The BMW engineers desperately need to read The Humane Interface by Jef Raskin. He knows a lot more about interfaces than they do. Computers are cool and all, but WIMP interfaces are hardly the pinnacle of good design.
Although (apparently) not mentioned in the book, CruiseControl deserves a look. It's a continuous build tool you can use in conjunction with Ant, JUnit, etc.
"Build early and often" is one of the continuous integration mantras, and CruiseControl helps out with that. By having a coninuous build cycle, you can catch errors literally within minutes of when they're committed to the source repository. CruiseControl will email you if builds don't work, and also has a nifty servlet to let you track builds on the web. It's definitely worth a look.
Re:Becuase of Stupidity of course
on
Web Services
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
OTOH, HTTP is pervasive. So are HTTP clients. It's the "write once, run anywhere" model that Sun's been pushing with Java for so many years. You run the app in one place (on your server), and it's accessible to anyone with a computer and a modem. It even works on PDAs, phones, etc with a minimum of effort. I'll be the first to agree that HTTP isn't the best way of doing things for most apps, but the industry has never been about "best". It's about "good enough" and market penetration.
Designing your own protocol takes time, and implementing it for each OS/hardware combo out there takes even more time. Why bother to do that, when you can leverage a protocol (HTTP) and client software (browsers) that are already everywhere?
From management's point of view, web services are a no-brainer....
This is OT, but you mentioned MS VPN support. While MS doesn't produce a Mac VPN client, there are a pair of PPTP clients that just popped up for OS X. They support CHAP/CHAPv2 authentication, and one of them even works with classic:
I don't know what other displays do have this quality, but I can guess at the answer: Not many.
Color shift is rampant on almost every LCD I've ever looked at. Even my beloved SGI 1600SW is pretty crummy when it comes to accurate color. The cinema displays, though, are absolutely unreal. Apple spent a lot of time making sure their displays showed the same colors no matter how you look at them, and it shows. They're awesome.
Seriously, it works. On my last project it saved a 10-person team 5 man-years of development (conservative estimate). Adding that extra field took us 30 seconds, and we had updated EJBs, Java objects, XML messages, servlets, validators, etc. with the push of a button.
Even GNP itself is misleading. For example, General Motors is one of the largest corporations in the world. Not one penny of General Motors' sales go into the nation's GNP. In fact, 75% of the nation's economic activity does not get included in the GNP.
GNP includes final sales to consumers and government, but it does not include business-to-business sales. B2B sales make up the vast majority of economic activity in this country. Back to the GM example....First, someone mines iron ore. Someone buys that ore and makes steel. Someone buys steel. They fabricate that steel into parts, which are then sold to GM. GM makes cars out of those parts, which it then sells to distributors. The distributors sell the cars to dealers, who then sell the cars to consumers. Only the final sale to the consumer is counted as part of GNP.
Of course, this is all moot when you realize that the GDP is what everyone throws around these days, not the GNP. There's a big difference, go look it up.
Did someone actually think that this was a GOOD idea in the first place? Further proof that wearing a tie really does cut off circulation to your brain....
Apple already puts Firewire on the motherboard to allow connections to digital camera, iPods, and other goodies. Why would Apple want to spend MORE money by putting SATA on the mobo in addition to Firewire? Why not just use Firewire, which is already there + perfectly capable of working with fast hard drives?
Also, 400mb/sec Firewire is what, 3 years old now? There are 800mb/sec and 1600mb/sec versions just around the corner (800mb/sec might be here already).
What do you mean the Big Dig isn't on schedule? It's not overbudget by 800% (12 billion dollars) either. That's a myth perpetuated by the liberal media that has destroyed Massachussetts.
Oh wait....
Re:Your lawyer is a fucking retard
on
Abusing the GPL?
·
· Score: 1
Right, I should have had another cup of coffee before posting. US law doesn't require innocent bystanders to do anything (remember Kitty Genovese in New York City?). Several states have enacted laws to that effect, though. These laws aren't to be confused with the laws that protect Good Samaritans from liability.
Additionally, there are a few laws kicking around to get rid of organized crime that are designed to get at people who look the other way when crimes occur, but I'm too lazy to look them up.
In any case, as someone else pointed out this is (most likely) a civil issue, not a criminal one. I'm not sure what the civil statutes say, but it's easier to get a civil conviction than a criminal one (OJ Simpson....) so the author might want to watch out in any case.
