One reason is because police officers "on the ground" know where the "hot" areas are long before the criminal intelligence group runs statistics.
Also, GIS systems that use maps always have outdated and incorrect information: the map says a warehouse is at a location X but the officers from the area remind you that the warehouse was replaced by an apartment complex 3 years ago.
I did studies for a major metropolitan police agency for years, specializing in GIS. There was never a case where purchase of a GIS system could be justified. Nevertheless no less than 3 such systems were purchased by our department in an attempt to find a use. These costed millions of $; they're sitting in the police IT machine room unused today!
Governments are committing to open source software, IIS is losing server market share, programmers are abandoning.NET tools, etc. So at what point will we see an effect on Microsoft's stock?
It's as if Microsoft is the very last of the dot-coms (although it never truly was a dot-com), and, until MSFT falls to a final reasonable level, the market and economy won't truly be able to restructure and recover. Reason being, so many huge mutual funds are so heavily invested in MSFT. A stock that does not react to either bad or good news is not a reasonably-priced stock, but is an exercise in the optimism of mass market behavior.
In the section titled GENERIC STRUCTURE, HIERARCHIES,
Sutherland describes how he restructured SKETCHPAD in what we would immediately recognize as an OO manner:
"The big power of the clear-cut separation of the general and the
specific is that it is easy to change the details of specific parts of
the program to get quite different results or to expand the system
without any need to change the general parts. This was most dramatically
brought out when generality was finally achieved in the constraint
display and satisfaction routines and new types of constraints were
constructed literally at fifteen minute intervals."...
"Before the generic structure was clarified, it was almost impossible to
add the instructions required to handle a new type of element."
Later in the section DEMONSTRATIVE LANGUAGE we see what we might call today the association of classes with methods as Sutherland notes:
"The organization of the demonstrative program in Sketchpad is in the
form of a set of special cases at present. That is, the program itself
tests to see whether it is dealing with a line or circle or point or
instance and uses different special subroutines accordingly. This
organization remains for historical reasons but is not to be considered
ideal at all. ***A far better arrangement is to have within the generic
block for a type of picture part all subroutines necessary for it.***"
[asterisks mine].
"Perl contains a set of built-in security checks know as taint mode. These checks protect you by insuring that tainted data that comes from somewhere outside your program is not used directly or indirectly to alter files, processes, or directories. "
What? PHP has no taint mode?-P
Re:Nothing new - Better languages than Java for th
on
Jess in Action
·
· Score: 1
Why do you think Java is ill-suited for rule processing?
I didn't say that, but your statement is true: Java is ill-suited for rule-processing because there is no question that it cannot compete with languages designed for that purpose. Its a matter of what a language is suited for:
Java was designed to control appliances and hardware devices, failed there,
Java was remarketed to WWW browsers, failed there,
Java was remarketed to WWW servers, where it now is barely holding off a competitor that charges $$ for it's products.
So as a language, Java has a rather checkered history. It has found a niche (WWW servers) and is finally doing well there, but it has been a long, bumpy ride for old Java programmers (see the Official Unofficial Java History for details.)
In contrast, Lisp and Prolog were designed as symbolic manipulation languages and do that exceedingly well.
But my main point was "why would one perform a task in Java that can be more easily, more quickly and more cost-effectively done in a readily-available language designed for the task?"
Re:Nothing new - Better languages than Java for th
on
Jess in Action
·
· Score: 1
Prolog is a back-chaining system (quite mature), JESS is mostly forward chaining (though I understand they can do back chaining too.).
My post was not about Prolog per se, but about the many Prolog- and Lisp-based rule engines available (A detailed aside: a forward-chaining rule engine can be written in Prolog easily).
The implementation language is unimportant. The fact that it runs on any platform, and its integration with Java for enterprise apps is important.
Funny that you say the implementation language is unimportant in the first clause of this sentence and then contradict that in the second clause.
IMHO much of the value of a rule engine stems from the strict separation between business logic and enterprise programming (e.g. transactions, dbs, etc.) FORCED on you be the discipline of a representation change.
