I agree with moo083 and let me add to their comment. There are other things that a 4-year degree will give you besides just algorithms. For example, the breadth of viewpoint that leads one to determine the correct time and opportunity to use an algorithm. Or, maybe, perspective enough to know when you need to seek knowledge from others rather than trying to create it yourself.
I've worked with so many programmers in my career. Relatively few of them would I call an engineer because of the lack of a disciplined approach to their work. In my experience, most of these programmers were vocationally-educated or self-taught. To be fair, there are quite a number (alarmingly so) of 4-year educated programmers that exhibit this lack of thought in their work, but there is a better chance that someone with a 4-year degree will be able to think from an engineering standpoint rather than taking a "let's code this sucker up" approach.
As with any life experience, your mileage may very, but I always have an appreciation for those among us that have completed a 4-year program. Since when is persistence and fulfilling a long-term goal a negative?
In addition to your point, the other thing that folks outside the consumer banking industry don't know is that the banks' research and development teams are ultimately responsible for rolling out the ATM systems and they have ultimate say into the features and testing of the machines that get rolled out. In this case, Diebold is more like an "OEM" vendor than a systems shop. I would imagine that governments don't have the same kind of ownership of the voting systems since they typically are much more reliant on 100% outsourcing of systems development and deployment.
Having been involved in a few ATM development projects myself at a bank, there's no way our management would have ceded control of the product to a vendor and I'm pretty sure that most of the financial services industry is like that. Of course, that said, you still can't assume that ATMs are secure or reliable.
My point is that traditional high-availability solutions are not getting it done any more. None of the customers that I work with are thrilled to spend money on any solution where all the hardware is in one location exposing the application to being wiped out by a hurricane or a terrorist attack.
Of these two solutions, clustering does provide some flexibility to implement in different geographic areas but most clustering products fall short of features that support enhancing application availability across geographically-dispersed sites. This is a huge feature hole that is only answered with custom integration currently. In fact, it's paying my bills quite nicely these days, but I do wish there was more support for this kind of solution.
"Never under-estimate the bandwidth of a FedEx truck" -- Availability Consultant in response to query about the "best way" to get data from one data center to another.
For all those people who are thinking or posted, "what's the big deal?" or "The rocket is just a big tube with chemical propellent." Think again. I used to be one of these people.
Since I have children, pilgrimages to the Orlando area once every couple of years has become requisite because of a certain multi-national entertainment conglomerate that happens to be very good at marketing to children. On a recent trip, I insisted that we all go to the Kennedy Space Center for a visit while we were there. Everybody was not too enthusastic about losing an entire day at the theme parks to drive an hour and a half to the coast just to see a "bigger airport".
Once we got there, it was amazing how people's opinions changed, but the biggest hit of the day was the multimedia presentation and tour of the indoor Saturn V rocket. I was skeptical myself as to how entertaining this portion of the visit would be, but it was by-far the best part of the KSC tour. The way they have this thing mounted allows you to walk under the rocket. Also, at each of the separation joints, they separated the components so you can see the machinery and technology that made the rocket work. It was like walking into the garage where they keep one of the baddest vehicles know to man and someone opens the hood for your inspection.
I highly recommend the bus tour of the Kennedy Space Center if you are remotely close to it. It is one of the best ways to gain insight of how those things actually flew. (Not to mention all the other cool things you'll see like the Shuttle Launch Facillity and the ISS Fabrication Facillity.) As far as preservation of the other Saturn Vs, if they are trying to build something similar to what is in KSC, then I'm all for it.
I recommend anyone commenting on this story to go read the PDFs of the planiff's brief that led up to this decision. Links to the PDF can be found in the message thread provided by the link in the story. If NAC is guilty of half of what they are accused of, it looks like they were using the non-transferable nature of IP addresses as blackmail to force this guy to sell his business to them.
Before you flame the guy for bringing the suit, remember, there are two sides to every story. I believe the courts will work this out, but shame on NAC for backing this kid into a corner. It seems to me that it didn't have to get this far. I think we may be getting a glimpse into the slimier side of the ISP business.
