"... Java... swearing at the damn abomination of language."
I would like less swearing and better management. I'm tired of having to learn new quirks. Maybe a language like Java can be a compiler switch in a C++ compiler, that forces programmers to use a limited set of features useful for application programming.
We need a language that belongs to all of us, a language that is not dependent on the actions of billionaires like Larry Ellison or Steve Ballmer.
C# is a mostly proprietary language, tied to the internal politics of one company that has a history of making decisions that are unpleasant for its customers. (Such as releasing Vista, when Microsoft managers said it was not ready, according to a court case.)
"Even a shitty programmer working full-time should be able to easily pick up Perl, Python, Ruby and Go within a few months."
That's an exaggeration, unless "easily pick up" does not include "learn all the weird quirks".
Why should we all wrestle with different languages? Why can't there be one language that handles most of the cases?
I think every serious programmer has, at one time or another, written an editor or a compiler. I wrote a compiler for some early HP data collection hardware. But I don't have one editor that does everything I want and editor to do, and here we are, discussing which language to use, because we aren't happy with what we have.
We need better management of C++. We haven't had good management: Good leaders are not *always* good leaders."... while Bjarne Stroustrop was a good leader when C++ was introduced, he has basically exercised too little power in the last 20 years in making sure the C++ language and libraries developed rapidly enough, and in the correct direction. "
Quote from that web page: "Please note that since the original release of their paper, WCDMA was rebranded as 3GSM to avoid confusion between the WCDMA and CDMA2000 technologies."
UMTS is based on GSM: "UMTS requires new base stations and new frequency allocations. However, it is closely related to GSM/EDGE as it borrows and builds upon concepts from GSM. Further, most UMTS handsets also support GSM, allowing seamless dual-mode operation."
The CDMA carriers in the U.S. have been distinctly inferior to the GSM carriers. Perhaps that is because CDMA was in the U.S. before GSM.
Four-band GSM phones work fine in the U.S., and all over the world. T-Mobile has a pre-paid plan for 10 U.S. cents per minute for those who don't often use a cell phone. T-Mobile will unlock the phones for you when you have been on their network for 3 months, if I remember correctly.
When you arrive in Campos do Jordão, Brazil, for example, just buy a SIM card for $7.50 U.S., and you will have a local number to give to anyone you meet there. And, of course, Google has cheap rates to every country, so people in the U.S. can call you while you are in Brazil.
Quote: "Why people "upgrade" from XP to Vista to 7 I really don't know..."
Problems with Windows 7:
1) Some important programs won't work. You can load the software provided by Microsoft called "Windows XP mode", but that requires effort and hassle; the XP mode software is sloppily designed and poorly explained. Often programs that worked in Windows XP don't work in Windows XP mode. The virtual graphics in Windows XP mode is very slow compared to a hardware graphics card.
2) Your hardware may not have Windows 7 drivers, requiring the purchase of new hardware. Windows 7 drivers use a new driver model; the old Windows XP drivers are incompatible. It took many years for hardware vendors to find and fix all the bugs in their XP drivers; expect years of bug fixing in Windows 7 drivers, also.
3) Windows 7 error messages often don't give enough information. They often don't say what generated the error. They often don't give all the information that was obviously available at the time.
4) Windows 7 is often a HUGE waste of time. Microsoft has often made its designs simpler for itself, and more difficult for customers.
5) There are useless user interface changes that waste time. One user said, "Will they ever STOP rearranging everything?"
6) One person's complaint about licensing: "Every time I make a change to the hardware such as add RAM or change a video card I have to re-validate over the phone."
7) Configuration is extremely messy. Menu items are often several levels deep. Configuration files are scattered.
8) RAID installation is poorly implemented.
9) There are many versions of Windows 7, and it takes time to learn the differences and how to deal with the differences.
10) No QuickLaunch area on the taskbar.
11) Networking is more difficult than with Windows XP. Microsoft has arranged that it be complicated to connect Windows 7 with Windows XP and earlier versions of Windows.
12) Windows 7 is VERY expensive. Steve Ballmer says there will be a Windows 8 in 2012, so you will have decide whether to buy Windows again within two years.