You're dead wrong here: transactions and database rules are part, if not the major part, of business logic. The only way to force discipline is to write rules in the database and then allow users and developers access to the database through well-defined paths/rules/procedures.
Re:Nothing new - Better languages than Java for th
on
Jess in Action
·
· Score: 1
The "cross-platform" aspect of Java is a red herring here; most "rule-based" systems have been "cross-platform" for years.
And despite the "cross-platform" compatibility of Java, few corporations use it to their financial benefit. (Please, no posts from individuals who have ported a Java app from one platform to another).
Nothing new - Better languages than Java for this
on
Jess in Action
·
· Score: 1, Flamebait
Rule-based systems (and far better ones than JESS) have been available for nearly 30 years now. I wrote one in LISP for an college AI class. Prolog is a rule engine.
Implementing rule-based programming in Java is like putting lipstick on a pig (if you don't know, rule-based programming is the lipstick). It is best to leave rule processing to a language designed for it and use Java for other tasks for which its better suited, such as interaction.
Even before Deja was acquired by Google I was willing to pay a subscription fee for access. Deja's (now Google's) technical USENET/newsgroup archives alone are invaluable and will only grow in value as time goes on. So part of their new business model can be a subscription system.
Until the early 20th century (and beyond in Europe) course textbooks did not exist. Students took class notes and read outside resources. The level of education was higher as a result. This tradition continues in some Eurpean classrooms.
A professor who uses a textbook is being lazy; he's passed the responsibility for his course to another.
A return to the older system would be refreshing, would free up shelf space, save the trees and lighten backpacks. Students would save $ and learn more.
Microsoft uses this style of argument; perhaps Enderle's article was written by Microsoft, considering the Microsoft advertisement after the first paragraph.
Step I: To create anxiety in the reader, I divide people into 3 groups: Pros, Priests, and Zealots. Immediately of course, the reader wishes to put himself into the "Pro" category; but cannot do so until he read the details.
Step 2: Describe a categorization that has only one desireable class (Pros) and two undesireable classes (Priests, Zealots). This make me look fair. Had I initially used only 2 classes (Pros and Zealots), the reader would have quickly identified me as one of those people who divides the world into two groups - an old cliche' too-commonly used in argument and therefore too easily recognized. By positing 3 groups, the reader is distracted from the fact that there is really only a single dichotomy: either
Pros or
(Priests, Zealots)
since neither of the latter are desireable.
Step 3: Dash the reader's hopes, by making the first category unattainable, Godly in it's fairness, and longsuffering in it's members. Similarly tar the bottom classes with:
commonly-found developer traits,
undesireable characteristics.
The reader sees that he has trait A, say, "does not regularly floss", but that it is associated with undesireable characteristic X, "member of Al-Queda". He is trapped by the (seemingly indisputable) logic of association.
IOW Enderle creates a false model (a "Straw Man") and then draws (incorrect) conclusions from it. There's really no argument here at all; it's just a sham.
In a remarkably similar argument, after the release of.NET, Microsoft flacks predicted that Visual Basic 6 developers would follow one of 3 paths:
C# - Only skilled professional and enterprise Visual C++ developers with knowledge of OOP would move to the C# language,
VB.NET - VB6 developers unable to fully understand or take advantage of OOP would move to VB.NET,
VB6 legacy - The remaining VB6 developers would stay behind and maintain legacy applications in VB6, VB5, etc.
The outcome was quite different:
Visual C++ programmers abandoned Windows development tools entirely and migrated to C++/Java on Linux and UNIX,
the 3 million or so VB6 developers began to bitch uncontrollably and did not move (a still-unresolved situation that endangers Microsoft at it's roots),
VB.NET has no significant developer community and is effectively dead,
C# is barely alive: only a few VB6 users have moved to this unproven language on an untrustworthy OS.
Antivirus package. Any of AVG, Norton, or McAfee are fine.
Software firewall. ZoneAlarm (the free version) is the best choice.
WindowsUpdate. Be sure to run this ASAP after first connecting to the Internet.