Bleh. More coffee.....
Re:Your lawyer is a fucking retard
on
Abusing the GPL?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I don't believe the original poster was judging anything. He was making a statement of fact. Under US law if you know of a crime but do not act to prevent it, you are considered an accomplice to that crime. It doesn't make a difference what his personal situation is or whether or not he has a family. It matters what the law says, and the original poster is correct.
(Of course I'm making the assumption that the original poster is governed by US law; it may be different in other countries)
Mastering RMI
on
Java RMI
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
While I haven't read the book being reviewed, I know that "Mastering RMI" by Rickard Oberg is one of the best resources on the subject. Rickard is one of the brightest people out there, and he's made waves throughout the enterprise Java world. He's responsible for some of the genius of JBoss, among other things (he came up with the dynamic proxy trick that means JBoss doesn't require stub classes). Check his book out, it's worth it.
heh heh......I bet it's going to get worse before it gets better, too. The new breed of Li-poly batteries (like the ones used in the iPod) don't have to take the shape of a standard cell (usually a cylinder). Today's batteries (even laptop batteries - look at an xray of one) are are almost always one or more of these cylindrical cells. Li-poly cells can take any shape, so designers will have even more freedom when it comes to battery size + placement. More freedom = more weird shapes for each device. It would be nice if we could standardize, but I doubt it will happen soon. I'd settle for standardized power requirements so I don't have to hunt for the right wall wart each time I want to plug something in/recharge it.
Elitism isn't the way to make friends, nor is it the way to subvert the monopoly that so many/. users love to berate. If you were truly elite, you sure as hell wouldn't be using Linux anyway....you'd be running MorphOS or AthenaOS or something. Linux is already too mainstream for that. You should consider your own elitist attitude before putting down your boss.
Now....if your boss wants to think he's a Linux guru, what the hell is wrong with that? He probably thinks he's a Windows guru even though he isn't one. Is that ok? Have you castrated him yet? So faking Windows guru-ship is fine, but when he tries it with your pet OS it's not ok?
Slashdot Mirror
The BMW engineers desperately need to read The Humane Interface by Jef Raskin. He knows a lot more about interfaces than they do. Computers are cool and all, but WIMP interfaces are hardly the pinnacle of good design.
It's not that the execs haven't seen it before, it's that they're jealous...
Well, usually.
TheyRule.net does a good job of showing who's in charge of what. It's scary...
Unfortunately, that air of superiority is a common side effect of being better than everyone else.
"Build early and often" is one of the continuous integration mantras, and CruiseControl helps out with that. By having a coninuous build cycle, you can catch errors literally within minutes of when they're committed to the source repository. CruiseControl will email you if builds don't work, and also has a nifty servlet to let you track builds on the web. It's definitely worth a look.
OTOH, HTTP is pervasive. So are HTTP clients. It's the "write once, run anywhere" model that Sun's been pushing with Java for so many years. You run the app in one place (on your server), and it's accessible to anyone with a computer and a modem. It even works on PDAs, phones, etc with a minimum of effort. I'll be the first to agree that HTTP isn't the best way of doing things for most apps, but the industry has never been about "best". It's about "good enough" and market penetration.
Designing your own protocol takes time, and implementing it for each OS/hardware combo out there takes even more time. Why bother to do that, when you can leverage a protocol (HTTP) and client software (browsers) that are already everywhere?
From management's point of view, web services are a no-brainer....
You on the left, me on the right
More info on the drive
Some interesting comparisons of 802.11a, b, g and the various combinations thereof that are kicking around: Clarity & Understanding: The High-speed WLAN standards debate
Of course, given the source of that article it could be 11/01, not 6/01. Either way, it was sometime last year.
This isn't terribly new. Companies have been doing 22Mbps 802.11 for awhile now: Link from 6/2001
Hell, with a budget of 265 Billion, who are WE defending ourselves from? Everyone else.....at once?
....nevermind that the Macintosh Business Unit is one of the most profitable divisions at Microsoft.....
DigiTunnel
PiePants
I don't know what other displays do have this quality, but I can guess at the answer: Not many.
