I think we are facing a real problem, and I don't think we can solve it by waving lofty ideals about from the comfort of our armchairs. Fundamental right like privacy and freedom of speech are too important to be used frivolously. If they get pulled out again and again as a knee-jerk reaction every time somebody can't have it all their own way, then they will get watered down to the point where people in general get sick enough to allow them to be taken away completely - or at least severely restricted.
So, instead of automatically whining, try to come up with a better way tol solve the problems: organised crime and terrorist organisations, just to mention two, are very good at using communications that are difficult to trace, and our best weapons are hampered by having to follow the law. Shall we simply roll over and take it on the chin, let internal gangs do what they like and terrorists organise ever bolder attacks on civilians?
Amongst the readers of Slashdot are some, at least, who aspire to be clever and able to solve problems; so contribute constructively, if you think you can.
...getting around the Wall Street Journal paywall...
Yes, well, but why would anybody want it that much? It's a Murdoch outlet, I mean? It's a bit like forging a $500 voucher for MacDonalds; you may be able to get $500's worth of food, but it would be MacDonalds.
Is there any other way for a Middle Eastern country to earn our respect, other than to be able to nuke us?
Ironically, Iran is the Middle Country most likely to deserve our respect for things other than having nuclear capabilities. When you look beyond the demented ravings of some of their past leaders, they are on a significantly higher level than their neighbours in many respects. As far as I now, they do actually have a somewhat functional democracy, a rather good education system etc. I have always felt they have deserved better than the press they have tended to get since Khomeiny toppled the puppet shah; they are not saints, by any means, but neither are they devils incarnate. They could be our friends in the longer term, unlike for example IS.
Thus encapsulating much of the hubris and disdain in the comments. Managing, like engineering, is about figuring out how a system works and solving problems to het it to work like you wanted.
Are you not displaying exactly that hubris and disdain here, which you criticise? You may have heard what I said, but you didn't listen. Most managers are simply managers: they eaderly lick the spittle off the faces of their superiors and do as they are told without really knowing all that much about things. Like you they don't listen to the people they manage, which is why a Dilbert-like situation arises, where engineers do what they know is right, if they care, and don't if they don't. The pointy-haired boss thinks he has figured out "how a system works and is solving problems to get it to work like he wants", to quote your own words.
There is a saying about engineers that I think illustrates the difference between them and managers: "Discussing with an engineer is like mud-wrestling with a pig. After a while, you realise that the pig enjoys it." A manager discusses simply to win the argument and get his will, whereas engineers discuss because they enjoy the mental exercise. To them a discussion with a fellow engineer is a win-win situation (sorry for using a buzzword) - even if they lose the argument, they gain insight. There may be managers who genuinely think like engineers, but they are few and far between, and they tend to be leaders, not merely managers.
A very thoughtful answer, which they will promptly ignore.
Having actually read some of the article, I notice that they confuse management with leadership. Any idiot can management - managers wouldn't be able to otherwise - but leadership is harder. Perhaps it is best expressed (accidentally) by an appalling manager I once had: "Managing engineers is like herding cats". What he meant was simply that he found it impossible; but without realizing it, he also showed that he hadn't understood leaderhip.
To the typical manager tries to do, is herding people like they were sheep; theis may work if your staffs are disenageged or simply don't have their own opinion about things. Cats, of course, DO have their own opinion, just like engineers, and will do what they want (just like engineers) - you have to LEAD a cat. A leader shows the way by going first, and engineers (as well as cats) follow because they think it is worthwhile. The problem facing most managers is that they can't lead engineers, because they themselves don't have the necessary insight; in that situation, you either become a poor manager who tries the sheep farming approach and fails, or a good manager, who understands that his job is to act as the barrier against the crap that comes from the rest of the organisation, so his engineers can get on with the important things in life.
All in all, I don't think a real engineer will see management as a step up, except in terms of pay, but many engineers can become good leaders in the real sense.
But, if you change, "spouse and spouse" to "a group of spouses", then how do you change "upon death of a spouse, the remaining spouse shall inherit 100% of communal property before probate"? As in, you die, and your three widows each inherit 100%? That's 300%. Where do you get two more identical houses?
