I came to the conclusion that you are the only person who is ultimately responsible for the state of the code you write is YOU. Nothing else, no one else.
Project deadlines, crazy customers, chief engineers, thunderstorms, even a Tsumani. It's just you.
Reason:
if you write buggy code, whatever the reason may be, it falls back to you. You will have to fix it, you will be MADE responsible for it. EVERY time. No one asks WHY you did it.
And you don't like it yourself, which is a bad thing. One should LOVE his work, not hate it.
If you force yourself to push everything else into a state that enables YOU to write good/nice/beautiful code, you will gain something. If not, you will suffer. That's about it. It has nothing to do with other people, with companies, with unemployment.
So, get up, and write that good code. Whatever it takes.
This just leads to people not caring any more ("the machine counts this stuff, doesn't it), and if anything bad happens, it would not be the persons error, but the "computers".
We should try to keep in mind that ultimately, it's ALWAYS our fault. And care a little bit more.
... the whole internet, including blogs and wikipedia, should not be used as scientific reference, as long as the authors are anonymous, and there sources are not shown. As with ANY OTHER source you might use in your paper/thesis. Why?
When using anything for citation, you need to make absolutely sure, that your sources are valid and not just some made-up story of creationists or school boys from Wisconsin (nothing against Wisconsin;))
Recently, a big scientific magazin (Nature?) officially withdrawed an article about creationism and genetic development from the 50ths (because the author wanted them to do so), because it has been misused by creationists as a "scientific proof" for their theories. (sorry, no reference;))
So what? Well, it shows the importance of PROPER citation references. If you want to state something, you need proof. Either, you can proof it yourself and write about your personal experience ("damn YES 110V AC *DO* hurt so DON'T touch the wires"), or you need a reference to someone who had that personal experience (or, in theoretical environments, shares your opinion).
Creationists misused this article (which contained some statements not considered valid anymore even by the author himself, time can change "reality" perception), while any other scientific source simply said (or proofed) the OPPOSITE meaning. The article itself was not the problem, but the unchecked - or in this case, I think, biased - usage of the contents.
If a wikipedia article has a good "foundation", say, external citation references that can be followed and point to qualified research documents or other sources which are again based on "proper" information, the information in the article can be, as with every other information re-used in a scientific article, *validated*, and used without any complaints.
But if the article just STATES something, without proof or reference, one should definitely check for other sources, either supporting or invalidating the article.
It's not that much different from other references you use. If you just dig up some crackpot thesis from the 30ths and use it without checking for other publications or statements about the topic, you might simply use false information, invalidating your own work.
That's about it, in fact, is has not much to do with "wikipedia can be edited by anyone" - it's just about proper scientific work.
Oh, and schools should not be babbling about whether or not "wikipedia is bad", but teach proper scientific (and social) skills.
"Microsoft has delivered clear improvements in stability over time--a feat you'd think Apple might want to emulate."
Well, yes, he got Tiger 10 month ago, when the product was in the wild for about 1.5 years, had been fixed over and over again. Tiger in the early days was just a mess, and I simply can not understand why he just states out of nothing:
"Apple does not delivere clear improvements in stability" - just because in the timeframe he used Tiger there simply have been - nearly - no stability issues with the product.
Now, with a new cat in the wild, we users have the same problems as always, the software simply does not work. Leopard HAS issues (very much like Tiger had, that is), and I'm sure they will be addressed. If I'm not mistaken, the first two updates have already been seeded, so:
what I don't get is why he complains about "nothing is improving".
There are reasons why more experienced Mac-addicts always wait for 10.x.1 before they upgrade to the new system:)
The reported errors in Leopard ARE a shame. No way not to acknowledge them. But Apple not trying to improve the situation - haha.
Well, I understand that they don't change there website, telling us "who, don't get a Mac right now, we need four more month to tweek Leopard until it's REALLY stable".
Oh, by the way: our production testing systems are running Leopard since early developer seeds of Leopard, and yes, there WAS improvement in stability %)
From the perspective of an application developer, this is pure nonsense. I practically don't care wether my DB stores data in columns or rows or whatever.
