.NET has a very different focus than Java, and it is simply not possible for.NET to deliver on Sun's promises..NET is a truly closed environment. Microsoft's marketing team is trying to hide that from everyone, but it is too obvious.
Microsoft has not embraced industry standards, even if they claim to. Historically, they have very consistently bastardized widely used standards to prevent interoperability..NET will be no different. Here's a thought: HTML 2.0 is an IETF standard...how long did that last?
I don't get your point. From an application's perspective, what is the real difference between a two CPU Blade workstation and a 50 CPU Sun Fire server? If the application is designed to scale well to accomodate more CPUs and RAM, then there are very few barriers in configuring that application on any of Sun's servers.
Most of the practical differences between different Sun servers are dealt with by system administrators. The application interfaces to the operating system are consistent.
I don't think back compability is that important now.
The compatibility will always be important. I consistently play both PS1 and PS2 games on my PS2, since some of the PS1 games are just darn good.
Flea markets and retail store closeout shelves have tons of good PS1 games for much less than $20, when new PS2 games sell for $50. So, I can spring $50 for the occasional must-have PS2 game, but $10 for an older but fun puzzle game just can't be passed up.
I agree very much. Sun's philosophy is to market one line of computers that are very highly inter-compatible (Netra X1 with 1 CPU ---> Sun Fire 15K with >100 CPUs). Where else can you develop software on a personal workstation and feel comfortable that it'll run smoothly on the big-iron servers down the hall? I'm sure Sun is introducing the low-end Intel-based servers with big butterflies in their stomachs (it's sort of like a world-class French vineyard beginning to distribute Kentucky jug wine on the side).
If IBM bought Sun, I would fear that Sun's brand would just get bastardized, where purple Sun-brand Windows PCs are being sold in volume discount (yuck!). I just don't see IBM keeping both SPARC and the Power chips going. Solaris would go by the wayside, too. This would piss off quite a few Sun customers...perhaps SGI would make a comback due to the exodus from IBM?
365 people working on security for a single 8-hour day is a man-year of effort. How much can one person accomplish in one day--or even a month--when starting totally cold?
When I'm put on a non-trivial software project, it's a good couple of months before I really get a solid grasp of the software and the problem it solves.
So, in two months, Microsoft has really just begun the learning curve. I would be suprised if they really accomplished any real improvements to their code base. It's likely that most people just sat scratching their heads for 57 of those 60 days.
In conclusion, 1 man year Microsoft fresh start != 1 man year for 15+ year history of Free software (and 30+ year history of UNIX).
I have a feeling that MS wants everybody to run a 64-bit Windows Variant in the server world when Itanium architecture becomes wide-spread. That's why they're pulling the whole "Unix is too expensive" bit.
What's sort of funny is that Itanium-based servers cannot be cheaper than comparably configured UNIX/RISC servers. The market says so. For example, once Microsoft and Intel start shipping their 64-bit servers, Sun, IBM, SGI, etc. will simply start changing their pricing strategies. The only way Microsoft and Intel can compete on price, then, is to start clipping features and switching to cheaper components. The result: the same as it was ten years ago, where UNIX/RISC was high on features and price, but Windows/Intel was just the sometimes-good-enough commodity solution.
I just don't see the 64-bit world being any different than the 32-bit one was.
One argument against the CBDTPA is that technology companies will have an incentive to begin building analog devices again!
Imagine a CD-ROM disc that doesn't have those binary "bumps" but has little waves that jitter the laser as if it were a record needle. There is nothing stopping this completely analog signal from going straight to a completely analog CD recorder to make copies. A CD reader and writer can be enclosed in one really well shielded enclosure to make such good copies of the completely analog music data that people will think, "who ever needed that 20-bit digital music, anyway?"
I can imaging a resurgence of high-quality analog tape and disc devices that will totally replace all existing digital music and movie technology.
Perhaps it could go even further that analog computerss will reign again, too.
The UNIX tools are extremely appropriate small to medium projects and some large projects as well. For extremely large projects, then a whole new class of software, such as ClearCase, is needed, anyway, due to the sheer overhead of dealing with too many people.
Hell you don't even have a CVS system in your coding toolbelt.
