at the pharma company I work at. We were all java, C++, LISP, Smalltalkers before. It's been four years now, and it was a wise decision. It's a very adept glue language that has been easy to integrate with other systems, both at the source code and network level.
YMMV, and I think perl or ruby both fill this niche well too. We just wanted to have a standard platform for new development, and have been pleasantly surprised that python has been a productive choice for legacy integration and utility tasks as well.
We had a requirement recently to integrate with a Java system. I used jython and it took three days, with no curly braces to be seen. We get a lot done every day now, and it's quite motivating.
Why does slashdot think it can do political reporting? You have a hard enough time getting tech stories correct, and I swear every time you post a political article it just makes you look like a bunch of fuckwits.
You guys straight-up suck at reporting on any political story.
This is a week old, and since then Katherine Harris' Republican replacement issued an edict saying despite the Reform Party's effective dissolution, Nader will be on the ballot because "we won't have time to discuss it with these hurricanes."
Stick with what you sort of know. Every time slashdot ventures into politics, it is a laugh a minute.
One reason slashdot's readership has declined in the last two years is underlined perfectly by this thread. The times have become more political, and more people are looking for political blogs. Whenever slashdot treads into this territory, it immediately delivers some of the most puerile commentary you can find. Listening to computer fetishists wax political is generally as compelling as reading the Catholic church's pronouncements on same, or a typically loony Christopher Hitchens column.
Slashdot should stick with its strengths: consumerism, software, and gadgetry, and leave politics to more focused sites.
I agree--there is an interesting technical point in the article, but overall its intentional creation--and slashdot's eager fools--of a supposed "hybrid backlash" is just complete poop.
I've had a Prius for two years in a mountainous area of Colorado. Our lifetime mileage is 44.7, but in the summer we often get 50 mpg tanks. I calculate the mileage myself, although the in-dash readings nearly agree with my own averages. I've gone 518 miles on one (10.5 gal) tank. It comes very close to not polluting at all, and it is a very comfortable family car.
Having said that--if you buy one of these and continue to drive like a maniac, your mileage results will suffer noticeably. The car trains you to accelerate and decelerate gently in order to max out your mileage, and this is a good practice no matter what car you drive.
The Wired propaganda article gives Republican/Libertarian/selfish folk just another justification to ignore the environment. Keep waiting for the fuel cell, kids...it's a great way to stall progress.
Agree--I transferred my domain from NetSol to joker.com over a year ago because I'd heard Joker was good about privacy.
I have found Joker simple, straightforward, cheap despite the Euro's climb against the dollar, and reliable. Their web forms were simple and obvious, they have never sent me any unwanted email, and they have the distinct advantage of not being in the U.S. There was one incident where the German government forced them to close a site down, but I would rather take my chances with European censorship than with Ashcroftian justice.
> [XP] is just an excuse to bypass solid proces > in order to ship faster.
Trolling, trolling, trolling. Convenient that you don't describe "solid process." These same conventional processes have so far caused what you later complain about: buggy, unpredictable software.
"Ship faster" has actually become the overriding norm since we moved to the Internet Age. From a purely business point of view, time to market often legitimately overrides other concerns such as quality, feature-completeness, etc. Yes, it's frustrating, but not nearly as frustrating as being out of work because your company couldn't demo at the trade show and sign up paying customers.
> Having been involved in development for about 10 > years...
Aaahh, nevermind sonny. I see the problem now. Good luck testing!
> XP relies on everybody in the team pairing all > the time. So if you don't like to "pair up," > what choice do you have but to leave the > project?
Here's where my eyebrow first raised. Pair programming is an important part of XP, but not indispensible.
If your ego or work habits are so inflexible you can't bear even to try pair programming, then indeed you should leave the project. But then, you should have left a long time ago because you're probably already not communicating well with the rest of the team, or sharing code or ideas, etc.
> XPR argues that the customer (and users) > usually do have a pretty good idea what they > want from a new system.
Here's where I decided not to read the book. There are a few statements you can make that demonstrate you have little practical knowledge of software engineering in the real world, and this is one of them.
You get used to pair programming, at least most folks do. It is much more intense (and productive) than solo coding, so rarely do we do it for a full 8-10 hour session. But then again, you don't need to because you often find you've gotten as much done in a couple hours as you would have in a full day anyway...plus tests!
Some people resist it, but generally speaking it is a healthy disturbance for everyone who's willing to give it a shot.
