) and consciously decided against it. A lot of other slashdotters do the same. Some people have no problems sticking to their convictions, "high-moral grounds" or whatever, even if it means they have to suffer slightly. Not that that makes us *better* than anyone else, or anything like that - just different.
What would be more applicable is if Ford was stealing the cars and sharing them (or exact copies of them) with total strangers
No, what would be more applicable is if Ford *bought* a car or two and, using his "magic replicating technology" (assembly line?), produced exact replicas that he gave away for free to total strangers.
And what would make it even more applicable is if you replaced Ford with Kazaa users, cars with music, and "magic replicating technology" with CD-rippers. Also, change the date from then to now. =)
Fine, instead of calling them customers, call them "the market" or "potential customers" or even "previous customers." Either way, they represent the people with whom the RIAA have the greatest potential to do business.
They are music lovers. The RIAA members sell music. Ergo, it is *not* in the RIAA's best interest to piss off these people. Pretty straight-forward, if you ask me.
I don't know about that. In my opinion, Firebird, at a 0.6 release, is still a better and more stable browser than any version of IE to date. If most people can put up with IE crashes/anomolies, then they should just as easily shrug-off the relatively few glitches in FB, especially in light of the advantages of tabbed browsing, pop-up blocking, etc. I use it, but more importantly, both my wife and my 7-year-old daughter use it without incident. Because of that, I feel it's "good enough" to recommend to most people.
I do agree that Thunderbird is relatively weak, however. I have it installed, setup correctly, imported all my mail mesages and newsgroup setting, and have a quick launch icon right next to Outlook Express. Yet, I invariably click on the OE icon instead. It's just feels faster and "nicer" all-around, especially in the area of NG message threading and such. Now, for people that are used to older versions of Netscape Mail, I *do* recommend TB. They both feel exactly the same to me.
I went from Netscape -> IE -> Mozilla -> Firebird. The jump from IE to Mozilla was nice. But the jump from Mozilla to Firebird was almost just as nice. Mozilla is nice and relatively stable, but compared to Firebird, it feels bloated and slow.
The website (slashdot) is slowing down, so here is the text: -----
Praise bob! (Score:2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wed October 08, 03:27 PM (#7165914) have you heard of Bob [subgenius.com], sexhurt machines, & yeti loving?
allow me to educate you on the glory of Bob [subgenius.com] [ Reply to This ]
what (Score:1) by calcifer (649855) on Wed October 08, 03:32 PM (#7165931) i think i speak for the majority of slashdotters when i say: what? what the hell are you talking about? whats a multispan transmembrane protein structure?
i think we need someone to moderate the story posters.
[ Reply to This ]
Drum Role Please (Score:3, Funny) by BrianGa (536442) on Wed October 08, 03:33 PM (#7165934) (http://www.gamemaster-online.net/) A nd the Nobel Prize goes to...Folding@Home! [ Reply to This ]
That was quick. (Score:2) by the gnat (153162) on Wed October 08, 03:41 PM (#7165950) There was pretty much no doubt that MacKinnon would win it eventually - but it's a bit surprising that it came so soon, considering he's at the height of his career. He's only published four papers this year, but they're all Science or Nature (including one cover article). We can probably expect equally terrific work from him in the future.
I interviewed with him earlier this year (I applied to Rockefeller largely because of his lab), and he's one of the most intensely brilliant people I've ever met. There are very few scientists who will master a completely different technique in the middle of their career, while working on the same area of research. Fewer still are able to dominate the field. When I took physiology in college, we read multiple articles which described hypotheses proved by a single figure in one of MacKinnon's papers.
(There are actually an increasing number of membrane protein structures available, some of them quite large. However, ion channels are apparently especially difficult to study, and none were solved before MacKinnon started.) [ Reply to This ]
WHOOSH (Score:2) by Atario (673917) on Wed October 08, 03:43 PM (#7165952)...goes the sound of this news flying at Mach 1.3 over the heads of 99.99% of everyone reading it.
Well, at least here on Slashdot I expect people (read: us geeks) will gape in awe instead of happily ignoring it. [ Reply to This ]
Yeah right (Score:1) by stratjakt (596332) on Wed October 08, 03:49 PM (#7165976) (Last Journal: Sun September 29, 01:10 PM) Oh, c'mon you expect me to believe this?
Take the Louisiana's election for governor several, several years ago. One of the candidates was David Duke. Duke is somewhat infamous for being a high-ranking member of "the Klan" many years ago. He claimed multiple times, publicly, that he made some mistakes in the past and he no longer held those views anymore.
Now, I'm not endorsing his behaviour or even saying I liked anything about the man, but his official title on *every* TV news report was, and still is, "Former Klan leader/member, D. Duke." I have *never* heard his name mentioned on the television without that title (except for his own campaign commercials, naturally.) Even years after the election, if he visted some schools or did anything publicly at all, good or bad, he had that label when reported about by the media. Weird.
