LOL what an asinine comment. You write a complete app in C or C++ (dont' be using templates) and i'll do the same in c#, i'll not only complete it far quicker than you i'll use 50%+ less lines of code.
C++, C#, and Java would all be approximately the same for development speed, given comparable sets of class and function libraries. C is clearly more verbose. Lisp would best them all. Regardless, "rapid development" and "complete application" are mutually exclusive for all but the most trivial applications, because the 80/20 rule is universal.
...if your ass would have followed the link provied you see that Ximian (makers of Redcarpet and major contributor to gnome) are the primary force behind Mono aka C# on linux as well as many other platforms. Try to RTFA next time.
The set of APIs is just too big, and.NET is just too complex. Mono will probably be forever incomplete just like the free Java implementations or WINE. This is simply history repeating itself.
Its unfortunate for all of use that there are people like you.
It is possible now to track what magazines I buy (through credit cards, Bonus cards, etc. and the UPC code on the magazine), and form a database.
This is why people should think twice about entering certain search strings in Google or even what they type into Slashdot. It is pretty obvious that Slashdot articles about TIA, etc., get fewer postings than one might expect. Fear appears to be a very effective means for censorship.
A better analogy would be the front door on your house. If you leave it unlocked, well that's pretty stupid.
This is a poor analogy, because people only learned to lock their doors, on a cultural scale, after getting burned severly by leaving doors unlocked.
Why is it customary to lock doors? It is because we are indoctrinated to do it. The people getting burned by Slammer and its friends recieved no indoctrination by Microsoft or anyone else.
It is no different than a person moving from the sticks into a high-crime city. They habitually leave their door unlocked the first week...and BAM their jewelry and stereo is gone. I'd bet they lock their doors the next week, but only after that one really hard lesson. Alternatively, they would lock their doors right away, because, perhaps, their new neighbor educates them about the risks of their new city life. Either way, they learn.
Negligence, perhaps, but this would open a whole can of worms...
It is arguable that this can of worms is necessary. Lots of people need an attitude check with regard to software complexity and why they really can't have their cake and eat it, too. Software isn't magical, it is real tangible technology invented by humans. Why the FCC, the DOT, the FDA, the OSHA, and the USDA can go and breath down the necks of every other industry in the USA and leave software in the clear is baffling. There are no widely-accepted engineering standards for software, and the concept of a "professional engineer" in software is basically a joke right now.
The software industry has deluded everyone regarding the real cost of software. This needs to change. As more liability suits come about, this will change--it's how industries changed in the past, and software is just the next one in line.
it is impossible to spot and fix every bug in it, so no one should realistically expect software to be reliable all the time.
This thought makes me real comfortable whenever I use an ATM or fly or drive or use an elevator or, well, pretty much any of the thousand things we encounter each day that are computer-controlled.
Hey, let's put Windows on a war ship!! That'll be awesome!!! How does Windows end up in the military, anyway? Why does hardware have to be super-hardened for military use, and, then, they go and install Windows?!?
MS SQL has 11% marketshare (according to MS themselves), yet the only mass-infection hit it and not somebody else. Coincidence?
Interesting point. Aside from the scott/tiger obvious stuff, how common are Oracle or DB2 vulnerabilities? I'm sure they are more common than we know about, but how many have been really exploited?
IIS runs only 25% (and sinking) of webservers, yet ALL mass-infections so far hit it and none Apache which runs over 60%.
Well, to be fair, I'd say that few if any hit Apache. Apache deserves a lot of credit, regardless.
What's that you say? Sysadmins are often stuck between a rock and a hard place when it comes "choosing" the software already specified by the voice in the light from above...er, I mean management.
Don't underestimate the power of Microsoft's marketing department.
Maybe those people and businesses affected by Slammer should have gotten their lazy asses in gear...
Or, maybe Microsoft should stop what they are doing, look at their code, and exclaim "Oh, God, what a monster we have created!"
OpenBSD, for example, is deliberately conservative, and they have a pretty good track record. Can't corporations get off of their marketing high-horse and compromise? Is the greed simply too great?
