Yes, we call it "having sex". It's an amazing cloning technique that nature gave us that allows one to combine traits and create "clones". If you really want purity, incest might be in order: Some sisterly love and you'll have a virtually perfect family clone.
No.
Clones are, by definition, genetic doubles. The whole point is that clones aren't a combination of genes through the fertilization of an egg by sperm. Rather, a clone contains *exactly* the same gene material as its original. Thus, even the offspring of a brother and sister would not be a clone, since it would not have identical DNA to either its mother or father.
Simply by the fact that one pair must have XX (yeah, I'm going to ignore the relatively rare XXY and XXX) genes and the other XY genes in order to mate, it is impossible for the two parents to have identical genese, let alone their offspring.
Even if a pair of male twins were to mate with two female twins, it's more likely than not that their offspring would not have identical genes.
I would love to make websites that were always XHTML 1.0 compliant, that never used tables for layout, that were accessible on any kind of platform and any kind of browser. Unfortunately, there are people other than me making the final decisions: my boss, and my customers. Most customers that I deal with care about one thing and one thing only: How their website looks on their browser.</rant>
Almost all the websites I design use tables for layout. I don't care how neat CSS-Positioning *can* be, it doesn't work consistently across browsers, while tables do. Most of my websites use relative tables rather than absolute widths, but occasionally there will come a time when even though the browser *should* display the page correctly using just proportional widths, it won't. Both Internet Explorer and Netscape have truly bizarre concepts of what 25% of a table means at a given time, and are especially horrible when you have many lines with different COLSPANs. At that point, I have to use absolute widths or it will become *less* usable for the majority of users.
Most of the websites I design are used within the business world, which for better or [worse] <- is IE. My boss's criteria is: the website should look good on Internet Explorer, and be usable on any browser that is sized to at least 800 x 600. This offers the best return on investment. The only way to make a page viewable on both extremely large and extremely small browsers is either to make several different versions of the site, or to make it so utilitarian in appearance that the client will reject the design outright.
I'm not a print designer, started out as a web designer, back when the TABLE tag was just being introduced. I'm not designing for print, I'm designing for my customers.
I also want to emphasize that most of the time, I do not use absolute widths. Sometimes, however, I really have no choice, because otherwise the layout won't work and won't be as usable.
I would like you to know and understand that when I make a table have absolute widths, it is generally because I have exhausted all other alternatives in order to find a balance between the visual design my customer wants with what the web is able to give.
I'd also like to point out that some webdesigners actually develop websites as a job for real living customers. Who pay them. For making websites look like what they want. Pretty websites. And sometimes those pretty websites require absolutely (does that work as an adverb?) sized tables.
The fact is, browsers are *still* not all behaving the same way, and the only safe way to have a site appear correctly is to use absolute pixels. Stylesheets are nice for simple text styling, but can't even be depended on for font sizes! (Don't believe me? Set up a web page with a style
BODY { font-size: medium }
And see how it shows up on IE, IE for Mac, Netscape, and Netscape for Mac. They'll all be different sizes, last time I checked.)
Since clients want pretty layouts, which includes, necessarily, the use of tables, from time to time absolute pixel widths have to be used.
Our technique for getting around the 100% of 800 = 805 problem is to set the table to 95% instead of 100%, and then center it on the screen. It also adds to the whitespace on the left and right, so it's actually a pretty good thing.
At this point I would suggest writing down the name of the aforementioned toaster while in the aforementioned store. The psychic plugin for mozilla is on the way but not yet available. Until then customers who are searching for something are advised to have reasonable search terms.
Okay,
I'd put you on my enemies list but I'm feeling nice today.
The point of a website is to allow users to find information, it shouldn't force the customer to educate themselves about the product before going to the website. That does make sense if you're talking about specialized products and a specialized audience, but these are toaster buyers here.
When I go to a website, I don't give a flying #*$ about their company. I care about what they offer, in terms of products and services. So I don't care about their neat branding techniques, their logos, or their corporate structure.
How about this for a Toaster search:
Number of Slots: [1:2:4:8] Slot Size [ Wide | Narrow ] Style [ Retro Chrome | etc...]
The point is that unless the person really is a complete moron, they can answer the above questions about a toaster they just bought without having to look at the toaster or the box it came in. Model names and numbers are often difficult to find on products, and it's also sometimes difficult to figure out which brand name represents the company and which brand name represents the product, and which number is the model number vs. the serial number vs. etc, etc.
