Java is cross-platform enough for our professional use - development on Windows, deployment on a mix of Solaris SPARC, Solaris x86, Debian, RHEL and Ubuntu Server. It really does Just Work, and well enough for actual money-making activities (niche professional publishing for paid subscribers, in this case) if you keep to pure Java.
If you keep to pure Java.
In the enterprise, enormous Java applications are tested and deployed on some middleware layer, such as IBM Websphere. Now as long as you only use best practices and open standards, and your code doesn't depend on a single proprietary IBM class, porting the application to say JBoss or Glassfish should only be a matter of deploying the application somewhere else, right? Except it isn't. Various things suddenly work subtly differently or even not at all, and before you know it, a couple of weeks of regression testing, reconfiguring and porting effort have passed.
Sure, now you're not having to port your application from, say AIX on POWER to Linux on x86, which I'm sure would have been more than a couple of weeks of work, but from Websphere to Glassfish. You know how difficult it is to get time and a budget for radically changing a project that's already tested, deployed and considered functioning properly. Management will probably decide to stick with IBM to remove the risk.
Java really is mostly cross-platform, but I'm not convinced this feature of Java gets a lot of use in the enterprise.
To capture the feel of the books, it's not enough to just butcher little boys. You have to flay them, decapitate them, dip the heads in tar and display them on pikes.
Imagine the crushing damage to the medical industry if they ever cured the common cold?
This level of paranoia is over the top. The pharmaceutical industry isn't holding back a cure because treatment of symptoms is too profitable. It just happens to be so difficult to develop a cure for a viral infection, that as far as I'm aware, not a single one exists for any virus. All we have (as far as I'm aware) are vaccines, and for some viruses inhibitors that suppress, but do not cure a viral infection.
By the way, how is the medical industry making any money off the common cold right now? Now if they found a cure, then they'd start making billions. Wouldn't you buy a cure if you had a cold? I know I would stockpile vast quantities of the stuff, if there was a cure. Would I pay $100 to cure a cold? Definitely! $250? Probably. $1000? Depends. If I had my 2 weeks of vacation or some special occasion coming up, I'd consider it.
You know, in the late 90's Sun, DEC, SGI and yes, Apple, were getting great profit margins on fantastically powerful graphical work stations. Some models sold for $100k or even much more. Swith to an under powered Linux PC just tosave $100k? Not me, I need multiple processor cores, 1600x1200 pixel 256 color displays, 100kbit/s ethernet. Of course, 5 years later, all of these companies had either abandoned the graphical workstaton market or were struggling to survive. Today, a $800 laptop exceeds the specs above.
I believe 10 or 15 years from now, it will be somewhat unusual to have what you would consider a full powered desktop PC at home or at the office, and so will doing evelopment work for these no longer very common devices be.
I have an ARM based laptop. It's fanless, in fact, it has no moving parts at all other than the hinge of the screen, and goes for a day or two of regular use between recharges. I'm not convinced "the desktop" has much of a long term future at this point... i think it will go the way of the workstation.
You sound bitter... maybe you should consider finding another employer?
By the way, if you can't stand calculus, that doesn't mean you can't get any degree, just not a science degree. It's not like those are the only ones worth anything.
The real Amsterdam doesn't live up to the reputation you're referring to. It's a small, sleepy town, about the size of Columbus, OH, and still not quite ready to move into the 21st century.
Almost nothing is open before 8.30 am, and most stores close after 6 pm and in the weekends. It's only been about a year since stores have been legally allowed to open on Sundays. The local culture is somewhat cold and unrefined by our standards. Having fun is generally seen as a queer and unnecessary thing foreigners like to do.
The notorious red lights district is not any wilder than what you would find in any major city (though perhaps a bit less tasteful) and rather filthy. A great place to meet pickpockets and panhandlers, nothing more.
Way back when, we had a 64 bit DEC Alpha server running windows NT in our geek lab. Windows software compiled for 32 bit x86 did run on it under a tool called digital FX!32 - iirc it was a combination of x86 emulation and translation to native code. The alpha was by far the fastest CPU we could afford at the time, so the performance measured up pretty well against running the same 32 bit x86 software natively on an intel based PC, while the performance of natively compiled code was (at the time) enough to make us drool. Windows NT was available for number of different CPU architectures at the time, as it wasn't yet certain that intel would become so dominant. I don't know much about the state of windows these days, but windows NT had been designed with portability in mind.
