Uncommented code is very often shitty code - and so is over-commented code.
Uncommented code is good if you 1) will be the only person to ever, ever, ever touch the code, 2) you have perfect memory, and 3) you don't expect anyone else on the planet to ever use it.
General rule - assume the person following you is *not* a uber-coding-adept but just some average-joe/jane code-mechanic who has far, far more work on their plate then they can handle already. And this isn't a freaking competition - you **are** allowed to give them a hand in understanding your latest convoluted masterpiece. You usually are on the same team.
At my workplace they have a library of perl code. Most of it is pretty good _code_ and do usefull function. But there is very, very, little comments and the writers simply LOVED to use the latest arcane features of Perl. No subs are documented - "Hey - read the code!".
Sorry but why should I have to read and try to comprehend your convoluted code just to use it? Its *your* responsibility as the author to make sure it does its job and its also *your* responsibility to document (and maintain that documentation) the interface to your code if you expect anyone else to use it. Its *my* responsiblity to follow your documentation and use your code properly.
Also subroutine/module/method comments are often picked up by IDEs to provide on-the-fly documentation (or 'hover-help') for anyone using your code - I'll admit that I find this very useful.
On the Other Hand - there are those who grossly over-comment their code. We have a bunch of these types of people as well.
They Comment every single change and bracket their changes with comments showing the Change Request number as in :
// FR: 1203938+
... Block of new code...
// FR: 1203938-
The results, over time, a patch work of these comments - overlapping each other.... The code ends up virtually unreadable. There are far more lines of these types of comments than lines of code.
Work had a big thing about 'Quality Days' where different people presented what 'Quailty' was. Worse waste of time since they only read from the presentation. The guy who phoned in on a bad connection to give his presentation (and then proceeded to simply read from the powerpoint) was the worse. And these were 'Quality Experts'.....
Total. Waste. Of. Time.
PowerPoint is good - if used as a TOOL of the presentation and not the presentation itself. Reading from a PP shows that you don't have a clue what the hell you are talking about.
The information bandwidth is close to zero (try watching a video on a 1200 baud connection sometime...) and scattered.
I've used PP as a 'graphical presentation' tool in showing (graphically) relationships and processes. Never bulletpoints.
Make the corporation,its board, and officers personally responsible for lost data....
As in Bank A looses 10K records of personal data which results in 100M in fraudulent charges. Bank A has to pay the merchants and CC companies 100M.....
You'll see data protections and security go up so fast you'll get whiplash....
SSShhhh... Don't actually read the article. This is soapbox -I-mean- slashdot - your supposed to fly off the handle after reading the headline. Lets all jump on our 'America is an evil empire' soapbox!
Also, as someone said before, how does this compare to what was happening before the patiot act? (And why is this being omitted??) All these are 'technical' oversights I dont see any trend or 'evil conspircy' afoot. Just isolated simple human mistakes.
Nothing here is 'siginicant'. Just some leftist group trying to create a new media mountain out of a molehill.
The fact that these reports are being 'investigated' tells me that the process is working.
Your honor.. we need more time to dump our stocks... um... respond to IBM's allegations because we have to respond to so many copyright infringement lawsuits.
BASIC on a IBM OS/360 using punched cards. I think the interpreter was written in FORTRAN.
Then I 'graduated' to PL/C (same punched cards) and then FORTRAN H. Then on to PL/1.
Then I went 'high tech' with a BASIC on a Interdata 7/32 on an actual ascii terminal (1200 Baud).
Anyone remember the 'Western Terminal System' at Western Washington University back in the 70s? A locally written OS used to teach programming and a whole bunch of CAI courses.
I am not an expert in such things but thought I would throw this out and see what bites....
I think the basic problem is in the basic mail protocol itself. Email, as it is today, was fine when the internet was small and not that publically well known. However now it is just too insecure. It is too easy to forge headers (and no doubt people are unknowingly sending sensitive information over email expecting it to be as 'secure' as regular mail.)
I think what we need is a new protocol, called 'mail2' or 'secure mail' running on an entirely seperate TCP port. Then require that all mail traffic on this protocol be 1) Signed using a digital signature issued by some authority, 2) Optionally encrypted. 3) The From field includes the public key of the sender.
Also issue 'anonymous' certificates which do not have the person's ID - but can be automatically filtered out if the end-user wants. (some sort of command... delete-anonymous-email or something).
New email software will automatically (and transparently) encrypt email for which it 'knows' the public key of the 'To' field. (Of course in countries where encryption is controlled the certificate would be marked 'sign only' and only signing would be done.
Some mail software would check the 'certificate'. This can done done at the ISP level where they would query some regional or area authority and ask 'is this legitimate?' and that authority will check that the issurer is (or was) in good standing and that the certifiate itself has not been 'revoked' or flagged.
For the USA - the postal service has offices everywhere and those droids can be easily trained to issue these certificates - or have software stores issue them (and held responsible if they are misused). A modest fee would be required (not to exceet $20).