About ZoneAlarm(ZA): I've read all the gripes posted here about ZA. But I have extensive experience with ZA and have never seen those problems. I believe that in most cases the users were attributing other program's errors to ZA.
Fact is, ZA is da Bomb! The security is eminently configurable. You can set the security for each of your various programs. You can even allow others machines on your LAN to "tunnel" through the ZA firewall (although IMO it's best to not do that - better to let each machine have it's firewall up, just in case a user introduces a virus/worm on another machine). ZA logs penetration attempts, warns you about possible trojans (alarming at first, but OK once you realize what's happening), and has scads of Help information. ZA is easy to install and easy to uninstall. I have never had problems with file corruption while downloading through ZoneAlarm, despite using a wide variety of file transfer tools. ZA just works.
When you walk into one of these firms, they ask you to fill out a form that has all your personal information (work history, SSN, date of birth, Driver's License #, etc.). That is precisely the information someone would need to apply for credit in your name or forge a false identity.
I wouldn't be surprised to find that some of these firms have a significant business on the side stealing identities. It is very lucrative, penalties are non-existent and there is almost no prosecution, so it's a natural niche for organized crime.
How could you prevent this? You can't. Just for the identity theft reasons alone it is probably best to avoid these firms.
Of course every potential employers wants you to provide the same information!8-((
But that HTML 3.2 document will display adequately in more browsers than will an HTML 4.0 or XHTML document!
The W3C MarkUp Validation Service will validate to different standards (choose from the "Type" selection list), so I can validate to HTML 3.2 or even HTML 2.0 if I wish.
In the early 90s the environmental market was going great guns and the local university's business incubator said that we couldn't lose by addressing the needs of the environmental market. One of us was intimately familiar with that market; the other was a skilled software developer. We set up a company and busted our balls to develop a great environmental software package. We waited for the orders to come in.
But rather than spend a little money on compliance (and possibly even save some money and increase productivity), businesses successfully pressured both the Federal and state governments
to roll back environmental legislation or kill it outright. Needless to say, orders for our products ceased. For several years we thought next year we would break through, but then Bush castrated the EPA and finally the economy tanked.
I'm no longer interested in developing excellent anything unless someone pays me. My risk-tolerance is way down; all my altruistic feelings are gone. As for capitalism, I'd done that and, even though I voted for Bush, he was the worst thing that could have happened to my business; our package is now off the market.
When the next Democratic administration comes to office, and it will, I look forward to them cutting a new asshole for those businesses who lobbied so hard to curtail environmental legislation. Hell, I may get a $25,000/year government environmental enforcement job just so I can personally screw some of these dickwads; finally they'll meet a Democratic appointee who would rather screw them into environmental compliance than accept their kickbacks.
But for now the Bush administration views the sorry economic conditions as an excuse to further roll back environmental requirements. Soon it will be declared legal for businesses to sh** on your dining room table (it's already legal for them to sh** in your water and in your yard).
Sadly, the guy's trying to sell his only product, himself. Anyone believe that someone other than Adelstein is responsible for this/. submission?
The governmentforge site was created two months ago has no FAQ of its own, no downloads, and is virtually devoid of content. The Leopard site was created last month and is likewise empty of any useful content. One interesting facet: it states "Project Requirements posted 17August 2004 at Sourceforge" so I guess he can travel into the future too. Maybe he's already visited the future, seen that he will develop no software and has given up; that would explain the lack of content.
Anyway, none of his sites has anything that wouldn't be revealed by a Google search and they all are missing a lot. They're just trivial pages of links to OSS.
To be popular, a language must "resonate" in some way with the great unwashed masses of programmers who are neither MIT graduates nor hopeless script kiddies. Occasionally this happens: IBM JCL, the original interpretive BASIC, FORTRAN, COBOL, Visual Basic. But for most languages there is no "resonance" and they eventually dwindle to occupy a small niche.
If someone can characterise that "resonance", they might make a great deal of money.
AFAIK no language has ever been designed on the basis of known programmer preferences. Instead language designers usually have some agenda they wish to promote with their language. This is the "tail wagging the dog" IMO. If you want a language to be popular, then poll developers to find what they want and then implement it.