You can kill people with a gun, but I haven't seen any lawsuit against S&W for creating a tool that can be used to commit a crime.
Guns are a tool. If you are stranded in a desert with a gun as your only possession, at least you can shoot and eat a camel for survival.
You can make a photocopy of a book, and while it's true that Xerox and other companies have been threatened I haven't heard yet of any paper company being sued for creating a medium that can be used to infringe copyrights.
Photocopiers were one of the "killer applications" of their day. Imagine the legitimate cost savings of typing a memo only once. Photocopiers had a solid tangible impact on the world economy.
And so it is now with search engines. The difference that motivates the RIAA, I do not know.
The goal is to make life easier and more productive for developers, and to handle more complex systems with less code, less repetition, and just generally better-engineered solutions.
Has this actually occurred in practice? I have yet to see it. The explosion in the number of APIs with these goals has arguably made the developer's job much much harder, where the learning curve leading to informed decision making is becoming impassable. Specialization of jobs is not improved from before, where the "Oracle developer" is replaced with a "J2EE developer" or, worse, an "EJB developer". And, now, there needs to be both the "Oracle developer" and the "J2EE developer", because both systems are so complex that one person can hardly do both jobs competently. Using something like J2EE or.NET hardly relieves the project of needing its database-specific expertise.
Net reduction in complexity: nil. All we have accomplished is sweeping the pile of complexity to the other side of the room and adding new staff to document where the pile went.
Most database users are seriously tied to their database - in most cases, it would be easier to switch server OS than switch databases.
Similarly, most (insert API name) users are seriously tied to their (insert API name). Again, in most cases it would be easier to switch the server OS than switch (insert API name). Additionally, the lock-in is now not only database-specific but application-server-specific, as well, because I have yet to see an abstraction layer so well concieved that the database doesn't leak through.
So, one major goal for these mapping and abstraction layers is to allow a more robust programming language to be used, to provide better functionality and reduce or eliminate dependency on specific databases.
But they add literally millions of lines of code that is opaque to its users, tens of thousands of nuances, and hundreds of new things to learn. How can this be called progress, when complexity is actually going up rather than down?
I really think the software industry needs to step back and take a breath.
Re:employment and advancement
on
Inside SAIC
·
· Score: 1
apparently, there's some signal noise between your brain and your fingers as you type your wannabe sarcastic message
Well, I'm not sure I can argue this point. Perhaps I need an RF filter in my shoulders?
Well, it's hard to pick up sarcasm when you say "In all seriousness"
I was being seriously sarcastic? Or, was it sarcastically serious? Regardless, I was serious in that this is how big companies operate--no attribute, no bonus point. The irony is that paper credentials cannot capture what the corporation is attempting to capture, but they try anyway.
Re:employment and advancement
on
Inside SAIC
·
· Score: 1
so, degrees are the only "worthwhile attributes", eh? elitist bastard...
I'm a subcontractor at Lockheed Martin along with a number of SAIC subs, and I can't say that I've been all that impressed with all of them.
This is what every defense contractor says about every other defense contractor. Don't be suprised if you find out what those SAIC guys say about you!
Also, companies like SAIC are so damn big, that the people you are working with are not representative of the company. I've worked with some people from Raytheon who couldn't shoot fish in a barrel, but, then, I never had the chance to meet their people who design aircraft and radar systems. There has to be a few smart cookies in there somewhere.
Re:employment and advancement
on
Inside SAIC
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
I don't know about the rest of you, but I've met a ton of people with great credentials who are morons and many non-degreed and non-certified people who are excellent people to work and deal with.
Large corporations are machines. If you don't exist on paper, you don't exist at all.
In all seriousness, if you were an HR person with thousands of employees to track, how would you track them? Get to know them around a campfire singing camp songs or, perhaps more conveniently, a datastore holding all your worthwhile attributes? If it isn't in the data model, it can't be worthwhile, can it?
Re:This is what people need to be reading
on
Inside SAIC
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I for one have never heard of this company before today and I'm pretty shocked. I've been pretty vocal about worries on TIA issues, but geeze...