Because Microsoft did not *innovate* anything - they simply took existing tech. and throw a lot of marketing (and blind dumb luck -- how DOS got on the IBM PC) at it.
Microsoft might have innovated the intergrated application platform (i.e. Ms-Office) which combines a word processor, spreadsheet, etc....
Or did Lotus beat them to that?
Any chance on getting Ultima 9 to *work* w/windows
on
Ultima 7 in Windows?
·
· Score: 1
*snicker*
I am serious. Ultima IX is the worst game I have ever seen because of the gawd awful slow engine (even on a decently powered machine for the time), bugfests, freezes and halts. I was very disappointed. This is what you measure all other Piece of Crap(tm) software to...
I agree Ultima VII (BG and SI and the extensions) is the *best* followed closely by V and then IV. I did not know that there was a way to run them under Linux. Now where did I place that CD......
I mean seriously, when the economy's in a slump, disrupting PC's biggest moneymaker isn't in anybody's interests except those getting squashed by MS.
What the hell does the economy have to do with anything. My local congresscritter (Washington State -- I wont call it a person -- she is just too stupid for words) claims that the dot-com bust was the result of the antitrust suit and if we would just 'leave microsoft alone' then everything would be ok.. we will all live in the land of milk and honey the sun will always shine in proper measure.....
Like I said -- too stupid for words. She must have been worshipping too long at the toilet Bill poops in.
No I think that encouraging compitition is how to recover the economy. Taking a big sledgehammer to Microsoft's monopoly would have done more for the econ. then this tap on the wrist. What is to say that the stifling of the marketplace by Microsoft did not contribute to the dot-com bust.
I don't know what Bush is trying to do with his homeguard -er- Homeland Defense department. (and yes, that is a deliberate B5 reference).
Not mentioning the invasion of privacy this database has a huge potential for abuse. I am afraid that it is only the first step - after all dont we need to be protected during sporting events, concerts, hotel stays, and trips to the bathroom?
How secure and accurate will this information be?
Will I be denied permission to attend a concert because some credit report has inaccuate information? Or because I attended a meeting the current administration happens to dislike?
Slashdot Mirror
But can it snap a towel at the refrigerator's butt?
Uncommented code is very often shitty code - and so is over-commented code.
Uncommented code is good if you 1) will be the only person to ever, ever, ever touch the code, 2) you have perfect memory, and 3) you don't expect anyone else on the planet to ever use it.
General rule - assume the person following you is *not* a uber-coding-adept but just some average-joe/jane code-mechanic who has far, far more work on their plate then they can handle already. And this isn't a freaking competition - you **are** allowed to give them a hand in understanding your latest convoluted masterpiece. You usually are on the same team.
At my workplace they have a library of perl code. Most of it is pretty good _code_ and do usefull function. But there is very, very, little comments and the writers simply LOVED to use the latest arcane features of Perl. No subs are documented - "Hey - read the code!".
Sorry but why should I have to read and try to comprehend your convoluted code just to use it? Its *your* responsibility as the author to make sure it does its job and its also *your* responsibility to document (and maintain that documentation) the interface to your code if you expect anyone else to use it. Its *my* responsiblity to follow your documentation and use your code properly.
Also subroutine/module/method comments are often picked up by IDEs to provide on-the-fly documentation (or 'hover-help') for anyone using your code - I'll admit that I find this very useful.
On the Other Hand - there are those who grossly over-comment their code. We have a bunch of these types of people as well.
They Comment every single change and bracket their changes with comments showing the Change Request number as in :
// FR: 1203938-
The results, over time, a patch work of these comments - overlapping each other.... The code ends up virtually unreadable. There are far more lines of these types of comments than lines of code.
Work had a big thing about 'Quality Days' where different people presented what 'Quailty' was. Worse waste of time since they only read from the presentation. The guy who phoned in on a bad connection to give his presentation (and then proceeded to simply read from the powerpoint) was the worse. And these were 'Quality Experts'.....
Total. Waste. Of. Time.
PowerPoint is good - if used as a TOOL of the presentation and not the presentation itself. Reading from a PP shows that you don't have a clue what the hell you are talking about.
The information bandwidth is close to zero (try watching a video on a 1200 baud connection sometime...) and scattered.
I've used PP as a 'graphical presentation' tool in showing (graphically) relationships and processes. Never bulletpoints.
Make the corporation,its board, and officers personally responsible for lost data....
As in Bank A looses 10K records of personal data which results in 100M in fraudulent charges. Bank A has to pay the merchants and CC companies 100M.....
You'll see data protections and security go up so fast you'll get whiplash....
(What? Hold people responsible?)The experts say they are a good 20 years away.
Yup. I mean look at the North Koreans - they are still years... oh wait...
SSShhhh... Don't actually read the article. This is soapbox -I-mean- slashdot - your supposed to fly off the handle after reading the headline. Lets all jump on our 'America is an evil empire' soapbox!