Distributed transactions are not language-dependent; I can do them in C#, Java, Prolog, or whatever. But for some Prolog-specific distributed processing, see BinProlog's Agents and blackboards for more sophisticated processing than is available in other languages.
I don't know WTF you were thinking, but am certain it was wrong.
While not the original interpretation, I prefer to think of the WWW as a giant state engine with all possible pages (including possible dynamically-generated content) as already created and available. Then as you navigate from one page to another, i.e., are transferred from page to page, you are changing from one state to another.
This way of envisioning the WWW is called Representational State Transfer(REST) and is documented by Roy Fielding, one of the WWW's architects, in his doctoral dissertation.
This is not the original interpretation, however, and in both HTTP 1.0 - RFC 1945 and HTTP/1.1 - RFC 2068 the term "transfer" is used in the original sense of transferring data.
Am I the only MoFo who thinks that Prolog rules? While everyone else is writing code to solve the problem, I'm finished as soon as I've written Prolog code that defines the problem. Who cares about CPU and memory: BillG has promised us an infinity of both. I'm gonna take him at his word and leave his development tools in the dust.
I love my Prolog!8-))
"Effective Java"=oxymoron; It's all C in the end
on
Does C# Measure Up?
·
· Score: 1
The book concentrates on how to make up for the poor language design of Java, e.g., how to speed up string concatenation et al, work that is unnecessary if you use a well-designed language.
C# is nothing to write home about: I don't believe any benchmarks that show it running alongside C++. OTOH C++ is a notoriously bad design-time language, so while the C++ developer is writing code, the Java developer is testing the final product.
C#, C++ and Java are all 3rd-generation languages no better than C. Until the vendors step up to the plate and deliver something similar to the old "4th-generation" languages, productivity will be in the basement. If I were an optimist, I might believe that this is the chance for the old "5th-generation" languages to enjoy a revival.
You claim that In order for foreigners to get a work permit (a H1-B visa), the prospective employer must:
Advertise the position publicly for 60 days
Demonstrate that the candidate has unique skills pertaining to the job
Be unable to find qualified candidates that are either citizens or permanent residents.
But in fact no check is performed in many, if not most, cases. A local state university is an example: the university's H1-B specialist told me that no check for U.S. citizens is performed in academic positions. Whomever (the specific named person) is requested is the only person accepted for such positions.
Slashdot Mirror
Also, GIS systems that use maps always have outdated and incorrect information: the map says a warehouse is at a location X but the officers from the area remind you that the warehouse was replaced by an apartment complex 3 years ago.
I did studies for a major metropolitan police agency for years, specializing in GIS. There was never a case where purchase of a GIS system could be justified. Nevertheless no less than 3 such systems were purchased by our department in an attempt to find a use. These costed millions of $; they're sitting in the police IT machine room unused today!
It's as if Microsoft is the very last of the dot-coms (although it never truly was a dot-com), and, until MSFT falls to a final reasonable level, the market and economy won't truly be able to restructure and recover. Reason being, so many huge mutual funds are so heavily invested in MSFT. A stock that does not react to either bad or good news is not a reasonably-priced stock, but is an exercise in the optimism of mass market behavior.
In the section titled GENERIC STRUCTURE, HIERARCHIES , Sutherland describes how he restructured SKETCHPAD in what we would immediately recognize as an OO manner:
Later in the section DEMONSTRATIVE LANGUAGE we see what we might call today the association of classes with methods as Sutherland notes:
"Perl contains a set of built-in security checks know as taint mode. These checks protect you by insuring that tainted data that comes from somewhere outside your program is not used directly or indirectly to alter files, processes, or directories. "
What? PHP has no taint mode?-P
Why do you think Java is ill-suited for rule processing?
I didn't say that, but your statement is true: Java is ill-suited for rule-processing because there is no question that it cannot compete with languages designed for that purpose. Its a matter of what a language is suited for:
So as a language, Java has a rather checkered history. It has found a niche (WWW servers) and is finally doing well there, but it has been a long, bumpy ride for old Java programmers (see the Official Unofficial Java History for details.)