I develop websites myself, and so I know how difficult it can be to setup useful navigation and search engines. However, your attitude is customer-hostile. You want customers to find the product, even if they can't remember any "key" data (i.e. the product number, the model name, the brand, etc.). That's why record stores are cooler than CDNow. You can walk in and say, "What's that song that goes 'Na na na na na something something blues?'" and they may be actually able to help you. Of course, web sites will *never* be that intuitive, but you can certainly make it as easy as possible to find something.
Among the banned games named are Resident Evil, Shadowman, Street Fighter, Turok, Perfect Dark, Quake and the old stalwart of the moral moronity, Doom.
...the programmers don't understand what the enduser wants to do or why he needs it.
So, ask why.
I have found that when you ask why a customer needs a particular feature, you get a much better understanding not only of what s/he wants, but how to best implement that feature.
Often, the customer attempts to speak in a more technical arena. It is at this point that they frequently make technical requests that aren't feasible (such as the example given above, with the sorted query results). When you ask them the what and why of that feature, you get a better understanding of what you actually need to implement.
I think oftentimes the problem with specifications is that the way that the customer phrases their needs. I recall trying to find directions to an Ethiopian restaurant. I was asking people where a given section of town was and wasn't getting helpful answers. Finally, when I rephrased the question to state the kind of restaurant I was looking for and the street it was on, they were able to give me better directions. I hadn't wanted to state my actual goal--"I'm trying to find an Ethiopian restaurant"--because I didn't want to broadcast what I really wanted (I thought it would make me look like a tourist which, admittedly, I was). When I actually stated my goals, I got a better response.
You have to squeeze better responses out of the customer. While it isn't my job to tell a customer how to do their business, nor is it their job to tell me how to program, I find that each can inform the other. Through my development work, I have helped many of the end users get a better conceptual understanding of their businesse processes, and their requirements have forced me to make creative programming decisions which have, in turn, made me a better programmer.
Basically, the fewer walls between developer and customer, the better.
I think that the technology/knowledge to create birth control pills for men has been around for a while. I imagine they will be much safer, too, since sperm is manufactured on a frequent regular basis, the pill would just have to affect that process. It could probably be taken as little as 24-36 hours before sex to have its effect, and it would most likely not affect hormone levels.
It's just that pills for men have this one little problem:
Zero Accountability.
Oh, sure, if you're using them because you're in a committed relationship and don't want your honey to get pregnant, they'd be useful as heck.
However, one of the reasons that birth control pills for women work so well is because the women taking them have a *huge* incentive to take them -- they don't want to get pregnant. So, they're much less likely to forget a dose.
On the other hand, consider a player. He may even have pills, but forget to take them. It'll be important to him, but not as present in his mind as it would in a woman's, because the effects for him are not so dire. For the player, it might rank just above flossing as a priority.
Also, imagine men saying, "Honey, it's cool, I'm on the pill." A woman has no real reason to lie and say that she's on the pill if she isn't, and if she does lie then she has to suffer the consequences.
I've tried this and it works for *some* applications. But it doesn't work for many of the applications that I use the most -- I can't get it to respond correctly for BBEdit, for example.
Very frustrating. *sigh*
Anyways, this isn't a Mac Help forum, so I'll shut my trap.:-)
I actually use a Mac with Virtual PC running WIndows, and I frequently evangelize the Mac/Open Source and dismiss and deride Microsoft and Windows, so I'd say I'm a perfect person to be asked to justify my behavior.
Worse--although I do in fact have OS X on my machine, I don't use it. What is the real reason most people use WIndoze?
Habit. Habit and Familiarity.
Let's be honest. Unless you're work for an oil drilling company like the man mentioned above, odds are you can find a piece of software for the *nix platform (especially if you include OS X). As many people above have pointed out, plenty of alternatives to favorites exist, and many games have been ported over to *Nix platforms.
However, people use their computers as efficient tools. I don't bother even looking at the toolbar when I click on a button, or glance more than 2 seconds at a menu, or pause before entering a key combination. They have all become automatic.
However, were I to switch to another OS, I would have to learn its nuances, and that would take time that I'm not so interested in spending. Even though I'm eager to use a command-driven interface, I find it frustrating constantly having to "learn" how to do things which I easily do in Mac OS 9, and have been doing for over 10 years now.
The reason I haven't switched over to OS X? Believe it or not, there's only one reason: that stupid Open File dialog. I can't grok it, I can't figure it out, and worst of all I can't just type in the first few letters of the file I want in the folder and have it be selected, as has been the case since Mac OS 6.x (back when it was just called "System 6").