What I need is a good, consistant layer that can handle object-based tree structures - nothing more, nothing less. I want to dump my Java/Objective-C/C#/C++/PHP/Python objects in some storage layer, and I want to be able to get it back, search for it, etc.pp.
Yes, relational databases are (or should be) dead for most modern application designs. But not because of RDBMs are going to be replaced by column-oriented DBMS (which is, from application perspective, no difference - IMHO), but because OODBs solves most application problems better (not that good solutions exists, yet... *sigh*)
On the other hand, I never got any master degree. Shame on me. Just won a best paper award for a paper I did not even wrote. Maybe I just don't have the wits for this stuff;)
... worldwide. Many frogs and other species just seem to vanish without proper explanation, but fungus has been speculated as a reason.
What's up? Fungus for world domination?
The legislation dates back than, and was dated to be "in force" for 1.1.2007.
Despite MASSIVE public resistance (which was, of course, FUTILE), it will be enforced from january 2007, now.
Not that we did not tell the public back in 2004, but of course nobody listened - 2007 seemed "a long way" back than. Stupid people. Gnah.
The really annoying thing is, they started with 17 into the discussion, only reducing it to 5 when they noticed they won't get through with those 17 because that would have started public riots, I think. Now they just reduce the bill until nobody but only a few freelancers - who are hit most, because only those people using the PC for work have to pay *additionally* fees - will complain any more.
Of course, once the legislation is in force in the first place, they will quickly increase the fee. Damnit, and AGAIN NOBODY IS LISTENING.
Now, for me, there is only *one* real question remaining:
[ ] Canada
or
[ ] Japan?
Did you ever considered Germany a social living place, with fair regulations and freedom of speech and stuff? Really, they screw that up now. Fastly.
I hope that Time Machine finally solves my daily backup problems. I never found any software that could handle my environment (many systems, mobile devices) with little configuration or without headaches.
I just came to the conclusion that maybe - just maybe - some of the "top secret" features of Leopard that have NOT been presented yet might have something to do with the "Media PC thingy".
So there's justice even in the worldwide financial market.
Segway... hey, they laughed at bikers for YEARS...
on
The Worst Tech of Q2 2006
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
back in the 19th century.
I think, the Segway will be my relief when I get old and can't walk as good as now. It should be a nice replacement for those grandma walking aids that must be used these days.
So, I don't think the segway is a bad thing at all. looks stupid, but hey... %)
No, wait. I'm using MacOS X and Gentoo Linux (different jobs, different tools to handle them!) - and I'd not change that as of now.
I don't see anything with MacOS X which hurts me. Nothing, really. So why change?
Gentoo is giving me the creeps right now - compiling for two days, because I did not update *anything* since about... 2004 - but it's still the best Linux flavor for bleeding edge low level develompent, IMHO.
Let them be lucky with Ubuntu, I feel perfectly save with MacOS X right now.
Main reason: drag&drop installation of programs. And Drag&Drop REMOVAL of the same applications. There might be configuration artifacts in the system, but the executable is organized in one "file", and I really LIKE that.
I mean. You know. Apple is officially broke. M$ is dead in the water. Now they should obviously join forces (i.e. Macs sold with Vista, Apple buys M$ and so on) so they can be broke AND dead in the water at the same time! Wow! DeveloperDeveloperDeveloper! That would be SO GREAT! *mwuahaha*
Or would it?
Sorry, some people just are so... I mean, look at the article tags, it's all there;)
It's more like free marketing support, not like stealing property.
I don't get why they don't understand that. If nobody even KNOWS about an artist, how could he sell his works? I'd even pay a lot of money - if I had any - to be the replacement of the google logo for just 20 minutes (just guess the hits/public notice you would gain from that).
Also, they (google) don't use the image to improve their own product, but to hail the original artists (I think the even explained on a website what the logo change meant - as they usualy do). If this does harm to a copyright, I say, F*CK copyright. Do it now, and do it properly.
Don't like this new world we (some people) are heading to.