Bah, I'm not complaining that "my system can't play HL2 well, poor me" or proposing some socialistic attitude, I'm pointing out that it's not economically sound to release software that only a small portion of the market can utilize.
Game companies could easily make a game today that uses 2.8 Million polygons per model and renders each pixel at 128-bit color with 27 passes-per-pixel, but it would be suicide to release it today when hardware won't support it.
Yes, games should push the envelope and demand better hardware - to a certain extent. If they go too far too fast (which I believe HL2 has), then they can outpace the market and lose some of it. There's always a "sweet spot" for new games, and I think HL2's is a few months down the road, not today.
1) I'm sure it could be enabled/disabled easily in an IM client.
2) It helps with the "short attention span" of some IM'ers - like my brother who will ask me a question, then IM me at least 2-3 more times while I'm typing my response. (usually consisting of "helo?" and "r u still there?"
3) IM is being used more in businesses. While some miscommunications can be humourous due to timing, they can also cause problems. That argument is like lobbying against Intel fixing their Pentium bug "because it's funny to see calculator producing wrong results, tehe."
4) Why is eveyone against features? Yes, I can appreciate a small, efficient app that does only 1 task, and does it well. But I can also appreciate apps that are robust and include features that a lot of people find useful and can improve the user experience.
Slashdot Mirror
Not to be too negative, but the idea of relying on an IDE for code maintenance and documentation is crazy. Not everyone using/supporting your code will even use an IDE, much less the same one you do. There is some sound reasoning behind self-documenting code, just as long as it's taken with a grain of salt, much like everything else in the world.
Agreed. The absolute worse is when someone takes a reasonably good idea, gets a small or misguided grasp of the concept (but not the reasoning behind it), and tries to enforce it as a strict policy.
As an ugly example, I worked on a C++ project where someone ran across the idea to use a 3-letter prefix for all classes/files to indicate what package/subsystem they belonged in and decided to enforce in on our project. It was reasonable at first, but after we had the usual package-explosion (before refactoring), we ran short of *meaningful* prefixes, and were reduced to using a large spreadsheet to keep track of them all and what they represented. For example "gbl_" was global (ok), but "xrf" was slow-rate tracker (srt_ was already taken.) It became a nightmare. But the whole build system was built around the concept, it couldn't be dropped or even modified to allow more letters, etc.
For the last two years, I have had to use a Dell laptop at work running Windows 2000 in a mid size company with 300-400 employees. After suffering through several complete rebuilds, blue screens, as well as dealing with patches and security upgrades, I decided that enough is enough.
In all honesty, if your company PC suffers like this, your IT department is to blame. [anecdotal evidence warning:] I've been using Win2k for over a year now at work, and I do a large amount of *dangerous* work (editing several large files, running 30+ applications simultaneously, writing I/O programs, allocating GBs of memory, etc) and have yet to have my box become unstable or crash.
Most companies realize that PC downtime costs bigtime $$$. A workstation should be stable as a rock. Your IT should have a current disk image that contains a company-wide standard, with all stable drivers, etc, and should be sufficiently *locked-down* that users cannot fubar the system easily. Joe Employee shouldn't be downloading the leaked HL2 source from Kazaa while installing experimental DX9 drivers for his 4MB S3 Virge.
"+5 Funny," my ass. I have started to believe this "joke" to be entirely true. You cannot imagine the amount of resistance some company's IT show when you start mentioning replacing some of the Windows boxes with Linux and running Samba. (No one needs a Win2k server and Backup Domain Controller for a ~10 PC, closed-net lab) The only defense they have is that they can't support it. And when you tell them that you don't need theer support, you can handle it, they get extra defensive. Interesting, and sad. Maybe they enjoyed the 36-hour marathon of cleaning up our msblaster problem.
Are you saying that "_f_m_computedAreaOfCircle" is not a good name for the private member floating point variable that holds the computed area of the containing circle object? =)
Let me answer that for you, since this is a story *about* an interview that has already taken place, not a story for gathering questions for an interview:
:)
"I think Java is kinda nifty."
Best answer you'll get.
Case..... $100
AMD Processor $100
Motherboard $100
512 MB ram $100
80Gb hard drive $150
Linux Distro $50 (or $50 in bandwidth bills if you want to apt-get shit)
Total : $600! Conclusion! SHUT UP NERD!
-----
Case & 350W PS $50
AMD Processor $70
Motherboard $60
256MB ram $40
80GB HD $80
Linux CD $8
Total: $308
-----
Now add a TV tuner for ~$50, NIC for $10, and mouse/KB for $15 and you have a complete PC that you can use for DVR, email, browsing, writing, music, etc for the same price as this box.