You won't hear about most defense contractors. In truth, they are everywhere--a dime a dozen. Some small doing integration work, some immense building B-2 bombers or Eshelawn. SAIC isn't anything special, really, other than some of the other things mentioned here (employee ownership, etc.).
If this article is any eye-opener for you, then please don't turn around...
Normal install on a Pentium 400-class PC, including a hard drive format. 50X CD-ROM, 5400RPM hard disk, 256MB RAM. Performance of the OS after installation is just fine.
You probably thought that was normal too.
Should I have expected something better? Were talking about Windows, here.
Now, it usually takes ~ 30 minutes to an hour to install Linux. Probably about the same for Windows.
Actually, Win XP took at least two hours when I last installed it. I went out and mowed the lawn in the intervening time. Solaris 9 installs faster...and that's with pkgadd! Of course, YMMV.
I would love to be able to keep a cache of a recursive map structure in memory (indefinately!) and have modifications automatically cascade the required updates to all nodes and revoke/expire any checked out nodes.
Haven't some of these problems already been solved in the RDBMS systems themselves? Are databases really so slow (meaning misapplied, misdesigned, and misconfigured) that all these layers upon layers upon layers of APIs and abstractions are necessary to get the job done?
Why not just two racks of computers: one rack with a database cluster, whose database vendor has solved all the data integrity issues, and one rack of apache webservers with gool ol' fashioned CGI programs? Wouldn't the raw simplicity of this configuration pay for itself? Stick a god-awful fast interconnect in there and bandwidth shouldn't be a limiting factor. I've never done this--it's just an idea.
Slashdot Mirror
But why would MS want their OS to be pretty?
It's like women who wear lots of make-up but not enough to cover up the frown lines and sunken eyes.
Does anyone know why MS chose the name Longhorn for the Windows XP successor?
Actually, it's truth in advertising, as in "turn around, so we can give you the Long Horn".
LOL what an asinine comment. You write a complete app in C or C++ (dont' be using templates) and i'll do the same in c#, i'll not only complete it far quicker than you i'll use 50%+ less lines of code.
...if your ass would have followed the link provied you see that Ximian (makers of Redcarpet and major contributor to gnome) are the primary force behind Mono aka C# on linux as well as many other platforms. Try to RTFA next time.
.NET is just too complex. Mono will probably be forever incomplete just like the free Java implementations or WINE. This is simply history repeating itself.
C++, C#, and Java would all be approximately the same for development speed, given comparable sets of class and function libraries. C is clearly more verbose. Lisp would best them all. Regardless, "rapid development" and "complete application" are mutually exclusive for all but the most trivial applications, because the 80/20 rule is universal.
The set of APIs is just too big, and
Its unfortunate for all of use that there are people like you.
I'm heartbroken.
The last thing we need is more material for Fox reality shows! Stop it now before it's too late!
It is possible now to track what magazines I buy (through credit cards, Bonus cards, etc. and the UPC code on the magazine), and form a database.
This is why people should think twice about entering certain search strings in Google or even what they type into Slashdot. It is pretty obvious that Slashdot articles about TIA, etc., get fewer postings than one might expect. Fear appears to be a very effective means for censorship.
A better analogy would be the front door on your house. If you leave it unlocked, well that's pretty stupid.
This is a poor analogy, because people only learned to lock their doors, on a cultural scale, after getting burned severly by leaving doors unlocked.
Why is it customary to lock doors? It is because we are indoctrinated to do it. The people getting burned by Slammer and its friends recieved no indoctrination by Microsoft or anyone else.
It is no different than a person moving from the sticks into a high-crime city. They habitually leave their door unlocked the first week...and BAM their jewelry and stereo is gone. I'd bet they lock their doors the next week, but only after that one really hard lesson. Alternatively, they would lock their doors right away, because, perhaps, their new neighbor educates them about the risks of their new city life. Either way, they learn.
Negligence, perhaps, but this would open a whole can of worms...
It is arguable that this can of worms is necessary. Lots of people need an attitude check with regard to software complexity and why they really can't have their cake and eat it, too. Software isn't magical, it is real tangible technology invented by humans. Why the FCC, the DOT, the FDA, the OSHA, and the USDA can go and breath down the necks of every other industry in the USA and leave software in the clear is baffling. There are no widely-accepted engineering standards for software, and the concept of a "professional engineer" in software is basically a joke right now.