Leaving to one side all the emotional bluster that accompanies this subject, I think it is a very interesting, intellectual challenge. One thought that springs to mind is that a group marriage would be similar to a limited company, or possibly a cooperative, and we already have legal experience with that sort of construct. I imagine the romance and intimacy you can find in a 1-1 relationship might be somewhat sparse in such a 'group marriage', but then I've always been a rather old fashioned sort of person. Other cultures provide examples of both polygyny and polyandry, so it isn't unknown.
I haven't read the article, so I may be totally off here; but isn't it about couples? If you are not engaged in a relatioship comparable to marriage, how is it even relevant to talk about equal right? Usually, when the talk is about equal rights for same sex couples, it is about the right to be legally married, so that they have the same sort of status in case of death, divource and so on.
You mention 'C/C++', and I think you need to realize that the two don't really mix well; in my experience, you go with one or the other, simply. True, you can use C style practices in C++, but then what's the point of using a C++ compiler?
I think there are many, excellent reasons to choose C++ for a project, but perhaps not the ones you list. Things like control over memory allocation, cross-platform and networking may not in theselves be compelling reasons for choosing C++, as they can be handled easily enough in C. Cross-platform and networking is all about following the POSIX standard, really, and getting away from the Windows toolkit. That and separating the presentation layer from the business layer(s). This is perfectly possible in pure C - I have done it many times.
The real reason for using C++ is that it supports design patterns well, IMO. Templates and template libraries like Boost are really about that; and design patterns are about adopting an architecture that is well thought through - they are formalized best practices, in a way.
Re:The problem is that landfills are too cheap
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Recycling Is Dying
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I don't think so - the real problem is that we produce too much waste, simply. Things are designed to break after a shortish while, or wrapped excessively, or both. Look back at history: only a century ago, most things were expected to last, possibly for generations; but now we are conditioned to think that things like fashion matter, and that it is normal when things just break or stop working. The truth, however, is that the only reason why we produce such obscene amounts of crap, is the idea that our economy must grow, no matter what consequences.
Recycling is wrong - it is the wrong end of the problem, simply.
This is just a marketing stunt, really. Look at strawberry jam, for example - 'No artificial colours' doesn't mean 'All the red in this jar comes from strawberries', it means 'We used beetroot juice' and so on. And of course, 'natural' isn't the same as good either - strychnine and morphine are very natural substances. And 'No added sugar' mostly just means 'We used concentrated something to increase the sugar contect "naturally"'.
But really, breakfast products are no more than cakes and sweet desserts; most yoghurt is nothing more than slightly sour custard. Apparently the only breakfast cereal that is actually healthy, is oatmeal.
Albert Einstein once said: 'Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler'. I think that sums up the most important quality a good developer must have. It is very tempting to try to use every known feature of a programming language, and even in a simple language, the result is not pretty - C++ is far from simple, so you can imagine how ugly it can become.
That said, to master a technology means that you are able to use the difficult features with reasonable ease, when the need arises. That includes all the reviled features in C++, such as templates and meta-programming; there is probably nothing in the language that is simply superfluous, and learning how these features are used is a good idea (and an important part of that is knowing when not to use them).
The company already mulls expanding its production principle to other, lucrative wild animal trades such as the claws of tigers and lions. Pembient is however a young company â" for all their ingenuity, will their ambitions to take on such a colossal black market be realized?
Are you crazy? Of course it will; the people who slaughter endangered animals like this aren't in it to provide their esteemed customers with a genuine article - they just want the money. They will jump at the opportunity to make a fast profit by cheating. Why endanger youself by poaching if you can just mix up some gunk in a printer?
You just shouldn't bother. It's not worth the risk.
Good summary, but to elaborate a bit:
- Mono is not quite.NET, so incompatible, and with Microsoft's history of making changes that break compatibility, mono is not likely to ever catch up.
-.NET applications are so often not well designed, in my experience. I suspect it may be because of the combination of poor development skills and an IDE that makes it all too easy to make poor design choices. I don't know if it still is this bad, but last I worked with Windows development, the C++ IDE I used had encapsulated network protocols in classes that could then be placed on the application window. Very easy, but unfortunately the Windows desktop is not re-entrant, which means that it is a very bad idea to, in effect, wire a listener for an asynchronous background activity into it. All you need is two network packets right after each other and a slow update of the screen, and the whole things dies.
- There does not seem to be an obvious need for.NET - we already have Java, which is universally available (IBM have even designed a dedicated 'Java CPU') and highly standardised. Just look at the heaps of acronyms: JMX, JNDI,...