The theory and practice of emulators and running code in VM's has come a long way since. I'm sure it would be even more feasible now to run x86 software on a different CPU. Why not take this guy's statement at face value? They probably did some tests, and the result probably simply wasn't worth it. You'd be running applications optimized for a high performance PC with, mouse, keyboard, a large screen emulated on a device with a small touch screen and with slow, but power efficient hardware, and a few minutes into your experience you'd conclude that this windows tablet is just slow, awkward en inefficient and just not worth it, while you'd have a much better experience with a native app designed for it.
I don't understand all the hate on this forum about a version of windows that's not even out yet. I think it's interesting that they seem to be taking a risk and trying something radically different from what has been financially so successful these past 15 years or so.
The awesome power of economics will take care of those who don't. Flood plains and polders tend to be very fertile, and rivers tend to be important trade arteries.
If water were the one thing that makes land fertile, you'd be all set. However, crops also need sunlight and warmth, of which you have so little that only grass and potatoes seem willing to grow without the help of greenhouses and grow lights.
I've seen a kid that age program in mine craft. They're ready, they're just not into stuff that's boring.
Then again, TFA doesn't ask about interesting children in programming, but in software development. This seems silly to me. 2nd graders might be interested in learning how to count just for fun, but teaching them to do book keeping will require a massive carrot & stick.
What resource is of a high enough value to warrant the extreme costs of mining it in space and returning it to earth? The article just says "mining". Rare earth metals are about the only thing I can think of.
The English name `rare` eart metals is unfortunately chosen. They're not necessarily rare, the ores are found all over the world.
Last time I checked some guy named Edison invented a nifty thing that makes light in the night, even without fire. Great thing, really, you should try it some time.
In other words, it's the 21st century and your night life is still dependent on the sun?
Your comment implies that you don't see the point in ever leaving the house. Some people like to go outside in the summer. You know, hiking, cycling, canoeing, whatever. In summer, thanks to DST, I have another 5 or 6 hours of daylight for that after I get home. It's great while it lasts, without this, I wouldn't be able to cope with those 4 or 5 months of the year when the only daylight I see at all during the week is what comes through my office window.
Just get up an hour earlier you say? I could if I was single and without responsibilities like you. For the rest of us, getting up earlier will only work if everyone else does the same. Schools and daycare open and close at a certain time, stores open and close at a certain time
and implying that it is somehow linked to the unAmerican-ness of the company that allowed such a terrible thing to happen.
I've never seen anyone imply that. Ever. Ya paranoid limey bugger...
Actually, the president did some of that last year.
It was quite clear (between the lines) that if BP intended to continue to exists, it would be wise to replace the CEO with an American, which they did.
Long, complex passwords help prevent brute-force attacks.
Of course, but none of these machines are facing the internet. You need to be either in an office or use VPN, and connecting from a device with an authorized MAC address to connect. What security is added by making passwords expire all the time? I can memorize a complex password, or a couple of them, but a couple of them that have to be changed all the time (and require half a dozen tries before you've got one that is accepted) is so annoying that almost every one of those 20,000 employees say: screw this, it's post-it time.
I once had an executive demand to be exempt from our password policy (which was quite reasonable - 8 characters, complex, 90 day expiration) because it was too hard to remember a new password every 90 days.
(...) somehow figured out how to remember his passwords (which I suspect meant writing it down, which is no longer a problem since we're now using 2 factor authentication)
Can you explain how such password rules enhance security? A serious question, I'm trying to learn something here. At work we also have the two factor authentication: a pin card reader that generates a key, and a password.
The password rules are secret, but we're starting to guess them by trial and error: - any ever previously used password is banned - more than 3 consecutive characters that were also in a previous password are banned (so no more simply increasing the number at the end every 90 days) - No existing words or names - No consecutive repeated characters - Upper, lower, numbers and special characters - A mimimum length of 10 (iirc) - etc etc
Logging on is a chore with those pins and those cryptic passwords. I wonder how secure they think an intranet is, if 20,000+ employees spread out over several countries have access to it with their passwords and their pin cards. You suppose it's because of regulations?