13) Only the expensive retail versions of Windows 7 are full versions. If you change hardware on any other version, you must buy Windows again, even if the old hardware failed. That's what Microsoft employees have told me.
14) Sixty percent of the world uses Windows XP, but Microsoft has declared that Windows XP is dead. When you are involved with Microsoft, you are involved with a partner who may do things that are very much against what is good for you.
"Can I switch from using Qt under the LGPL to commercial afterwards?
"No. Users of the LGPL versions of Qt need to comply with the LGPL licensing terms and conditions. Qt's commercial license agreement contains a restriction that prohibits customers from initially beginning development with the LGPL-licensed version of Qt and then transitioning to a commercial version of Qt."
Four sections earlier, the FAQ says this, in part:
"... If you are uncertain as to whether or not you will be able to comply with the LGPL requirements at the time you begin your development, our recommendation is that you purchase a commercial license as it gives you the flexibility to decide licensing (commercial or LGPL) at the time of distribution."
It seems to me that it would be easy for a company to create a legal mess for itself. What a company will do in the future cannot be foreseen.
What would happen if a developer at a company who did not have a commercial license, but was using a free license, contributed to a commercial project? Often there are discussions about architecture, and someone may contribute ideas for an architecture that are later adopted. The sociology of programming is not as clean as Qt licensing apparently considers it to be.
Note that this problem was not created by Nokia. It existed when Qt was owned by Trolltech.
Quote from the parent comment: '... that can legally only happen if Nokia
moves away from the currently mandatory "right to relicense..." '
Could you explain the "right to relicense" and provide a link? I don't
see a reference to that on the Qt web site.
This paragraph illustrates two issues with Qt: 1) a possibly impossible
licensing provision, and 2) managerial sloppiness. Quoting exactly:
"You must purchase a Qt Commercial Developer License from us or
from one of our authorized resellers before you start developing commercial
software as you are not permitted to begin your development with an open
source licensed Qt version and convert to the commercially license version at
a later."
License provision: If someone develops some code using a free version
of Qt at home, and re-implements that at work, an entire commercial project
can be corrupted, apparently. It seems that license provision is impossible
for Nokia to enforce, and also impossible for a company to defend against, if
Nokia brings a case against a particular project. It's common that commercial
programmers consider programming issues at home. How would a company show that
there was no contribution to a commercial product from the free version of Qt?
Why should open-source developers care about close-source licensing
provisions? Because, historically, technological development moves away from
undesirable conditions. That makes the long-term prospects uncertain.
Sloppiness: At present, 2010-10-31, 16:34 PDT, the last word of the
quoted paragraph is missing. What will happen now that Nokia bought Qt? Will
there be internal politics at Nokia that prevents sensible management? There
is a lot of sloppiness; that's only one example.
Don't Nokia managers look at their own web site? My company does that kind of work, and we've found
that, perhaps surprisingly, sloppiness in communication generally indicates
serious problems with management.
From the parent comment: "I'm pretty sure it's not trivial to turn a dead,
degraded cell into a shiny new one."
True. I really, really dislike it when stories about energy
generation and distribution fail to include all the issues and costs. I found two articles
about degradation of lithium cells:
PDF file of the full paper: Building a Battery by Vapor Deposition Quote: "... aging for LiCoO2 cathodes cycled above 75C is associated with a trigonal to cubic transformation."
Reading those quotes seems to indicate that degraded batteries could be renewed, but only by taking them completely apart, re-processing the lithium, and building an entirely new battery.
Misleading: Quote from the story: "The company responsible for the battery pack, DBM Energy,
claims a battery pack efficiency of 97 percent..." Most of the inefficiency is in converting line power to the DC at high current necessary for the battery. Another area of inefficiency is in the transmission lines from the power station to the car. Talking about only one inefficiency is misleading to those who don't understand the technology.
I am surprised that this story would be posted by a Slashdot editor, because I am surprised that the Slashdot editor would not have some sense that there is more to be understood.
USB ports supply a maximum of 1/2 Amp, 500 milliamps. The current is limited by internal circuitry. If you short the port, the internal circuitry turns off the power.
Can 2.5 Watts make something hot? Yes, if there is good insulation and little thermal loss.
