If writing for real-time embedded, youu just might want to track "bytes of ROM used" and "Bytes of RAM used", so you know whether optimisation is worth spending time on, or whether you need to tell the hardware people that the price of memory is about to fall!
I was on a project LAST YEAR for A MAJOR MULTINATIONAL (In deep financial doodoo) who had me, and another very experienced programmer, spend two weeks hacking a bunch of stuff so they could use smaller flash chips, only to find that the small chips were obsolete, and the production systems would have to have the large ones in anyway!
We did warn them, but the decisions were taken at a very high level:-}
Unfortunately, many of the lower levels of Windows drivers have no means to return error information to higher levels. Others are limited to simply returning the fact that there was an error, but without indicating whether it was fatal, and whether anything happened before the error or not.
So if you want to write good quality code, you'd best not be writing windows device drivers!
Its a lot easier to look at the code and see it being tested and tell how well its progressing if you have programming experience, than if you were hired cos you have a degree in "Human Resource Management" or have an MSCE in using Microsoft Project".
If you wer to read art history instead of slashdot, you'd know that for most of his life. Maichaelangelo's bosses were indeed winging that he took too long, kept changing his approach, and used too much materials.
He may have been a genius, but his bosses weren't.
And you wont get good code written from programmers who are underpaid, and pissed off either (but sex-starvation doesn't appear to do much harm to code productivity or quality.)
*BSD is released under the BSD licence, which specifical permits the use of BSD software for killing babies and making money. You can keep the source under your bed if you wish. Bill Gates is permitted to use BSD software for Windows (And he does).
You are not even required to drop large numbers of BSD CDs on Sadam's head (but bonus points if you do!)
Its a sad fact that the docs for CVS are of very poor quality, hard to find, and near on impossible to relate to.
Its another sad fact that much of the information on usenet/the web about CVS dates from version 0.0.1_beta, and says "CVS is at a beta stage, and can.t be trusted for mission critical work". Many people believe this is still the case, because there is no practical means to recall the comments.
I have used Clearcase and Teamware as well as CVS, and CVS is the cheapest, easiest to use, and most reliable of the three. It is also the one most widely used by morons.
If you want a demonstration of CVS in action on large projects then try FreeBSD
Its not unique - Like an earlier poster, I too remember these from 30 years ago.
They failed because most objects have acoustic resonances, in which case, the sound suffers from the resonance. Objects that don't have an acoustic resonance, are generally so heavily acoustically damped (eg cushions) that they are no use as sound boards. A loudspeaker is made from all the optimum materials, in highly optimised geometries. ANything else sounds like something else.
Despite the RFC saying "don't use place names", I have found it quite a good convention to use place names that are obviously not local. I live in the UK, and use the names of US cities (The one I am using is Orlando). I guess if I was in the US, I could safely use European cities (Is that Paris-France, Paris-Texas or Paris-the-computer-in-the-front-office is not going to confuse many people).
It is occasionally useful to be able to say in front of a stranger "Fred is in Kansas" so colleagues know he is in the stores, but the visitor thinks he is on a sales trip!
Using girls' names is fatal - as in your wife will kill you in a fit of jelousy when she discovers you sending e-mail form a computer called "susan" (Except maybe if she is called Susan, but perosnally, I wouldnt risk it!)
Gnome also appears to depend on every other piece of software ever written - and all known releases of it. In some cases, it even depends on beta versions, and "unstable versions". I have never seen it compile, let alone load - so I can't say whether its slow or bloated.
KDE not only compiles, it runs! Too bad that it depends on a mass of sound software, even if you don't own a sound card.
Any person undertaking this kind of negotiation may need a sawn-off shotgun, or even an Uzi, to be on equal terms with his opponent.
A good translation might be "Anyone expecting to use this implementation as the basis for distributing a commercial product would need to have his head examined"
If you vote to rescind your independence, and go back to having your country run by a King, all your woes will be over.:-)
Seriously, it will be interesting to see what happens in the rest of the world. I doubt MS has contributed to the campaigns in other countries on the scale it has in the US. - but they have tried hard in the UK by all accounts.
Can you imagine the chaos, if MS just quit developing software?
From where i see it, quite the reverse... If MS froze all their SW where it is, people would get a chance to learn how to use it properly, how to interface to it properly, and generally thew world would be a better place for users, abusers, and even shareholders (massive saving in bucks on developers salaries). No losers anywhere
In the real world, most people don't use e-bay and Amazon, and uptake of WinXP is not big percentage of the world either.
