sysvinit was decrepit and unsuitable for modern systems,
This is complete bullshit. My (modern) computer worked perfectly fine before systemd. There was zero improvement after my preferred distro replaced init with systemd. Maybe it booted up 2 seconds faster? I don't know, it's linux, I don't ever fucking reboot it. The only change in my life was how much time I had to spend learning systemd bullshit that added ZERO VALUE to my use of linux on my pc.
So you better get a LOT more specific as to which system was "unsuited" for sysvinit before you start making blanket statements like that or people are going to continue to call you out on your bullshit.
A server under heavy load takes an unpredictable amount of time to shut down. Shell scripts have found no sensible way to make restart work reliably. Systemd helps there with management of process groups.
HR cracks down hard on the three male programmers, who have no idea why they're being attacked.
Happens all the time. It's so sad that as a result, we cannot have attractive, interesting people around any more, just more of those male programmers.
I do programming and systems administration, both mostly in Perl.
This computer is more than five years old, a Gigabyte GA-EP45 motherboard, an Intel Core 2 quad CPU at 2.66GHz
maxed out at 8GB RAM, swap often used little; currently, less than 1%.
2 1TB disks in software RAID 1
Has never run any OS but Fedora, now F22.
XFCE desktop.
Three monitors: two 27" Kogan 2560x1440 displays, one Samsung 2443 1920x1200
AMD HD5450 with heatsink only, no fan, for reliability. DisplayPort, DVI, VGA outputs drive each monitor.
And, before running, detects typing mistakes in variables when you "use strict;" (which, of course, your editor automatically inserts).
Python has this little problem that such mistypings are still a run-time error. When the code that uses them executes. Oh the horror.
I worked in a computing department in a college that had a lecturer from a particular university co-located, sitting close to my desk. I was interested in plagiarism management, and was using the Moss system from Berkeley together with code I had written to manage plagiarism in an unofficial way in my programming classes.
Official paths were blocked at my college by a rule requiring expulsion and exclusion for a minimum of two years, so plagiarism "did not happen" there due to this "death penalty", so I was on my own.
The lecturer from that university told me about efforts to clamp down on plagiarism exceeding two-thirds of first year computer science students at his university. The head of the school at his university announced the initiative to punish those that were identified as guilty. The students demanded each have a proper hearing, and students from the law faculty offered to help in the representation of these hundreds of students. In the hearings, students were demanding compensation from the university for loss of their intellectual property due to the "obvious lack of security" of the assignment submission system. There were other, more complex and more imaginative defences. There were few lecturers and staff to represent the school, and unending numbers of students, each requiring a minimum of a 45 minute hearing, with appeals and other procedures demanded in addition. The lecturer told me that the head of school backed down, admitting defeat.
Windows comes pre-installed with loads of crapware to make money for the OEM.
I hate that.
Linux comes unencumbered with Digital Restrictions Management, without the need to paff around with anti-virus software.
All the software on my Linux system comes with source code. I can change that. I can fix it when it breaks for me. I can share my changes with any one else. I'm not stuck with hanging on the phone sending the vendor data I know they won't need to solve the problem. I love all that freedom.
I am a keen listener to FLOSS Weekly hosted by Randal Schwartz, and am astounded at how often he is away on a geek cruise ship, evidently having a great time, and learning from other geeks. I cannot imagine a better person to address this question to.
The Gimp is software that I am now happily familiar with, and want to improve my knowledge of.
I buy books to learn more about how to do things I want to do with the Gimp.
My hope is that money will become available to pay Gimp developers to more rapidly produce such wonderful things as the GEKLsupport and make the Gimp more useful to professionals as well as people like me.
We usually make several production releases every day. We have a complete configuration management system (conform) that totally automates building a server and releasing software. We have a complete dev environment and two test environments. We test code in pre-production first. But the key is our automation. It automates releases and rollbacks. Without complete automation (and competence), we would be submerged in paper work and bleary-eyed midnight releases like other teams in the company.
It never ceases to amaze me how many so easily dismiss the difficulty of replicating the ability of even animal brains to control their own motion. To replicate all the abilities of the human brain is something that some young slashdotters too easily dismiss as within the reach of their peers (though not within their own personal reach).
QuickBooks has scary limits built in. They suck you in with the entry price, but at some point if your business is successful and actually has multiple customers, you will exceed the built-in limits. Then it's time to upgrade. Not "it's time to think about upgrading" you have to upgrade right away because you have exceeded the limits and the version of QuickBooks you bought won't work any more. Expect to spend several thousand dollars.
Through the preservation, classification, and dissemination of patent information, the Office promotes the industrial and technological progress of the nation and strengthens the economy.
The USPTO also disseminates patent and trademark information that promotes an understanding of intellectual property protection and facilitates the development and sharing of new technologies worldwide.
I've been told patents support innovation. I see that, in relation to software, they are used more like nuclear arsenals. Their true purpose becomes plainer.
Going out and learning on your own sounds like diligence (and may be necessary), but you have to balance that expenditure of time and (possibly) money against what you are getting in return. If you are spending more in terms of money or opportunity cost than your pay is increasing, you are effectively lowering your salary. That might be better than losing your salary altogether, but it is not a desirable situation.