I think one of the problems, in fact, is that so many Slashdot users are power users -- dedicated gamers, programmers, coders, designers, developers-- who have become accustomed to using their computers as an extension of themselves. For most everyday users, the biggest difference between a Windows machine, a OS X machine, and a machine running a GUI Linux would be the color of the windows and icons. They don't try to juice their programs as much. After all, if the most complex action you perform as a user is hitting the back button on your browser, it can be any browser on any software platform. But if you're used to coding in a specific text editor, moving to another can be a painful experience.
Sorry, coding isn't saddlery. Or glass-blowing. Or painting. Heck, it isn't even woodworking.
People like to talk about coding as a "craft", and in a sense, it can be. And sometimes, really gorgeous code (either because it's really well written, or beautifully obfuscated and compressed) can be treated like a work of art.
However, the greatest use of coding isn't for creating masterpieces to hang on the walls of the Met. Instead, it is for businesses so, yes, business has to be mixed in with design.
Starving artists are artists who, because they refuse to commercialize their art in any way, shape or form, are unable to sell it (until they're dead, at which point it sells like hotcakes). Ever heard of the phrase, "starving programmer"? You probably haven't. And there's a reason for that. While not all programmers are poor, those who do it for a profession generally try to make their code into a commercial product, or are paid by a business to create it in the first place.
In my own experience, whenever there is a sense of "ownership" over a project or code within that project, the project suffers. It no longer becomes about the code, it becomes about the personality of the programmer.
I think that valuing individuals is a function of company politics, not development practices. Never underestimate the downside of being "irreplaceable." Right now I work in a firm where I'm the only one who is working on a specific project. I"m desperately trying to get others at my job understand it. Why? So I can go on vacation without feeling guilty or anxious about things going wrong, or about the client needing new features. So I can eventually leave the company and go on to other places, without leaving the company in a lurch.
Programmers aren't becoming robots; they still far exceed computers in being able to translate real-world needs into working code.
I am leery of anyone who feels that they are a guru. If you see Buddha coding on your computer, kill him. But eliminate the "guru" label: Since a pair of fools are better than one [more experienced programmer] under extreme programming, you can fire the guru. Wrong. The more experienced programmer can help manage the project, or can serve as one of the paired programmers. A pair of fools are not better. A pair of good programmers are. If the "guru" is truly wise, he will be glad to work within the team. If he choose to be a loner, he probably has some personal issues to work through, and work is not the place to do it.
With the source code open, it's possible that someone might find a security flaw in the system. Now, in an ideal world that person might announce that flaw to the world, and a patch would be implemented immediately.
But what if that person chose to exploit that flaw instead?
Before voting systems code is moved to open source, there needs to be a discussion made of what efforts are taking place to prevent someone from tampering with the results through flaws in the code.
Perhaps, but I think the trust has little to do with the underlying technology.
People will mistrust the computers and the people operating the systems, not the licenses and code behind the voting system. While there might be a small number (never more than 100,000 people, say) who might distrust the system just because it isn't open source, most people mistrust it for less technological reasons. Their mistrust is just as valid, in my opinion.
My definition of portal is a lot broader than yours, I guess.
I feel that the format of a portal, be it reverse chronological (thus emulating a weblog), or more "frontpage" style, is really secondary to its purpose and use.
My definition of a portal really is an interactive, frequently updated destination point for gathered information, and in this sense Slashdot really excels.
Maybe you really could set up the whole works by Monday, but sometimes it's better to take somebody else's wheel, clumsy at may be, rather than crafting it yourself.
On the other hand, if you have plenty of time to develop it, that's great. Coding it yourself gives you the best form of control, but often making these products do everything that is required of them takes much longer than expected, especially since there will often be a lot of back-and-forth exchanges with the client about features that they want.
I completely forgot to mention the number one consumer of portals these days:
Individual companies.
Portals are an excellent "intranet" tool, offering company news and documents to their employees. They're often a better and cheaper alternative to investing in one of the Intranet-ware applications that are provided by M$ and others or trying to develop them in-house, since generally most of what an intranet needs to do is share documents, which can be done easily and well through a portal.
That only really applies to portals that tried to make money through banner ads, particularly portals that were too generalized or didn't have a specific audience or target ("Our target is Gen-Xers" is a good example of a target that was not specific enough).
On the other hand, industry specific portals are hugely successful. You're looking at one right now, but examples exist in many industries.