Not only that, for those of us for whom having a 56k modem is a laugh, cos download rate is 918 bits per minute, having all these plugins NOT work is a bonus!
The reality is that more than 50% of people in the developed world have computers. This means that the pool of suckers is diminishing fast. The second time buyer is not as foolish as the first time. He/She asks questions like "will it keep crashing?" and "Can I have an OS that can shut down properly please?"
Even the people in Computer World will have to be computer literate, and pretty soon, some of them will learn how to install Linux/BSD. Within your lifetime, its not impossible that the average office manager will have tried other products than MS, and found out they are cheaper. Once the shareholders know that Unix servers don't need to be booted every day, AND cost less than MS stuff, Mr Gates's shares will be will lose value fast.
Just imagine if the Enron fiasco means auditors ask questions like "Can you explain why you buy this expensive stuff when the free stuff works better? Is there a kickback involved?"
I am using Opera 6.0 on FreeBSD and its very good. Shame the mail facility doesnt work though - I could get most of the family to switch to *BSD from Windows if it did!
I like "open in background" and the "mouse gestures".
I'd register if it was Native FreeBSD, but its actually the Linux one in compatibilty mode.
It may eb more relevant to other threads, but If MS gave away software for free, the pirates would all go broke!
Piracy is obviously all MS is fault, and MS should be illegal!
Re:Two transition periods?
on
If I Had a Hammer
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
In the late '50s/early 60s, when the first mainframes were built, they were all approx 60 bits. Thereafter, all "cost is no object" computers were 60/64 bits. There is not much evidence that anyone will ever want to go further than 64 bits. There are significant overheads to longer words (ever heard of "carry propagation"?).
In fact, the proposed 64 bit processors will pretty much be doing all known processor design techniques on a chip. At that point, we have used all the ideas that were known when the Vax was designed (approx 1980). Since then, nothing much new has been invented. The only missing piece of technology is content addressable memories (ie execute jump table in single cycle instead of stepping though each option and comparing. These have also been known since about 1980, including how to make them. Used as cache tag ram, they would make a HUGE performance improvement. There is no obvious reason for not using them apart from the fact that its a European development (mostly UK and Germany), and America has a problem with NIH.
I dont deny there are special cases where 128 bits (or even 1024) might pay, but to sell, you need a general purpose machine, and 64 bits is the top whack as far as we know. After that, masssively parallel is more cost effective (ICL DAP, etc).
When the 286 came out, I suggested marketing incredibly expensive walnut, teak and mahogany cases for them. People said I was a basket case.
I personally woud pay $150 for a CAST IRON case. I am truly P*ssed off with Alminium ones - they crush when you put a cup of coffee on them.
And I want AT/ATX dual fitting, and enough cooling to handle dual Sledge Hammer processors. (Quad Sledgehammers if someone ever makes the motherboards).
But i'm writing this on a 233MHz K6-II (NetBSD), which I would also put in a cast iron case if I could.
Slashdot Mirror
Once its posted on Slashdot, it becomes public knowledge, and can't be patented.
I was on a project LAST YEAR for A MAJOR MULTINATIONAL (In deep financial doodoo) who had me, and another very experienced programmer, spend two weeks hacking a bunch of stuff so they could use smaller flash chips, only to find that the small chips were obsolete, and the production systems would have to have the large ones in anyway!
We did warn them, but the decisions were taken at a very high level :-}
So if you want to write good quality code, you'd best not be writing windows device drivers!
Maybe not save a bunch of grief, but at least you can extend your contract by another week!
Its a lot easier to look at the code and see it being tested and tell how well its progressing if you have programming experience, than if you were hired cos you have a degree in "Human Resource Management" or have an MSCE in using Microsoft Project".
He may have been a genius, but his bosses weren't.
And you wont get good code written from programmers who are underpaid, and pissed off either (but sex-starvation doesn't appear to do much harm to code productivity or quality.)
*BSD is released under the BSD licence, which specifical permits the use of BSD software for killing babies and making money. You can keep the source under your bed if you wish. Bill Gates is permitted to use BSD software for Windows (And he does).
You are not even required to drop large numbers of BSD CDs on Sadam's head (but bonus points if you do!)
Its another sad fact that much of the information on usenet/the web about CVS dates from version 0.0.1_beta, and says "CVS is at a beta stage, and can.t be trusted for mission critical work". Many people believe this is still the case, because there is no practical means to recall the comments.
