The fact that china is leaping on IP6 has me a little worried about it.
Why? Considering the amount of users and the amount of IP4 addresses allocated to them, China can't *not* use IP6.
Absolutely right, yes. Although comments also need to be maintained when the code is updated, their maintenance costs are negative, because they SAVE TIME (That's why they were invented)!
The same goes for other forms of documentation- some code would not only take *more* time to maintain without documentation, but would simply be impossible to maintain without it.
"Comments make code more readable."
Yes. Not all of them, but when used properly, they damn well do. Example: If there is a 'magic number' in the code, a comment can help explain how the author arrived at that magic number, and allows the next
developer to change the magic number to another value as needed. Without the comment, this would be impossible.
Another example:
unsigned long lastsectornum()
{
if (!(this->foundlastsectornum))
{ // cache result.
this->m_lastsectornum
=lookuplastsectornum();
this->foundlastsectornum=true;
}
return this->m_lastsectornum;
}
I'd say in the above example, the two-word comment makes it a lot more clear what is going on.
"You should comment every function, method, class, and module"
Jason goes on to use this as an example:
def get_x(self):
"""
This method gets x.
"""
That's simply a bad comment, but it doesn't invalidate the statement. We still want a comment there- one that explains what 'x' is. Without comment, there is no way to tell. The problem here is not that there *is* a comment, but that the author (in this case Jason) wrote one without added value. For any function with parameters, however, we'd want to know what upper/boundaries they have.
def get_x(self):
"""
Returns horizontal pos. of the mouse cursor
"""
See, this is much clearer! (though arguably, the method name is wrong and the comment unnecessary). There's still a use for a comment here: What does the method return if no mouse is present? Is it the responsibility of the method to check for this, or is it simply not allowed to call the method in such cases? Comments to the rescue once again.
"Code must always be self-documenting"
Jason calls this a myth as well, and this time I have to agree with him. Although we should strive to make our code as clear as possible, it *can* not always be self-documenting. Comments were invented to solve that (see above).
However, "In most cases, comments should be viewed as code smells." is utter bull. Jason should spend a few years writing assembly language. Perhaps then he'll learn to value comments for what they're worth. Personally, I have a strong feeling I wouldn't want to maintain Jason's code, as he feels that he need neither document his code nor write self-documenting code.
Au contraire. The better the coffee, the more cups I'll have. At home, I'll either have espresso or French-press/cafetiere coffee. On the move, Starbucks espresso is a bit too dark a roast to my taste, but Italian ice cream parlors are usually a relatively safe bet for a good cup. When given the choice between instant coffee and tea, I'll have tea. Life's too short for bad coffee. And there's definitely more to coffee than just caffeine content or bucket sized cups.
Not all music is suitable for coding. Some music helps, others doesn't. Not all tasks require 100% concentration.
When working on a complex enough problem, I might switch off the music altogether and use earplugs instead. Sometimes I even just keep wearing my headphones but without music- I find it prevents my coworkers from asking questions because they assume I can't hear them. I think as a professional programmer I can judge which to use when better than my boss can.
But with a pointy-haired boss like you seem to have, my guess would be that at your company there isn't any quality control implemented. Peer reviews, code reviews, blackbox testing, unit tests? If your boss is worried about quality, he should look at those first, *then* at the use of headphones. He'll have to pay up though- quality doesn't just happen by itself. It costs money to have a QA manager.
I recall having a boss saying 'we have to test better', and that was the end of the meeting- and the end of any efforts that actually increased quality. Obviously, that boss was naive. That company went belly-up as well.
There probably aren't more actual cases of autism -- we just got better at identifying them as autism.
I think you're oversimplifying things, and I'm sure you didn't do your homework on this. Sure, a few cases may have been missed in the past. But look at the numbers. A few decades ago, 1 in 1000 children was diagnosed with autism. Nowadays it's 1 in 60 (and mostly of the 'late onset'/degenerative type). Do you really think a frickin' 16-fold increase can be explained by 'getting better at identifying autism'? If so, explain to me why this isn't offset by an equivalent reduction in other (incorrect) diagnoses?
This isn't true. In Photoshop, I use the selector tool and select an area and crop it. In Gimp I have to add a layer, then select an area a crop. WTF is the point of adding a layer so I can crop it?
Spoken as a regular Photoshop user. You don't need to add a layer to crop in Gimp; you open the image; select the crop tool; select area to crop and click in the selected area. And "presto"- the image is cropped. Sure, that's different from Photoshop, and you seem frustrated by the fact that they don't work identically.