An 80GB hard drive can be had for $71, shipped. An HDTV tuner card runs $200-$300. Which is cheaper?
Irrelavant, as "HDTV" is nowhere to be found in that article. Therefore I assume it doesn't support it. I can configure a PC with a standard TV tuner and MythTV for about the same price. Granted, I don't get a remote, but I get a lot more functionality.
I can appreciate the "proof of concept" of these packaged Linux DVR boxes, but the manufacturers are not offering anything "above and beyond" for the relatively high price tags.
. It can store video on an internal hard drive (not included),
$400 without a harddrive!? Can't you build a small AMD PC for the same price, with a 80GB hard drive?
Bah, let's just go ahead and put Half-Life 2 in the kernel. It shouldn't be too hard now that the source is available. =)
I don't know about that. I've had Sprint PCS for about 3 1/2 years now. I first signed up for a 1 year contract for $34.99/month. After a year, nothing changed. They still charge me the same thing, I didn't have to renew any contracts or anything.
And even if you decide to quit (at least with Sprint), you'll be immediately transferred to a "Customer Retention Representative" who is ready and authorized to bargain with you. Just give them the terms of the competitor you're thinking about switching to, and they will probably match it.
This is another example of government's "good" intentions about to go awry. If cell carriers can't count on a consistent base of customers, some of which consistency was predicated on people not switching due to losing their phone number, then the only logical result is that the cost of the service will rise. I hereby predict that a year from now we will be paying more for the same service we have now.
But what reason would one have to stay with their current service if they raise prices? For existing long-time cell users, there is no longer any need to stay with your current provider if they start raising fees. The only apparent problem occurs if the cell companies start working together to consistently increase service charges and impose significant fees for keeping your old number.
Give the submitter some credit. He tried to post a Google partner link, but seems to have fubar'd the URL somehow.
I can't be the only gadget-geek who works in an environment where cameras are not permitted. I'm missing out on some cool toys! :(
True, but some people do prefer quality over quantity. Like Apple or not, iTunes was a rather well-designed, well-planned, and well-implemented venture. The copy-cat Windows clones, to date, have had loads of shortcomings and problems, and were generally met with ho-hum enthusiasm.
Now, whether this was due to the quality of the service, or the general differences between Apple and PC users remains to be seen.
That's odd. I guess some people just come from different worlds.
I can easily never buy another CD again. No sweat. Granted, even if the RIAA gave 95% of it's profits to charity, the FSF, NASA, and anti-spammers, I would still buy very few CDs. But, I have recently wanted a CD (Evanescence) and consciously decided against it. A lot of other slashdotters do the same. Some people have no problems sticking to their convictions, "high-moral grounds" or whatever, even if it means they have to suffer slightly. Not that that makes us *better* than anyone else, or anything like that - just different.
What would be more applicable is if Ford was stealing the cars and sharing them (or exact copies of them) with total strangers
No, what would be more applicable is if Ford *bought* a car or two and, using his "magic replicating technology" (assembly line?), produced exact replicas that he gave away for free to total strangers.
And what would make it even more applicable is if you replaced Ford with Kazaa users, cars with music, and "magic replicating technology" with CD-rippers. Also, change the date from then to now. =)
A customer is someone who buys something from you
Fine, instead of calling them customers, call them "the market" or "potential customers" or even "previous customers." Either way, they represent the people with whom the RIAA have the greatest potential to do business.
They are music lovers. The RIAA members sell music. Ergo, it is *not* in the RIAA's best interest to piss off these people. Pretty straight-forward, if you ask me.
It only took a year:
2002-10-24 02:53:52 Multi-Monitors and Increased Development Productivity? (askslashdot,programming) (accepted)
(Link)
I've been looking for a quantitative study so I could get my employer to give me 2 19" LCDs to go along with my 21" Sony CRT. =)
I don't know about that. In my opinion, Firebird, at a 0.6 release, is still a better and more stable browser than any version of IE to date. If most people can put up with IE crashes/anomolies, then they should just as easily shrug-off the relatively few glitches in FB, especially in light of the advantages of tabbed browsing, pop-up blocking, etc. I use it, but more importantly, both my wife and my 7-year-old daughter use it without incident. Because of that, I feel it's "good enough" to recommend to most people.
I do agree that Thunderbird is relatively weak, however. I have it installed, setup correctly, imported all my mail mesages and newsgroup setting, and have a quick launch icon right next to Outlook Express. Yet, I invariably click on the OE icon instead. It's just feels faster and "nicer" all-around, especially in the area of NG message threading and such. Now, for people that are used to older versions of Netscape Mail, I *do* recommend TB. They both feel exactly the same to me.
I went from Netscape -> IE -> Mozilla -> Firebird. The jump from IE to Mozilla was nice. But the jump from Mozilla to Firebird was almost just as nice. Mozilla is nice and relatively stable, but compared to Firebird, it feels bloated and slow.