I'm surprised to see this as news; it was discussed about nine months ago in Jon Corbet's article in LWN.net.
K. Y. Srinivasan topped the list of changeset contributors with a massive set of cleanups to the Microsoft HV driver in the staging tree; it's impressive to see how much cleanup less than 15,000 lines of code can require.
It appears that Microsoft's contribution needed a lot of cleaning up to bring it up to scratch.
I know many younger than me who are unwilling to learn new skills to augment their knowledge of Cobol and Foxpro.
Their own lack of spirit condemns them.
I know people nearly as old as me who are nearly as passionate as I am
to learn new skills, who are eminently employable.
The smart employer wants people who care and are able to do the work
well.
I was 53 when I changed from my job as a lecturer in a vocational
college in Hong Kong, teaching computing, electrical engineering and
systems administration for eleven years, to working as a hands-on
engineer doing plenty of interesting software development in a large
ISP in Australia. I have thrived since the change, and feel less
stressed, not having to mark so many assignments, and not having to
deal directly with plagiarism while hiding it from the administration,
who pretend that it does not exist.
I love my work still, more than five years later, and enjoy working
with free software; this allows me to produce solutions to problems
without requiring support from management, except for paying for my
labour.
I might add that although I am now close to 60 years old, I still ride
my bicycle 160 km each week, and have a lot of energy and enthusiasm.
Also the subjects I taught and wrote the teaching material and
practical laboratory exercises for apply very directly to what I do in
my work.
I feel very lucky. Please do not listen to all the negative comments
you see here, moderated as 'insightful'; if you have the enthusiasm,
go for it. You will feel sorry if you don't.
I'm 55, a programmer, and I've been out of work for two years.
I'm a 58-year old Perl programmer and system administrator enjoying my challenging work.
1. I'm old. One 5 hour energy drink revvs up your basic 20 year old code monkey all day. I need a saline drip with caffeine in it all day to keep going.
I ride my bicycle 160 km each week, and have more energy than many younger programmers.
2. I'm expensive. I have 30 years of experience in the 'biz and a masters degree in CS. I'm not cheap. You could hire two 25 year olds for what I'm asking.
I am productive, have good control in deciding what I do, and enjoy a mentoring role.
3. I've been exposed to every nasty little mindgame management has at it's disposal. And sometimes I have the bad manners to call people on it. This is called "having a bad attitude".
I understand what pressures people are under, and get along well with my work mates and managers.
You are too old if you think you are. Otherwise, you can learn a great deal every day up to the day you die.
Slashdot Mirror
sysvinit was decrepit and unsuitable for modern systems,
This is complete bullshit. My (modern) computer worked perfectly fine before systemd. There was zero improvement after my preferred distro replaced init with systemd. Maybe it booted up 2 seconds faster? I don't know, it's linux, I don't ever fucking reboot it. The only change in my life was how much time I had to spend learning systemd bullshit that added ZERO VALUE to my use of linux on my pc. So you better get a LOT more specific as to which system was "unsuited" for sysvinit before you start making blanket statements like that or people are going to continue to call you out on your bullshit.
A server under heavy load takes an unpredictable amount of time to shut down. Shell scripts have found no sensible way to make restart work reliably. Systemd helps there with management of process groups.
Linus Torvalds advanced things a little.
HR cracks down hard on the three male programmers, who have no idea why they're being attacked.
Happens all the time. It's so sad that as a result, we cannot have attractive, interesting people around any more, just more of those male programmers.
I do programming and systems administration, both mostly in Perl.
This computer is more than five years old, a Gigabyte GA-EP45 motherboard, an Intel Core 2 quad CPU at 2.66GHz
maxed out at 8GB RAM, swap often used little; currently, less than 1%.
2 1TB disks in software RAID 1
Has never run any OS but Fedora, now F22.
XFCE desktop.
Three monitors: two 27" Kogan 2560x1440 displays, one Samsung 2443 1920x1200
AMD HD5450 with heatsink only, no fan, for reliability. DisplayPort, DVI, VGA outputs drive each monitor.
but Perl is that slightly chubby girl with the wry smile that is always reliable and willing to go to the dance with you.
Perl still runs fast.
And, before running, detects typing mistakes in variables when you "use strict;" (which, of course, your editor automatically inserts). Python has this little problem that such mistypings are still a run-time error. When the code that uses them executes. Oh the horror.
Yes, I did that. It helped a lot.
I worked in a computing department in a college that had a lecturer from a particular university co-located, sitting close to my desk. I was interested in plagiarism management, and was using the Moss system from Berkeley together with code I had written to manage plagiarism in an unofficial way in my programming classes.
Official paths were blocked at my college by a rule requiring expulsion and exclusion for a minimum of two years, so plagiarism "did not happen" there due to this "death penalty", so I was on my own.