Color shift is rampant on almost every LCD I've ever looked at. Even my beloved SGI 1600SW is pretty crummy when it comes to accurate color. The cinema displays, though, are absolutely unreal. Apple spent a lot of time making sure their displays showed the same colors no matter how you look at them, and it shows. They're awesome.
Two words: code generation.
Seriously, it works. On my last project it saved a 10-person team 5 man-years of development (conservative estimate). Adding that extra field took us 30 seconds, and we had updated EJBs, Java objects, XML messages, servlets, validators, etc. with the push of a button.
Even GNP itself is misleading. For example, General Motors is one of the largest corporations in the world. Not one penny of General Motors' sales go into the nation's GNP. In fact, 75% of the nation's economic activity does not get included in the GNP.
GNP includes final sales to consumers and government, but it does not include business-to-business sales. B2B sales make up the vast majority of economic activity in this country. Back to the GM example....First, someone mines iron ore. Someone buys that ore and makes steel. Someone buys steel. They fabricate that steel into parts, which are then sold to GM. GM makes cars out of those parts, which it then sells to distributors. The distributors sell the cars to dealers, who then sell the cars to consumers. Only the final sale to the consumer is counted as part of GNP.
Of course, this is all moot when you realize that the GDP is what everyone throws around these days, not the GNP. There's a big difference, go look it up.
Did someone actually think that this was a GOOD idea in the first place? Further proof that wearing a tie really does cut off circulation to your brain....
Apple already puts Firewire on the motherboard to allow connections to digital camera, iPods, and other goodies. Why would Apple want to spend MORE money by putting SATA on the mobo in addition to Firewire? Why not just use Firewire, which is already there + perfectly capable of working with fast hard drives?
Also, 400mb/sec Firewire is what, 3 years old now? There are 800mb/sec and 1600mb/sec versions just around the corner (800mb/sec might be here already).
Oh wait....
Right, I should have had another cup of coffee before posting. US law doesn't require innocent bystanders to do anything (remember Kitty Genovese in New York City?). Several states have enacted laws to that effect, though. These laws aren't to be confused with the laws that protect Good Samaritans from liability.
Additionally, there are a few laws kicking around to get rid of organized crime that are designed to get at people who look the other way when crimes occur, but I'm too lazy to look them up.
In any case, as someone else pointed out this is (most likely) a civil issue, not a criminal one. I'm not sure what the civil statutes say, but it's easier to get a civil conviction than a criminal one (OJ Simpson....) so the author might want to watch out in any case.
Bleh. More coffee.....
I don't believe the original poster was judging anything. He was making a statement of fact. Under US law if you know of a crime but do not act to prevent it, you are considered an accomplice to that crime. It doesn't make a difference what his personal situation is or whether or not he has a family. It matters what the law says, and the original poster is correct.
(Of course I'm making the assumption that the original poster is governed by US law; it may be different in other countries)
While I haven't read the book being reviewed, I know that "Mastering RMI" by Rickard Oberg is one of the best resources on the subject. Rickard is one of the brightest people out there, and he's made waves throughout the enterprise Java world. He's responsible for some of the genius of JBoss, among other things (he came up with the dynamic proxy trick that means JBoss doesn't require stub classes). Check his book out, it's worth it.
heh heh......I bet it's going to get worse before it gets better, too. The new breed of Li-poly batteries (like the ones used in the iPod) don't have to take the shape of a standard cell (usually a cylinder). Today's batteries (even laptop batteries - look at an xray of one) are are almost always one or more of these cylindrical cells. Li-poly cells can take any shape, so designers will have even more freedom when it comes to battery size + placement. More freedom = more weird shapes for each device. It would be nice if we could standardize, but I doubt it will happen soon. I'd settle for standardized power requirements so I don't have to hunt for the right wall wart each time I want to plug something in/recharge it.
Elitism isn't the way to make friends, nor is it the way to subvert the monopoly that so many /. users love to berate. If you were truly elite, you sure as hell wouldn't be using Linux anyway....you'd be running MorphOS or AthenaOS or something. Linux is already too mainstream for that. You should consider your own elitist attitude before putting down your boss.
Now....if your boss wants to think he's a Linux guru, what the hell is wrong with that? He probably thinks he's a Windows guru even though he isn't one. Is that ok? Have you castrated him yet? So faking Windows guru-ship is fine, but when he tries it with your pet OS it's not ok?
Pot....kettle....black....