You need a stable environment. Like, define some include directory, a specific way to include your code files, and a specific way how APIs should be designed. If you are using OO programming for database access, write classes that you can use over and over again with minimum effort.
Avoid globals in libraries at all costs.
Now, split up problems to usefull bits, and add those bits to your existing libraries, or create new ones, whichever seems to be logical.
Like this, you can easily re-use source code wherever you need it again. PHP has some pitfalls here (directory mess when including from other directories) that need to be solved early.
For storage, it's up to you. You can use CVS or Subversion, as many other pointed out.
pro's: 1. you have backups of older versions 2. upgrading old projects to new versions get's easier 3. if someone joins the team, you already have a versioning system suitable for teamwork usage
con's: 1. you need to use it. There's no way to go "easy" on some projects because... well whatever;) 2. if it crashes, you are in big trouble. Restoring a CVS or SVN is more work than simply swapping a disk and putting your tar.gz files back from your backup CD. You need backup CDs anyway, but of course it's not that much of an issue to restore a CVS/Subversion directory.
I always go for CVS, or, these days, for Subversion. Subversion has proper directory handling, while you are stuck with dead directories like in "forever" with CVS. Subversion also seems pretty much stable, and I'd consider me quite a regular user.
VERY nice writeup, thanks a lot. This saves me a lot of time. Well not all of the time, I'm still angry.
Hell, what he writes is a sacrilege to me! I bought a mac 6 month ago (switching - from Linux!) and Mac OS X is so much superior to any other operating system, including FC4, Gentoo, SuSE 9.1, and of course - in a most obvious way in ANY point, stability, freeware programs, usability, productive vs. spoiled time - to windows. And I think I know what I'm talking about, after writing about 15.000 lines of OS kernel code myself back in 1996. WinXP and w2k give me the creeps each day when I have to fix or install something or test web projects wether that damn IE displays them as he should. Anyone knows results of Acid2 in IE7? Would be fun. Think Vista's IE will handle Acid2? I don't think so.
And from what I've seen until know I doubt VERY much that Vista will change a lot of these things.
Hell, and Steve should actually drop the system he cares for since he left Apple and took over the hold of NextGen in the early 90th? Even making sure he can take NextStep BACK to Apple and make the best *nix system available for personal computing in the world?
And DROP it when market shares are RISING? When Apple is selling more Units ever *BECAUSE* they do NOT run Windows like any bloody PC in the world?
And does he know anything about how Apple makes his revenues? That hardware is more important for earnings than the software for Apple, but Apple would not sell a single unit of it's pricy over-designed hardware if the software would not make it run actually better than a "usual" desktop PC. OMFG.
And, as many other people stated, there is an switch uproar going through the world. Market shares will show that soon enough. I studied (and live) in Germany, and four years ago, I did only know *one* person at the whole university at all who owned a mac (and I knew some), and that did not change until someone bought a 12" Powerbook. Then, hell (heaven) broke loose. Now 80% of my friends (and those are still the same people) either bought a Mac, or are going to buy one.
No, really, nobody switched.
Good fight, good night. Sorry, PCWorld really made me angry.
PS: and, Steve, get me right here. If you actually drop MacOS X, I won't ever buy a Mac again. I'll implement a proper Exposé for X11 and go for cheap consumer hardware again.
Slashdot Mirror
I came to the conclusion that you are the only person who is ultimately responsible for the state of the code you write is YOU. Nothing else, no one else.
:)
Project deadlines, crazy customers, chief engineers, thunderstorms, even a Tsumani. It's just you.
Reason:
if you write buggy code, whatever the reason may be, it falls back to you. You will have to fix it, you will be MADE responsible for it. EVERY time. No one asks WHY you did it.
And you don't like it yourself, which is a bad thing. One should LOVE his work, not hate it.
If you force yourself to push everything else into a state that enables YOU to write good/nice/beautiful code, you will gain something. If not, you will suffer. That's about it. It has nothing to do with other people, with companies, with unemployment.
So, get up, and write that good code. Whatever it takes.
