Jack Welch (former GE CEO) implemented a 3-tiered rating system where the top 1/3 performers got big bonuses, the middle 1/3 got a token COLA, and the bottom 1/3 got fired. Well, didn't recieve any raise as an encouragement to do better or leave.
I don't think it's unreasonable to think that 25% (or more) of a large group doesn't even pull their own weight.
like pascal. The ISO Pascal standard requires bounds checking (most implementations allow you to turn it off).
With the 80188, intel actually introduced the bound instruction, which compares a register against pair of upper/lower bounds an produce interrupt 5 if the register is too high or low. Motorola's 680x0 CHK instruction does the same.
It would be useful if gcc produced debugging code to do static array bounds checking.
If you buy a house or land, there may be restrictions on the property. Most older southern houses have (now invalid) clauses that they property cannot be sold to "colored" folks. Your neighbor may have a right of way on the land (which can prevent you from building a fence). Maybe it's a development community that requires certain standards of upkeep. Possession of preoprty and rights of use can be separated.
With EULA software, purchasing and accepting the contract are 2 separate steps, but if you don't accept the contract terms, you can (theoretically) return the software.
A couple months back, they got their panties in a bunch when they found out one of the darwin contributors was a minor.
UCC and common law allows a minor to renege on a contact while they are still a minor, and for a few months after they attain majority age. Not reneging after reaching majority age demonstrates acceptance of the contract terms.
The only exception is for "necesseties" such as food, clothing (basic clothing, not mink coats), shelter (ie rent), and trade tools if a parent/guyardian won't provide them, so merchants won't refuse them when they are needed.
And a special rule for land transactions: a minor must ait until they attain majority before they are allowed to disclaim the contract (to protect them from making stupid decisions since land is special).
Signatures aren't required in contracts (except real estate, agreements that can't be completed in less than one year, and agreements to be responsible for another person's debt).
and there were no witnesses
Prima Facia evidence is prima facia evidence. But you probably don't think anyone should be convicted of murder unless there are witnesses.
Gentlemen, the time has come for a serious discussion on whether or not to continue using C for serious programming projects. As I will explain, I feel that C needs to be retired, much the same way that Fortran, Cobol and Perl have been. Furthermore, allow me to be so bold as to suggest a superior replacement to this outdated language.
To give you a little background on this subject, I was recently asked to develop a client/server project on a Unix platform for a Fortune 500 company. While I've never coded in C before I have coded in VB for fifteen years, and in Java for over ten, I was stunned to see how poorly C fared compared to these two, more low-level languages.
C's biggest difficulty, as we all know, is the fact that it is by far one of the slowest languages in existance, especially when compared to more modern languages such as Java, C#, and VB. Although the reasons for this are varied, the main reasons seems to be the way C requires a programmer to laboriously work with chunks of memory.
Requiring a programmer to manipulate blocks of memory is a tedious way to program. This was satisfactory back in the early days of coding, but then again, so were punchcards. By using what are called "pointers" a C programmer is basically requiring the computer to do three sets of work rather than one. The first time requires the computer to duplicate whatever is stored in the memory space "pointed to" by the pointer. The second time requires it to perform the needed operation on this space. Finally the computer must delete the duplicate set and set the values of the original accordingly.
Clearly this is a horrendous use of resources and the chief reason why C is so slow. When one looks at a more modern (and a more serious) programming language like Java, C# or - even better - Visual Basic that lacks such archaic coding styles, one will also note a serious speed increase over C.
So what does this mean for the programming community? I think clearly that C needs to be abandonded. There are two candidates that would be a suitable replacement for it. Those are Java and Visual Basic.
Having programmed in both for many years, I believe that VB has the edge. Not only is it slightly faster than Java its also much easier to code in. I found C to be confusing, frightening and intimidating with its non-GUI-based coding style. Furthermore, I like to see the source code of the projects I work with. Java's source seems to be under the monopolistic thumb of Sun much the way that GCC is obscured from us by the marketing people at the FSF. Microsoft's "shared source" under which Visual Basic is released definately seems to be the most fair and reasonable of all the licenses in existance, with none of the harsh restrictions of the BSD license. It also lacks the GPLs requirement that anything coded with its tools becomes property of the FSF.
