I know most people hate testing and see it has a dead end boring job, but if you take the right attitude it can be a good gateway to a future career in development (hey you might even find you like test).
Does software testing pay? I've seen postings for software testers but am skeptical that those positions could pay as well as system administration or software engineering. I'd love for my skepticism to be proven unfounded, however.
Good citizenship in the corporate community. Understanding that "a piece of the pie" is good enough. Not crushing good ideas and smearing their corpses onto the pavement just because they are in the way. Embracing open standards knowing they are the best for long-term success.
3. Alternatives to Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP Learn about the Microsoft alternatives and how to move to them from open source products. www.microsoft.com/serviceproviders/migr ation
If that's not biased, I don't know what is...;)
This is why it is so critical that Microsoft is not successful in their attempts to control the flow of information, even to their own customers.
Don't be suprised, if in five years, your search for Linux returns (into your MS Brainstem 2.0) "Linux? There is no Linux...you don't remember there ever being a Linux...you will now buy Windows 2005!"
They try to control what you read and hear via NBC, CNBC, MSNBC, Newsweek, and Slate. They go after what does and doesn't exist on the WWW by setting up MSN, Expedia, Encarta, Carpoint, etc. They try to control personal communication through Hotmail. They control what software you use via Windows and their aquire-and-crush tactics. Controlling their customers' search results is simply the next logical thing to do.
There is competition, right now, but that is no guarantee of competition in the future.
In other markets and industries, people have clearly stated they don't want one company controlling their whole life. Why is it so damn difficult to do the same thing with computers and software???
Bet you can't write that in functional, OOP and declarative forms.;-)
Well, for such a simple operation, it's mostly a trivial matter. In Lisp, I suppose it would be something like (stuff-output "blahblah"), and, in Java, it could be abstractGenerator.blurt("blahblah"). "Declarative" is a buzzword that I'm not intimately familar with, so I can't help you there.
Thankfully, modern marketing allows an important optimization to be made for improved code reuse:
void output_platform_abstract( char* platform_name ) {
printf( "The %s Programming System is an advanced development platform for intelligent, distributed applications. The system is the result of...et cetera et cetera", platform_name ); }
This function is hereby released into the public domain, so authors everywhere can automatically generate the first chapter of their books. Enjoy!
The work of people like us makes the work of people like you possible.
I hope this was meant to be sarcastic. Everyone makes everyone else's work possible. Otherwise, there would be no such thing as an economy nor such a thing as progress.
Do the articles have to be flamebait, in order for people to post replies?
This was actually a very good interview. For example, the Mad Hatter desktop might be out before the year is over (good stuff: Linux, GNOME, plus Microsoft filesharing and Exhange interoperability). Sun is one company who could sell something like this, because they are a very well known brandname along with an ability to offer big support. Sun is also one company who has an interest in promoting Solaris, Linux, and Windows interoperability without keeping an ace in their sleeve. If they are successful, nearly everyone benefits.
... you haven't written dynamic html until you've written javascript that generates perl that generates html that generates javascript that builds perl code to filter the html. Heh, sometimes I miss the dot-com days.
And, after all the filtering, the resulting HTML is : <BLINK>You are fired!</BLINK>
... the 2nd edition is about twice the size as the old ones.
Whatever happened to the WWW simplifying things?:/
The complexity of software development is certainly no less than it was ten or fifteen years ago...I think it has actually gone up significantly. The addition of hundreds of new buzzwords and embryonic toolsets has not helped at all.
In many cases, customers or managers strive for gigamegagigantic things like.NET or J2EE, when all they really need is good 'ol CGI with a bell or a whistle here and there. I've seen trival applications being run on big-ass servers with Oracle, WebLogic, etc. out the wazoo, when only 0.005% of their capabilities are utilized. Additionally, even with all those CPUs and gigabytes of RAM, the application performance is terrible. I've also found it quite ironic that gigabytes of software are being installed and configured to run an application that is only a few tens of thousands of lines of code with a database of 50 objects.
So creating a Z specification: -mean more work before coding starts -forces you to be very specific about what correct behaviour is
Not just more work. Imagine trying to get a customer to agree on a Z specification. They'll probably say, "Z??? Isn't that some sort of science fiction mini-series?". Also, for many customers, not being specific is the only specific thing about them.
This is where the "black art" of programming is most pronounced, because it often has more in common with building architecture or fashion design than mathematics. This is also why most software projects fail to do anything useful and either become figurative dust bunny collectors or "white elephants". It can be quite frustrating.