The software industry has deluded everyone regarding the real cost of software. This needs to change. As more liability suits come about, this will change--it's how industries changed in the past, and software is just the next one in line.
it is impossible to spot and fix every bug in it, so no one should realistically expect software to be reliable all the time.
This thought makes me real comfortable whenever I use an ATM or fly or drive or use an elevator or, well, pretty much any of the thousand things we encounter each day that are computer-controlled.
Hey, let's put Windows on a war ship!! That'll be awesome!!! How does Windows end up in the military, anyway? Why does hardware have to be super-hardened for military use, and, then, they go and install Windows?!?
MS SQL has 11% marketshare (according to MS themselves), yet the only mass-infection hit it and not somebody else. Coincidence?
Interesting point. Aside from the scott/tiger obvious stuff, how common are Oracle or DB2 vulnerabilities? I'm sure they are more common than we know about, but how many have been really exploited?
IIS runs only 25% (and sinking) of webservers, yet ALL mass-infections so far hit it and none Apache which runs over 60%.
Well, to be fair, I'd say that few if any hit Apache. Apache deserves a lot of credit, regardless.
Nobody's forcing them to use Microsoft software.
What's that you say? Sysadmins are often stuck between a rock and a hard place when it comes "choosing" the software already specified by the voice in the light from above...er, I mean management.
Don't underestimate the power of Microsoft's marketing department.
Maybe those people and businesses affected by Slammer should have gotten their lazy asses in gear ...
Or, maybe Microsoft should stop what they are doing, look at their code, and exclaim "Oh, God, what a monster we have created!"
OpenBSD, for example, is deliberately conservative, and they have a pretty good track record. Can't corporations get off of their marketing high-horse and compromise? Is the greed simply too great?
Frankenstein.Net
.NET-labeled stuff floating around.
This would be the perfect umbrella brand for all the
C# is the perfect blend of vb java and c++, it has rad as well as power and even cross platform support coming up quick
RAD is a myth.
Cross platform support from Microsoft is a siren song leading into a slippery trap.
m$ haters that won't look past the fact that c# came from m$.
The fact that it came from Microsoft is rather compelling.
a publised standard language unlike java
Standardizing the language is of very limited value. How many of the important APIs have been standardized? APIs form lock-in, not languages.
That means it's not on the decline for people who use VB just for fun and laughs?
I've heard from a reliable source (my imagination) that 73% of masochists use VisualBasic. They like the inescapable lock-in and they love GOTO.
You can kill people with a gun, but I haven't seen any lawsuit against S&W for creating a tool that can be used to commit a crime.
Guns are a tool. If you are stranded in a desert with a gun as your only possession, at least you can shoot and eat a camel for survival.
You can make a photocopy of a book, and while it's true that Xerox and other companies have been threatened I haven't heard yet of any paper company being sued for creating a medium that can be used to infringe copyrights.
Photocopiers were one of the "killer applications" of their day. Imagine the legitimate cost savings of typing a memo only once. Photocopiers had a solid tangible impact on the world economy.
And so it is now with search engines. The difference that motivates the RIAA, I do not know.
The goal is to make life easier and more productive for developers, and to handle more complex systems with less code, less repetition, and just generally better-engineered solutions.
.NET hardly relieves the project of needing its database-specific expertise.
Has this actually occurred in practice? I have yet to see it. The explosion in the number of APIs with these goals has arguably made the developer's job much much harder, where the learning curve leading to informed decision making is becoming impassable. Specialization of jobs is not improved from before, where the "Oracle developer" is replaced with a "J2EE developer" or, worse, an "EJB developer". And, now, there needs to be both the "Oracle developer" and the "J2EE developer", because both systems are so complex that one person can hardly do both jobs competently. Using something like J2EE or
Net reduction in complexity: nil. All we have accomplished is sweeping the pile of complexity to the other side of the room and adding new staff to document where the pile went.
Most database users are seriously tied to their database - in most cases, it would be easier to switch server OS than switch databases.