The website (slashdot) is slowing down, so here is the text:
A nd the Nobel Prize goes to...Folding@Home!
...goes the sound of this news flying at Mach 1.3 over the heads of 99.99% of everyone reading it.
-----
Praise bob! (Score:2, Insightful)
by Anonymous Coward on Wed October 08, 03:27 PM (#7165914)
have you heard of Bob [subgenius.com], sexhurt machines, & yeti loving?
allow me to educate you on the glory of Bob [subgenius.com]
[ Reply to This ]
what (Score:1)
by calcifer (649855) on Wed October 08, 03:32 PM (#7165931)
i think i speak for the majority of slashdotters when i say:
what? what the hell are you talking about? whats a multispan transmembrane protein structure?
i think we need someone to moderate the story posters.
[ Reply to This ]
Drum Role Please (Score:3, Funny)
by BrianGa (536442) on Wed October 08, 03:33 PM (#7165934)
(http://www.gamemaster-online.net/)
[ Reply to This ]
That was quick. (Score:2)
by the gnat (153162) on Wed October 08, 03:41 PM (#7165950)
There was pretty much no doubt that MacKinnon would win it eventually - but it's a bit surprising that it came so soon, considering he's at the height of his career. He's only published four papers this year, but they're all Science or Nature (including one cover article). We can probably expect equally terrific work from him in the future.
I interviewed with him earlier this year (I applied to Rockefeller largely because of his lab), and he's one of the most intensely brilliant people I've ever met. There are very few scientists who will master a completely different technique in the middle of their career, while working on the same area of research. Fewer still are able to dominate the field. When I took physiology in college, we read multiple articles which described hypotheses proved by a single figure in one of MacKinnon's papers.
(There are actually an increasing number of membrane protein structures available, some of them quite large. However, ion channels are apparently especially difficult to study, and none were solved before MacKinnon started.)
[ Reply to This ]
WHOOSH (Score:2)
by Atario (673917) on Wed October 08, 03:43 PM (#7165952)
Well, at least here on Slashdot I expect people (read: us geeks) will gape in awe instead of happily ignoring it.
[ Reply to This ]
Yeah right (Score:1)
by stratjakt (596332) on Wed October 08, 03:49 PM (#7165976)
(Last Journal: Sun September 29, 01:10 PM)
Oh, c'mon you expect me to believe this?
Rod and Peter working with protein?!
Surrre, whatever. Sounds made up to me.
[ Reply to This ]
4 replies beneath your current threshold.
-----
=)
I'm guessing that people just like labels.
Take the Louisiana's election for governor several, several years ago. One of the candidates was David Duke. Duke is somewhat infamous for being a high-ranking member of "the Klan" many years ago. He claimed multiple times, publicly, that he made some mistakes in the past and he no longer held those views anymore.
Now, I'm not endorsing his behaviour or even saying I liked anything about the man, but his official title on *every* TV news report was, and still is, "Former Klan leader/member, D. Duke." I have *never* heard his name mentioned on the television without that title (except for his own campaign commercials, naturally.) Even years after the election, if he visted some schools or did anything publicly at all, good or bad, he had that label when reported about by the media. Weird.
I will second this comment, as I like AVG.
I keep a CD of free Windows software for people (helpful when I build them a new PC.)
AVG Anti-Virus (AV)
OpenOffice (Office)
Firebird (Browser)
Thunderbird (email)
AdAware (Spyware seek-n-destroy)
Winamp (Multimedia)
3DMark (benchmarking)
some game demos
etc...
Bah, I'm not complaining that "my system can't play HL2 well, poor me" or proposing some socialistic attitude, I'm pointing out that it's not economically sound to release software that only a small portion of the market can utilize.
Game companies could easily make a game today that uses 2.8 Million polygons per model and renders each pixel at 128-bit color with 27 passes-per-pixel, but it would be suicide to release it today when hardware won't support it.
Yes, games should push the envelope and demand better hardware - to a certain extent. If they go too far too fast (which I believe HL2 has), then they can outpace the market and lose some of it. There's always a "sweet spot" for new games, and I think HL2's is a few months down the road, not today.
1) I'm sure it could be enabled/disabled easily in an IM client.
2) It helps with the "short attention span" of some IM'ers - like my brother who will ask me a question, then IM me at least 2-3 more times while I'm typing my response. (usually consisting of "helo?" and "r u still there?"
3) IM is being used more in businesses. While some miscommunications can be humourous due to timing, they can also cause problems. That argument is like lobbying against Intel fixing their Pentium bug "because it's funny to see calculator producing wrong results, tehe."
4) Why is eveyone against features? Yes, I can appreciate a small, efficient app that does only 1 task, and does it well. But I can also appreciate apps that are robust and include features that a lot of people find useful and can improve the user experience.