In contrast, Lisp and Prolog were designed as symbolic manipulation languages and do that exceedingly well.
But my main point was "why would one perform a task in Java that can be more easily, more quickly and more cost-effectively done in a readily-available language designed for the task?"
Prolog is a back-chaining system (quite mature), JESS is mostly forward chaining (though I understand they can do back chaining too.).
My post was not about Prolog per se, but about the many Prolog- and Lisp-based rule engines available (A detailed aside: a forward-chaining rule engine can be written in Prolog easily).
The implementation language is unimportant. The fact that it runs on any platform, and its integration with Java for enterprise apps is important.
Funny that you say the implementation language is unimportant in the first clause of this sentence and then contradict that in the second clause.
IMHO much of the value of a rule engine stems from the strict separation between business logic and enterprise programming (e.g. transactions, dbs, etc.) FORCED on you be the discipline of a representation change.
You're dead wrong here: transactions and database rules are part, if not the major part, of business logic. The only way to force discipline is to write rules in the database and then allow users and developers access to the database through well-defined paths/rules/procedures.
And despite the "cross-platform" compatibility of Java, few corporations use it to their financial benefit. (Please, no posts from individuals who have ported a Java app from one platform to another).
Implementing rule-based programming in Java is like putting lipstick on a pig (if you don't know, rule-based programming is the lipstick). It is best to leave rule processing to a language designed for it and use Java for other tasks for which its better suited, such as interaction.
Even before Deja was acquired by Google I was willing to pay a subscription fee for access. Deja's (now Google's) technical USENET/newsgroup archives alone are invaluable and will only grow in value as time goes on. So part of their new business model can be a subscription system.
A professor who uses a textbook is being lazy; he's passed the responsibility for his course to another.
A return to the older system would be refreshing, would free up shelf space, save the trees and lighten backpacks. Students would save $ and learn more.
Step I: To create anxiety in the reader, I divide people into 3 groups: Pros, Priests, and Zealots. Immediately of course, the reader wishes to put himself into the "Pro" category; but cannot do so until he read the details.
Step 2: Describe a categorization that has only one desireable class (Pros) and two undesireable classes (Priests, Zealots). This make me look fair. Had I initially used only 2 classes (Pros and Zealots), the reader would have quickly identified me as one of those people who divides the world into two groups - an old cliche' too-commonly used in argument and therefore too easily recognized. By positing 3 groups, the reader is distracted from the fact that there is really only a single dichotomy: either
- Pros or
- (Priests, Zealots)
since neither of the latter are desireable.Step 3: Dash the reader's hopes, by making the first category unattainable, Godly in it's fairness, and longsuffering in it's members. Similarly tar the bottom classes with:
- commonly-found developer traits,
- undesireable characteristics.
The reader sees that he has trait A, say, "does not regularly floss", but that it is associated with undesireable characteristic X, "member of Al-Queda". He is trapped by the (seemingly indisputable) logic of association.IOW Enderle creates a false model (a "Straw Man") and then draws (incorrect) conclusions from it. There's really no argument here at all; it's just a sham.
In a remarkably similar argument, after the release of .NET, Microsoft flacks predicted that Visual Basic 6 developers would follow one of 3 paths:
The outcome was quite different:
So be wary of the Straw Man.
About ZoneAlarm(ZA): I've read all the gripes posted here about ZA. But I have extensive experience with ZA and have never seen those problems. I believe that in most cases the users were attributing other program's errors to ZA.
Fact is, ZA is da Bomb! The security is eminently configurable. You can set the security for each of your various programs. You can even allow others machines on your LAN to "tunnel" through the ZA firewall (although IMO it's best to not do that - better to let each machine have it's firewall up, just in case a user introduces a virus/worm on another machine). ZA logs penetration attempts, warns you about possible trojans (alarming at first, but OK once you realize what's happening), and has scads of Help information. ZA is easy to install and easy to uninstall. I have never had problems with file corruption while downloading through ZoneAlarm, despite using a wide variety of file transfer tools. ZA just works.