"... unless you strictly adhere to naming conventions like m_ on every member."
"The people who come up with protective C++ coding conventions are the true thinkers and designers."
In my opinion, strong coding conventions should be part of any language. Presumably Bjarne Stroustrup is a careful coder. However, he has not been a strong enough leader in the social issues of coding C++.
To be fair, however, getting programmers to cooperate fully is more difficult than herding cats. It's like herding a group consisting of alligators, rhinoceroses, and leopards.
"C++ advocacy on the net seems to be dominated by such newbies, or then they are the gurus who know obscure C++ quirks inside out and have written a book on that."
Unfortunately, although Linus Torvalds is an excellent leader of technology development, he sometimes exhibits unsophisticated social behavior.
In the linked message from Linus, *YOU* are full of bullshit, he gives good reasons why he doesn't like C++, but he does not fully analyze the entire situation.
For example, he says "C++ leads to really really bad design choices". That's true in many cases, but C++ programming could be limited to the features that work well. Many of the problems with C++ are caused by programmers using features that they don't fully understand, only so they can get some experience using them. Often, it seems, programmers just want to experiment, and don't care about the long-term end result of what they are coding.
Another problem with C++ is that, while Bjarne Stroustrop was a good leader when C++ was introduced, he has basically exercised too little power in the last 20 years in making sure the C++ language and libraries developed rapidly enough, and in the correct direction.
Still, as bad as the situation is with C++, what is better? Java and C# are easily decompiled; both suffer from ugly politics. C++ is better than C in that it helps programmers control the scope of variables, for example.
When Linus Torvalds says "*YOU* are full of bullshit", he is acting out his anger, he is not acting like a leader. He is not helping make the situation better.
Unfortunately, the people on whom we rely to be our leaders are not always good leaders. We can, however, be thankful for everything positive they have done for us.
"The crucial question here is when will SpaceShip10 fly."
I don't think there is any hurry. What would you see if you flew into space? It would look exactly the same as in the photos. What would be the purpose of risking your life?
A professor there got me a library card to the Bodleian. It was fascinating to go into the old books room and see books published in the 1600s.
If I remember correctly, it was about 1660 or 1670 when English was close enough to today's English that a modern reader could begin decoding it. Before that, it was a very different language, Old English.
Not in this case. I'm interested in Intel because I'm writing a book
partly about the sociology of technological companies.
"You heard it here: short the stock."
I'm guessing Intel will do well in the next 2 years. Intel has
recently released the Q57 chipset which, when paired with new CPUs that have
integrated video, provide Intel's first video that is fully sufficient for
office use. The Q57 includes a VNC client that provides remote maintenance,
even for BIOS settings. It seems to me that combination will be successful
with companies that are interested in upgrading to new systems.
However, I'm interested in discussing any of the issues. I notice that
there is only one motherboard with the Q57 chipset available on the market,
from Asus. Gigabyte lists one on its web site, but a salesman told me that
none are available.
Intel's success has been independent of its sometimes foolish
marketing schemes, in my opinion.
I'm interested in exploring any evidence of poor or good management at Intel.
Intel's failures seem to be not technological, but sociological.
Are the management shortcomings at Intel severe enough that the CEO
should be replaced? I wrote this Slashdot comment that considers some of the
issues: Intel buy
nVidia? Replace Intel CEO Otellini?
You said, "The list could go on. Instead, this discussion regards
blatant usury for CPUs." What is the next most important issue? Yes, this
Slashdot story is about a practice that would result in Intel damaging its own
reputation, but what is the larger picture? Is there some overlying
insufficiency of management that connects all the management failures
together?
Slashdot Mirror
"... Java ... swearing at the damn abomination of language."
I would like less swearing and better management. I'm tired of having to learn new quirks. Maybe a language like Java can be a compiler switch in a C++ compiler, that forces programmers to use a limited set of features useful for application programming.
We need a language that belongs to all of us, a language that is not dependent on the actions of billionaires like Larry Ellison or Steve Ballmer.
C# is a mostly proprietary language, tied to the internal politics of one company that has a history of making decisions that are unpleasant for its customers. (Such as releasing Vista, when Microsoft managers said it was not ready, according to a court case.)