Good luck
This just leads to people not caring any more ("the machine counts this stuff, doesn't it), and if anything bad happens, it would not be the persons error, but the "computers".
We should try to keep in mind that ultimately, it's ALWAYS our fault. And care a little bit more.
... the whole internet, including blogs and wikipedia, should not be used as scientific reference, as long as the authors are anonymous, and there sources are not shown. As with ANY OTHER source you might use in your paper/thesis. Why?
;))
;))
When using anything for citation, you need to make absolutely sure, that your sources are valid and not just some made-up story of creationists or school boys from Wisconsin (nothing against Wisconsin
Recently, a big scientific magazin (Nature?) officially withdrawed an article about creationism and genetic development from the 50ths (because the author wanted them to do so), because it has been misused by creationists as a "scientific proof" for their theories. (sorry, no reference
So what? Well, it shows the importance of PROPER citation references. If you want to state something, you need proof. Either, you can proof it yourself and write about your personal experience ("damn YES 110V AC *DO* hurt so DON'T touch the wires"), or you need a reference to someone who had that personal experience (or, in theoretical environments, shares your opinion).
Creationists misused this article (which contained some statements not considered valid anymore even by the author himself, time can change "reality" perception), while any other scientific source simply said (or proofed) the OPPOSITE meaning. The article itself was not the problem, but the unchecked - or in this case, I think, biased - usage of the contents.
If a wikipedia article has a good "foundation", say, external citation references that can be followed and point to qualified research documents or other sources which are again based on "proper" information, the information in the article can be, as with every other information re-used in a scientific article, *validated*, and used without any complaints.
But if the article just STATES something, without proof or reference, one should definitely check for other sources, either supporting or invalidating the article.
It's not that much different from other references you use. If you just dig up some crackpot thesis from the 30ths and use it without checking for other publications or statements about the topic, you might simply use false information, invalidating your own work.
That's about it, in fact, is has not much to do with "wikipedia can be edited by anyone" - it's just about proper scientific work.
Oh, and schools should not be babbling about whether or not "wikipedia is bad", but teach proper scientific (and social) skills.
"Microsoft has delivered clear improvements in stability over time--a feat you'd think Apple might want to emulate."
:)
Well, yes, he got Tiger 10 month ago, when the product was in the wild for about 1.5 years, had been fixed over and over again. Tiger in the early days was just a mess, and I simply can not understand why he just states out of nothing:
"Apple does not delivere clear improvements in stability" - just because in the timeframe he used Tiger there simply have been - nearly - no stability issues with the product.
Now, with a new cat in the wild, we users have the same problems as always, the software simply does not work. Leopard HAS issues (very much like Tiger had, that is), and I'm sure they will be addressed. If I'm not mistaken, the first two updates have already been seeded, so:
what I don't get is why he complains about "nothing is improving".
There are reasons why more experienced Mac-addicts always wait for 10.x.1 before they upgrade to the new system
The reported errors in Leopard ARE a shame. No way not to acknowledge them. But Apple not trying to improve the situation - haha.
Well, I understand that they don't change there website, telling us "who, don't get a Mac right now, we need four more month to tweek Leopard until it's REALLY stable".
Oh, by the way: our production testing systems are running Leopard since early developer seeds of Leopard, and yes, there WAS improvement in stability %)
I know a lot of people who will *instantly* buy a wii when the first (good) Star Wars game hits the market. Shooter, that is.
...
And yes, I'm one of them. So it might be a little bit early to say "that's it"
From the perspective of an application developer, this is pure nonsense. I practically don't care wether my DB stores data in columns or rows or whatever.
;)
What I need is a good, consistant layer that can handle object-based tree structures - nothing more, nothing less. I want to dump my Java/Objective-C/C#/C++/PHP/Python objects in some storage layer, and I want to be able to get it back, search for it, etc.pp.
Yes, relational databases are (or should be) dead for most modern application designs. But not because of RDBMs are going to be replaced by column-oriented DBMS (which is, from application perspective, no difference - IMHO), but because OODBs solves most application problems better (not that good solutions exists, yet... *sigh*)
On the other hand, I never got any master degree. Shame on me. Just won a best paper award for a paper I did not even wrote. Maybe I just don't have the wits for this stuff
... an dumped the idea of a german version.