Similarly, most (insert API name) users are seriously tied to their (insert API name). Again, in most cases it would be easier to switch the server OS than switch (insert API name). Additionally, the lock-in is now not only database-specific but application-server-specific, as well, because I have yet to see an abstraction layer so well concieved that the database doesn't leak through.
So, one major goal for these mapping and abstraction layers is to allow a more robust programming language to be used, to provide better functionality and reduce or eliminate dependency on specific databases.
But they add literally millions of lines of code that is opaque to its users, tens of thousands of nuances, and hundreds of new things to learn. How can this be called progress, when complexity is actually going up rather than down?
I really think the software industry needs to step back and take a breath.
apparently, there's some signal noise between your brain and your fingers as you type your wannabe sarcastic message
Well, I'm not sure I can argue this point. Perhaps I need an RF filter in my shoulders?
Well, it's hard to pick up sarcasm when you say "In all seriousness"
I was being seriously sarcastic? Or, was it sarcastically serious? Regardless, I was serious in that this is how big companies operate--no attribute, no bonus point. The irony is that paper credentials cannot capture what the corporation is attempting to capture, but they try anyway.
so, degrees are the only "worthwhile attributes", eh? elitist bastard...
Do I need to use sarcasm tags for you???
"Breaking this seal will classify you as a Terrorist under DMCA and PATRIOT legislation, and you will be dealt with accordingly."
And, even better, it's completely legal.
I'm a subcontractor at Lockheed Martin along with a number of SAIC subs, and I can't say that I've been all that impressed with all of them.
This is what every defense contractor says about every other defense contractor. Don't be suprised if you find out what those SAIC guys say about you!
Also, companies like SAIC are so damn big, that the people you are working with are not representative of the company. I've worked with some people from Raytheon who couldn't shoot fish in a barrel, but, then, I never had the chance to meet their people who design aircraft and radar systems. There has to be a few smart cookies in there somewhere.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I've met a ton of people with great credentials who are morons and many non-degreed and non-certified people who are excellent people to work and deal with.
Large corporations are machines. If you don't exist on paper, you don't exist at all.
In all seriousness, if you were an HR person with thousands of employees to track, how would you track them? Get to know them around a campfire singing camp songs or, perhaps more conveniently, a datastore holding all your worthwhile attributes? If it isn't in the data model, it
can't be worthwhile, can it?
I for one have never heard of this company before today and I'm pretty shocked. I've been pretty vocal about worries on TIA issues, but geeze...
You won't hear about most defense contractors. In truth, they are everywhere--a dime a dozen. Some small doing integration work, some immense building B-2 bombers or Eshelawn. SAIC isn't anything special, really, other than some of the other things mentioned here (employee ownership, etc.).
If this article is any eye-opener for you, then please don't turn around...
Then you sir, have some OTHER issues.
Normal install on a Pentium 400-class PC, including a hard drive format. 50X CD-ROM, 5400RPM hard disk, 256MB RAM. Performance of the OS after installation is just fine.
You probably thought that was normal too.
Should I have expected something better? Were talking about Windows, here.
Now, it usually takes ~ 30 minutes to an hour to install Linux. Probably about the same for Windows.
Actually, Win XP took at least two hours when I last installed it. I went out and mowed the lawn in the intervening time. Solaris 9 installs faster...and that's with pkgadd! Of course, YMMV.
I would love to be able to keep a cache of a recursive map structure in memory (indefinately!) and have modifications automatically cascade the required updates to all nodes and revoke/expire any checked out nodes.
Haven't some of these problems already been solved in the RDBMS systems themselves? Are databases really so slow (meaning misapplied, misdesigned, and misconfigured) that all these layers upon layers upon layers of APIs and abstractions are necessary to get the job done?
Why not just two racks of computers: one rack with a database cluster, whose database vendor has solved all the data integrity issues, and one rack of apache webservers with gool ol' fashioned CGI programs? Wouldn't the raw simplicity of this configuration pay for itself? Stick a god-awful fast interconnect in there and bandwidth shouldn't be a limiting factor. I've never done this--it's just an idea.