This whole "XPR" recommendation as reflected by the reviewer sounds worthless anyway. XP practices can and generally are taken out of context, not always "cranked up to 10" anyway, and can improve things even if adopted only piecemeal. Beck and others have provided guidelines for adopting those parts of XP that make sense for you. And no one is more aware of XP's failings and gaps than the XP community.
This seems to me like a redundant book that posits a rabidly zealous, uncompromising community of XP folk that simply doesn't exist, and offers a "solution" that is well within the scope of what XP proponents argue for regardless. Skip.
Is this the Bush school of "repeat lies often and they become truths?"
Clearly Gentoo is faddish today, and for good reason. But your dreams of Debian losing "market share" are simply that. Downloads and reported installs continue to increase, and rather quickly lately. Debian continues to win, and your made-up 90% number must have been printed on your asshat.
Fashion article, like all fashion articles.
on
Software Fashion
·
· Score: 1
Sucks. Pick a few failed technologies, enjoy mocking them, then try to synthesize it into some bullshitty whole about how there are "fashions" rather than just the success and failure of competing approaches.
And the author fundamentally understands XP, its motivations, and applicability. Any small project, stable requirements or otherwise, is an excellent candidate for XP if the coders are game. The real point is that the "traditional methodologies" he hopes will subsume the best of XP's ideas have failed, repeatedly, for years and years, rarely if ever producing reliable, simple, and timely software. XP deserves criticism, but there is absolutely nothing to be said for the approaches this author clearly favors.
Palm OS is definitely well suited for small devices, but also limiting.
> it's basically impossible to sync them with Linux
Using Sharp-supported software, yes. Using other free solutions, no. It's not going to void your warranty, but if downloading and installing a perl script or an application from Trolltech scares you off, then definitely stay away.
The keyboard is not useless. It looks extremely awkward, but I've found you can actually type quite quickly on it thanks to the standard QWERTY layout. Use both thumbs, not one finger. It works.
Surprisingly, the built-in recognizer works well, so I find myself rarely opening the keyboard unless I'm composing a long email or something. I've used Palm OS & Graffiti for six years, and I was quite happy with the Zaurus' handwriting recognition. There is also a Graffiti recognizer available, but I haven't tried it yet.
If you want a laptop, get one. Typing is always easier on a real keyboard (of course there are third-party solutions for attaching real keyboards to a Zaurus.) But what's wrong with making a powerful PDA? Palm's going in the same direction, if you hadn't noticed.
What's your beef with a pressure-sensitive touchscreen? How else would it be done? Have you ever actually used a PDA? How could you possibly be excited about a Tablet PC and yet have made any of these comments?
And the answer is...yes. I'm listening to my public radio station icecast2 stream via ogg123 right now, and I see three other apps and a plugin for the default MediaPlayer app listed in the Zaurus Software Index when I search for "ogg".
I have a 5500, and all that was necessary was for me to download the GPL QTopia Desktop from Trolltech, rpm -> deb, dpkg install, then click Sync All. Worked on Linux and Windows.
I also found a driver for Mac OS X that did the ethernet-over-usb thing well enough to let me ssh into it and scp all my Documents to the Mac. Then I put in an 802.11 card--now any of my computers can backup the Zaurus via scp, and the Linux and Windows boxes can also sync via QTopia Desktop.
So...unless Sharp broke something, this should really say "Sharp supports only their Windows sync software," but several solutions are available for Linux, none of which should scare the./ crowd at all.
If you think Palm OS is unintuitive, I weep for you. I think the Zaurus desktop is well done, but Palm OS couldn't be simpler and more obvious. What do you mean "retrieving files more OS-like"? Files basically don't exist in Palm OS, only application databases, so if you get your jollies from copying files and navigating directories...get a Zaurus.
Expensive? I got a used Zaurus 5500 for $160 from EBay, a Beylkin 802.11 CF card for $29, and a 256 MB SD card for $70. This little bugger is nearly as useful as a real laptop now, and for just around $250.
The default Zaurus desktop is nearly identical to the Palm OS launcher. If "single-click on the big icon" or "push the Mail button on the unit" are awkward, then have your personal assistant do it for you. And while there could be a bit more consistency among the Sharp apps (hint: install OpenZaurus and opie-1.0 instead), it's pretty damn obvious how to use them. If you think the Zaurus reeks of "desktop computer," you've clearly not used Windows CE.