Okay: sh+vi+make+cc+libs+CVS
I urge you to send your LaTeX doc as an.rtf or.doc file to any MS shop
I'll send it as HTML or PDF, instead. I'm sure there is an RTF translator, too, but I haven't used it. The DOC format is just inappropriate, in general.
You are responsible for what you produce.
Absolutely true. But I just cant bring myself to deliver work in unreliable file formats generated by software that probably won't be supported or even available five years from now.
When I want good electronic tools that get the job done quickly and effectively, I turn to/usr/bin/*. The irony in this is that the average program in/usr/bin was conceived in the early 1980s. Since then, there have been very few truly useful tools, such as the WWW browser, invented.
I absolutely agree that M$ makes it too hard on people. It's unfortunate that many M$-indoctrinites view 'vi', for example, as a complex tool, when its simplicity is a godsend.
I challenge anyone to prove that Visual Studio is truly more productive than sh+vi+make+cc+libs (here's a hint: it isn't). I challenge anyone to prove that Word is more productive than sh+vi+make+LaTeX+ispell (here's a hint: it isn't). And by productive, I mean producing something relatively quickly that, when you are done, is of such quality you would bet your reputation on it.
M$ has introduced so much complexity into our computing lives that I don't know whether I can trust anything produced by Word or Visual Studio enough that I would bet my reputation on it. That uncertainty is simply disturbing.
What is sickening is that so many Universities, whose professors fight so hard for academic freedom, are so willing to bend over for Microsoft.
What happens when a University chooses Microsoft? Students and faculty write papers in Word and programs in Visual Studio. They are condemning their thoughts and their hard work to be held under the grip of proprietary and unreliable file formats. They are imprisoned, now, for one company to control how and when they can access their own information! This is deplorable!
Microsoft is not a friend of academia no matter how friendly they appear.
Patterns are reusable data models, whereas algorithms are reusable procedures that operate on data models. Sometimes a pattern does include an algorithm (factory objects are an example, where methods are needed to overcome the lack of multiple inheritence in a language).
Perhaps one way of putting it is that data models capture reality, and, then, algorithms do something interesting with that reality.
Data models and algorithms are about all there is to CS. Data models and algorithms pretty much wrap up all the other sciences and the arts, too, since that's just how humans think about things.
One thing worth considering is the number of power cycles the drive sees. I think the typical installation of a 10K RPM or 15K RPM SCSI drive sees only a few dozen cycles in its lifetime, due to the "power it up and let it go" nature of servers. Real servers also tend to leave some space between the drives in an array, so that each drive is guaranteed some cooling.
Also, I wonder if cheap drives geared to home users have sloppier tolerances built into them, where some drives are just doomed to fail. For example, I recently bought a cheap 40GB drive that vibrates noticibly (and it worries me), but all the server-grade SCSI drives I've seen run real smoothly (no worries until the bearings start grinding after a few years).
A generally quiet environment is essential, where loud eating, loud earphones, Windows startup chimes, garbage trucks, etc. don't provide continuous interruption.
People should be able to interact conveniently, but still have enough privacy that they don't have to whisper on the telephone.
Shared offices don't work when someone chooses to eat lunch at an odd time crinkling and smacking for what seems like an eternity.
Cubicles don't work when they are so small you have to back out into the walkway to stand up.
Single offices don't work when the person has no discipline and just surfs the web all day.
Basically any option can work depending on the cross-section of people in your office. If everyone is a loud lazy jerk, then I wish you luck.
Oh yeah? That means the PS10 is right around the corner! I hear it will have a multi-threaded time travel interface that will allow the most realistic Civilization ever!
It reminds of the dichotomy you find between "consumer" grade and "commercial" grade items.... Consumer grade has always been so price conscious that quality suffers....
And there we have it: The Early Years of Microsoft Windows.
This is one reason Microsoft's "enterprise" operating systems are such kludges. They tried to take what people liked in Win 3.1, Win 95, etc. and shoehorn it into Win NT/2000.
Different markets + different requirements + one approach = something that satisfies neither market's requirements and is a bear to work with.
This, apparently, is the boat AOL/TW got into with their infrastructure. They aren't alone, either...I've seen more than one big corporation make similar bone-headed decisions from e-mail systems to payroll. It really is sad.