Also, as someone said before, how does this compare to what was happening before the patiot act? (And why is this being omitted??) All these are 'technical' oversights I dont see any trend or 'evil conspircy' afoot. Just isolated simple human mistakes.
Nothing here is 'siginicant'. Just some leftist group trying to create a new media mountain out of a molehill.
The fact that these reports are being 'investigated' tells me that the process is working.
And then only show 1/4'th of the Gymnastic events so they can have indepth coverages of the 'sob story of the day'.....
Your honor.. we need more time to dump our stocks ... um... respond to IBM's allegations because we have to respond to so many copyright infringement lawsuits.
Of course what they are going to do is to make it so that the copyright holders are not held liable.
And of course since they destroy your computer how can you prove that you do not have their copyrighted material?
You are, in effect, considered guilty - you do not even have the change to prove yourself innocent!
Oldest Computer?
BASIC on a IBM OS/360 using punched cards. I think the interpreter was written in FORTRAN.
Then I 'graduated' to PL/C (same punched cards) and then FORTRAN H. Then on to PL/1.
Then I went 'high tech' with a BASIC on a Interdata 7/32 on an actual ascii terminal (1200 Baud).
Anyone remember the 'Western Terminal System' at Western Washington University back in the 70s? A locally written
OS used to teach programming and a whole bunch of
CAI courses.
I am not an expert in such things but thought I would throw this out and see what bites....
I think the basic problem is in the basic mail protocol itself. Email, as it is today, was fine when the internet was small and not that publically well known. However now it is just too insecure. It is too easy to forge headers (and no doubt people are unknowingly sending sensitive information over email expecting it to be as 'secure' as regular mail.)
I think what we need is a new protocol, called 'mail2' or 'secure mail' running on an entirely seperate TCP port. Then require that all mail traffic on this protocol be 1) Signed using a digital signature issued by some authority, 2) Optionally encrypted. 3) The From field includes the public key of the sender.
Also issue 'anonymous' certificates which do not have the person's ID - but can be automatically filtered out if the end-user wants. (some sort of command... delete-anonymous-email or something).
New email software will automatically (and transparently) encrypt email for which it 'knows' the public key of the 'To' field. (Of course in
countries where encryption is controlled the certificate would be marked 'sign only' and only signing would be done.
Some mail software would check the 'certificate'. This can done done at the ISP level where they would query some regional or area authority and ask 'is this legitimate?' and that authority will check that the issurer is (or was) in good standing and that the certifiate itself has not been 'revoked' or flagged.
For the USA - the postal service has offices everywhere and those droids can be easily trained to issue these certificates - or have software stores issue them (and held responsible if they are misused). A modest fee would be required (not to exceet $20).
OK, now fire up those flamethrowers!
Because Microsoft did not *innovate* anything - they simply took existing tech. and throw a lot of marketing (and blind dumb luck -- how DOS got on the IBM PC) at it.
Microsoft might have innovated the intergrated application platform (i.e. Ms-Office) which combines a word processor, spreadsheet, etc....
Or did Lotus beat them to that?
*snicker*
I am serious. Ultima IX is the worst game I have ever seen because of the gawd awful slow engine (even on a decently powered machine for the time), bugfests, freezes and halts. I was very disappointed. This is what you measure all other Piece of Crap(tm) software to...
I agree Ultima VII (BG and SI and the extensions) is the *best* followed closely by V and then IV. I did not know that there was a way to run them under Linux. Now where did I place that CD......
I mean seriously, when the economy's in a slump, disrupting PC's biggest moneymaker isn't in anybody's interests except those getting squashed by MS.
What the hell does the economy have to do with anything. My local congresscritter (Washington State -- I wont call it a person -- she is just too stupid for words) claims that the dot-com bust was the result of the antitrust suit and if we would just 'leave microsoft alone' then everything would be ok.. we will all live in the land of milk and honey the sun will always shine in proper measure.....
Like I said -- too stupid for words. She must have been worshipping too long at the toilet Bill poops in.
No I think that encouraging compitition is how to recover the economy. Taking a big sledgehammer to Microsoft's monopoly would have done more for the econ. then this tap on the wrist. What is to say that the stifling of the marketplace by Microsoft did not contribute to the dot-com bust.
I've heard that NSYNC was going to play the Face Dancers.
Or was it that they are Face Dancers....
And MS is getting what *it* paid good money for.
I don't know what Bush is trying to do with his homeguard -er- Homeland Defense department. (and yes, that is a deliberate B5 reference).
Not mentioning the invasion of privacy this database has a huge potential for abuse. I am afraid that it is only the first step - after all dont we need to be protected during sporting events, concerts, hotel stays, and trips to the bathroom?
How secure and accurate will this information be? Will I be denied permission to attend a concert because some credit report has inaccuate information? Or because I attended a meeting the current administration happens to dislike?
Scary stuff.
After all, its a business process. The people in the patent office probably don't realize that its been around for thousands of years.
Maybe I'll just patent the concept of the EULA...
Seriously Is there anything we can do to fix the problem?