My experience with IT at my job is that the people who do SAP have the knowledge (they come from the mainframe era), but the people who do the PCs don't (they are people that think they know about computers because they can find the on switch and know how to reboot using Ctrl-Alt-Del).
If you talk about good engineering practices : it seems that Java was developed in order to make the developers think before they code. However, why was Java invented then ? They could have built upon what Ada was already.
With the slate of problems I see with a whole lot of commercial software, I think that most commercial software is made to make a killing sale, wit the possibility of being useful for the customer as a side effect.
Create or buy software that fullfils some task in a basic way
Create a sales pitch and an impressive slide show
Sell to PHB
Profit!
More profit in yearly renewal of licenses!
Even more profit in forcing obsolescence of old versions!
Microsoft's promises never have been the real geeks wet dream.
It is mostly the wet dream of people who think they are geeks because they can turn on their computer and know how to reboot it by pressing Ctrl-Alt-Del. Those people that just know enough to be dangerous for themselves and everybody around them.
This answer is very interesting because I seem to remember that MMX was introduced because Philips planned to create specialty co-processor(s) (boards) (around 96/97) to off-load multi-media tasks, so that sound processing would take less CPU cycles and to introduce video processing. Intel did not like this idea and added MMX just to cut off such things.
I think so too. I have owned two classic 80's machines, a ZX Spectrum and a Sinclair QL, which where nice little machines. For both I had text processing and spreadsheet software, on the QL I there was also database software.
The beginning of the 90's created a rift. The IBM PC started replacing all those 80's machines, because of the availability of certain software. It presents a step forward in accessibility for normal users, but a step back for people interested in computers or people who could become interested in computers. In the 80's, it was obvious, by the exposition of the BASIC interpreters, that a computer was a programmable machine.
However, with IBM PC's this was not so straightforward anymore, even though MS-DOS included GW-BASIC and later QBASIC.
The rise of Microsoft in the 90's has also given rise to uncertainty about using a computer : if there is an error, is it hardware, software or did you make an error ? With those small machines, it was easy : it was either the hardware or you. That's why I like Linux (and before that OS/2) : it gives the same feeling of confidence in your machine.
With bazaar, you can create a branch from a central repository, or a checkout. When you commit to a branch, the change is local and needs to be pushed to the central repository. When you commit in a checkout, the change is immediately pushed to the central repository. I do not know enough about triggers in bzr, but I presume it should be possible to write one which makes it impossible to checkout branches, but only checkouts.
you make good point about the restoration. A couple of years ago I deleted by accident some administrative objects from a Continuus VCS. It took my boss 6 hours to do a restore. It would be better to have a bzr like system, with a parallel repository which could be set up with triggers to mirror every commit, or to do every hour a push if nothing is happening. That way, if something happens, you just switch repositories and everybody can continue.
You forgot bzr. I like bzr. It is easy to use, has a fairly rapid release schedule (with multi-platform releases all at the same time) and a very good mailing list.
Although this has been known for some time. It's not poor, defenseless people who become terrorists, no matter how much mr. Obama would like them to be. It's knowledgeable, rational, intelligent and rich people, who have but to choose from the thousands of opportunities the world offers them (like he himself is, or any presidential candidate obviously).
yes, people have forgotten the lessons of the seventies about the Baader-Meinhof group.
Remember that Isaac Asimov also used a nuclear reactor the size of a fist in the first part of the Foundation series, to generate a personal powerfield.
No need to to rewrite it in Java, but one should consistently use exceptions.
If a function is used which should be checked for its return value to see if it succeeded or not, then it should be wrapped inside a new function, which always does the check and throws an exception if nothing has succeeded.
No, you cannot do it in C, but you should be able to do it in C++.
I did this with my own Perl libraries. I try to make sure that everything I use throws an exception when an error situation is encountered.
My experience with the current batch of system administrators and IT responsible is that they are people which somehow got into PC's, knew something more than the average user, and thus landed in their current position. Their only reference is that of a PC, they do not have the technical knowledge to get what the difference is between a x86 architecture, Unix systems and mainframes. Two other sources are help desk people which are able to move into something a little more technical, and network technicians, which might know a lot about network hardware, switches and other things needed to make a network run, but miss the hardware and software technical knowledge about computers.
I had setup a new computer with Debian for my sister. She plugged in her brand new monitor, and it just worked. She plugged in her brandnew USB remote keyboard and mouse, and they just worked.
I never get complaints from my father (KDE), and my sister is also very happy with her Linux system (GNOME). I use Debian, however, because for some reason the systems I try to run Ubuntu on have always some blocking problem in the install (and always something different).
With Firefox you can ask to display a font of at least n points in size. I have put this to 14. I also always use a non-serif font, which is also more legible for me.
Slashdot Mirror
My experience with IT at my job is that the people who do SAP have the knowledge (they come from the mainframe era), but the people who do the PCs don't (they are people that think they know about computers because they can find the on switch and know how to reboot using Ctrl-Alt-Del).