I haven't seen it mentioned yet, but I take Yahoo at their word that they are changing the protocol for security reasons. I typically use Gaim to connect to AOL, MSN, and Yahoo. I use Gaim for Yahoo just because I don't like extra processes running on my Linux machine when they don't need to be. The Yahoo client for Linux doesn't have ads. AFAIK, there's no way to make money off a free client and free service when there's not a single place to carry an ad.
I have heard (but don't know because I've never used Trillian) that Trillian has "broadcast" features that sends messages to a list of users. I believe that Yahoo is trying to block clients that have this type of feature and clients, such as Gaim, that happen to share protocol libraries or access methods with these clients are "collateral damage".
Perhaps if Trillian wanted to have a good working relationship with the service providers, they would not make it so easy to abuse the services in the first place -- IMHO.
I have many contacts in commercial hardware and software companies that produce proprietary products. I advocate open source and it's benefits as often as I get the chance. For the most part, the message is heard and appreciated.
In fact, in a recent job interview with a software company, the following question was put to me: "What process or organization should a product company use to build product on open source platforms?" I thought this was an excellent question and I believe my answer was pertinent to this thread.
I actually don't have a problem with what Intel is doing and here's why. Not everything on an open source platform has to be open source. I know many of us are purists and would rather not hear this, but I believe it's true. One niche that proprietary products fill very well is as niche-filler.:) In other words, there are many applications and products out there that just will not work as an open source project. Some products lack the broad consumer base for it to mature fast enough in an open source mode for it to be useful to anybody. Does that mean that those kinds of products should not benefit from an open source platform?
Getting back to my answer to the interview question. I told the interviewer that a commercial software company that wants to build on an open source platform should organize by having a community development group which adds to and supports the open source product that they are using and by having a proprietary development group that uses the open source product to do their work without changing or contributing to the open source product. I added that there should be a wall between them lest you create a mini-SCO fiasco. I mentioned several examples of this that appear to be working. I think a company like CodeWeavers is a perfect example and I think there are many big companies that are starting to figure this out (i.e. how to work with the GPL).
Thanks for the great explanation. I also have questions about this method of hail supression. I'd like to know how they expect this technology to interact with aircraft. Last I checked, unwanted vibrations of any sort are the enemy of high-performance engineering. Seems like a device such as this would be difficult to direct and therefore would impact more than just an isolated weather event.
This explanation is not technically accurate as I read it. IANAL, however, I think that it says that they have patents or patent applications governing the process used to read or write files that adhere to this schema's structure.
In other words, no one can write a piece of software that can read or write files in this format without a license from MS allowing it.
If I'm right in my interpretation, it is worse than the previous post states. No OO.o support. No third-party support at all without a license. Please, somebody who can read legal-ese tell me I'm wrong.:)
good software engineering meant using the right tool for the right job. Only a web script kiddies with no mainframe exposure or experience would think this story is newsworthy. Every company or organization that I've had experience with and that has a mainframe always laughs at the idea that they would migrate anything off host. Just because Big Blue originally hired MS to do software has always translated to MS that they can play in this market. I like to quote Charlton Heston whenever somebody suggests that they are going to take my mainframe away, "from my cold, dead hands!!!"
oh, and btw, I'm not a COBOL programmer. just someone who respects them enormously. Props to the host team!
My senior year in high school, I took AP Physics. I loved that course. My teacher was also my AP Comp Sci teacher. He made a deal with me. If I wrote a program to process and publish all my spectrometer labs, he would give me an A in both Comp Sci and Physics...
Of course, I procrastinated until the final week. What's worse is that I didn't even have time to write out the labs manually. So, I buckled down and got hopped up on the caffinated Lipton Ice Tea and wrote the lab program. I stayed up 5 days straight with only about an hour of sleep a day.
After succeeding, I felt like superman. I could code anything. Got my As and I was a programmer for life.
Of course, it still takes a real deadline to get me motivated....:)
very well said... I'm not a moderater (IANAM) today but I would've given this post all 5 of my mod points. I wonder if folks will now realize what a doomsayer The Register really is. I find this kind of article very irresponsible. Thanks again, mp, for responding appropriately.