Z is a formal (i.e., mathematical) specification notation used by industry...
What industry?
In practice, just getting the requirements right is more important. The better the problem domain is understood, the fewer errors--real or percieved--will be present in the implemented system.
Also, I know of no programming language that fully prevents the possibility of side-effects of new code. C allows some pointer arithmetic to totally destroy basically anything in the program. A Java "null pointer exception" can leave disk files or other data in a incomplete state. The best a Lisp environment can do is let the programmer "undo" a problem to try again, which isn't suitable for production code.
So, any change in a program's requirements would require a full re-analysis with this Z and B-method stuff? If this is true, no wonder no one I know ever mentions it.
What I would really want is more and better specifications for data exchange formats, so test suites can be more common for conformance testing and validation. Test suites are a lot of work, but they can become the "living specification" that everyone measures up against (meaning the specifications and test suites have errors but everyone is the same in their wrong-ness).
Excuse me but I would prefer not to live in a world without entertainment.
A world without entertainment is not possible.
For example, I find watching a trail of ants to be much much more entertaining than shit like "Real TV" or "CNN Headline News". Ants are really amazing (I'm serious).
Here are other things that can be entertaining:
1) Talking to a spouse. If the marriage is right, then talking to a spouse is like talking to a best friend. Talking to children is a good thing to do, also. Kids might even be more amazing than ants!
2) Climb to the top of a small mountain (1000 ft. should do it). Now, look.
3) Go to a museum. Train museums are very nice, because they usually have a big train set in the basement. Good family fun.
4) Good authors write good books. Perhaps there is a book out there whose plot hasn't been done 50 times over and ruined by a made-for-TV studio.
5) Taking a small boat or canoe out on to a lake is fun, good excersize, and can be a confidence builder for people who are otherwise shut-in.
6) Lots of people go bowling or square dancing, etc.
7) It's been a long time since I've seen a really good set of stars, due to light pollution. The last time I was really out in the boonies, a friend pointed out some really neat stuff (some satellites are visible with the naked eye, for example).
Yes, but this thread is about the involuntary redirection to MS' websites.
MY TIME OF DAY?! OH MY GOD!
Totally valid marketing data. Not necessarily evil, but it is real.
Now your pushing it.
Not really. The router IP addresses in traceroute often resolve into location-specific hostnames. Also, the owner of your IP address block can be location specific or company specific.
This is also valuable marketing data....and then only if you have the feature enabled in the free software they`ve supplied and which you`ve chosen to use.
?? How many people "choose" Internet Explorer? IE is a cash cow of data valuable for marketing purposes and even strategic purposes.
They also have your IP address, time of day, frequency of Internet use, possibly your location (via traceroute), and what kinds of websites you are looking for. Based on the websites, they can even infer your age group, sex, and "secret habits".
Replying to myself.... I just realized that via whois lookup, they can potentially figure out who you work for and/or what ISP you use. If they have figured out those fingerprinting techniques, they might even be able to detect your LAN configuration (NAT, etc.).
All this for unintentially visiting a Microsoft website. The default msn.com IE home page achieves much of this, too, except most of the demographic data.
Geez, this is getting worse and worse...must stop thinking...
Yeah maaaan! Microsoft - and therefore the government - now has a huge list of misspelled and non-existant website addresses!
They also have your IP address, time of day, frequency of Internet use, possibly your location (via traceroute), and what kinds of websites you are looking for. Based on the websites, they can even infer your age group, sex, and "secret habits".
Don't forget that it is unknowable what kinds of IE backdoors are in place to look at your portfolio of cookies, browser history, browser cache, and preferences settings.
If that isn't valuable marketing data, then just call me a goat and hose me down with grape Kool-aid.
Slashdot Mirror
I know most people hate testing and see it has a dead end boring job, but if you take the right attitude it can be a good gateway to a future career in development (hey you might even find you like test).
Does software testing pay? I've seen postings for software testers but am skeptical that those positions could pay as well as system administration or software engineering. I'd love for my skepticism to be proven unfounded, however.
It's a company, what would you expect?
Good citizenship in the corporate community. Understanding that "a piece of the pie" is good enough. Not crushing good ideas and smearing their corpses onto the pavement just because they are in the way. Embracing open standards knowing they are the best for long-term success.
What else would a respectable company do?
I love that MSN Search for "linux":
r ation
;)
3. Alternatives to Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP
Learn about the Microsoft alternatives and how to move to them from open source products.
www.microsoft.com/serviceproviders/mig
If that's not biased, I don't know what is...