It looks to me a solution with the same problems as microprogramming : looks good in theory, but too many strings attached in practice.
One of the biggest obstacles I see is the fact that this FPGA does not run on its own : you need several interfaces (hard and soft) to the chip.
I won't say wide deployment is not possible, but before that happens a whole lot of standardisation needs to be done first.
If you talk about good engineering practices : it seems that Java was developed in order to make the developers think before they code. However, why was Java invented then ? They could have built upon what Ada was already.
How long will it take before Java evolves into Common Lisp ?
With the slate of problems I see with a whole lot of commercial software, I think that most commercial software is made to make a killing sale, wit the possibility of being useful for the customer as a side effect.
(There is no !!??)
Microsoft's promises never have been the real geeks wet dream.
It is mostly the wet dream of people who think they are geeks because they can turn on their computer and know how to reboot it by pressing Ctrl-Alt-Del. Those people that just know enough to be dangerous for themselves and everybody around them.
Nurse or nuke ? (but that was about Ronald Reagan)
100%. Two hunderd percent would be $900.
I think using screen in that case is even better.
This answer is very interesting because I seem to remember that MMX was introduced because Philips planned to create specialty co-processor(s) (boards) (around 96/97) to off-load multi-media tasks, so that sound processing would take less CPU cycles and to introduce video processing. Intel did not like this idea and added MMX just to cut off such things.
I think so too. I have owned two classic 80's machines, a ZX Spectrum and a Sinclair QL, which where nice little machines. For both I had text processing and spreadsheet software, on the QL I there was also database software.
The beginning of the 90's created a rift. The IBM PC started replacing all those 80's machines, because of the availability of certain software. It presents a step forward in accessibility for normal users, but a step back for people interested in computers or people who could become interested in computers. In the 80's, it was obvious, by the exposition of the BASIC interpreters, that a computer was a programmable machine.
However, with IBM PC's this was not so straightforward anymore, even though MS-DOS included GW-BASIC and later QBASIC.
The rise of Microsoft in the 90's has also given rise to uncertainty about using a computer : if there is an error, is it hardware, software or did you make an error ? With those small machines, it was easy : it was either the hardware or you. That's why I like Linux (and before that OS/2) : it gives the same feeling of confidence in your machine.
-5 Totally taken out of context
With bazaar, you can create a branch from a central repository, or a checkout. When you commit to a branch, the change is local and needs to be pushed to the central repository. When you commit in a checkout, the change is immediately pushed to the central repository. I do not know enough about triggers in bzr, but I presume it should be possible to write one which makes it impossible to checkout branches, but only checkouts.
you make good point about the restoration. A couple of years ago I deleted by accident some administrative objects from a Continuus VCS. It took my boss 6 hours to do a restore. It would be better to have a bzr like system, with a parallel repository which could be set up with triggers to mirror every commit, or to do every hour a push if nothing is happening. That way, if something happens, you just switch repositories and everybody can continue.
You forgot bzr. I like bzr. It is easy to use, has a fairly rapid release schedule (with multi-platform releases all at the same time) and a very good mailing list.
Although this has been known for some time. It's not poor, defenseless people who become terrorists, no matter how much mr. Obama would like them to be. It's knowledgeable, rational, intelligent and rich people, who have but to choose from the thousands of opportunities the world offers them (like he himself is, or any presidential candidate obviously).
yes, people have forgotten the lessons of the seventies about the Baader-Meinhof group.
Remember that Isaac Asimov also used a nuclear reactor the size of a fist in the first part of the Foundation series, to generate a personal powerfield.
My feeling around anything and anybody connected with Microsoft is that of either (willful) ignorance or maliciousness.
No need to to rewrite it in Java, but one should consistently use exceptions.
If a function is used which should be checked for its return value to see if it succeeded or not, then it should be wrapped inside a new function, which always does the check and throws an exception if nothing has succeeded.
No, you cannot do it in C, but you should be able to do it in C++.
I did this with my own Perl libraries. I try to make sure that everything I use throws an exception when an error situation is encountered.
My experience with the current batch of system administrators and IT responsible is that they are people which somehow got into PC's, knew something more than the average user, and thus landed in their current position. Their only reference is that of a PC, they do not have the technical knowledge to get what the difference is between a x86 architecture, Unix systems and mainframes. Two other sources are help desk people which are able to move into something a little more technical, and network technicians, which might know a lot about network hardware, switches and other things needed to make a network run, but miss the hardware and software technical knowledge about computers.
They are obviously trying to create the largest cannabis plantation in history!
I had setup a new computer with Debian for my sister. She plugged in her brand new monitor, and it just worked. She plugged in her brandnew USB remote keyboard and mouse, and they just worked.
I never get complaints from my father (KDE), and my sister is also very happy with her Linux system (GNOME). I use Debian, however, because for some reason the systems I try to run Ubuntu on have always some blocking problem in the install (and always something different).
exterminate, exterminate...
With Firefox you can ask to display a font of at least n points in size. I have put this to 14. I also always use a non-serif font, which is also more legible for me.