I've owned: Palm 500 Palm 1000 Palm III Palm V Sony Clie 750
The Zaurus is as simple and useful for the basic PDA apps as any Palm device I've had. And it has the added bonus of running Linux, so I end up tinkering with it, writing PyQt apps, playing *real* NetHack, etc.
Don't take Mr. Office Depot's word for it--go try one out yourself.
Stanford ranks *higher* than Berkeley on the CS list? I don't think so.
No, I didn't attend either school, nor I do have any close friends or particular interest in promoting Berkeley. I just learned from experience in Silicon Valley that Berzerkeley programmers write lots of good, working code while the Stanford guys are still talking about which coffee to buy.
Amen to that. At least Nintendo still manages to make some creative, different games.
Even their "rehash" titles like Zelda, Mario, Metroid, etc. have originality and innovation. I fear the day when Nintendo is stampeded by Microsoft--that's when I'll retreat fully to MAME, my GBA, and paper RPGs.
Somehow I find it hard to see the VP of Capital Entertainment having any real creative game ideas. New thinking never comes from the top.
But he does have a point: the XBox has been a wasteland for innovation. If I wanted fifty first-person-shooters to pick from, I would have kept gaming on my PC. The most creative thing happening on the huge black and green X is...Linux.
During my 7 year sentence^h^h^h^h stint in Silicon Valley, I worked for three startup companies. Real get-it-done, cowboy engineering places. Lotsa fun and lotsa eventually worthless stock.
In those places at least, it was a clear disadvantage to be a PhD interview candidate. It was based on this simple (and perhaps inaccurate) set of ideas: - CS coursework is dangerously distant from the "real world" art of programming - PhDs have wasted time studying abstract topics that will not make them better developers - These same people will want more money for the job a sharp candidate with only a BS can do
(Another rule was: always choose the Berkeley candidate over the Stanford one.)
Given how tight money is these days, I'd be surprised if this set of criteria were no longer relevant. My advice? Get a PhD if there is a particular area of CS research that you are seriously motivated about, but realize that it will not help you one bit (and could even hurt) if you want to earn money as a software developer. No one steps out of academia into a "Senior Engineer" or "Architect"-type position, nor should they.
Slashdot Mirror
at the pharma company I work at. We were all java, C++, LISP, Smalltalkers before. It's been four years now, and it was a wise decision. It's a very adept glue language that has been easy to integrate with other systems, both at the source code and network level. YMMV, and I think perl or ruby both fill this niche well too. We just wanted to have a standard platform for new development, and have been pleasantly surprised that python has been a productive choice for legacy integration and utility tasks as well. We had a requirement recently to integrate with a Java system. I used jython and it took three days, with no curly braces to be seen. We get a lot done every day now, and it's quite motivating.
Explain, please, how the word Spammers is possessive in the title?
This is a week old.
Why does slashdot think it can do political reporting? You have a hard enough time getting tech stories correct, and I swear every time you post a political article it just makes you look like a bunch of fuckwits.
You guys straight-up suck at reporting on any political story. This is a week old, and since then Katherine Harris' Republican replacement issued an edict saying despite the Reform Party's effective dissolution, Nader will be on the ballot because "we won't have time to discuss it with these hurricanes." Stick with what you sort of know. Every time slashdot ventures into politics, it is a laugh a minute.
So fucking what? Sirius is a far better service and already offers this without additional charge.
One reason slashdot's readership has declined in the last two years is underlined perfectly by this thread. The times have become more political, and more people are looking for political blogs. Whenever slashdot treads into this territory, it immediately delivers some of the most puerile commentary you can find. Listening to computer fetishists wax political is generally as compelling as reading the Catholic church's pronouncements on same, or a typically loony Christopher Hitchens column. Slashdot should stick with its strengths: consumerism, software, and gadgetry, and leave politics to more focused sites.
Truth hurts, eh?
I agree--there is an interesting technical point in the article, but overall its intentional creation--and slashdot's eager fools--of a supposed "hybrid backlash" is just complete poop. I've had a Prius for two years in a mountainous area of Colorado. Our lifetime mileage is 44.7, but in the summer we often get 50 mpg tanks. I calculate the mileage myself, although the in-dash readings nearly agree with my own averages. I've gone 518 miles on one (10.5 gal) tank. It comes very close to not polluting at all, and it is a very comfortable family car. Having said that--if you buy one of these and continue to drive like a maniac, your mileage results will suffer noticeably. The car trains you to accelerate and decelerate gently in order to max out your mileage, and this is a good practice no matter what car you drive. The Wired propaganda article gives Republican/Libertarian/selfish folk just another justification to ignore the environment. Keep waiting for the fuel cell, kids...it's a great way to stall progress.