This is why it is so critical that Microsoft is not successful in their attempts to control the flow of information, even to their own customers.
Don't be suprised, if in five years, your search for Linux returns (into your MS Brainstem 2.0) "Linux? There is no Linux...you don't remember there ever being a Linux...you will now buy Windows 2005!"
Once Microsoft bought the government, buying Google was the next logical step.
This is one instance where it is not funny because it is true!
They try to control what you read and hear via NBC, CNBC, MSNBC, Newsweek, and Slate. They go after what does and doesn't exist on the WWW by setting up MSN, Expedia, Encarta, Carpoint, etc. They try to control personal communication through Hotmail. They control what software you use via Windows and their aquire-and-crush tactics. Controlling their customers' search results is simply the next logical thing to do.
There is competition, right now, but that is no guarantee of competition in the future.
In other markets and industries, people have clearly stated they don't want one company controlling their whole life. Why is it so damn difficult to do the same thing with computers and software???
Bet you can't write that in functional, OOP and declarative forms. ;-)
Well, for such a simple operation, it's mostly a trivial matter. In Lisp, I suppose it would be something like (stuff-output "blahblah"), and, in Java, it could be abstractGenerator.blurt("blahblah"). "Declarative" is a buzzword that I'm not intimately familar with, so I can't help you there.
Hottest, Densest Matter Ever Observed
May the blonde jokes commence!
You might be surprised to hear this, but coffee has became probably THE national drink of Japan.
So, between the caffeine and the nicotine, do the Japanese bounce to work?
Decaffeinated diet coke (aka water).
Or my favorite: Caffeine-free Diet Mountain Dew.
p.s. here are quick excerpts: ...
Thankfully, modern marketing allows an important optimization to be made for improved code reuse:
void output_platform_abstract( char* platform_name )
{
printf( "The %s Programming System is an advanced development platform for intelligent, distributed applications. The system is the result of...et cetera et cetera", platform_name );
}
This function is hereby released into the public domain, so authors everywhere can automatically generate the first chapter of their books. Enjoy!
The work of people like us makes the work of people like you possible.
I hope this was meant to be sarcastic. Everyone makes everyone else's work possible. Otherwise, there would be no such thing as an economy nor such a thing as progress.
Do the articles have to be flamebait, in order for people to post replies?
This was actually a very good interview. For example, the Mad Hatter desktop might be out before the year is over (good stuff: Linux, GNOME, plus Microsoft filesharing and Exhange interoperability). Sun is one company who could sell something like this, because they are a very well known brandname along with an ability to offer big support. Sun is also one company who has an interest in promoting Solaris, Linux, and Windows interoperability without keeping an ace in their sleeve. If they are successful, nearly everyone benefits.
... you haven't written dynamic html until you've written javascript that generates perl that generates html that generates javascript that builds perl code to filter the html. Heh, sometimes I miss the dot-com days.
And, after all the filtering, the resulting HTML is : <BLINK>You are fired!</BLINK>
... the 2nd edition is about twice the size as the old ones.
:/
.NET or J2EE, when all they really need is good 'ol CGI with a bell or a whistle here and there. I've seen trival applications being run on big-ass servers with Oracle, WebLogic, etc. out the wazoo, when only 0.005% of their capabilities are utilized. Additionally, even with all those CPUs and gigabytes of RAM, the application performance is terrible. I've also found it quite ironic that gigabytes of software are being installed and configured to run an application that is only a few tens of thousands of lines of code with a database of 50 objects.
Whatever happened to the WWW simplifying things?
The complexity of software development is certainly no less than it was ten or fifteen years ago...I think it has actually gone up significantly. The addition of hundreds of new buzzwords and embryonic toolsets has not helped at all.
In many cases, customers or managers strive for gigamegagigantic things like
Sigh.
So creating a Z specification:
-mean more work before coding starts
-forces you to be very specific about what correct behaviour is
Not just more work. Imagine trying to get a customer to agree on a Z specification. They'll probably say, "Z??? Isn't that some sort of science fiction mini-series?". Also, for many customers, not being specific is the only specific thing about them.
This is where the "black art" of programming is most pronounced, because it often has more in common with building architecture or fashion design than mathematics. This is also why most software projects fail to do anything useful and either become figurative dust bunny collectors or "white elephants". It can be quite frustrating.
Z is a formal (i.e., mathematical) specification notation used by industry...