Funny, this reminds me of a joke that a Russian friend told me...
Both of us are of the age that we grew up during the Cold War and remember what it was like having nukes pointed at each other day and night...
Anyway, we were on the phone and the connection was really bad. At one point, we heard a click similar to someone picking up the phone. So, Dmitri paused and said, "Wait a second..." After a few seconds, he began to speak again and I asked what had happened. He explained that, in Russian, it is considered polite to pause the conversation when you hear the FSB changing the tapes recording your conversation.:)
I laughed my ass off.... Yes, people, I'm now ass-less....
I'm working for a Fortune 500 client as an independent contractor. The group that I'm working with runs a massive Internet application that is multi-tiered. The front end of this application runs on Microsoft platforms (currently NT), but the application software we run could be deployed on *NIX. There is tremedous pressure on my team to upgrade to something because NT is being "End-Of-Lifed". So, while we debated whether to switch to *NIX or upgrade to Windows 2000, MS rides in like a white knight trying to explain how Windows 2000 is just as automated and scriptable as *NIX. They convinced management to upgrade to Windows 2000 because MS claimed that they could automate the entire upgrade process.
Guess how they choose to automate it... using WinCE. They basically did a WinCE instance running off a CD to suck all the config off the NT machines and install Win2000 from an image and reconfigure it based on the NT config.
Needless to say, we ran into many problems and it wasn't as nearly as seamless as MS advertised. Based on the bugs in WinCE that I've seen, they need many eyes -- both development and user -- on this product as quickly as possible to get any market traction. Anyway, be warned, I don't think this software is as "free - as in beer" as your labor will be if you choose to use this product, IMHO.
It's interesting seeing some of the posts on this article. Once a system has been created, it tends to stray in unpredictable directions. This is part of the natural evolution of human systems. Sometimes the only way to correct these deviations is to get a new system.
As a new approach, let me describe my own experience. I had professor in school. He actually ended up being my Comp Sci advisor for a while. He taught Comp Sci with compassion and dedication. He believed that anyone could learn to program. (A novel concept considering this was the Eighties and the easiest language taught was C.) Given this philosophy, he decided there were only three natural grades for programming classes. An 'A' if you finished the criteria and everything worked, an 'F' if you finished and could not make everything work, or an 'I' for incomplete if you needed more time because everybody learns at different speeds. He called this system of grading the binary grading system. I loved it. If you learned the material, you got an 'A'. If you didn't get the material on the first or second iteration, he stuck with you until you got it by extending your class with an 'I'. Only if you gave up on him and the material did anyone every get an 'F'. I learned more from this man than any other technical teacher I've ever had.
Personally, I would love to see something like this system accepted in technical schools and classes, but I doubt that traditional education would find this system liveable. After a while, many students in his classes were getting 'I' and he failed almost no one. Everybody else got 'A's. This really pissed off the Registrar. In the end, he had to leave because the school wouldn't let him teach with his preferred method.
Oh well, stagnation is part of the evolution of a system as well.
Let me start off by saying that this interview is the second most anticipated event of the season for me. Second only to the release of LOTR:TTT on 12/18. (I've got my movie cash ready to go.) And, I think he lived up to the anticipation.
Now, I've seen several comments relating disappointment in Mr. Shatner's responses. I can understand this disappointment since everytime I've ever watched the original ST with my wife, she always exclaims, " What would anyone see in him that they would call a talent?!?"
Let me see if I can explain. The answers to this interview are just like any vintage Shatner performance. The art of the performance, if you will, is in the fact that you cannot determine if he spent 5 minutes or 5 weeks preparing for it. The man is truly an enigma and my hero. As a serial procrastinator, I wish I had that kind of talent.
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I agree with moo083 and let me add to their comment. There are other things that a 4-year degree will give you besides just algorithms. For example, the breadth of viewpoint that leads one to determine the correct time and opportunity to use an algorithm. Or, maybe, perspective enough to know when you need to seek knowledge from others rather than trying to create it yourself.