- There are several, very good IDEs that support Java extremely well: NetBeans, JDeveloper, Eclipse and no doubt loads more. NetBeans, for example, comes with features that nag you into adopting a good programming style.
And so on..NET looks to me like a dead end. It may not be dead yet, but it is definitely not what you would call sprightly.
So, Anonymous protest against a law that targets hackers by... hacking? And this will demonstrate to the government and the public that this law is not warranted? Please explain the logic in this, because I can't spot it.
You get to be a leader by getting people to follow you.
And a corollary to that is that a leader is somebody who goes ahead of the followers. I suspect that Linus has stopped being the one who runs ahead of the development of Linux, and perhaps he is getting a bit frustrated over the position he is in. This is similar to the old problem with revolutionary leaders, in a way: when the revolution is over, there is no longer the need for them and their ability to inspire a great, simple vision; it is time for the grey administrators to take over.
If a person considers a site to be bad - stop swimming in that sewer.
What a nice and pious sentiment; the problem is that sometimes the sewer bursts and we all get covered in shit. When that happens, who is responsible for the repairs, and who is to blame for the epidemics that follow? The millions of people who used the sewer to take a dump, or the company providing the service?
I think this is about freedom under responsibility; the internet company that provides the service makes money out of it, and just as other companies are responsible for the harmful effects of their business activities on society or the environment, so it is for internet companies. Now, please note that I am not saying that people making stupid comments is harmful, just that there has to be responsibility when there is freedom. It still remains to be determined whether harm has followed from the content posted on Youtube or elsewhere; but if it is seen to be the case, then these rules mean that responsibility can be placed with the service provider.
That's a good discussion; to summarize: autonomous AIs should be made safe for humanity, but what does that mean, and how can it be done?
The problem, as I see it, is that even if we could agree on a universal set of rules and somehow implemented those rules in the code, it could still be faulty, and it might not cover all situations to which the rules ought to apply. To solve that, we need to give AIs the same sort of social instincts that we and other apes have, because that is where our ability to make moral judgements and solve ethical problems comes from; history also shows that, despite all our very big failings as humans, we have still over time and on average managed to become more ethical - perversions like ISIS were once more common, after all. It may well be that equipping AIs with social instincts is the best and most stable way to make them safe - eventually.
AI will obsolete your job before it obsoletes humanity.
I think perhaps the things to worry about are more immediate than what will happen if/when AI becomes worthy of its name. Things like using autonomous devices in warfare, for example. Or what if we come to trust autonomous systems to such a degree that most of us no longer have the skills or insight needed to perform basic, necessary tasks? IMO it is not good to get into a situation where we are fully dependent on a technology that might malfunction, and which we can't fix.
Dont even put Bills name in the same sentence as Stephen Hawking.... bills an idiot
There's even a musical about him, I think: Billy Idiot, it's called. About this young boy, Billy, who breaks away from his background in a coal mining community to become a ballet dancer. Something like that, yeah.
...in general we haven't done enough to reach out and show young women that it's cool to do it [tech] and how much fun it can be...
Isn't it time we started waking up to the fact that computing and technology isn't about 'cool' or 'fun'? And wouldn't it be better to show that little bit of respect to young men and women, to not expect that the only thing they could possibly have an interest in is 'cool' and 'fun'? Most young, clever people simply want to get to grips with life in a serious way, to develop their skills and feel they are doing something wortwhile. Why else do so many young choose careers that are demanding?
Technology is for the most part demanding, it is difficult to learn and to be successful with, but that is exactly why it is so hugely rewarding. Some of my greatest moment with code had little to do with anything that you could call fun or cool - it was things like writing my first COBOL and FORTRAN programs (how uncool is that?), discovering how good it is to use vi, writing my first Java Enterprise application (a pathetic little thing, I can assure you), installing and IPLing OS/360 on a Hercules emulator.
Good SW Engineers are not people who think it is cool or fun - if that is your approach to life, then you'll probably end up writing worhtless apps with a minimum of effort, serving adverts to an unwilling public, run-of-the-mill stuff. A good SW Engineer is somebody who enjoys doing these things for their own sake, for the joy of discovery.
We ARE up shit creek - the question is, do you have a paddle?
I think what you are saying is, there are certain skills that are always going to be in demand, and they have little to do with new, emerging, disruptive or whatever buzz-word industry, but are the same skills that have always been useful, the common theme being practical ability - that you are able figure out which end of the hammer you hold on to etc.