"What that means is that an unelected official would have the power to do anything without Parliamentary oversight or debate, provided it was done in the name of protecting copyright"
Which means that it's undemocratic. If nobody can control this unelected official, what's to stop them from abusing their position? In my opinion, that's a bit too much power to be given to any individual.
Would the (supposedly democratic) government be so kind to please start representing the people again already?
if you're used to Photoshop.
Gimp is a lot more intuitive than Photoshop if you're used to Gimp. I've cursed at Photoshop; my wife curses at Gimp. That's cause we got used to working with one, and the other just works differently.
There definitely is a difference in sound quality.
MP3 is really bad at encoding cymbal sounds at 128kbps- they sound 'watery'. Because of this one artefact, I can tell every time when an 128 kbps audio track I'm listening to is an mp3 or an ogg. That's with cheap headphones in an office environment.
The differences get less noticeable at higher rates though. I won't go as far as claiming that I can hear the difference between a lossy ogg and lossless FLAC.
Does it matter? Depends on the circumstances. In the car I probably couldn't care less.
Really? Spending one BILLION/MILLIARD dollars for what is essentially an advertising campaign? Sounds pretty risky to me. If you have that kind of money to gamble with, why not spend that money on actually building a better search engine?
If someone in India can do your job for $11/hr then why should you earn respect?
Quality and productivity. Good programmers are rare. Programming work is outsourced to India because it's perceived as being cheaper, not because it's perceived as being better, so you'll have to show the edge in the quality of your work. Which doesn't mean that there aren't any good programmers in India; it just means you'll have to be lucky to run into them (anywhere in the world, by the way).
If you can show you can be 10 times as productive as another programmer *in the long run* by offering better quality, you'll earn that respect.
Boring as it sounds: Writing documentation helps. Writing unit tests helps. Following best practices helps. If those guys in India (or anywhere else) do that and you don't, they deserve both the respect and the pay, not you. If you want respect, be better.
Oh and W3Schools getting almost 50% FF that is nice but I don't think that is the net at large.
Wikipedia says firefox has a 26.08% market share in September 2009. But even if it would be just over 10%, that's a significant user base. If your bank still only supports IE, they should be ashamed of themselves.
Are software developers naturally weird? No, just the good ones. And yes, there is a link with autism. In Silicon Valley, there is a disproportionate occurence of children with autism (Aspergers is a disorder in the Autistic Spectrum). Autistic Spectrum Disorders are genetic, although some studies suggest environment (vaccinations) 'pulls the trigger'. Originally thimerosal (containing mercury) was blamed; current theories suggest however that people with ASDs simply have a weak immune system (the stereotypical geek has asthma, allergies...) and the blow dealt by the vaccine is the last straw to 'activate' the autism. A saying goes around that for each autistic child, there's a techie at most 2 generations back.
I'm married and have 2 kids. Although I've never been officially diagnosed with autism, my oldest has, and in retrospective that was an eye opener. I've had treatment for a few things that nowadays are considered 'typically autistic' and have been on some supplements (magnesium, cod liver oil) that are recommended to help relieve some of the issues of autism (though I didn't know at the time).
I don't agree "women just aren't strong enough to be able to handle [people with autism]"- I think it depends on the lady and on the severity of the autism. Even having a kid with autism can put severe strain on a relationship though; 85% of couples with an autistic child get divorced. (To put things in a bit more positive light- in this time and age though, about 2/3 of couples *without* autistic children get divorced).
Now, I've been making some claims here... I know, [citation needed]. I'm too tired to link to all of them right now, but you people know how to use Google, right?
He most likely granted the publisher an exclusive license.
Depending on your goals, that may or may not be a smart move. In any case, it makes you lose control over the book you published depending on the duration of the license.
If your incentive is to get the word out rather than the money, it's probably smarter to keep ownership of your book by self-publishing -- you can then do as you please, all up to the point of giving away your book for free, no strings attached. (By the way, feel free to download mine!)
Didn't Microsoft get slapped by the court for bundling IE with Windows, leveraging their monopoly and (nearly) driving Netscape out of Business? How is bundling Office any different, and why would the OpenOffice/StarOffice people have to tolerate it?
Slashdot Mirror
The fact that china is leaping on IP6 has me a little worried about it. Why? Considering the amount of users and the amount of IP4 addresses allocated to them, China can't *not* use IP6.
Sadly, who plays by the rules won't win the war.
"Comments aren't actually executable code, therefore they aren't maintenance costs, right?"
// cache result.