"Even a shitty programmer working full-time should be able to easily pick up Perl, Python, Ruby and Go within a few months."
That's an exaggeration, unless "easily pick up" does not include "learn all the weird quirks".
Why should we all wrestle with different languages? Why can't there be one language that handles most of the cases?
I think every serious programmer has, at one time or another, written an editor or a compiler. I wrote a compiler for some early HP data collection hardware. But I don't have one editor that does everything I want and editor to do, and here we are, discussing which language to use, because we aren't happy with what we have.
We need better management of C++. We haven't had good management: Good leaders are not *always* good leaders. "... while Bjarne Stroustrop was a good leader when C++ was introduced, he has basically exercised too little power in the last 20 years in making sure the C++ language and libraries developed rapidly enough, and in the correct direction. "
Quote from that web page: "Please note that since the original release of their paper, WCDMA was rebranded as 3GSM to avoid confusion between the WCDMA and CDMA2000 technologies."
UMTS is based on GSM: "UMTS requires new base stations and new frequency allocations. However, it is closely related to GSM/EDGE as it borrows and builds upon concepts from GSM. Further, most UMTS handsets also support GSM, allowing seamless dual-mode operation."
The CDMA carriers in the U.S. have been distinctly inferior to the GSM carriers. Perhaps that is because CDMA was in the U.S. before GSM.
Four-band GSM phones work fine in the U.S., and all over the world. T-Mobile has a pre-paid plan for 10 U.S. cents per minute for those who don't often use a cell phone. T-Mobile will unlock the phones for you when you have been on their network for 3 months, if I remember correctly.
When you arrive in Campos do Jordão, Brazil, for example, just buy a SIM card for $7.50 U.S., and you will have a local number to give to anyone you meet there. And, of course, Google has cheap rates to every country, so people in the U.S. can call you while you are in Brazil.
Quote: "Why people "upgrade" from XP to Vista to 7 I really don't know..."
Problems with Windows 7:
1) Some important programs won't work. You can load the software provided by Microsoft called "Windows XP mode", but that requires effort and hassle; the XP mode software is sloppily designed and poorly explained. Often programs that worked in Windows XP don't work in Windows XP mode. The virtual graphics in Windows XP mode is very slow compared to a hardware graphics card.
2) Your hardware may not have Windows 7 drivers, requiring the purchase of new hardware. Windows 7 drivers use a new driver model; the old Windows XP drivers are incompatible. It took many years for hardware vendors to find and fix all the bugs in their XP drivers; expect years of bug fixing in Windows 7 drivers, also.
3) Windows 7 error messages often don't give enough information. They often don't say what generated the error. They often don't give all the information that was obviously available at the time.
4) Windows 7 is often a HUGE waste of time. Microsoft has often made its designs simpler for itself, and more difficult for customers.
5) There are useless user interface changes that waste time. One user said, "Will they ever STOP rearranging everything?"
6) One person's complaint about licensing: "Every time I make a change to the hardware such as add RAM or change a video card I have to re-validate over the phone."
7) Configuration is extremely messy. Menu items are often several levels deep. Configuration files are scattered.
8) RAID installation is poorly implemented.
9) There are many versions of Windows 7, and it takes time to learn the differences and how to deal with the differences.
10) No QuickLaunch area on the taskbar.
11) Networking is more difficult than with Windows XP. Microsoft has arranged that it be complicated to connect Windows 7 with Windows XP and earlier versions of Windows.
12) Windows 7 is VERY expensive. Steve Ballmer says there will be a Windows 8 in 2012, so you will have decide whether to buy Windows again within two years.
13) Only the expensive retail versions of Windows 7 are full versions. If you change hardware on any other version, you must buy Windows again, even if the old hardware failed. That's what Microsoft employees have told me.
14) Sixty percent of the world uses Windows XP, but Microsoft has declared that Windows XP is dead. When you are involved with Microsoft, you are involved with a partner who may do things that are very much against what is good for you.
Off topic: I was, at one time, an advertising copywriter. I notice several shortcomings in the Helium Designs web site.
"That clause was a clear shot at people trying to get away from paying for Qt."
I have a good impression of Qt, Trolltech, and of Nokia. However, the license arrangement seems to cause potential problems.