;)
Next: the great german firewall, build by american companies unable to understand foreign rules and laws...
There are tons of Freeware for MacOS X. In fact, most programs and tools I use in everyday life are freeware.
So... ?
... worldwide. Many frogs and other species just seem to vanish without proper explanation, but fungus has been speculated as a reason. What's up? Fungus for world domination?
... might be a problem here. So: no more sports, please ;)
The legislation dates back than, and was dated to be "in force" for 1.1.2007.
Despite MASSIVE public resistance (which was, of course, FUTILE), it will be enforced from january 2007, now.
Not that we did not tell the public back in 2004, but of course nobody listened - 2007 seemed "a long way" back than. Stupid people. Gnah.
The really annoying thing is, they started with 17 into the discussion, only reducing it to 5 when they noticed they won't get through with those 17 because that would have started public riots, I think. Now they just reduce the bill until nobody but only a few freelancers - who are hit most, because only those people using the PC for work have to pay *additionally* fees - will complain any more.
Of course, once the legislation is in force in the first place, they will quickly increase the fee. Damnit, and AGAIN NOBODY IS LISTENING.
Now, for me, there is only *one* real question remaining:
[ ] Canada
or
[ ] Japan?
Did you ever considered Germany a social living place, with fair regulations and freedom of speech and stuff? Really, they screw that up now. Fastly.
I hope that Time Machine finally solves my daily backup problems. I never found any software that could handle my environment (many systems, mobile devices) with little configuration or without headaches.
... he used this back three or four years in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", season six. Forgot which episode, sorry.
Dialog, roughly:
"Did you google on her?" - "Jeez, Willow, she's 14!" - "No, I mean, did you do an internet research..."
Google does no evil? Well, let's think again. I tend so think different lately.
I just came to the conclusion that maybe - just maybe - some of the "top secret" features of Leopard that have NOT been presented yet might have something to do with the "Media PC thingy".
No proofs or anything though - just a wild guess.
if it had not already been.
So there's justice even in the worldwide financial market.
back in the 19th century.
I think, the Segway will be my relief when I get old and can't walk as good as now. It should be a nice replacement for those grandma walking aids that must be used these days.
So, I don't think the segway is a bad thing at all. looks stupid, but hey... %)
No, wait. I'm using MacOS X and Gentoo Linux (different jobs, different tools to handle them!) - and I'd not change that as of now.
I don't see anything with MacOS X which hurts me. Nothing, really. So why change?
Gentoo is giving me the creeps right now - compiling for two days, because I did not update *anything* since about... 2004 - but it's still the best Linux flavor for bleeding edge low level develompent, IMHO.
Let them be lucky with Ubuntu, I feel perfectly save with MacOS X right now.
Main reason: drag&drop installation of programs. And Drag&Drop REMOVAL of the same applications. There might be configuration artifacts in the system, but the executable is organized in one "file", and I really LIKE that.
Don't think Ubuntu has anything alike.
at least, with some minor modifications (stripping) you can get them both NAKED! With nipples!
I even saw them in PR0N on the internet. No really there was this YouTube flick where... ah, anyway.
We Europeans have some problems of our own, but this whole "no-nudity-concept" seems even more flawed (and older, obviously) than the DMCA.
I mean. You know. Apple is officially broke. M$ is dead in the water. Now they should obviously join forces (i.e. Macs sold with Vista, Apple buys M$ and so on) so they can be broke AND dead in the water at the same time! Wow! DeveloperDeveloperDeveloper! That would be SO GREAT! *mwuahaha*
;)
Or would it?
Sorry, some people just are so... I mean, look at the article tags, it's all there
... on my dual-boot system, because I didn't want to play around with ntfs 3 years ago - and never changed the running system afterwards ;)
Would Vista support F32/NTFS as an option at least for a data disk?
In fact I couldn't care less, as I moved to vmware long ago.
It's more like free marketing support, not like stealing property.