Absolutely right, yes. Although comments also need to be maintained when the code is updated, their maintenance costs are negative, because they SAVE TIME (That's why they were invented)!
The same goes for other forms of documentation- some code would not only take *more* time to maintain without documentation, but would simply be impossible to maintain without it.
"Comments make code more readable."
Yes. Not all of them, but when used properly, they damn well do. Example: If there is a 'magic number' in the code, a comment can help explain how the author arrived at that magic number, and allows the next developer to change the magic number to another value as needed. Without the comment, this would be impossible.
Another example:
unsigned long lastsectornum()
{
if (!(this->foundlastsectornum))
{
this->m_lastsectornum
=lookuplastsectornum();
this->foundlastsectornum=true;
}
return this->m_lastsectornum;
}
I'd say in the above example, the two-word comment makes it a lot more clear what is going on.
"You should comment every function, method, class, and module"
Jason goes on to use this as an example:
def get_x(self):
"""
This method gets x.
"""
That's simply a bad comment, but it doesn't invalidate the statement. We still want a comment there- one that explains what 'x' is. Without comment, there is no way to tell. The problem here is not that there *is* a comment, but that the author (in this case Jason) wrote one without added value. For any function with parameters, however, we'd want to know what upper/boundaries they have.
def get_x(self):
"""
Returns horizontal pos. of the mouse cursor
"""
See, this is much clearer! (though arguably, the method name is wrong and the comment unnecessary). There's still a use for a comment here: What does the method return if no mouse is present? Is it the responsibility of the method to check for this, or is it simply not allowed to call the method in such cases? Comments to the rescue once again.
"Code must always be self-documenting"
Jason calls this a myth as well, and this time I have to agree with him. Although we should strive to make our code as clear as possible, it *can* not always be self-documenting. Comments were invented to solve that (see above).
However, "In most cases, comments should be viewed as code smells." is utter bull. Jason should spend a few years writing assembly language. Perhaps then he'll learn to value comments for what they're worth. Personally, I have a strong feeling I wouldn't want to maintain Jason's code, as he feels that he need neither document his code nor write self-documenting code.
Something like this?
Au contraire. The better the coffee, the more cups I'll have. At home, I'll either have espresso or French-press/cafetiere coffee. On the move, Starbucks espresso is a bit too dark a roast to my taste, but Italian ice cream parlors are usually a relatively safe bet for a good cup. When given the choice between instant coffee and tea, I'll have tea. Life's too short for bad coffee. And there's definitely more to coffee than just caffeine content or bucket sized cups.
Try hourly.
There's another name for what killed DNF: "feature creep". Classic mistake. So is hiring extra people to work on a project that's already late.
After reading the article, it's blindingly obvious that what really killed the project was nothing but bad project management.
"Shipping is a feature. A really important feature. Your product must have it."
(500,000 x 3GB) worth of data
Wait, what? I thought I was supposed to download the MP3, not the frickin' DVD!
From "Rapid development", Steve McConnell, page 49. Table 3-1, summary of Classic Mistakes
People related mistakes:
1. Undermined motivation
6. Noisy, crowded offices
12. Politics placed over substance
Looks like your boss didn't read that, did he?
Not all music is suitable for coding. Some music helps, others doesn't. Not all tasks require 100% concentration. When working on a complex enough problem, I might switch off the music altogether and use earplugs instead. Sometimes I even just keep wearing my headphones but without music- I find it prevents my coworkers from asking questions because they assume I can't hear them. I think as a professional programmer I can judge which to use when better than my boss can. But with a pointy-haired boss like you seem to have, my guess would be that at your company there isn't any quality control implemented. Peer reviews, code reviews, blackbox testing, unit tests? If your boss is worried about quality, he should look at those first, *then* at the use of headphones. He'll have to pay up though- quality doesn't just happen by itself. It costs money to have a QA manager. I recall having a boss saying 'we have to test better', and that was the end of the meeting- and the end of any efforts that actually increased quality. Obviously, that boss was naive. That company went belly-up as well.
Batteries, wires, pushbuttons, little (incandescent) lightbulbs etc. I think it was officially meant for dolls houses, but it sure was great fun.
I think you're oversimplifying things, and I'm sure you didn't do your homework on this. Sure, a few cases may have been missed in the past. But look at the numbers. A few decades ago, 1 in 1000 children was diagnosed with autism. Nowadays it's 1 in 60 (and mostly of the 'late onset'/degenerative type). Do you really think a frickin' 16-fold increase can be explained by 'getting better at identifying autism'? If so, explain to me why this isn't offset by an equivalent reduction in other (incorrect) diagnoses?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VN_y5r7vHio
Tell me about it. He spends all this money and what does he get? No food served. No seat. NO PLANE?!!? Worst. Airline. Ever.