I hope to see a switch from C to VB very soon. I've already spoken with various luminaries in the C coding world and most are eager to begin to transition. Having just gotten off the phone with Mr. Alan Cox, I can say that he is quite thrilled with the speed increases that will occur when the Linux kernel is completely rewritten in Visual Basic. Richard Stallman plans to support this, and hopes that the great Swede himself, Linux Torvaldis, won't object to renaming Linux to VB/Linux. Although not a C coder himself, I'm told that Slashdot's very own Admiral Taco will support this on his web site. Finally, Dennis Ritchie is excited about the switch!
the article quotes a passage in the book about the community being (rigthfully) shut out of the ipo. How is it offtopic to refer to what Slashdot did in the same situation?
The other question is: would it be so difficult to produce a bk-compatible openBK? Don't think so either. If the community continues to adopt bk at this rate, sooner or alter, someone will come out with an openBK for sure. Welcome to the wonderful world of OpenSource!
If "the community" had produced anything better than CVS, bit keeper wouldn't exist, and Linus/Linux would be using it. Welcome to the wonderful world of OpenSource!
using the patented Amazon.com accounting rules, they posted a (incredibly small) profit for Q4 of 2001, although they admitted they don't expect to see another for years.
Most of their statements are "pro-forma" or use other accouting gimmicks that would make Enron blush -- like not including interest paid on debt as an expense.
At the time, Omidyar, the other members of the management team (Jeff Skoll and Meg Whitman) and Benchmark Capital controlled a stunning 98.1% of the stock. They quickly became billionaires. Many of the workers made a few million of that 1.9% divided among the rest, but everyone else was left out. The thousands of people who worked the bulletin boards, and help create a cohesive community ruled by colored stars got nothing. This continues to be a bitter point for many involved with eBay from the beginning. Money weaves a strange path in and out of the narrative. On one hand, marketplaces are all about price discovery. The only reason to list an item on eBay is to get money. On the other, the book gives the impression that it's kind of crass to be into eBay for the money. The eBay folks are supposed to be passionate believers in this community ruled by colored stars. It's all about community, we're told. But I guess if you can't get IPO shares, that's what you have to live with.
I know RHAT (and maybe LNUX) collected email addresses from gpl software and offered a few token shares to some contributors. What did Slashdot/ANDN do? I recall some people complaining that if you had a user id below xxx you deserved stock, or if you had a karma over xxx you deserved stock.
AT&T was a horizontal and vertical monopoly -- they owned the long distance market and the local market (ignoring a few independent exchanges).
There was no competition.
AOL Time Warner has cable systems and content systems (if you call AOL content), and they are a large player, but nowhere near a monopoly.
So now, cable & babay bells may have a monopoly for broadband on their own network. Big deal - cable & baby bells always had a monopoly on their own lines.
Isn't long distance telephony infrastructure also controlled by a few massive corporations? Equal access carrier laws and preventing a single company from owning the whole thing has fostered enough competition to really hammer AT&T, for instance
Yes, but read the article.
FCC recently ruled that cable companies don't need to make their infrastructure available to competition for broadband purposes. This was discussed on slashdot a while back. This is a horrible decision that should be rescinded, IMO. Local gov'ts generally give cable companies monopoly rights, rights to tear up streets, etc.
FCC is currently considering if equal access applies to DSL over telco lines.
FCC might not require equal access to apply to spectrum-based broadband.
In order to be a more interesting read , Salon takes a "sky is falling" approach to points 2 and 3.
Is it a good idea for slashdot to be a soapbox for asking linus to merge in feature x? You ouldn't want him to get slashdotted:)
More troublesome, though, Linus has been a "benevolent dicatator" so far. What happens when he makes too many "bad" decisions? First he refused to use SCM software, then he decided to use Bitkeeper. He held off on accepting the kernel latency patch, then added it. Now he won't add a popular configuration tool.
Linus may be a nice enough guy, and (unlike some other FREE software figures) he's quite modest about his work, but he can't please everybody.
I'm sure a lot of people will say "Cobol is dead. Who cares".
While it's true that cobol is often associated with legacy programs, cobol programs are a niche market, one that linux could exploit (recompile your cobol app for linux and save!). So far, linux growth has mostly been at the expense of other unix rather than cutting into the desktop (windos) market. I'm not suggesting that linux or x86 hardware can compete with mainframes, but a modern x86 box running linux could replace a mainframe for some cobol apps.
Additionally, scary as it sounds, ne wCobol development is still being done. A company I used to work for sold (and still sells) expensive bank software written in cobol and using Tandem SQL.