I don't get why they don't understand that. If nobody even KNOWS about an artist, how could he sell his works? I'd even pay a lot of money - if I had any - to be the replacement of the google logo for just 20 minutes (just guess the hits/public notice you would gain from that).
Also, they (google) don't use the image to improve their own product, but to hail the original artists (I think the even explained on a website what the logo change meant - as they usualy do). If this does harm to a copyright, I say, F*CK copyright. Do it now, and do it properly.
Don't like this new world we (some people) are heading to.
This is just the top feature of Aperture, isn't it?
*scratching his head*
Not that innovative, I'm afraid. Can he handle raw files? If not, well, it's Aperture for "normal" users.
really. Well nothing more to say, but this suddenly came to my mind when reading his quote.
You need a stable environment. Like, define some include directory, a specific way to include your code files, and a specific way how APIs should be designed. If you are using OO programming for database access, write classes that you can use over and over again with minimum effort.
;)
Avoid globals in libraries at all costs.
Now, split up problems to usefull bits, and add those bits to your existing libraries, or create new ones, whichever seems to be logical.
Like this, you can easily re-use source code wherever you need it again. PHP has some pitfalls here (directory mess when including from other directories) that need to be solved early.
For storage, it's up to you. You can use CVS or Subversion, as many other pointed out.
pro's:
1. you have backups of older versions
2. upgrading old projects to new versions get's easier
3. if someone joins the team, you already have a versioning system suitable for teamwork usage
con's:
1. you need to use it. There's no way to go "easy" on some projects because... well whatever
2. if it crashes, you are in big trouble. Restoring a CVS or SVN is more work than simply swapping a disk and putting your tar.gz files back from your backup CD. You need backup CDs anyway, but of course it's not that much of an issue to restore a CVS/Subversion directory.
I always go for CVS, or, these days, for Subversion. Subversion has proper directory handling, while you are stuck with dead directories like in "forever" with CVS. Subversion also seems pretty much stable, and I'd consider me quite a regular user.
have fun coding.
VERY nice writeup, thanks a lot. This saves me a lot of time. Well not all of the time, I'm still angry.
Hell, what he writes is a sacrilege to me! I bought a mac 6 month ago (switching - from Linux!) and Mac OS X is so much superior to any other operating system, including FC4, Gentoo, SuSE 9.1, and of course - in a most obvious way in ANY point, stability, freeware programs, usability, productive vs. spoiled time - to windows. And I think I know what I'm talking about, after writing about 15.000 lines of OS kernel code myself back in 1996. WinXP and w2k give me the creeps each day when I have to fix or install something or test web projects wether that damn IE displays them as he should. Anyone knows results of Acid2 in IE7? Would be fun. Think Vista's IE will handle Acid2? I don't think so.
And from what I've seen until know I doubt VERY much that Vista will change a lot of these things.
Hell, and Steve should actually drop the system he cares for since he left Apple and took over the hold of NextGen in the early 90th? Even making sure he can take NextStep BACK to Apple and make the best *nix system available for personal computing in the world?
And DROP it when market shares are RISING? When Apple is selling more Units ever *BECAUSE* they do NOT run Windows like any bloody PC in the world?
And does he know anything about how Apple makes his revenues? That hardware is more important for earnings than the software for Apple, but Apple would not sell a single unit of it's pricy over-designed hardware if the software would not make it run actually better than a "usual" desktop PC. OMFG.
And, as many other people stated, there is an switch uproar going through the world. Market shares will show that soon enough. I studied (and live) in Germany, and four years ago, I did only know *one* person at the whole university at all who owned a mac (and I knew some), and that did not change until someone bought a 12" Powerbook. Then, hell (heaven) broke loose. Now 80% of my friends (and those are still the same people) either bought a Mac, or are going to buy one.
No, really, nobody switched.
Good fight, good night. Sorry, PCWorld really made me angry.
PS: and, Steve, get me right here. If you actually drop MacOS X, I won't ever buy a Mac again. I'll implement a proper Exposé for X11 and go for cheap consumer hardware again.