The lecturer from that university told me about efforts to clamp down on plagiarism exceeding two-thirds of first year computer science students at his university. The head of the school at his university announced the initiative to punish those that were identified as guilty. The students demanded each have a proper hearing, and students from the law faculty offered to help in the representation of these hundreds of students. In the hearings, students were demanding compensation from the university for loss of their intellectual property due to the "obvious lack of security" of the assignment submission system. There were other, more complex and more imaginative defences. There were few lecturers and staff to represent the school, and unending numbers of students, each requiring a minimum of a 45 minute hearing, with appeals and other procedures demanded in addition. The lecturer told me that the head of school backed down, admitting defeat.
Let's hope Duke has a more positive outcome.
IEEE shows "PERL" at number 11. IEEE, It's Perl, not PERL.
Randal L. Schwartz (Floss Weekly, Schwarzian transform) would be proud of me.
I run unison from cron; it is hard to see how other people do without it.
I hate that.
Linux comes unencumbered with Digital Restrictions Management, without the need to paff around with anti-virus software.
All the software on my Linux system comes with source code. I can change that. I can fix it when it breaks for me. I can share my changes with any one else. I'm not stuck with hanging on the phone sending the vendor data I know they won't need to solve the problem. I love all that freedom.
I am a keen listener to FLOSS Weekly hosted by Randal Schwartz, and am astounded at how often he is away on a geek cruise ship, evidently having a great time, and learning from other geeks. I cannot imagine a better person to address this question to.
The Gimp is software that I am now happily familiar with, and want to improve my knowledge of.
I buy books to learn more about how to do things I want to do with the Gimp.
My hope is that money will become available to pay Gimp developers to more rapidly produce such wonderful things as the GEKL support and make the Gimp more useful to professionals as well as people like me.
We usually make several production releases every day. We have a complete configuration management system (conform) that totally automates building a server and releasing software. We have a complete dev environment and two test environments. We test code in pre-production first. But the key is our automation. It automates releases and rollbacks. Without complete automation (and competence), we would be submerged in paper work and bleary-eyed midnight releases like other teams in the company.
Your brains are not special
It never ceases to amaze me how many so easily dismiss the difficulty of replicating the ability of even animal brains to control their own motion. To replicate all the abilities of the human brain is something that some young slashdotters too easily dismiss as within the reach of their peers (though not within their own personal reach).
Speaking of that, what Linux person would buy an Apple product?!
I dunno, some twit called tourvulds or summit.
If you have nothing to hide then you have no problem.
I wear clothes. I have a lot to hide.
LWN documents this happening.
I've been told patents support innovation. I see that, in relation to software, they are used more like nuclear arsenals. Their true purpose becomes plainer.
Going out and learning on your own sounds like diligence (and may be necessary), but you have to balance that expenditure of time and (possibly) money against what you are getting in return. If you are spending more in terms of money or opportunity cost than your pay is increasing, you are effectively lowering your salary. That might be better than losing your salary altogether, but it is not a desirable situation.
It's desirable if you like doing that. I do.
It appears that Microsoft's contribution needed a lot of cleaning up to bring it up to scratch.
I know many younger than me who are unwilling to learn new skills to augment their knowledge of Cobol and Foxpro. Their own lack of spirit condemns them.
I know people nearly as old as me who are nearly as passionate as I am to learn new skills, who are eminently employable.
The smart employer wants people who care and are able to do the work well.
Some employers are smart.
I was 53 when I changed from my job as a lecturer in a vocational college in Hong Kong, teaching computing, electrical engineering and systems administration for eleven years, to working as a hands-on engineer doing plenty of interesting software development in a large ISP in Australia. I have thrived since the change, and feel less stressed, not having to mark so many assignments, and not having to deal directly with plagiarism while hiding it from the administration, who pretend that it does not exist.
I love my work still, more than five years later, and enjoy working with free software; this allows me to produce solutions to problems without requiring support from management, except for paying for my labour.
I might add that although I am now close to 60 years old, I still ride my bicycle 160 km each week, and have a lot of energy and enthusiasm.
Also the subjects I taught and wrote the teaching material and practical laboratory exercises for apply very directly to what I do in my work.
I feel very lucky. Please do not listen to all the negative comments you see here, moderated as 'insightful'; if you have the enthusiasm, go for it. You will feel sorry if you don't.
I forgot to mention; I changed careers at the age of 53 from teaching to programming and system administration.
I'm 55, a programmer, and I've been out of work for two years.
I'm a 58-year old Perl programmer and system administrator enjoying my challenging work.
1. I'm old. One 5 hour energy drink revvs up your basic 20 year old code monkey all day. I need a saline drip with caffeine in it all day to keep going.
I ride my bicycle 160 km each week, and have more energy than many younger programmers.
2. I'm expensive. I have 30 years of experience in the 'biz and a masters degree in CS. I'm not cheap. You could hire two 25 year olds for what I'm asking.
I am productive, have good control in deciding what I do, and enjoy a mentoring role.
3. I've been exposed to every nasty little mindgame management has at it's disposal. And sometimes I have the bad manners to call people on it. This is called "having a bad attitude".
I understand what pressures people are under, and get along well with my work mates and managers.
You are too old if you think you are. Otherwise, you can learn a great deal every day up to the day you die.