If it gets the job done, it gets the job done. That applies to linux and cobol.
Call me a troll (I'm not), label me offtopic (I am) moderate me down, I don't care -- the facts speak for themselves.
Let's examine the self-perpetuated myth of Eric S. Raymond as it relates to VA Linux/Software.
According to ESR himself, he is on the board of directors to be ``VA's official corporate conscience''. And yet, ``I was at the board meeting where the five-odd people who have the responsibility to advise Larry Augustin told him [to fire 25% of the VA Linux staff, mainly open source programmers]".
That's quite a conscience, Eric!
PS - LNUX won't be delisted in 22 days. They might recieve a notice from NASDAQ, but companies that recieve the notice usually file an appeal, do a 1 for 2 stock split, etc.
Slashdot Mirror
Jack Welch (former GE CEO) implemented a 3-tiered rating system where the top 1/3 performers got big bonuses, the middle 1/3 got a token COLA, and the bottom 1/3 got fired. Well, didn't recieve any raise as an encouragement to do better or leave.
I don't think it's unreasonable to think that 25% (or more) of a large group doesn't even pull their own weight.
A: Michael Sims!
With the 80188, intel actually introduced the bound instruction, which compares a register against pair of upper/lower bounds an produce interrupt 5 if the register is too high or low. Motorola's 680x0 CHK instruction does the same.
It would be useful if gcc produced debugging code to do static array bounds checking.
My good friends at the FBI suggested I use the "Carnivore" backup utility.
It's called "arbitration", and you most certainly can agree to use it in lieu of a tortuitous lawsuit.
goatse sure gives "End User" a (w)hole new meaning!
With EULA software, purchasing and accepting the contract are 2 separate steps, but if you don't accept the contract terms, you can (theoretically) return the software.
A couple months back, they got their panties in a bunch when they found out one of the darwin contributors was a minor.
UCC and common law allows a minor to renege on a contact while they are still a minor, and for a few months after they attain majority age. Not reneging after reaching majority age demonstrates acceptance of the contract terms.
The only exception is for "necesseties" such as food, clothing (basic clothing, not mink coats), shelter (ie rent), and trade tools if a parent/guyardian won't provide them, so merchants won't refuse them when they are needed.
And a special rule for land transactions: a minor must ait until they attain majority before they are allowed to disclaim the contract (to protect them from making stupid decisions since land is special).
Signatures aren't required in contracts (except real estate, agreements that can't be completed in less than one year, and agreements to be responsible for another person's debt).
and there were no witnesses
Prima Facia evidence is prima facia evidence. But you probably don't think anyone should be convicted of murder unless there are witnesses.
A: Because kermit likes sweet & sour pork!
is it true that Jon Katz is a member of NAMBLA?
Gentlemen, the time has come for a serious discussion on whether or
not to continue using C for serious programming projects. As I will
explain, I feel that C needs to be retired, much the same way that
Fortran, Cobol and Perl have been. Furthermore, allow me to be so bold
as to suggest a superior replacement to this outdated language.
To give you a little background on this subject, I was recently asked
to develop a client/server project on a Unix platform for a Fortune
500 company. While I've never coded in C before I have coded in VB for
fifteen years, and in Java for over ten, I was stunned to see how
poorly C fared compared to these two, more low-level languages.
C's biggest difficulty, as we all know, is the fact that it is by far
one of the slowest languages in existance, especially when compared to
more modern languages such as Java, C#, and VB. Although the reasons for
this are varied, the main reasons seems to be the way C requires a
programmer to laboriously work with chunks of memory.
Requiring a programmer to manipulate blocks of memory is a tedious way
to program. This was satisfactory back in the early days of coding,
but then again, so were punchcards. By using what are called
"pointers" a C programmer is basically requiring the computer to do
three sets of work rather than one. The first time requires the
computer to duplicate whatever is stored in the memory space "pointed
to" by the pointer. The second time requires it to perform the needed
operation on this space. Finally the computer must delete the
duplicate set and set the values of the original accordingly.
Clearly this is a horrendous use of resources and the chief reason why
C is so slow. When one looks at a more modern (and a more serious)
programming language like Java, C# or - even better - Visual Basic
that lacks such archaic coding styles, one will also note a serious
speed increase over C.
So what does this mean for the programming community? I think clearly
that C needs to be abandonded. There are two candidates that would be
a suitable replacement for it. Those are Java and Visual Basic.