I've worked with so many programmers in my career. Relatively few of them would I call an engineer because of the lack of a disciplined approach to their work. In my experience, most of these programmers were vocationally-educated or self-taught. To be fair, there are quite a number (alarmingly so) of 4-year educated programmers that exhibit this lack of thought in their work, but there is a better chance that someone with a 4-year degree will be able to think from an engineering standpoint rather than taking a "let's code this sucker up" approach.
As with any life experience, your mileage may very, but I always have an appreciation for those among us that have completed a 4-year program. Since when is persistence and fulfilling a long-term goal a negative?
Just my 2 cents.
You insensitive clod!
As Joe Isuzu would say, "Right.... You have my word on it." :)
In addition to your point, the other thing that folks outside the consumer banking industry don't know is that the banks' research and development teams are ultimately responsible for rolling out the ATM systems and they have ultimate say into the features and testing of the machines that get rolled out. In this case, Diebold is more like an "OEM" vendor than a systems shop. I would imagine that governments don't have the same kind of ownership of the voting systems since they typically are much more reliant on 100% outsourcing of systems development and deployment.
Having been involved in a few ATM development projects myself at a bank, there's no way our management would have ceded control of the product to a vendor and I'm pretty sure that most of the financial services industry is like that. Of course, that said, you still can't assume that ATMs are secure or reliable.
Later,
tims
Answer: Neither. They are both dinosaurs.
My point is that traditional high-availability solutions are not getting it done any more. None of the customers that I work with are thrilled to spend money on any solution where all the hardware is in one location exposing the application to being wiped out by a hurricane or a terrorist attack.
Of these two solutions, clustering does provide some flexibility to implement in different geographic areas but most clustering products fall short of features that support enhancing application availability across geographically-dispersed sites. This is a huge feature hole that is only answered with custom integration currently. In fact, it's paying my bills quite nicely these days, but I do wish there was more support for this kind of solution.
"Never under-estimate the bandwidth of a FedEx truck" -- Availability Consultant in response to query about the "best way" to get data from one data center to another.
For all those people who are thinking or posted, "what's the big deal?" or "The rocket is just a big tube with chemical propellent." Think again. I used to be one of these people.
Since I have children, pilgrimages to the Orlando area once every couple of years has become requisite because of a certain multi-national entertainment conglomerate that happens to be very good at marketing to children. On a recent trip, I insisted that we all go to the Kennedy Space Center for a visit while we were there. Everybody was not too enthusastic about losing an entire day at the theme parks to drive an hour and a half to the coast just to see a "bigger airport".
Once we got there, it was amazing how people's opinions changed, but the biggest hit of the day was the multimedia presentation and tour of the indoor Saturn V rocket. I was skeptical myself as to how entertaining this portion of the visit would be, but it was by-far the best part of the KSC tour. The way they have this thing mounted allows you to walk under the rocket. Also, at each of the separation joints, they separated the components so you can see the machinery and technology that made the rocket work. It was like walking into the garage where they keep one of the baddest vehicles know to man and someone opens the hood for your inspection.
I highly recommend the bus tour of the Kennedy Space Center if you are remotely close to it. It is one of the best ways to gain insight of how those things actually flew. (Not to mention all the other cool things you'll see like the Shuttle Launch Facillity and the ISS Fabrication Facillity.) As far as preservation of the other Saturn Vs, if they are trying to build something similar to what is in KSC, then I'm all for it.
I recommend anyone commenting on this story to go read the PDFs of the planiff's brief that led up to this decision. Links to the PDF can be found in the message thread provided by the link in the story. If NAC is guilty of half of what they are accused of, it looks like they were using the non-transferable nature of IP addresses as blackmail to force this guy to sell his business to them.
Before you flame the guy for bringing the suit, remember, there are two sides to every story. I believe the courts will work this out, but shame on NAC for backing this kid into a corner. It seems to me that it didn't have to get this far. I think we may be getting a glimpse into the slimier side of the ISP business.