I write my passwords on a post-it. It's the only way =)
With the dock, it's a fully functional Android netbook with an actual keyboard and extended battery life. Take it out of the dock, it's a tablet with a multi touch touch screen, and here's the big difference with an ordinary netbook: it goes about a full day of use or a week of casual use between recharges.
The lawsuits aren't stupid, they're a (imo) desperate attempt to keep history from repeating itself.
In the 1980's, Apple seemed to have it all, only to have their flagship gadget elbowed into a niche as soon as the windows PC was capable of doing pretty much the same things, but at a more affordable price, and offering a more open platform both for software development and hardware vendors. At the time, Apple sued Microsoft for stealing their 'look and feel', but lost. It turns out, you can't patent or copyright a 'look and feel'. (Unless the competition starts using an apple for a logo, or simply copying the hardware and software. This is common enough, in China you can buy devices that are basically iPhones, presumably made in the same factory, except for the Apple logo. You get those separately in the form of stickers you can apply yourself if you want).
Even though Apple's claim is obviously true: Samsung obviously made these gadgets deliberately similar to the corresponding Apple product in order to compete in the same high margin market segment, I doubt a new series of 'look and feel' lawsuits is going to be more successful.
Right now, the prices are similar, but soon enough the Android devices will start to become cheaper. I will not be surprised if 15 or 20 years from now, Apple will be a fancy niche player, falling further and further behind their Asian competitors and their Google OS. Larry Page taking the place of Bill Gates as the most hated evil business man on the internet.
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This guy is worse then Jenny McCarthy.
Baroness Susan Greenfield could be a guy, I guess. After all, Jenny is perfectly cromulent boys name in the UK as well.
Apache tried to make their own JVM, Oracle said no, so Apache can't make their own JVM.
No, it's not about the JVM. There are many JVM implementations, some open, some proprietary. It's a JDK, including the Java SE API.
Java is cross-platform enough for our professional use - development on Windows, deployment on a mix of Solaris SPARC, Solaris x86, Debian, RHEL and Ubuntu Server. It really does Just Work, and well enough for actual money-making activities (niche professional publishing for paid subscribers, in this case) if you keep to pure Java.
If you keep to pure Java.
In the enterprise, enormous Java applications are tested and deployed on some middleware layer, such as IBM Websphere. Now as long as you only use best practices and open standards, and your code doesn't depend on a single proprietary IBM class, porting the application to say JBoss or Glassfish should only be a matter of deploying the application somewhere else, right? Except it isn't. Various things suddenly work subtly differently or even not at all, and before you know it, a couple of weeks of regression testing, reconfiguring and porting effort have passed.
Sure, now you're not having to port your application from, say AIX on POWER to Linux on x86, which I'm sure would have been more than a couple of weeks of work, but from Websphere to Glassfish. You know how difficult it is to get time and a budget for radically changing a project that's already tested, deployed and considered functioning properly. Management will probably decide to stick with IBM to remove the risk.
Java really is mostly cross-platform, but I'm not convinced this feature of Java gets a lot of use in the enterprise.
Murdering little boys isn't so bad if they're low born. Those people are used to a bit of cruelty.
To capture the feel of the books, it's not enough to just butcher little boys. You have to flay them, decapitate them, dip the heads in tar and display them on pikes.
That, and zombies.
Oh yeah, they never did cure Herpes, did they? :(
Too profitable.
Imagine the crushing damage to the medical industry if they ever cured the common cold?
This level of paranoia is over the top. The pharmaceutical industry isn't holding back a cure because treatment of symptoms is too profitable. It just happens to be so difficult to develop a cure for a viral infection, that as far as I'm aware, not a single one exists for any virus. All we have (as far as I'm aware) are vaccines, and for some viruses inhibitors that suppress, but do not cure a viral infection.
By the way, how is the medical industry making any money off the common cold right now? Now if they found a cure, then they'd start making billions. Wouldn't you buy a cure if you had a cold? I know I would stockpile vast quantities of the stuff, if there was a cure. Would I pay $100 to cure a cold? Definitely! $250? Probably. $1000? Depends. If I had my 2 weeks of vacation or some special occasion coming up, I'd consider it.