I think the important thing here is to figure out what the future is likely to hold in store in terms of computer technology. What do people think the world of computing will look like in 10 - 20 years' time? My feeling is that we have already reached the limits to what it is meaningful to put into a personal computer some time ago, so I don't think we will see much growth in the personal computer devices. I think we have reached a plateau as far as wearable devices go - the fate of gadgets like Google Glass is suggestive, and I don't think Apple''s watch will be more than a passing fad. The internet in it's current form is so rife with crime that I think, unless we really manages to solve that particular problem, we will see most of the things that are sensitive and important for our societies withdrawn from the network: things like financial transaction, public services etc.
On that optimistic note, I think the safest bet on technology in the future may well be "the enterprise network" and the technologies that fit into it. Things like distributed computing, enterprise applications, application servers, that sort of thing. If one were to focus on one technology more than anything else, my person recommendation would be Java EE and application servers (Glassfish, WebLogic, JBoss...)
Bringing water to thirsty people is only good if you value people.
I think it it something uniquely American, this attitude that it is a good idea to settle millions of people in an environment that simply cannot sustain them, and then spend huge resources on keeping it going with a sort of 'pacemaker'; and to hell with the long term consequences. I've been to California - and I never stopped being amazed at the sort of boneheaded, willful blindness that seemed to be the common theme. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't most of the state arid - desert or semi-desert? I walked around in the area near Oracle's tin-foil silo and noticed that the natural vegetation was things you'd expect in an arid climate, but all these office building were surrounded by 20 centimeter thick grass-lawns that were kept soaking wet. They weren't even useful for sitting on.
If this was just a few, ultra-rich companies, you could shrug your shoulders, but this seems to be the general attitude; so farmers pump the rivers dry to sustain crops that are unusually demanding in terms of water needs - in a desert - and they do so without even trying to preserve water by investing in covered irrigation channels etc. Plus, of course, irrigation brings with it problems with build up of salt in the soil and so on.
The solution to this is not to compund the error, but to learn to live more sustainably. I mean ideally you wouldn't be idiotic enough to place a city like Las Vegas in the middle of the Nevada Desert or wherever, but even so, it is actually possible to live with less waste, without even lowering your living standards. Just compare the average America's resource consumption with the average, North European's - without going into numbers (because I don't have them at hand), there is a stark difference, and the living standards in Europe are most certainly comparable to those in America, and probably better.
It is worth protecting the environment, even if you are not a tree-hugging hippie; it makes sense in every way. It isn't about pretty flowers and rare animals; the whole eco-system is connected, and different parts depend on each other - the more parts we take out because we can't be bothered to change our ways, the more rickety the whole thing becomes, until one day it may all come tumbling down. If you don't believe me, prove me wrong - with scientific evidence.
That's cute, but you do realize that Catholicism is perfectly okay with Evolution as valid science, right?
Of course - I just thought it was an apt comment on religious blindness to science in general. The Catholic church has not always been as enlightened, and unfortunately the attitude of many religions, Christians not least, is that religion or 'faith, as they call it, takes precedence over facts.
We have a number of observable facts: the fossil record, which we can date and which is clearly suggestive of species evolving from primivitve types to more advanced types. So, that evolution has taken place is very close to being an observed fact. The theory of evolution is an attempt at explaining HOW it happened, not whether it happened. The reason we call it a theory, not a hypothesis, is that it not only explains the huge amounts of observable facts, but also offers testable predictions - and passes the tests. Another reason evolution theory is science is, that it stand or falls with its ability to survive these ongoing tests.
The reason creationism has nothing to do with science is that it explains away facts it doesn't like, it has decided what the truth is from the outset and will never budge, even when faced with clear, contradictory evidence. I personally don't 'believe' in evolution simply because scientists say it is true, but because I can consider the evidence, think about the logic of the theory and make up my own mind. That is what scientists do. If you call that belief, then it is of an completely different kind than religious belief. A religious belief is not influenced by evidence; scientific belief says "I was wrong? Oh well, we live and learn"
There is an old joke, told by Dave Allen (can be found on Youtube):
The Pope is discussing with an atheist, and the Pope says: "You atheists are like a blind man, searching in a dark room for a black cat that isn't there!" - and the atheist replies: "Well, we are not so different, in fact - you Catholics too are like a blind man, search a dark room for a black cat that isn't there; but you believe you've found it!"