This is a quote from the Qt licensing FAQ:
"Can I switch from using Qt under the LGPL to commercial afterwards?
"No. Users of the LGPL versions of Qt need to comply with the LGPL licensing terms and conditions. Qt's commercial license agreement contains a restriction that prohibits customers from initially beginning development with the LGPL-licensed version of Qt and then transitioning to a commercial version of Qt."
Four sections earlier, the FAQ says this, in part:
"... If you are uncertain as to whether or not you will be able to comply with the LGPL requirements at the time you begin your development, our recommendation is that you purchase a commercial license as it gives you the flexibility to decide licensing (commercial or LGPL) at the time of distribution."
It seems to me that it would be easy for a company to create a legal mess for itself. What a company will do in the future cannot be foreseen.
What would happen if a developer at a company who did not have a commercial license, but was using a free license, contributed to a commercial project? Often there are discussions about architecture, and someone may contribute ideas for an architecture that are later adopted. The sociology of programming is not as clean as Qt licensing apparently considers it to be.
Note that this problem was not created by Nokia. It existed when Qt was owned by Trolltech.
Quote from the parent comment: '... that can legally only happen if Nokia moves away from the currently mandatory "right to relicense..." '
."
Could you explain the "right to relicense" and provide a link? I don't see a reference to that on the Qt web site.
This paragraph illustrates two issues with Qt: 1) a possibly impossible licensing provision, and 2) managerial sloppiness. Quoting exactly:
"You must purchase a Qt Commercial Developer License from us or from one of our authorized resellers before you start developing commercial software as you are not permitted to begin your development with an open source licensed Qt version and convert to the commercially license version at a later
License provision: If someone develops some code using a free version of Qt at home, and re-implements that at work, an entire commercial project can be corrupted, apparently. It seems that license provision is impossible for Nokia to enforce, and also impossible for a company to defend against, if Nokia brings a case against a particular project. It's common that commercial programmers consider programming issues at home. How would a company show that there was no contribution to a commercial product from the free version of Qt?
Why should open-source developers care about close-source licensing provisions? Because, historically, technological development moves away from undesirable conditions. That makes the long-term prospects uncertain.
Sloppiness: At present, 2010-10-31, 16:34 PDT, the last word of the quoted paragraph is missing. What will happen now that Nokia bought Qt? Will there be internal politics at Nokia that prevents sensible management? There is a lot of sloppiness; that's only one example.
Don't Nokia managers look at their own web site? My company does that kind of work, and we've found that, perhaps surprisingly, sloppiness in communication generally indicates serious problems with management.
From the parent comment: "I'm pretty sure it's not trivial to turn a dead, degraded cell into a shiny new one."
True. I really, really dislike it when stories about energy generation and distribution fail to include all the issues and costs. I found two articles about degradation of lithium cells:
Abstract: Highly reversible lithium metal secondary battery using a room temperature ionic liquid/lithium salt mixture and a surface-coated cathode active material Quote: "... the degradation of the LiCoO2 cathode-solid polymer electrolyte interface is dominant."
PDF file of the full paper: Building a Battery by Vapor Deposition Quote: "... aging for LiCoO2 cathodes cycled above 75C is associated with a trigonal to cubic transformation."
Reading those quotes seems to indicate that degraded batteries could be renewed, but only by taking them completely apart, re-processing the lithium, and building an entirely new battery.
Misleading: Quote from the story: "The company responsible for the battery pack, DBM Energy, claims a battery pack efficiency of 97 percent..." Most of the inefficiency is in converting line power to the DC at high current necessary for the battery. Another area of inefficiency is in the transmission lines from the power station to the car. Talking about only one inefficiency is misleading to those who don't understand the technology.
Power = Volts * Amps
I am surprised that this story would be posted by a Slashdot editor, because I am surprised that the Slashdot editor would not have some sense that there is more to be understood.
USB ports supply a maximum of 1/2 Amp, 500 milliamps. The current is limited by internal circuitry. If you short the port, the internal circuitry turns off the power.
Can 2.5 Watts make something hot? Yes, if there is good insulation and little thermal loss.
"... unless you strictly adhere to naming conventions like m_ on every member."