I have used Clearcase and Teamware as well as CVS, and CVS is the cheapest, easiest to use, and most reliable of the three. It is also the one most widely used by morons. If you want a demonstration of CVS in action on large projects then try FreeBSD
Maybe third failure to guess the root password? (You wouldnt run Windows on a laptop, would you?)
They failed because most objects have acoustic resonances, in which case, the sound suffers from the resonance. Objects that don't have an acoustic resonance, are generally so heavily acoustically damped (eg cushions) that they are no use as sound boards. A loudspeaker is made from all the optimum materials, in highly optimised geometries. ANything else sounds like something else.
A millon lemmings cant be wrong.
The real problem is my 1/4" tapes written with proprietry OS/2 backup software.
Moral: Open sauce is better than tomato sauce - except on burgers
It is occasionally useful to be able to say in front of a stranger "Fred is in Kansas" so colleagues know he is in the stores, but the visitor thinks he is on a sales trip!
Using girls' names is fatal - as in your wife will kill you in a fit of jelousy when she discovers you sending e-mail form a computer called "susan" (Except maybe if she is called Susan, but perosnally, I wouldnt risk it!)
KDE not only compiles, it runs! Too bad that it depends on a mass of sound software, even if you don't own a sound card.
what is with these people and dependencies?
A good translation might be "Anyone expecting to use this implementation as the basis for distributing a commercial product would need to have his head examined"
Seriously, it will be interesting to see what happens in the rest of the world. I doubt MS has contributed to the campaigns in other countries on the scale it has in the US. - but they have tried hard in the UK by all accounts.
From where i see it, quite the reverse ... If MS froze all their SW where it is, people would get a chance to learn how to use it properly, how to interface to it properly, and generally thew world would be a better place for users, abusers, and even shareholders (massive saving in bucks on developers salaries). No losers anywhere
In the real world, most people don't use e-bay and Amazon, and uptake of WinXP is not big percentage of the world either.
Not only that, for those of us for whom having a 56k modem is a laugh, cos download rate is 918 bits per minute, having all these plugins NOT work is a bonus!
The reality is that more than 50% of people in the developed world have computers. This means that the pool of suckers is diminishing fast. The second time buyer is not as foolish as the first time. He/She asks questions like "will it keep crashing?" and "Can I have an OS that can shut down properly please?"
Even the people in Computer World will have to be computer literate, and pretty soon, some of them will learn how to install Linux/BSD. Within your lifetime, its not impossible that the average office manager will have tried other products than MS, and found out they are cheaper. Once the shareholders know that Unix servers don't need to be booted every day, AND cost less than MS stuff, Mr Gates's shares will be will lose value fast.
Just imagine if the Enron fiasco means auditors ask questions like "Can you explain why you buy this expensive stuff when the free stuff works better? Is there a kickback involved?"
I like "open in background" and the "mouse gestures".
I'd register if it was Native FreeBSD, but its actually the Linux one in compatibilty mode.
Piracy is obviously all MS is fault, and MS should be illegal!
In fact, the proposed 64 bit processors will pretty much be doing all known processor design techniques on a chip. At that point, we have used all the ideas that were known when the Vax was designed (approx 1980). Since then, nothing much new has been invented. The only missing piece of technology is content addressable memories (ie execute jump table in single cycle instead of stepping though each option and comparing. These have also been known since about 1980, including how to make them. Used as cache tag ram, they would make a HUGE performance improvement. There is no obvious reason for not using them apart from the fact that its a European development (mostly UK and Germany), and America has a problem with NIH.
I dont deny there are special cases where 128 bits (or even 1024) might pay, but to sell, you need a general purpose machine, and 64 bits is the top whack as far as we know. After that, masssively parallel is more cost effective (ICL DAP, etc).
I personally woud pay $150 for a CAST IRON case. I am truly P*ssed off with Alminium ones - they crush when you put a cup of coffee on them.
And I want AT/ATX dual fitting, and enough cooling to handle dual Sledge Hammer processors. (Quad Sledgehammers if someone ever makes the motherboards).
But i'm writing this on a 233MHz K6-II (NetBSD), which I would also put in a cast iron case if I could.
About as much use as any other legal remedy that does not involve the use of guidance systems and high explosive.
How long before suicide bombers take up the cause of anti-spam?
Where? How much?
However, I'd be happy to pay $99 if it worked properly, with a decent range of fonts, and worked the same on Sparc and i386, and FreeeBSD.
I'd even settle for a deal where I had to buy a licence per Arch, or per OS, or, for $50, per machine!
BUT ONLY if I get the source code and can fix the damn bugs.