Until they have the lectures and demonstrations online, this is little more than a giant advertisement for MIT.
I wouldn't be surprised to find that some of these firms have a significant business on the side stealing identities. It is very lucrative, penalties are non-existent and there is almost no prosecution, so it's a natural niche for organized crime.
How could you prevent this? You can't. Just for the identity theft reasons alone it is probably best to avoid these firms.
Of course every potential employers wants you to provide the same information!8-((
The W3C MarkUp Validation Service will validate to different standards (choose from the "Type" selection list), so I can validate to HTML 3.2 or even HTML 2.0 if I wish.
But rather than spend a little money on compliance (and possibly even save some money and increase productivity), businesses successfully pressured both the Federal and state governments to roll back environmental legislation or kill it outright. Needless to say, orders for our products ceased. For several years we thought next year we would break through, but then Bush castrated the EPA and finally the economy tanked.
I'm no longer interested in developing excellent anything unless someone pays me. My risk-tolerance is way down; all my altruistic feelings are gone. As for capitalism, I'd done that and, even though I voted for Bush, he was the worst thing that could have happened to my business; our package is now off the market.
When the next Democratic administration comes to office, and it will, I look forward to them cutting a new asshole for those businesses who lobbied so hard to curtail environmental legislation. Hell, I may get a $25,000/year government environmental enforcement job just so I can personally screw some of these dickwads; finally they'll meet a Democratic appointee who would rather screw them into environmental compliance than accept their kickbacks.
But for now the Bush administration views the sorry economic conditions as an excuse to further roll back environmental requirements. Soon it will be declared legal for businesses to sh** on your dining room table (it's already legal for them to sh** in your water and in your yard).
Sadly, the guy's trying to sell his only product, himself. Anyone believe that someone other than Adelstein is responsible for this /. submission?
The governmentforge site was created two months ago has no FAQ of its own, no downloads, and is virtually devoid of content. The Leopard site was created last month and is likewise empty of any useful content. One interesting facet: it states "Project Requirements posted 17August 2004 at Sourceforge" so I guess he can travel into the future too. Maybe he's already visited the future, seen that he will develop no software and has given up; that would explain the lack of content.
Anyway, none of his sites has anything that wouldn't be revealed by a Google search and they all are missing a lot. They're just trivial pages of links to OSS.
If someone can characterise that "resonance", they might make a great deal of money.
AFAIK no language has ever been designed on the basis of known programmer preferences. Instead language designers usually have some agenda they wish to promote with their language. This is the "tail wagging the dog" IMO. If you want a language to be popular, then poll developers to find what they want and then implement it.
I don't know WTF you were thinking, but am certain it was wrong.
While not the original interpretation, I prefer to think of the WWW as a giant state engine with all possible pages (including possible dynamically-generated content) as already created and available. Then as you navigate from one page to another, i.e., are transferred from page to page, you are changing from one state to another.
This way of envisioning the WWW is called Representational State Transfer(REST) and is documented by Roy Fielding, one of the WWW's architects, in his doctoral dissertation.
This is not the original interpretation, however, and in both HTTP 1.0 - RFC 1945 and HTTP /1.1 - RFC 2068 the term "transfer" is used in the original sense of transferring data.
I love my Prolog!8-))
C# is nothing to write home about: I don't believe any benchmarks that show it running alongside C++. OTOH C++ is a notoriously bad design-time language, so while the C++ developer is writing code, the Java developer is testing the final product.
C#, C++ and Java are all 3rd-generation languages no better than C. Until the vendors step up to the plate and deliver something similar to the old "4th-generation" languages, productivity will be in the basement. If I were an optimist, I might believe that this is the chance for the old "5th-generation" languages to enjoy a revival.
In order for foreigners to get a work permit
(a H1-B visa), the prospective employer must:
But in fact no check is performed in many, if not most, cases. A local state university is an example: the university's H1-B specialist told me that no check for U.S. citizens is performed in academic positions. Whomever (the specific named person) is requested is the only person accepted for such positions.