The point is that many of these portals now make money by:
promoting certain companies outright, not through banner ads but with articles, detailed press releases, and product showcasing
online catalogs, which sell items of great interest (not bumper stickers or t-shirts) to the customer
actually charging the user for access
Also, if you look at portals that are still in existance, most of them rely heavily on volunteer-provided content. About.com is a good example. It's still going fairly strong, mostly because its costs aren't that huge (sure, they have to cover hosting costs, but in the long run, providing their own content would have been much, much costlier). Notice also that they employ two of the other "success techniques" -- they promote other companies (using sponsored links -- studies have proven that people have developed banner ad "blind spots", but they still pay attention to links, sponsored or not) and have links to purchase products.
Slashdot Mirror
Never, ever write "ppl" in a paragraph that you want any person to take seriously.
Whatever. Most of what he said was interesting. Sure, my eyes sort of slowed down over the "ppl", but overall his post was useful info.
IHBT
Yes, we call it "having sex". It's an amazing cloning technique that nature gave us that allows one to combine traits and create "clones". If you really want purity, incest might be in order: Some sisterly love and you'll have a virtually perfect family clone.
No.
Clones are, by definition, genetic doubles. The whole point is that clones aren't a combination of genes through the fertilization of an egg by sperm. Rather, a clone contains *exactly* the same gene material as its original. Thus, even the offspring of a brother and sister would not be a clone, since it would not have identical DNA to either its mother or father.
Simply by the fact that one pair must have XX (yeah, I'm going to ignore the relatively rare XXY and XXX) genes and the other XY genes in order to mate, it is impossible for the two parents to have identical genese, let alone their offspring.
Even if a pair of male twins were to mate with two female twins, it's more likely than not that their offspring would not have identical genes.
I help run the [sic] a small branch-office (15 staff) in a foreign country.
Um, perhaps English is not his first language? Let's see how well you would have done with a Slashdot post in his native tongue.
*Sigh* If you're going to do it, do it right:
In Soviet Russia, human brain emulates machines!
I would love to make websites that were always XHTML 1.0 compliant, that never used tables for layout, that were accessible on any kind of platform and any kind of browser. Unfortunately, there are people other than me making the final decisions: my boss, and my customers. Most customers that I deal with care about one thing and one thing only: How their website looks on their browser.</rant>
Almost all the websites I design use tables for layout. I don't care how neat CSS-Positioning *can* be, it doesn't work consistently across browsers, while tables do. Most of my websites use relative tables rather than absolute widths, but occasionally there will come a time when even though the browser *should* display the page correctly using just proportional widths, it won't. Both Internet Explorer and Netscape have truly bizarre concepts of what 25% of a table means at a given time, and are especially horrible when you have many lines with different COLSPANs. At that point, I have to use absolute widths or it will become *less* usable for the majority of users.
Most of the websites I design are used within the business world, which for better or [worse] <- is IE. My boss's criteria is: the website should look good on Internet Explorer, and be usable on any browser that is sized to at least 800 x 600. This offers the best return on investment. The only way to make a page viewable on both extremely large and extremely small browsers is either to make several different versions of the site, or to make it so utilitarian in appearance that the client will reject the design outright.
I'm not a print designer, started out as a web designer, back when the TABLE tag was just being introduced. I'm not designing for print, I'm designing for my customers.
I also want to emphasize that most of the time, I do not use absolute widths. Sometimes, however, I really have no choice, because otherwise the layout won't work and won't be as usable.
I would like you to know and understand that when I make a table have absolute widths, it is generally because I have exhausted all other alternatives in order to find a balance between the visual design my customer wants with what the web is able to give.
I'd also like to point out that some webdesigners actually develop websites as a job for real living customers. Who pay them. For making websites look like what they want. Pretty websites. And sometimes those pretty websites require absolutely (does that work as an adverb?) sized tables.
The fact is, browsers are *still* not all behaving the same way, and the only safe way to have a site appear correctly is to use absolute pixels. Stylesheets are nice for simple text styling, but can't even be depended on for font sizes! (Don't believe me? Set up a web page with a style
BODY { font-size: medium }
And see how it shows up on IE, IE for Mac, Netscape, and Netscape for Mac. They'll all be different sizes, last time I checked.)
Since clients want pretty layouts, which includes, necessarily, the use of tables, from time to time absolute pixel widths have to be used.
Our technique for getting around the 100% of 800 = 805 problem is to set the table to 95% instead of 100%, and then center it on the screen. It also adds to the whitespace on the left and right, so it's actually a pretty good thing.