Slashdot Mirror
I think we are facing a real problem, and I don't think we can solve it by waving lofty ideals about from the comfort of our armchairs. Fundamental right like privacy and freedom of speech are too important to be used frivolously. If they get pulled out again and again as a knee-jerk reaction every time somebody can't have it all their own way, then they will get watered down to the point where people in general get sick enough to allow them to be taken away completely - or at least severely restricted.
So, instead of automatically whining, try to come up with a better way tol solve the problems: organised crime and terrorist organisations, just to mention two, are very good at using communications that are difficult to trace, and our best weapons are hampered by having to follow the law. Shall we simply roll over and take it on the chin, let internal gangs do what they like and terrorists organise ever bolder attacks on civilians?
Amongst the readers of Slashdot are some, at least, who aspire to be clever and able to solve problems; so contribute constructively, if you think you can.
...getting around the Wall Street Journal paywall...
Yes, well, but why would anybody want it that much? It's a Murdoch outlet, I mean? It's a bit like forging a $500 voucher for MacDonalds; you may be able to get $500's worth of food, but it would be MacDonalds.
Is there any other way for a Middle Eastern country to earn our respect, other than to be able to nuke us?
Ironically, Iran is the Middle Country most likely to deserve our respect for things other than having nuclear capabilities. When you look beyond the demented ravings of some of their past leaders, they are on a significantly higher level than their neighbours in many respects. As far as I now, they do actually have a somewhat functional democracy, a rather good education system etc. I have always felt they have deserved better than the press they have tended to get since Khomeiny toppled the puppet shah; they are not saints, by any means, but neither are they devils incarnate. They could be our friends in the longer term, unlike for example IS.
Thus encapsulating much of the hubris and disdain in the comments. Managing, like engineering, is about figuring out how a system works and solving problems to het it to work like you wanted.
Are you not displaying exactly that hubris and disdain here, which you criticise? You may have heard what I said, but you didn't listen. Most managers are simply managers: they eaderly lick the spittle off the faces of their superiors and do as they are told without really knowing all that much about things. Like you they don't listen to the people they manage, which is why a Dilbert-like situation arises, where engineers do what they know is right, if they care, and don't if they don't. The pointy-haired boss thinks he has figured out "how a system works and is solving problems to get it to work like he wants", to quote your own words.
There is a saying about engineers that I think illustrates the difference between them and managers: "Discussing with an engineer is like mud-wrestling with a pig. After a while, you realise that the pig enjoys it." A manager discusses simply to win the argument and get his will, whereas engineers discuss because they enjoy the mental exercise. To them a discussion with a fellow engineer is a win-win situation (sorry for using a buzzword) - even if they lose the argument, they gain insight. There may be managers who genuinely think like engineers, but they are few and far between, and they tend to be leaders, not merely managers.
A very thoughtful answer, which they will promptly ignore.
Having actually read some of the article, I notice that they confuse management with leadership. Any idiot can management - managers wouldn't be able to otherwise - but leadership is harder. Perhaps it is best expressed (accidentally) by an appalling manager I once had: "Managing engineers is like herding cats". What he meant was simply that he found it impossible; but without realizing it, he also showed that he hadn't understood leaderhip.
To the typical manager tries to do, is herding people like they were sheep; theis may work if your staffs are disenageged or simply don't have their own opinion about things. Cats, of course, DO have their own opinion, just like engineers, and will do what they want (just like engineers) - you have to LEAD a cat. A leader shows the way by going first, and engineers (as well as cats) follow because they think it is worthwhile. The problem facing most managers is that they can't lead engineers, because they themselves don't have the necessary insight; in that situation, you either become a poor manager who tries the sheep farming approach and fails, or a good manager, who understands that his job is to act as the barrier against the crap that comes from the rest of the organisation, so his engineers can get on with the important things in life.
All in all, I don't think a real engineer will see management as a step up, except in terms of pay, but many engineers can become good leaders in the real sense.
But, if you change, "spouse and spouse" to "a group of spouses", then how do you change "upon death of a spouse, the remaining spouse shall inherit 100% of communal property before probate"? As in, you die, and your three widows each inherit 100%? That's 300%. Where do you get two more identical houses?