Place each monitor in an appropriately sized six-sided grounded metal box with a small hole just big enough for the power and video cables.
This should elimiate your magnetic interference problems. I would also recommend the chrome option for a really classy look.
Re:Serial ATA could REALLY cut into SCSI sales
on
Serial ATA Coming
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
...if you're willing to live with the four-device limitation of Serial ATA...
Many of us simply can't live with the four-device limitation. SCSI and Fiber Channel shine when scalability is needed. There are many applications for multi-controller multi-drive RAID devices that ATA simply isn't cut out for. It is also nice to just be able to add another device when needed--SCSI is very convenient.
...eventually see the equivalent of ATA-300 and ATA-600 speeds, which far surpasses even the current Ultra-Wide SCSI 160
This is comparing something that doesn't exist to something that does. Also, Ultra320 SCSI is just around the corner.
Third, Serial ATA--unlike SCSI--doesn't require you to load device drivers out of the wazoo to support devices on the bus.
This is untrue. One SCSI driver allows me to connect any SCSI device: hard disks, ZIP drives, scanners, etc. The only additional drivers are those needed for non-SCSI devices, such as the parallel port or a modem.
...SCSI is still pretty expensive...
Not in the long-term. Good system administrators are more expensive than SCSI controllers, and the time and frustration saved more than pays for the SCSI controllers.
And in the home, SCSI really never had a foot-hold, so Serial ATA changes nothing.
In short, ATA never really competed with SCSI and never will. As long as ATA is crippled to be useful only in personal computers, it will never appear in big computers, multi-user computers, or high-performance workstations. These are not niche markets, either.
Why is the article title "Another Java Security Hole in Windows"? The title seems to be assuming that there are many, as if really saying, "Oh no! Another Java Security Hole in Windows? What will I do?!?!" Rather, there have been suprisingly few security holes in Java considering the inherent complexity of the JVM and the Java APIs. There are other pieces of popular software that we need to be much more concerned about.
I understand that Extreme Programming is comprised of many sound principles...I just wish the name didn't force images of surfers and that Kool-Aid man into my mind.
Anyway, I agree that source files being touched by multiple people at one time can indicate design problems. One thing I've learned is that properly designed software naturally becomes modular enough that several engineers can work together yet not step on each other's code. This also tends to limit the number of engineers that can be applied to a project, but sometimes more engineers just crowd things rather than help. (I thank "The Mythical Man Month" by Fred Brooks for this essential wisdom)
1) These workstations typically are not replaced every two years. They get continually reassigned new tasks until they break. Sometimes this can take as long as ten years.
2) You need few people to maintain Sun hardware. Cheap workstation arguments sometimes fall when the stereotypical busload of M$ admins show up. It really takes considerable planning to determine which options are truly cheaper.
3) Yes, the software is often really expensive. Sometimes the cost of the hardware is just a small piece of the pie, so getting the best hardware is just not an issue.
The Sun Blade 100 is based on older technology. The Sun Blade 1000/2000 are brand-new top-of-the-line workstations.
Basically the Blade 100 is marketed for administrative workstations or inexpensive desktop workstations where binary compatibility is important and all-out performance is not.
...you can get a 106-way SPARC box, but Intel is limited to 32-way...
Not only that, but the USIII can scale to >1000 CPUs in a system. Sun can just keep pushing out whatever size server the market needs; they have a lot of headroom that Intel just doesn't have.
Why do some people choose to race BMWs instead of Dodge Neons? Why do some people choose brand-name Swiss Army knives over cheap knockoffs?
The high-end Sun workstations are well-rounded well-engineered computational workhorses. PCs just fall short in overall system flexibility, CPU cache size, I/O bandwidth, hardware errata, ease of maintainence, tight OS support, firmware, ECC,... you name it.
Sun workstations are useful until they are physically broken. From the engineering desktop to the printer server, it is common for a Sun box to go ten years before being decommissioned. How many ten year old PCs are still useful doing real work? Not many.
In general, the RISC-based computers from Sun, SGI, IBM, etc., can just be pushed harder, worked longer, and still be standing long after the PCs were abandoned and donated to schools.