You know, in the late 90's Sun, DEC, SGI and yes, Apple, were getting great profit margins on fantastically powerful graphical work stations. Some models sold for $100k or even much more. Swith to an under powered Linux PC just tosave $100k? Not me, I need multiple processor cores, 1600x1200 pixel 256 color displays, 100kbit/s ethernet.
Of course, 5 years later, all of these companies had either abandoned the graphical workstaton market or were struggling to survive. Today, a $800 laptop exceeds the specs above.
I believe 10 or 15 years from now, it will be somewhat unusual to have what you would consider a full powered desktop PC at home or at the office, and so will doing evelopment work for these no longer very common devices be.
I have an ARM based laptop. It's fanless, in fact, it has no moving parts at all other than the hinge of the screen, and goes for a day or two of regular use between recharges. I'm not convinced "the desktop" has much of a long term future at this point... i think it will go the way of the workstation.
It was on the desktop first. I was a kid, not terribly good with money, and it was expensive, so I just missed out on being an early adopter.
You sound bitter... maybe you should consider finding another employer?
By the way, if you can't stand calculus, that doesn't mean you can't get any degree, just not a science degree. It's not like those are the only ones worth anything.
The real Amsterdam doesn't live up to the reputation you're referring to. It's a small, sleepy town, about the size of Columbus, OH, and still not quite ready to move into the 21st century.
Almost nothing is open before 8.30 am, and most stores close after 6 pm and in the weekends. It's only been about a year since stores have been legally allowed to open on Sundays. The local culture is somewhat cold and unrefined by our standards. Having fun is generally seen as a queer and unnecessary thing foreigners like to do.
The notorious red lights district is not any wilder than what you would find in any major city (though perhaps a bit less tasteful) and rather filthy. A great place to meet pickpockets and panhandlers, nothing more.
Way back when, we had a 64 bit DEC Alpha server running windows NT in our geek lab. Windows software compiled for 32 bit x86 did run on it under a tool called digital FX!32 - iirc it was a combination of x86 emulation and translation to native code. The alpha was by far the fastest CPU we could afford at the time, so the performance measured up pretty well against running the same 32 bit x86 software natively on an intel based PC, while the performance of natively compiled code was (at the time) enough to make us drool. Windows NT was available for number of different CPU architectures at the time, as it wasn't yet certain that intel would become so dominant. I don't know much about the state of windows these days, but windows NT had been designed with portability in mind.
The theory and practice of emulators and running code in VM's has come a long way since. I'm sure it would be even more feasible now to run x86 software on a different CPU. Why not take this guy's statement at face value? They probably did some tests, and the result probably simply wasn't worth it. You'd be running applications optimized for a high performance PC with, mouse, keyboard, a large screen emulated on a device with a small touch screen and with slow, but power efficient hardware, and a few minutes into your experience you'd conclude that this windows tablet is just slow, awkward en inefficient and just not worth it, while you'd have a much better experience with a native app designed for it.
I don't understand all the hate on this forum about a version of windows that's not even out yet. I think it's interesting that they seem to be taking a risk and trying something radically different from what has been financially so successful these past 15 years or so.
In the country where DigiNotar was based, you'd be lucky to get half that.
The awesome power of economics will take care of those who don't. Flood plains and polders tend to be very fertile, and rivers tend to be important trade arteries.
If water were the one thing that makes land fertile, you'd be all set. However, crops also need sunlight and warmth, of which you have so little that only grass and potatoes seem willing to grow without the help of greenhouses and grow lights.
The awesome power of natural selection will inevitably take care of a land dwelling and air breathing tribe that chooses to live below sea level.
I've seen a kid that age program in mine craft. They're ready, they're just not into stuff that's boring.
Then again, TFA doesn't ask about interesting children in programming, but in software development. This seems silly to me. 2nd graders might be interested in learning how to count just for fun, but teaching them to do book keeping will require a massive carrot & stick.
What resource is of a high enough value to warrant the extreme costs of mining it in space and returning it to earth? The article just says "mining". Rare earth metals are about the only thing I can think of.
The English name `rare` eart metals is unfortunately chosen. They're not necessarily rare, the ores are found all over the world.