Leaving to one side all the emotional bluster that accompanies this subject, I think it is a very interesting, intellectual challenge. One thought that springs to mind is that a group marriage would be similar to a limited company, or possibly a cooperative, and we already have legal experience with that sort of construct. I imagine the romance and intimacy you can find in a 1-1 relationship might be somewhat sparse in such a 'group marriage', but then I've always been a rather old fashioned sort of person. Other cultures provide examples of both polygyny and polyandry, so it isn't unknown.
I haven't read the article, so I may be totally off here; but isn't it about couples? If you are not engaged in a relatioship comparable to marriage, how is it even relevant to talk about equal right? Usually, when the talk is about equal rights for same sex couples, it is about the right to be legally married, so that they have the same sort of status in case of death, divource and so on.
You mention 'C/C++', and I think you need to realize that the two don't really mix well; in my experience, you go with one or the other, simply. True, you can use C style practices in C++, but then what's the point of using a C++ compiler?
I think there are many, excellent reasons to choose C++ for a project, but perhaps not the ones you list. Things like control over memory allocation, cross-platform and networking may not in theselves be compelling reasons for choosing C++, as they can be handled easily enough in C. Cross-platform and networking is all about following the POSIX standard, really, and getting away from the Windows toolkit. That and separating the presentation layer from the business layer(s). This is perfectly possible in pure C - I have done it many times.
The real reason for using C++ is that it supports design patterns well, IMO. Templates and template libraries like Boost are really about that; and design patterns are about adopting an architecture that is well thought through - they are formalized best practices, in a way.
I don't think so - the real problem is that we produce too much waste, simply. Things are designed to break after a shortish while, or wrapped excessively, or both. Look back at history: only a century ago, most things were expected to last, possibly for generations; but now we are conditioned to think that things like fashion matter, and that it is normal when things just break or stop working. The truth, however, is that the only reason why we produce such obscene amounts of crap, is the idea that our economy must grow, no matter what consequences.
Recycling is wrong - it is the wrong end of the problem, simply.
This is just a marketing stunt, really. Look at strawberry jam, for example - 'No artificial colours' doesn't mean 'All the red in this jar comes from strawberries', it means 'We used beetroot juice' and so on. And of course, 'natural' isn't the same as good either - strychnine and morphine are very natural substances. And 'No added sugar' mostly just means 'We used concentrated something to increase the sugar contect "naturally"'.
But really, breakfast products are no more than cakes and sweet desserts; most yoghurt is nothing more than slightly sour custard. Apparently the only breakfast cereal that is actually healthy, is oatmeal.
Albert Einstein once said: 'Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler'. I think that sums up the most important quality a good developer must have. It is very tempting to try to use every known feature of a programming language, and even in a simple language, the result is not pretty - C++ is far from simple, so you can imagine how ugly it can become.
That said, to master a technology means that you are able to use the difficult features with reasonable ease, when the need arises. That includes all the reviled features in C++, such as templates and meta-programming; there is probably nothing in the language that is simply superfluous, and learning how these features are used is a good idea (and an important part of that is knowing when not to use them).
The company already mulls expanding its production principle to other, lucrative wild animal trades such as the claws of tigers and lions. Pembient is however a young company â" for all their ingenuity, will their ambitions to take on such a colossal black market be realized?
Are you crazy? Of course it will; the people who slaughter endangered animals like this aren't in it to provide their esteemed customers with a genuine article - they just want the money. They will jump at the opportunity to make a fast profit by cheating. Why endanger youself by poaching if you can just mix up some gunk in a printer?
You just shouldn't bother. It's not worth the risk.
Good summary, but to elaborate a bit:
- Mono is not quite .NET, so incompatible, and with Microsoft's history of making changes that break compatibility, mono is not likely to ever catch up.
- .NET applications are so often not well designed, in my experience. I suspect it may be because of the combination of poor development skills and an IDE that makes it all too easy to make poor design choices. I don't know if it still is this bad, but last I worked with Windows development, the C++ IDE I used had encapsulated network protocols in classes that could then be placed on the application window. Very easy, but unfortunately the Windows desktop is not re-entrant, which means that it is a very bad idea to, in effect, wire a listener for an asynchronous background activity into it. All you need is two network packets right after each other and a slow update of the screen, and the whole things dies.
- There does not seem to be an obvious need for .NET - we already have Java, which is universally available (IBM have even designed a dedicated 'Java CPU') and highly standardised. Just look at the heaps of acronyms: JMX, JNDI, ...