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.NET has a very different focus than Java, and it is simply not possible for .NET to deliver on Sun's promises. .NET is a truly closed environment. Microsoft's marketing team is trying to hide that from everyone, but it is too obvious.
.NET will be no different. Here's a thought: HTML 2.0 is an IETF standard...how long did that last?
Microsoft has not embraced industry standards, even if they claim to. Historically, they have very consistently bastardized widely used standards to prevent interoperability.
I'm glad to see that U.S. elected officials still have some common sense!
I don't get your point. From an application's perspective, what is the real difference between a two CPU Blade workstation and a 50 CPU Sun Fire server? If the application is designed to scale well to accomodate more CPUs and RAM, then there are very few barriers in configuring that application on any of Sun's servers.
Most of the practical differences between different Sun servers are dealt with by system administrators. The application interfaces to the operating system are consistent.
I don't think back compability is that important now.
The compatibility will always be important. I consistently play both PS1 and PS2 games on my PS2, since some of the PS1 games are just darn good.
Flea markets and retail store closeout shelves have tons of good PS1 games for much less than $20, when new PS2 games sell for $50. So, I can spring $50 for the occasional must-have PS2 game, but $10 for an older but fun puzzle game just can't be passed up.
I agree very much. Sun's philosophy is to market one line of computers that are very highly inter-compatible (Netra X1 with 1 CPU ---> Sun Fire 15K with >100 CPUs). Where else can you develop software on a personal workstation and feel comfortable that it'll run smoothly on the big-iron servers down the hall? I'm sure Sun is introducing the low-end Intel-based servers with big butterflies in their stomachs (it's sort of like a world-class French vineyard beginning to distribute Kentucky jug wine on the side).
If IBM bought Sun, I would fear that Sun's brand would just get bastardized, where purple Sun-brand Windows PCs are being sold in volume discount (yuck!). I just don't see IBM keeping both SPARC and the Power chips going. Solaris would go by the wayside, too. This would piss off quite a few Sun customers...perhaps SGI would make a comback due to the exodus from IBM?
365 people working on security for a single 8-hour day is a man-year of effort. How much can one person accomplish in one day--or even a month--when starting totally cold?
When I'm put on a non-trivial software project, it's a good couple of months before I really get a solid grasp of the software and the problem it solves.
So, in two months, Microsoft has really just begun the learning curve. I would be suprised if they really accomplished any real improvements to their code base. It's likely that most people just sat scratching their heads for 57 of those 60 days.
In conclusion, 1 man year Microsoft fresh start != 1 man year for 15+ year history of Free software (and 30+ year history of UNIX).
I have a feeling that MS wants everybody to run a 64-bit Windows Variant in the server world when Itanium architecture becomes wide-spread. That's why they're pulling the whole "Unix is too expensive" bit.
What's sort of funny is that Itanium-based servers cannot be cheaper than comparably configured UNIX/RISC servers. The market says so. For example, once Microsoft and Intel start shipping their 64-bit servers, Sun, IBM, SGI, etc. will simply start changing their pricing strategies. The only way Microsoft and Intel can compete on price, then, is to start clipping features and switching to cheaper components. The result: the same as it was ten years ago, where UNIX/RISC was high on features and price, but Windows/Intel was just the sometimes-good-enough commodity solution.
I just don't see the 64-bit world being any different than the 32-bit one was.
One argument against the CBDTPA is that technology companies will have an incentive to begin building analog devices again!
Imagine a CD-ROM disc that doesn't have those binary "bumps" but has little waves that jitter the laser as if it were a record needle. There is nothing stopping this completely analog signal from going straight to a completely analog CD recorder to make copies. A CD reader and writer can be enclosed in one really well shielded enclosure to make such good copies of the completely analog music data that people will think, "who ever needed that 20-bit digital music, anyway?"
I can imaging a resurgence of high-quality analog tape and disc devices that will totally replace all existing digital music and movie technology.
Perhaps it could go even further that analog computerss will reign again, too.
Maybe for a small project
.rtf or .doc file to any MS shop
The UNIX tools are extremely appropriate small to medium projects and some large projects as well. For extremely large projects, then a whole new class of software, such as ClearCase, is needed, anyway, due to the sheer overhead of dealing with too many people.