Having programmed in both for many years, I believe that VB has the
edge. Not only is it slightly faster than Java its also much easier to
code in. I found C to be confusing, frightening and intimidating with
its non-GUI-based coding style. Furthermore, I like to see the source
code of the projects I work with. Java's source seems to be under the
monopolistic thumb of Sun much the way that GCC is obscured from us by
the marketing people at the FSF. Microsoft's "shared source" under
which Visual Basic is released definately seems to be the most fair
and reasonable of all the licenses in existance, with none of the
harsh restrictions of the BSD license. It also lacks the GPLs
requirement that anything coded with its tools becomes property of the
FSF.
I hope to see a switch from C to VB very soon. I've already spoken
with various luminaries in the C coding world and most are eager to
begin to transition. Having just gotten off the phone with Mr. Alan
Cox, I can say that he is quite thrilled with the speed increases that
will occur when the Linux kernel is completely rewritten in Visual
Basic. Richard Stallman plans to support this, and hopes that the
great Swede himself, Linux Torvaldis, won't object to renaming Linux
to VB/Linux. Although not a C coder himself, I'm told that Slashdot's
very own Admiral Taco will support this on his web site. Finally,
Dennis Ritchie is excited about the switch!
Thank you for your time. Happy coding.
I'm sure the gov't will do for ICANN what they did for Amtrack.
the article quotes a passage in the book about the community being (rigthfully) shut out of the ipo. How is it offtopic to refer to what Slashdot did in the same situation?
bwahaha mother (and goat) fuckers!
I think Larry stated his opinion about this here
The other question is: would it be so difficult to produce a bk-compatible openBK? Don't think so either. If the community continues to adopt bk at this rate, sooner or alter, someone will come out with an openBK for sure. Welcome to the wonderful world of OpenSource!
If "the community" had produced anything better than CVS, bit keeper wouldn't exist, and Linus/Linux would be using it. Welcome to the wonderful world of OpenSource!
Most of their statements are "pro-forma" or use other accouting gimmicks that would make Enron blush -- like not including interest paid on debt as an expense.
I know RHAT (and maybe LNUX) collected email addresses from gpl software and offered a few token shares to some contributors. What did Slashdot/ANDN do? I recall some people complaining that if you had a user id below xxx you deserved stock, or if you had a karma over xxx you deserved stock.
Please refresh my memory.
"Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurling down the highway"
-- Andrew (linux is obsolete) Tanenbaum
There was no competition.
AOL Time Warner has cable systems and content systems (if you call AOL content), and they are a large player, but nowhere near a monopoly.
So now, cable & babay bells may have a monopoly for broadband on their own network. Big deal - cable & baby bells always had a monopoly on their own lines.
Yes, but read the article.
In order to be a more interesting read , Salon takes a "sky is falling" approach to points 2 and 3.
More troublesome, though, Linus has been a "benevolent dicatator" so far. What happens when he makes too many "bad" decisions? First he refused to use SCM software, then he decided to use Bitkeeper. He held off on accepting the kernel latency patch, then added it. Now he won't add a popular configuration tool.
Linus may be a nice enough guy, and (unlike some other FREE software figures) he's quite modest about his work, but he can't please everybody.
While it's true that cobol is often associated with legacy programs, cobol programs are a niche market, one that linux could exploit (recompile your cobol app for linux and save!). So far, linux growth has mostly been at the expense of other unix rather than cutting into the desktop (windos) market. I'm not suggesting that linux or x86 hardware can compete with mainframes, but a modern x86 box running linux could replace a mainframe for some cobol apps.
Additionally, scary as it sounds, ne wCobol development is still being done. A company I used to work for sold (and still sells) expensive bank software written in cobol and using Tandem SQL.
If it gets the job done, it gets the job done. That applies to linux and cobol.
Yes, but TV is a one-way street (ie - shouting at it doesn't do you any good)
Let's examine the self-perpetuated myth of Eric S. Raymond as it relates to VA Linux/Software.
According to ESR himself, he is on the board of directors to be ``VA's official corporate conscience''. And yet, ``I was at the board meeting where the five-odd people who have the responsibility to advise Larry Augustin told him [to fire 25% of the VA Linux staff, mainly open source programmers]".
That's quite a conscience, Eric!
PS - LNUX won't be delisted in 22 days. They might recieve a notice from NASDAQ, but companies that recieve the notice usually file an appeal, do a 1 for 2 stock split, etc.