I encourage "President" Bush to participate personally in this audacious venture.
In space, no one can hear you lie.
Agree--I transferred my domain from NetSol to joker.com over a year ago because I'd heard Joker was good about privacy.
I have found Joker simple, straightforward, cheap despite the Euro's climb against the dollar, and reliable. Their web forms were simple and obvious, they have never sent me any unwanted email, and they have the distinct advantage of not being in the U.S. There was one incident where the German government forced them to close a site down, but I would rather take my chances with European censorship than with Ashcroftian justice.
> [XP] is just an excuse to bypass solid proces
> in order to ship faster.
Trolling, trolling, trolling. Convenient that you don't describe "solid process." These same conventional processes have so far caused what you later complain about: buggy, unpredictable software.
"Ship faster" has actually become the overriding norm since we moved to the Internet Age. From a purely business point of view, time to market often legitimately overrides other concerns such as quality, feature-completeness, etc. Yes, it's frustrating, but not nearly as frustrating as being out of work because your company couldn't demo at the trade show and sign up paying customers.
> Having been involved in development for about 10
> years...
Aaahh, nevermind sonny. I see the problem now. Good luck testing!
> XP relies on everybody in the team pairing all
> the time. So if you don't like to "pair up,"
> what choice do you have but to leave the
> project?
Here's where my eyebrow first raised. Pair programming is an important part of XP, but not indispensible.
If your ego or work habits are so inflexible you can't bear even to try pair programming, then indeed you should leave the project. But then, you should have left a long time ago because you're probably already not communicating well with the rest of the team, or sharing code or ideas, etc.
> XPR argues that the customer (and users)
> usually do have a pretty good idea what they
> want from a new system.
Here's where I decided not to read the book. There are a few statements you can make that demonstrate you have little practical knowledge of software engineering in the real world, and this is one of them.
You get used to pair programming, at least most folks do. It is much more intense (and productive) than solo coding, so rarely do we do it for a full 8-10 hour session. But then again, you don't need to because you often find you've gotten as much done in a couple hours as you would have in a full day anyway...plus tests!
Some people resist it, but generally speaking it is a healthy disturbance for everyone who's willing to give it a shot.
This whole "XPR" recommendation as reflected by the reviewer sounds worthless anyway. XP practices can and generally are taken out of context, not always "cranked up to 10" anyway, and can improve things even if adopted only piecemeal. Beck and others have provided guidelines for adopting those parts of XP that make sense for you. And no one is more aware of XP's failings and gaps than the XP community.
This seems to me like a redundant book that posits a rabidly zealous, uncompromising community of XP folk that simply doesn't exist, and offers a "solution" that is well within the scope of what XP proponents argue for regardless. Skip.
Is this the Bush school of "repeat lies often and they become truths?"
Clearly Gentoo is faddish today, and for good reason. But your dreams of Debian losing "market share" are simply that. Downloads and reported installs continue to increase, and rather quickly lately. Debian continues to win, and your made-up 90% number must have been printed on your asshat.
Sucks. Pick a few failed technologies, enjoy mocking them, then try to synthesize it into some bullshitty whole about how there are "fashions" rather than just the success and failure of competing approaches.
And the author fundamentally understands XP, its motivations, and applicability. Any small project, stable requirements or otherwise, is an excellent candidate for XP if the coders are game. The real point is that the "traditional methodologies" he hopes will subsume the best of XP's ideas have failed, repeatedly, for years and years, rarely if ever producing reliable, simple, and timely software. XP deserves criticism, but there is absolutely nothing to be said for the approaches this author clearly favors.
Palm OS is definitely well suited for small devices, but also limiting.
> it's basically impossible to sync them with Linux
Using Sharp-supported software, yes. Using other free solutions, no. It's not going to void your warranty, but if downloading and installing a perl script or an application from Trolltech scares you off, then definitely stay away.
The keyboard is not useless. It looks extremely awkward, but I've found you can actually type quite quickly on it thanks to the standard QWERTY layout. Use both thumbs, not one finger. It works.
Surprisingly, the built-in recognizer works well, so I find myself rarely opening the keyboard unless I'm composing a long email or something. I've used Palm OS & Graffiti for six years, and I was quite happy with the Zaurus' handwriting recognition. There is also a Graffiti recognizer available, but I haven't tried it yet.