"The people who come up with protective C++ coding conventions are the true thinkers and designers."
In my opinion, strong coding conventions should be part of any language. Presumably Bjarne Stroustrup is a careful coder. However, he has not been a strong enough leader in the social issues of coding C++. To be fair, however, getting programmers to cooperate fully is more difficult than herding cats. It's like herding a group consisting of alligators, rhinoceroses, and leopards.
Wow. Oracle Beehive is 2 Gigabytes.
"C++ advocacy on the net seems to be dominated by such newbies, or then they are the gurus who know obscure C++ quirks inside out and have written a book on that."
Interesting point.
Unfortunately, although Linus Torvalds is an excellent leader of technology development, he sometimes exhibits unsophisticated social behavior.
In the linked message from Linus, *YOU* are full of bullshit, he gives good reasons why he doesn't like C++, but he does not fully analyze the entire situation.
For example, he says "C++ leads to really really bad design choices". That's true in many cases, but C++ programming could be limited to the features that work well. Many of the problems with C++ are caused by programmers using features that they don't fully understand, only so they can get some experience using them. Often, it seems, programmers just want to experiment, and don't care about the long-term end result of what they are coding.
Another problem with C++ is that, while Bjarne Stroustrop was a good leader when C++ was introduced, he has basically exercised too little power in the last 20 years in making sure the C++ language and libraries developed rapidly enough, and in the correct direction.
Still, as bad as the situation is with C++, what is better? Java and C# are easily decompiled; both suffer from ugly politics. C++ is better than C in that it helps programmers control the scope of variables, for example.
When Linus Torvalds says "*YOU* are full of bullshit", he is acting out his anger, he is not acting like a leader. He is not helping make the situation better.
Unfortunately, the people on whom we rely to be our leaders are not always good leaders. We can, however, be thankful for everything positive they have done for us.
Would they go the Grand Canyon if they could only see it through a small window from many miles away? That's the experience of a space journey.
"The crucial question here is when will SpaceShip10 fly."
I don't think there is any hurry. What would you see if you flew into space? It would look exactly the same as in the photos. What would be the purpose of risking your life?
When someone is sufficiently knowledgeable about technology it is possible to feel comfortable about rejecting technology.
I think I'll wait for iPhone version 8. SpaceShipTen will carry people more safely, and all the way into orbit, for only $10,000, I'm guessing.
If they don't digitize everything, that's sad.
A professor there got me a library card to the Bodleian. It was fascinating to go into the old books room and see books published in the 1600s.
If I remember correctly, it was about 1660 or 1670 when English was close enough to today's English that a modern reader could begin decoding it. Before that, it was a very different language, Old English.
Female blobfish think he's cute.
The PassMark Intel vs AMD CPU Benchmarks - High End show the AMD Phenom II X6 1075T as being nothing unusual in speed or price.
"You want a consulting job?"
Not in this case. I'm interested in Intel because I'm writing a book partly about the sociology of technological companies.
"You heard it here: short the stock."
I'm guessing Intel will do well in the next 2 years. Intel has recently released the Q57 chipset which, when paired with new CPUs that have integrated video, provide Intel's first video that is fully sufficient for office use. The Q57 includes a VNC client that provides remote maintenance, even for BIOS settings. It seems to me that combination will be successful with companies that are interested in upgrading to new systems.
However, I'm interested in discussing any of the issues. I notice that there is only one motherboard with the Q57 chipset available on the market, from Asus. Gigabyte lists one on its web site, but a salesman told me that none are available.
Intel's success has been independent of its sometimes foolish marketing schemes, in my opinion.
I'm interested in exploring any evidence of poor or good management at Intel. Intel's failures seem to be not technological, but sociological.
Are the management shortcomings at Intel severe enough that the CEO should be replaced? I wrote this Slashdot comment that considers some of the issues: Intel buy nVidia? Replace Intel CEO Otellini?
You said, "The list could go on. Instead, this discussion regards blatant usury for CPUs." What is the next most important issue? Yes, this Slashdot story is about a practice that would result in Intel damaging its own reputation, but what is the larger picture? Is there some overlying insufficiency of management that connects all the management failures together?