- There are several, very good IDEs that support Java extremely well: NetBeans, JDeveloper, Eclipse and no doubt loads more. NetBeans, for example, comes with features that nag you into adopting a good programming style.
And so on. .NET looks to me like a dead end. It may not be dead yet, but it is definitely not what you would call sprightly.
So, Anonymous protest against a law that targets hackers by ... hacking? And this will demonstrate to the government and the public that this law is not warranted? Please explain the logic in this, because I can't spot it.
You get to be a leader by getting people to follow you.
And a corollary to that is that a leader is somebody who goes ahead of the followers. I suspect that Linus has stopped being the one who runs ahead of the development of Linux, and perhaps he is getting a bit frustrated over the position he is in. This is similar to the old problem with revolutionary leaders, in a way: when the revolution is over, there is no longer the need for them and their ability to inspire a great, simple vision; it is time for the grey administrators to take over.
If a person considers a site to be bad - stop swimming in that sewer.
What a nice and pious sentiment; the problem is that sometimes the sewer bursts and we all get covered in shit. When that happens, who is responsible for the repairs, and who is to blame for the epidemics that follow? The millions of people who used the sewer to take a dump, or the company providing the service?
I think this is about freedom under responsibility; the internet company that provides the service makes money out of it, and just as other companies are responsible for the harmful effects of their business activities on society or the environment, so it is for internet companies. Now, please note that I am not saying that people making stupid comments is harmful, just that there has to be responsibility when there is freedom. It still remains to be determined whether harm has followed from the content posted on Youtube or elsewhere; but if it is seen to be the case, then these rules mean that responsibility can be placed with the service provider.
That's a good discussion; to summarize: autonomous AIs should be made safe for humanity, but what does that mean, and how can it be done?
The problem, as I see it, is that even if we could agree on a universal set of rules and somehow implemented those rules in the code, it could still be faulty, and it might not cover all situations to which the rules ought to apply. To solve that, we need to give AIs the same sort of social instincts that we and other apes have, because that is where our ability to make moral judgements and solve ethical problems comes from; history also shows that, despite all our very big failings as humans, we have still over time and on average managed to become more ethical - perversions like ISIS were once more common, after all. It may well be that equipping AIs with social instincts is the best and most stable way to make them safe - eventually.
AI will obsolete your job before it obsoletes humanity.
I think perhaps the things to worry about are more immediate than what will happen if/when AI becomes worthy of its name. Things like using autonomous devices in warfare, for example. Or what if we come to trust autonomous systems to such a degree that most of us no longer have the skills or insight needed to perform basic, necessary tasks? IMO it is not good to get into a situation where we are fully dependent on a technology that might malfunction, and which we can't fix.
Dont even put Bills name in the same sentence as Stephen Hawking.... bills an idiot
There's even a musical about him, I think: Billy Idiot, it's called. About this young boy, Billy, who breaks away from his background in a coal mining community to become a ballet dancer. Something like that, yeah.
...in general we haven't done enough to reach out and show young women that it's cool to do it [tech] and how much fun it can be...
Isn't it time we started waking up to the fact that computing and technology isn't about 'cool' or 'fun'? And wouldn't it be better to show that little bit of respect to young men and women, to not expect that the only thing they could possibly have an interest in is 'cool' and 'fun'? Most young, clever people simply want to get to grips with life in a serious way, to develop their skills and feel they are doing something wortwhile. Why else do so many young choose careers that are demanding?
Technology is for the most part demanding, it is difficult to learn and to be successful with, but that is exactly why it is so hugely rewarding. Some of my greatest moment with code had little to do with anything that you could call fun or cool - it was things like writing my first COBOL and FORTRAN programs (how uncool is that?), discovering how good it is to use vi, writing my first Java Enterprise application (a pathetic little thing, I can assure you), installing and IPLing OS/360 on a Hercules emulator.
Good SW Engineers are not people who think it is cool or fun - if that is your approach to life, then you'll probably end up writing worhtless apps with a minimum of effort, serving adverts to an unwilling public, run-of-the-mill stuff. A good SW Engineer is somebody who enjoys doing these things for their own sake, for the joy of discovery.
Without plumbing, we would be up shit creek.
We ARE up shit creek - the question is, do you have a paddle?
I think what you are saying is, there are certain skills that are always going to be in demand, and they have little to do with new, emerging, disruptive or whatever buzz-word industry, but are the same skills that have always been useful, the common theme being practical ability - that you are able figure out which end of the hammer you hold on to etc.