If you want a laptop, get one. Typing is always easier on a real keyboard (of course there are third-party solutions for attaching real keyboards to a Zaurus.) But what's wrong with making a powerful PDA? Palm's going in the same direction, if you hadn't noticed.
What's your beef with a pressure-sensitive touchscreen? How else would it be done? Have you ever actually used a PDA? How could you possibly be excited about a Tablet PC and yet have made any of these comments?
> "does it support Ogg Vorbis?"
And the answer is...yes. I'm listening to my public radio station icecast2 stream via ogg123 right now, and I see three other apps and a plugin for the default MediaPlayer app listed in the Zaurus Software Index when I search for "ogg".
I have a 5500, and all that was necessary was for me to download the GPL QTopia Desktop from Trolltech, rpm -> deb, dpkg install, then click Sync All. Worked on Linux and Windows.
./ crowd at all.
I also found a driver for Mac OS X that did the ethernet-over-usb thing well enough to let me ssh into it and scp all my Documents to the Mac. Then I put in an 802.11 card--now any of my computers can backup the Zaurus via scp, and the Linux and Windows boxes can also sync via QTopia Desktop.
So...unless Sharp broke something, this should really say "Sharp supports only their Windows sync software," but several solutions are available for Linux, none of which should scare the
If you think Palm OS is unintuitive, I weep for you. I think the Zaurus desktop is well done, but Palm OS couldn't be simpler and more obvious. What do you mean "retrieving files more OS-like"? Files basically don't exist in Palm OS, only application databases, so if you get your jollies from copying files and navigating directories...get a Zaurus.
Expensive? I got a used Zaurus 5500 for $160 from EBay, a Beylkin 802.11 CF card for $29, and a 256 MB SD card for $70. This little bugger is nearly as useful as a real laptop now, and for just around $250.
Awkward and non-intuitive?
What?
The default Zaurus desktop is nearly identical to the Palm OS launcher. If "single-click on the big icon" or "push the Mail button on the unit" are awkward, then have your personal assistant do it for you. And while there could be a bit more consistency among the Sharp apps (hint: install OpenZaurus and opie-1.0 instead), it's pretty damn obvious how to use them. If you think the Zaurus reeks of "desktop computer," you've clearly not used Windows CE.
I've owned:
Palm 500
Palm 1000
Palm III
Palm V
Sony Clie 750
The Zaurus is as simple and useful for the basic PDA apps as any Palm device I've had. And it has the added bonus of running Linux, so I end up tinkering with it, writing PyQt apps, playing *real* NetHack, etc.
Don't take Mr. Office Depot's word for it--go try one out yourself.
Stanford ranks *higher* than Berkeley on the CS list? I don't think so.
No, I didn't attend either school, nor I do have any close friends or particular interest in promoting Berkeley. I just learned from experience in Silicon Valley that Berzerkeley programmers write lots of good, working code while the Stanford guys are still talking about which coffee to buy.
Flame on.
Amen to that. At least Nintendo still manages to make some creative, different games.
Even their "rehash" titles like Zelda, Mario, Metroid, etc. have originality and innovation. I fear the day when Nintendo is stampeded by Microsoft--that's when I'll retreat fully to MAME, my GBA, and paper RPGs.
Somehow I find it hard to see the VP of Capital Entertainment having any real creative game ideas. New thinking never comes from the top.
But he does have a point: the XBox has been a wasteland for innovation. If I wanted fifty first-person-shooters to pick from, I would have kept gaming on my PC. The most creative thing happening on the huge black and green X is...Linux.
During my 7 year sentence^h^h^h^h stint in Silicon Valley, I worked for three startup companies. Real get-it-done, cowboy engineering places. Lotsa fun and lotsa eventually worthless stock.
In those places at least, it was a clear disadvantage to be a PhD interview candidate. It was based on this simple (and perhaps inaccurate) set of ideas:
- CS coursework is dangerously distant from the "real world" art of programming
- PhDs have wasted time studying abstract topics that will not make them better developers
- These same people will want more money for the job a sharp candidate with only a BS can do
(Another rule was: always choose the Berkeley candidate over the Stanford one.)
Given how tight money is these days, I'd be surprised if this set of criteria were no longer relevant. My advice? Get a PhD if there is a particular area of CS research that you are seriously motivated about, but realize that it will not help you one bit (and could even hurt) if you want to earn money as a software developer. No one steps out of academia into a "Senior Engineer" or "Architect"-type position, nor should they.