Later,
tims
I haven't seen it mentioned yet, but I take Yahoo at their word that they are changing the protocol for security reasons. I typically use Gaim to connect to AOL, MSN, and Yahoo. I use Gaim for Yahoo just because I don't like extra processes running on my Linux machine when they don't need to be. The Yahoo client for Linux doesn't have ads. AFAIK, there's no way to make money off a free client and free service when there's not a single place to carry an ad.
I have heard (but don't know because I've never used Trillian) that Trillian has "broadcast" features that sends messages to a list of users. I believe that Yahoo is trying to block clients that have this type of feature and clients, such as Gaim, that happen to share protocol libraries or access methods with these clients are "collateral damage".
Perhaps if Trillian wanted to have a good working relationship with the service providers, they would not make it so easy to abuse the services in the first place -- IMHO.
later,
tims
I have many contacts in commercial hardware and software companies that produce proprietary products. I advocate open source and it's benefits as often as I get the chance. For the most part, the message is heard and appreciated.
:) In other words, there are many applications and products out there that just will not work as an open source project. Some products lack the broad consumer base for it to mature fast enough in an open source mode for it to be useful to anybody. Does that mean that those kinds of products should not benefit from an open source platform?
:)
In fact, in a recent job interview with a software company, the following question was put to me: "What process or organization should a product company use to build product on open source platforms?" I thought this was an excellent question and I believe my answer was pertinent to this thread.
I actually don't have a problem with what Intel is doing and here's why. Not everything on an open source platform has to be open source. I know many of us are purists and would rather not hear this, but I believe it's true. One niche that proprietary products fill very well is as niche-filler.
Getting back to my answer to the interview question. I told the interviewer that a commercial software company that wants to build on an open source platform should organize by having a community development group which adds to and supports the open source product that they are using and by having a proprietary development group that uses the open source product to do their work without changing or contributing to the open source product. I added that there should be a wall between them lest you create a mini-SCO fiasco. I mentioned several examples of this that appear to be working. I think a company like CodeWeavers is a perfect example and I think there are many big companies that are starting to figure this out (i.e. how to work with the GPL).
Get ready folks. The Man is coming.
tims
Thanks for the great explanation. I also have questions about this method of hail supression. I'd like to know how they expect this technology to interact with aircraft. Last I checked, unwanted vibrations of any sort are the enemy of high-performance engineering. Seems like a device such as this would be difficult to direct and therefore would impact more than just an isolated weather event.
Just a thought...
tims
Any credit for this idea has to go to George Orwell. Who would've guessed that he was just 20 years too early on his prediction?
I remember reading 1984 in 1983 and thinking, "Well, thank God that could never happen." I don't think it's funny anymore. Somebody stop the madness.
tims
This explanation is not technically accurate as I read it. IANAL, however, I think that it says that they have patents or patent applications governing the process used to read or write files that adhere to this schema's structure.
:)
In other words, no one can write a piece of software that can read or write files in this format without a license from MS allowing it.
If I'm right in my interpretation, it is worse than the previous post states. No OO.o support. No third-party support at all without a license. Please, somebody who can read legal-ese tell me I'm wrong.
This would really suck.
tims
good software engineering meant using the right tool for the right job. Only a web script kiddies with no mainframe exposure or experience would think this story is newsworthy. Every company or organization that I've had experience with and that has a mainframe always laughs at the idea that they would migrate anything off host. Just because Big Blue originally hired MS to do software has always translated to MS that they can play in this market. I like to quote Charlton Heston whenever somebody suggests that they are going to take my mainframe away, "from my cold, dead hands!!!"
oh, and btw, I'm not a COBOL programmer. just someone who respects them enormously. Props to the host team!
tims
My senior year in high school, I took AP Physics. I loved that course. My teacher was also my AP Comp Sci teacher. He made a deal with me. If I wrote a program to process and publish all my spectrometer labs, he would give me an A in both Comp Sci and Physics...
:)
Of course, I procrastinated until the final week. What's worse is that I didn't even have time to write out the labs manually. So, I buckled down and got hopped up on the caffinated Lipton Ice Tea and wrote the lab program. I stayed up 5 days straight with only about an hour of sleep a day.