Last time I checked some guy named Edison invented a nifty thing that makes light in the night, even without fire. Great thing, really, you should try it some time.
In other words, it's the 21st century and your night life is still dependent on the sun?
Your comment implies that you don't see the point in ever leaving the house. Some people like to go outside in the summer. You know, hiking, cycling, canoeing, whatever. In summer, thanks to DST, I have another 5 or 6 hours of daylight for that after I get home. It's great while it lasts, without this, I wouldn't be able to cope with those 4 or 5 months of the year when the only daylight I see at all during the week is what comes through my office window.
Just get up an hour earlier you say? I could if I was single and without responsibilities like you. For the rest of us, getting up earlier will only work if everyone else does the same. Schools and daycare open and close at a certain time, stores open and close at a certain time
and implying that it is somehow linked to the unAmerican-ness of the company that allowed such a terrible thing to happen.
I've never seen anyone imply that. Ever. Ya paranoid limey bugger...
Actually, the president did some of that last year.
It was quite clear (between the lines) that if BP intended to continue to exists, it would be wise to replace the CEO with an American, which they did.
So who is uid 3 ?
Long, complex passwords help prevent brute-force attacks.
Of course, but none of these machines are facing the internet. You need to be either in an office or use VPN, and connecting from a device with an authorized MAC address to connect. What security is added by making passwords expire all the time? I can memorize a complex password, or a couple of them, but a couple of them that have to be changed all the time (and require half a dozen tries before you've got one that is accepted) is so annoying that almost every one of those 20,000 employees say: screw this, it's post-it time.
I once had an executive demand to be exempt from our password policy (which was quite reasonable - 8 characters, complex, 90 day expiration) because it was too hard to remember a new password every 90 days.
(...)
somehow figured out how to remember his passwords (which I suspect meant writing it down, which is no longer a problem since we're now using 2 factor authentication)
Can you explain how such password rules enhance security? A serious question, I'm trying to learn something here.
At work we also have the two factor authentication: a pin card reader that generates a key, and a password.
The password rules are secret, but we're starting to guess them by trial and error:
- any ever previously used password is banned
- more than 3 consecutive characters that were also in a previous password are banned (so no more simply increasing the number at the end every 90 days)
- No existing words or names
- No consecutive repeated characters
- Upper, lower, numbers and special characters
- A mimimum length of 10 (iirc)
- etc etc
Logging on is a chore with those pins and those cryptic passwords. I wonder how secure they think an intranet is, if 20,000+ employees spread out over several countries have access to it with their passwords and their pin cards. You suppose it's because of regulations?
I write my passwords on a post-it. It's the only way =)
I use the Eee Pad instead of a laptop or netbook.
With the dock, it's a fully functional Android netbook with an actual keyboard and extended battery life. Take it out of the dock, it's a tablet with a multi touch touch screen, and here's the big difference with an ordinary netbook: it goes about a full day of use or a week of casual use between recharges.
The lawsuits aren't stupid, they're a (imo) desperate attempt to keep history from repeating itself.
In the 1980's, Apple seemed to have it all, only to have their flagship gadget elbowed into a niche as soon as the windows PC was capable of doing pretty much the same things, but at a more affordable price, and offering a more open platform both for software development and hardware vendors. At the time, Apple sued Microsoft for stealing their 'look and feel', but lost. It turns out, you can't patent or copyright a 'look and feel'. (Unless the competition starts using an apple for a logo, or simply copying the hardware and software. This is common enough, in China you can buy devices that are basically iPhones, presumably made in the same factory, except for the Apple logo. You get those separately in the form of stickers you can apply yourself if you want).
Even though Apple's claim is obviously true: Samsung obviously made these gadgets deliberately similar to the corresponding Apple product in order to compete in the same high margin market segment, I doubt a new series of 'look and feel' lawsuits is going to be more successful.
Right now, the prices are similar, but soon enough the Android devices will start to become cheaper. I will not be surprised if 15 or 20 years from now, Apple will be a fancy niche player, falling further and further behind their Asian competitors and their Google OS. Larry Page taking the place of Bill Gates as the most hated evil business man on the internet.
link didn't work, try this: http://www.tnerb.org/archives/000208.html