What industry?
In practice, just getting the requirements right is more important. The better the problem domain is understood, the fewer errors--real or percieved--will be present in the implemented system.
Also, I know of no programming language that fully prevents the possibility of side-effects of new code. C allows some pointer arithmetic to totally destroy basically anything in the program. A Java "null pointer exception" can leave disk files or other data in a incomplete state. The best a Lisp environment can do is let the programmer "undo" a problem to try again, which isn't suitable for production code.
So, any change in a program's requirements would require a full re-analysis with this Z and B-method stuff? If this is true, no wonder no one I know ever mentions it.
What I would really want is more and better specifications for data exchange formats, so test suites can be more common for conformance testing and validation. Test suites are a lot of work, but they can become the "living specification" that everyone measures up against (meaning the specifications and test suites have errors but everyone is the same in their wrong-ness).
"Of course you did: if you don't make it yourself, it's not fun, it's entertainment"
Therefore, Nature is entertaining, correct?
Excuse me but I would prefer not to live in a world without entertainment.
A world without entertainment is not possible.
For example, I find watching a trail of ants to be much much more entertaining than shit like "Real TV" or "CNN Headline News". Ants are really amazing (I'm serious).
Here are other things that can be entertaining:
1) Talking to a spouse. If the marriage is right, then talking to a spouse is like talking to a best friend. Talking to children is a good thing to do, also. Kids might even be more amazing than ants!
2) Climb to the top of a small mountain (1000 ft. should do it). Now, look.
3) Go to a museum. Train museums are very nice, because they usually have a big train set in the basement. Good family fun.
4) Good authors write good books. Perhaps there is a book out there whose plot hasn't been done 50 times over and ruined by a made-for-TV studio.
5) Taking a small boat or canoe out on to a lake is fun, good excersize, and can be a confidence builder for people who are otherwise shut-in.
6) Lots of people go bowling or square dancing, etc.
7) It's been a long time since I've seen a really good set of stars, due to light pollution. The last time I was really out in the boonies, a friend pointed out some really neat stuff (some satellites are visible with the naked eye, for example).
Every site i`ve ever visited has my IP address.
...and then only if you have the feature enabled in the free software they`ve supplied and which you`ve chosen to use.
Yes, but this thread is about the involuntary redirection to MS' websites.
MY TIME OF DAY?! OH MY GOD!
Totally valid marketing data. Not necessarily evil, but it is real.
Now your pushing it.
Not really. The router IP addresses in traceroute often resolve into location-specific hostnames. Also, the owner of your IP address block can be location specific or company specific.
This is also valuable marketing data.
?? How many people "choose" Internet Explorer? IE is a cash cow of data valuable for marketing purposes and even strategic purposes.
No, EULAs are licenses, and therefore legal documents. Legal documents cannot be copyrighted.
Only if they constitute a real contract. Thus, the old debate over the enforcability of EULAs continues...
They also have your IP address, time of day, frequency of Internet use, possibly your location (via traceroute), and what kinds of websites you are looking for. Based on the websites, they can even infer your age group, sex, and "secret habits".
Replying to myself.... I just realized that via whois lookup, they can potentially figure out who you work for and/or what ISP you use. If they have figured out those fingerprinting techniques, they might even be able to detect your LAN configuration (NAT, etc.).
All this for unintentially visiting a Microsoft website. The default msn.com IE home page achieves much of this, too, except most of the demographic data.
Geez, this is getting worse and worse...must stop thinking...
Yeah maaaan! Microsoft - and therefore the government - now has a huge list of misspelled and non-existant website addresses!
They also have your IP address, time of day, frequency of Internet use, possibly your location (via traceroute), and what kinds of websites you are looking for. Based on the websites, they can even infer your age group, sex, and "secret habits".
Don't forget that it is unknowable what kinds of IE backdoors are in place to look at your portfolio of cookies, browser history, browser cache, and preferences settings.
If that isn't valuable marketing data, then just call me a goat and hose me down with grape Kool-aid.
$89 million is not exactly peanuts.
Bill G. uses more than this to refill his Kleenex boxes and TP rolls.
Ballmer shreds more than this for his custom-made mattresses and pillows.
Again, WHAT???
I filtered Caldera so I don't have to see all of these stories and here's one slipping through.
The SCO section you speak of would quickly be obselete. It is probably not worth the effort.
Shhhh... (whispers) The reason IBM seemed to stall so long in replying to SCO is that these things are damn slow. Just wait one more week...