After succeeding, I felt like superman. I could code anything. Got my As and I was a programmer for life.
Of course, it still takes a real deadline to get me motivated....
very well said... I'm not a moderater (IANAM) today but I would've given this post all 5 of my mod points. I wonder if folks will now realize what a doomsayer The Register really is. I find this kind of article very irresponsible. Thanks again, mp, for responding appropriately.
tims
Funny, this reminds me of a joke that a Russian friend told me...
:)
Both of us are of the age that we grew up during the Cold War and remember what it was like having nukes pointed at each other day and night...
Anyway, we were on the phone and the connection was really bad. At one point, we heard a click similar to someone picking up the phone. So, Dmitri paused and said, "Wait a second..." After a few seconds, he began to speak again and I asked what had happened. He explained that, in Russian, it is considered polite to pause the conversation when you hear the FSB changing the tapes recording your conversation.
I laughed my ass off.... Yes, people, I'm now ass-less....
I'm working for a Fortune 500 client as an independent contractor. The group that I'm working with runs a massive Internet application that is multi-tiered. The front end of this application runs on Microsoft platforms (currently NT), but the application software we run could be deployed on *NIX. There is tremedous pressure on my team to upgrade to something because NT is being "End-Of-Lifed". So, while we debated whether to switch to *NIX or upgrade to Windows 2000, MS rides in like a white knight trying to explain how Windows 2000 is just as automated and scriptable as *NIX. They convinced management to upgrade to Windows 2000 because MS claimed that they could automate the entire upgrade process.
Guess how they choose to automate it... using WinCE. They basically did a WinCE instance running off a CD to suck all the config off the NT machines and install Win2000 from an image and reconfigure it based on the NT config.
Needless to say, we ran into many problems and it wasn't as nearly as seamless as MS advertised. Based on the bugs in WinCE that I've seen, they need many eyes -- both development and user -- on this product as quickly as possible to get any market traction. Anyway, be warned, I don't think this software is as "free - as in beer" as your labor will be if you choose to use this product, IMHO.
It's interesting seeing some of the posts on this article. Once a system has been created, it tends to stray in unpredictable directions. This is part of the natural evolution of human systems. Sometimes the only way to correct these deviations is to get a new system.
As a new approach, let me describe my own experience. I had professor in school. He actually ended up being my Comp Sci advisor for a while. He taught Comp Sci with compassion and dedication. He believed that anyone could learn to program. (A novel concept considering this was the Eighties and the easiest language taught was C.) Given this philosophy, he decided there were only three natural grades for programming classes. An 'A' if you finished the criteria and everything worked, an 'F' if you finished and could not make everything work, or an 'I' for incomplete if you needed more time because everybody learns at different speeds. He called this system of grading the binary grading system. I loved it. If you learned the material, you got an 'A'. If you didn't get the material on the first or second iteration, he stuck with you until you got it by extending your class with an 'I'. Only if you gave up on him and the material did anyone every get an 'F'. I learned more from this man than any other technical teacher I've ever had.
Personally, I would love to see something like this system accepted in technical schools and classes, but I doubt that traditional education would find this system liveable. After a while, many students in his classes were getting 'I' and he failed almost no one. Everybody else got 'A's. This really pissed off the Registrar. In the end, he had to leave because the school wouldn't let him teach with his preferred method.
Oh well, stagnation is part of the evolution of a system as well.
tims
Let me start off by saying that this interview is the second most anticipated event of the season for me. Second only to the release of LOTR:TTT on 12/18. (I've got my movie cash ready to go.) And, I think he lived up to the anticipation.
Now, I've seen several comments relating disappointment in Mr. Shatner's responses. I can understand this disappointment since everytime I've ever watched the original ST with my wife, she always exclaims, " What would anyone see in him that they would call a talent?!?"
Let me see if I can explain. The answers to this interview are just like any vintage Shatner performance. The art of the performance, if you will, is in the fact that you cannot determine if he spent 5 minutes or 5 weeks preparing for it. The man is truly an enigma and my hero. As a serial procrastinator, I wish I had that kind of talent.