Spoken as a regular Photoshop user. You don't need to add a layer to crop in Gimp; you open the image; select the crop tool; select area to crop and click in the selected area. And "presto"- the image is cropped. Sure, that's different from Photoshop, and you seem frustrated by the fact that they don't work identically.
Doesn't this show exactly my point?
"What that means is that an unelected official would have the power to do anything without Parliamentary oversight or debate, provided it was done in the name of protecting copyright"
Which means that it's undemocratic. If nobody can control this unelected official, what's to stop them from abusing their position? In my opinion, that's a bit too much power to be given to any individual.
Would the (supposedly democratic) government be so kind to please start representing the people again already?
if you're used to Photoshop. Gimp is a lot more intuitive than Photoshop if you're used to Gimp. I've cursed at Photoshop; my wife curses at Gimp. That's cause we got used to working with one, and the other just works differently.
There definitely is a difference in sound quality. MP3 is really bad at encoding cymbal sounds at 128kbps- they sound 'watery'. Because of this one artefact, I can tell every time when an 128 kbps audio track I'm listening to is an mp3 or an ogg. That's with cheap headphones in an office environment. The differences get less noticeable at higher rates though. I won't go as far as claiming that I can hear the difference between a lossy ogg and lossless FLAC. Does it matter? Depends on the circumstances. In the car I probably couldn't care less.
Really? Spending one BILLION/MILLIARD dollars for what is essentially an advertising campaign? Sounds pretty risky to me. If you have that kind of money to gamble with, why not spend that money on actually building a better search engine?
A diet book by Johnny Walker?
Quality and productivity. Good programmers are rare. Programming work is outsourced to India because it's perceived as being cheaper, not because it's perceived as being better, so you'll have to show the edge in the quality of your work. Which doesn't mean that there aren't any good programmers in India; it just means you'll have to be lucky to run into them (anywhere in the world, by the way).
If you can show you can be 10 times as productive as another programmer *in the long run* by offering better quality, you'll earn that respect.
Boring as it sounds: Writing documentation helps. Writing unit tests helps. Following best practices helps. If those guys in India (or anywhere else) do that and you don't, they deserve both the respect and the pay, not you. If you want respect, be better.
Wikipedia says firefox has a 26.08% market share in September 2009. But even if it would be just over 10%, that's a significant user base. If your bank still only supports IE, they should be ashamed of themselves.
Are software developers naturally weird? No, just the good ones. And yes, there is a link with autism. In Silicon Valley, there is a disproportionate occurence of children with autism (Aspergers is a disorder in the Autistic Spectrum). Autistic Spectrum Disorders are genetic, although some studies suggest environment (vaccinations) 'pulls the trigger'. Originally thimerosal (containing mercury) was blamed; current theories suggest however that people with ASDs simply have a weak immune system (the stereotypical geek has asthma, allergies...) and the blow dealt by the vaccine is the last straw to 'activate' the autism. A saying goes around that for each autistic child, there's a techie at most 2 generations back.
I'm married and have 2 kids. Although I've never been officially diagnosed with autism, my oldest has, and in retrospective that was an eye opener. I've had treatment for a few things that nowadays are considered 'typically autistic' and have been on some supplements (magnesium, cod liver oil) that are recommended to help relieve some of the issues of autism (though I didn't know at the time).
I don't agree "women just aren't strong enough to be able to handle [people with autism]"- I think it depends on the lady and on the severity of the autism. Even having a kid with autism can put severe strain on a relationship though; 85% of couples with an autistic child get divorced. (To put things in a bit more positive light- in this time and age though, about 2/3 of couples *without* autistic children get divorced).
Now, I've been making some claims here... I know, [citation needed]. I'm too tired to link to all of them right now, but you people know how to use Google, right?
By the way, 26? That's early.
Depending on your goals, that may or may not be a smart move. In any case, it makes you lose control over the book you published depending on the duration of the license. If your incentive is to get the word out rather than the money, it's probably smarter to keep ownership of your book by self-publishing -- you can then do as you please, all up to the point of giving away your book for free, no strings attached. (By the way, feel free to download mine!)
Didn't Microsoft get slapped by the court for bundling IE with Windows, leveraging their monopoly and (nearly) driving Netscape out of Business? How is bundling Office any different, and why would the OpenOffice/StarOffice people have to tolerate it?