I think the important thing here is to figure out what the future is likely to hold in store in terms of computer technology. What do people think the world of computing will look like in 10 - 20 years' time? My feeling is that we have already reached the limits to what it is meaningful to put into a personal computer some time ago, so I don't think we will see much growth in the personal computer devices. I think we have reached a plateau as far as wearable devices go - the fate of gadgets like Google Glass is suggestive, and I don't think Apple''s watch will be more than a passing fad. The internet in it's current form is so rife with crime that I think, unless we really manages to solve that particular problem, we will see most of the things that are sensitive and important for our societies withdrawn from the network: things like financial transaction, public services etc.
On that optimistic note, I think the safest bet on technology in the future may well be "the enterprise network" and the technologies that fit into it. Things like distributed computing, enterprise applications, application servers, that sort of thing. If one were to focus on one technology more than anything else, my person recommendation would be Java EE and application servers (Glassfish, WebLogic, JBoss ...)
Bringing water to thirsty people is only good if you value people.
I think it it something uniquely American, this attitude that it is a good idea to settle millions of people in an environment that simply cannot sustain them, and then spend huge resources on keeping it going with a sort of 'pacemaker'; and to hell with the long term consequences. I've been to California - and I never stopped being amazed at the sort of boneheaded, willful blindness that seemed to be the common theme. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't most of the state arid - desert or semi-desert? I walked around in the area near Oracle's tin-foil silo and noticed that the natural vegetation was things you'd expect in an arid climate, but all these office building were surrounded by 20 centimeter thick grass-lawns that were kept soaking wet. They weren't even useful for sitting on.
If this was just a few, ultra-rich companies, you could shrug your shoulders, but this seems to be the general attitude; so farmers pump the rivers dry to sustain crops that are unusually demanding in terms of water needs - in a desert - and they do so without even trying to preserve water by investing in covered irrigation channels etc. Plus, of course, irrigation brings with it problems with build up of salt in the soil and so on.
The solution to this is not to compund the error, but to learn to live more sustainably. I mean ideally you wouldn't be idiotic enough to place a city like Las Vegas in the middle of the Nevada Desert or wherever, but even so, it is actually possible to live with less waste, without even lowering your living standards. Just compare the average America's resource consumption with the average, North European's - without going into numbers (because I don't have them at hand), there is a stark difference, and the living standards in Europe are most certainly comparable to those in America, and probably better.
It is worth protecting the environment, even if you are not a tree-hugging hippie; it makes sense in every way. It isn't about pretty flowers and rare animals; the whole eco-system is connected, and different parts depend on each other - the more parts we take out because we can't be bothered to change our ways, the more rickety the whole thing becomes, until one day it may all come tumbling down. If you don't believe me, prove me wrong - with scientific evidence.
That's cute, but you do realize that Catholicism is perfectly okay with Evolution as valid science, right?
Of course - I just thought it was an apt comment on religious blindness to science in general. The Catholic church has not always been as enlightened, and unfortunately the attitude of many religions, Christians not least, is that religion or 'faith, as they call it, takes precedence over facts.
We have a number of observable facts: the fossil record, which we can date and which is clearly suggestive of species evolving from primivitve types to more advanced types. So, that evolution has taken place is very close to being an observed fact. The theory of evolution is an attempt at explaining HOW it happened, not whether it happened. The reason we call it a theory, not a hypothesis, is that it not only explains the huge amounts of observable facts, but also offers testable predictions - and passes the tests. Another reason evolution theory is science is, that it stand or falls with its ability to survive these ongoing tests.
The reason creationism has nothing to do with science is that it explains away facts it doesn't like, it has decided what the truth is from the outset and will never budge, even when faced with clear, contradictory evidence. I personally don't 'believe' in evolution simply because scientists say it is true, but because I can consider the evidence, think about the logic of the theory and make up my own mind. That is what scientists do. If you call that belief, then it is of an completely different kind than religious belief. A religious belief is not influenced by evidence; scientific belief says "I was wrong? Oh well, we live and learn"
There is an old joke, told by Dave Allen (can be found on Youtube):
The Pope is discussing with an atheist, and the Pope says: "You atheists are like a blind man, searching in a dark room for a black cat that isn't there!" - and the atheist replies: "Well, we are not so different, in fact - you Catholics too are like a blind man, search a dark room for a black cat that isn't there; but you believe you've found it!"