Hell you don't even have a CVS system in your coding toolbelt.
Okay: sh+vi+make+cc+libs+CVS
I urge you to send your LaTeX doc as an
I'll send it as HTML or PDF, instead. I'm sure there is an RTF translator, too, but I haven't used it. The DOC format is just inappropriate, in general.
You are responsible for what you produce.
Absolutely true. But I just cant bring myself to deliver work in unreliable file formats generated by software that probably won't be supported or even available five years from now.
When I want good electronic tools that get the job done quickly and effectively, I turn to /usr/bin/*. The irony in this is that the average program in /usr/bin was conceived in the early 1980s. Since then, there have been very few truly useful tools, such as the WWW browser, invented.
I absolutely agree that M$ makes it too hard on people. It's unfortunate that many M$-indoctrinites view 'vi', for example, as a complex tool, when its simplicity is a godsend.
I challenge anyone to prove that Visual Studio is truly more productive than sh+vi+make+cc+libs (here's a hint: it isn't). I challenge anyone to prove that Word is more productive than sh+vi+make+LaTeX+ispell (here's a hint: it isn't). And by productive, I mean producing something relatively quickly that, when you are done, is of such quality you would bet your reputation on it.
M$ has introduced so much complexity into our computing lives that I don't know whether I can trust anything produced by Word or Visual Studio enough that I would bet my reputation on it. That uncertainty is simply disturbing.
What is sickening is that so many Universities, whose professors fight so hard for academic freedom, are so willing to bend over for Microsoft.
What happens when a University chooses Microsoft? Students and faculty write papers in Word and programs in Visual Studio. They are condemning their thoughts and their hard work to be held under the grip of proprietary and unreliable file formats. They are imprisoned, now, for one company to control how and when they can access their own information! This is deplorable!
Microsoft is not a friend of academia no matter how friendly they appear.
Another important question: Has anyone succeeded at using SOAP to crack a "web services" server?
Patterns and Algoritms are apples and oranges.
Patterns are reusable data models, whereas algorithms are reusable procedures that operate on data models. Sometimes a pattern does include an algorithm (factory objects are an example, where methods are needed to overcome the lack of multiple inheritence in a language).
Perhaps one way of putting it is that data models capture reality, and, then, algorithms do something interesting with that reality.
Data models and algorithms are about all there is to CS. Data models and algorithms pretty much wrap up all the other sciences and the arts, too, since that's just how humans think about things.
One thing worth considering is the number of power cycles the drive sees. I think the typical installation of a 10K RPM or 15K RPM SCSI drive sees only a few dozen cycles in its lifetime, due to the "power it up and let it go" nature of servers. Real servers also tend to leave some space between the drives in an array, so that each drive is guaranteed some cooling.
Also, I wonder if cheap drives geared to home users have sloppier tolerances built into them, where some drives are just doomed to fail. For example, I recently bought a cheap 40GB drive that vibrates noticibly (and it worries me), but all the server-grade SCSI drives I've seen run real smoothly (no worries until the bearings start grinding after a few years).
A generally quiet environment is essential, where loud eating, loud earphones, Windows startup chimes, garbage trucks, etc. don't provide continuous interruption.
People should be able to interact conveniently, but still have enough privacy that they don't have to whisper on the telephone.
Shared offices don't work when someone chooses to eat lunch at an odd time crinkling and smacking for what seems like an eternity.
Cubicles don't work when they are so small you have to back out into the walkway to stand up.
Single offices don't work when the person has no discipline and just surfs the web all day.
Basically any option can work depending on the cross-section of people in your office. If everyone is a loud lazy jerk, then I wish you luck.
Oh yeah? That means the PS10 is right around the corner! I hear it will have a multi-threaded time travel interface that will allow the most realistic Civilization ever!
It reminds of the dichotomy you find between "consumer" grade and "commercial" grade items.... Consumer grade has always been so price conscious that quality suffers....
And there we have it: The Early Years of Microsoft Windows.
This is one reason Microsoft's "enterprise" operating systems are such kludges. They tried to take what people liked in Win 3.1, Win 95, etc. and shoehorn it into Win NT/2000.
Different markets + different requirements + one approach = something that satisfies neither market's requirements and is a bear to work with.
This, apparently, is the boat AOL/TW got into with their infrastructure. They aren't alone, either...I've seen more than one big corporation make similar bone-headed decisions from e-mail systems to payroll. It really is sad.
Place each monitor in an appropriately sized six-sided grounded metal box with a small hole just big enough for the power and video cables.
This should elimiate your magnetic interference problems. I would also recommend the chrome option for a really classy look.
...if you're willing to live with the four-device limitation of Serial ATA...
...eventually see the equivalent of ATA-300 and ATA-600 speeds, which far surpasses even the current Ultra-Wide SCSI 160
...SCSI is still pretty expensive...
Many of us simply can't live with the four-device limitation. SCSI and Fiber Channel shine when scalability is needed. There are many applications for multi-controller multi-drive RAID devices that ATA simply isn't cut out for. It is also nice to just be able to add another device when needed--SCSI is very convenient.
This is comparing something that doesn't exist to something that does. Also, Ultra320 SCSI is just around the corner.
Third, Serial ATA--unlike SCSI--doesn't require you to load device drivers out of the wazoo to support devices on the bus.
This is untrue. One SCSI driver allows me to connect any SCSI device: hard disks, ZIP drives, scanners, etc. The only additional drivers are those needed for non-SCSI devices, such as the parallel port or a modem.
Not in the long-term. Good system administrators are more expensive than SCSI controllers, and the time and frustration saved more than pays for the SCSI controllers.
And in the home, SCSI really never had a foot-hold, so Serial ATA changes nothing.
In short, ATA never really competed with SCSI and never will. As long as ATA is crippled to be useful only in personal computers, it will never appear in big computers, multi-user computers, or high-performance workstations. These are not niche markets, either.
Why is the article title "Another Java Security Hole in Windows"? The title seems to be assuming that there are many, as if really saying, "Oh no! Another Java Security Hole in Windows? What will I do?!?!" Rather, there have been suprisingly few security holes in Java considering the inherent complexity of the JVM and the Java APIs. There are other pieces of popular software that we need to be much more concerned about.
I understand that Extreme Programming is comprised of many sound principles...I just wish the name didn't force images of surfers and that Kool-Aid man into my mind.
Anyway, I agree that source files being touched by multiple people at one time can indicate design problems. One thing I've learned is that properly designed software naturally becomes modular enough that several engineers can work together yet not step on each other's code. This also tends to limit the number of engineers that can be applied to a project, but sometimes more engineers just crowd things rather than help. (I thank "The Mythical Man Month" by Fred Brooks for this essential wisdom)
1) These workstations typically are not replaced every two years. They get continually reassigned new tasks until they break. Sometimes this can take as long as ten years.
2) You need few people to maintain Sun hardware. Cheap workstation arguments sometimes fall when the stereotypical busload of M$ admins show up. It really takes considerable planning to determine which options are truly cheaper.
3) Yes, the software is often really expensive. Sometimes the cost of the hardware is just a small piece of the pie, so getting the best hardware is just not an issue.
The Sun Blade 100 is based on older technology. The Sun Blade 1000/2000 are brand-new top-of-the-line workstations.
Basically the Blade 100 is marketed for administrative workstations or inexpensive desktop workstations where binary compatibility is important and all-out performance is not.
...you can get a 106-way SPARC box, but Intel is limited to 32-way...
Not only that, but the USIII can scale to >1000 CPUs in a system. Sun can just keep pushing out whatever size server the market needs; they have a lot of headroom that Intel just doesn't have.
Why do some people choose to race BMWs instead of Dodge Neons? Why do some people choose brand-name Swiss Army knives over cheap knockoffs?
... you name it.
The high-end Sun workstations are well-rounded well-engineered computational workhorses. PCs just fall short in overall system flexibility, CPU cache size, I/O bandwidth, hardware errata, ease of maintainence, tight OS support, firmware, ECC,
Sun workstations are useful until they are physically broken. From the engineering desktop to the printer server, it is common for a Sun box to go ten years before being decommissioned. How many ten year old PCs are still useful doing real work? Not many.
In general, the RISC-based computers from Sun, SGI, IBM, etc., can just be pushed harder, worked longer, and still be standing long after the PCs were abandoned and donated to schools.