At this point I would suggest writing down the name of the aforementioned toaster while in the aforementioned store. The psychic plugin for mozilla is on the way but not yet available. Until then customers who are searching for something are advised to have reasonable search terms.
Okay,
I'd put you on my enemies list but I'm feeling nice today.
The point of a website is to allow users to find information, it shouldn't force the customer to educate themselves about the product before going to the website. That does make sense if you're talking about specialized products and a specialized audience, but these are toaster buyers here.
When I go to a website, I don't give a flying #*$ about their company. I care about what they offer, in terms of products and services. So I don't care about their neat branding techniques, their logos, or their corporate structure.
How about this for a Toaster search:
Number of Slots: [1:2:4:8]
Slot Size [ Wide | Narrow ]
Style [ Retro Chrome | etc...]
The point is that unless the person really is a complete moron, they can answer the above questions about a toaster they just bought without having to look at the toaster or the box it came in. Model names and numbers are often difficult to find on products, and it's also sometimes difficult to figure out which brand name represents the company and which brand name represents the product, and which number is the model number vs. the serial number vs. etc, etc.
I develop websites myself, and so I know how difficult it can be to setup useful navigation and search engines. However, your attitude is customer-hostile. You want customers to find the product, even if they can't remember any "key" data (i.e. the product number, the model name, the brand, etc.). That's why record stores are cooler than CDNow. You can walk in and say, "What's that song that goes 'Na na na na na something something blues?'" and they may be actually able to help you. Of course, web sites will *never* be that intuitive, but you can certainly make it as easy as possible to find something.
You know, I'm gonna go ahead and blame Goats for that one too
No way.
I am uncertain of what really caused it, but there are "In Soviet Russia" posts on various websites going back to August.
I think something happened in August somewhere that set that off.
I'm going to go build my planet RIGHT NOW!!
AFKCFPSBBI1H
(Away from keyboard currently forming planet should be back in 1 hour)
Among the banned games named are Resident Evil, Shadowman, Street Fighter, Turok, Perfect Dark, Quake and the old stalwart of the moral moronity, Doom.
Yeah, yeah. What about Grand Theft Auto?
Do you think that's banned too?
...the programmers don't understand what the enduser wants to do or why he needs it.
So, ask why.
I have found that when you ask why a customer needs a particular feature, you get a much better understanding not only of what s/he wants, but how to best implement that feature.
Often, the customer attempts to speak in a more technical arena. It is at this point that they frequently make technical requests that aren't feasible (such as the example given above, with the sorted query results). When you ask them the what and why of that feature, you get a better understanding of what you actually need to implement.
I think oftentimes the problem with specifications is that the way that the customer phrases their needs. I recall trying to find directions to an Ethiopian restaurant. I was asking people where a given section of town was and wasn't getting helpful answers. Finally, when I rephrased the question to state the kind of restaurant I was looking for and the street it was on, they were able to give me better directions. I hadn't wanted to state my actual goal--"I'm trying to find an Ethiopian restaurant"--because I didn't want to broadcast what I really wanted (I thought it would make me look like a tourist which, admittedly, I was). When I actually stated my goals, I got a better response.
You have to squeeze better responses out of the customer. While it isn't my job to tell a customer how to do their business, nor is it their job to tell me how to program, I find that each can inform the other. Through my development work, I have helped many of the end users get a better conceptual understanding of their businesse processes, and their requirements have forced me to make creative programming decisions which have, in turn, made me a better programmer.
Basically, the fewer walls between developer and customer, the better.
The text that had to be output was "The deep gray mouse runs after the holy yellow cheese."
Given that the winner used only 102 bytes, this means that his main code took up only 48 bytes. Wow.
"Dude, you're getting a BOY!"
I think that the technology/knowledge to create birth control pills for men has been around for a while. I imagine they will be much safer, too, since sperm is manufactured on a frequent regular basis, the pill would just have to affect that process. It could probably be taken as little as 24-36 hours before sex to have its effect, and it would most likely not affect hormone levels.
It's just that pills for men have this one little problem:
Zero Accountability.
Oh, sure, if you're using them because you're in a committed relationship and don't want your honey to get pregnant, they'd be useful as heck.
However, one of the reasons that birth control pills for women work so well is because the women taking them have a *huge* incentive to take them -- they don't want to get pregnant. So, they're much less likely to forget a dose.
On the other hand, consider a player. He may even have pills, but forget to take them. It'll be important to him, but not as present in his mind as it would in a woman's, because the effects for him are not so dire. For the player, it might rank just above flossing as a priority.
Also, imagine men saying, "Honey, it's cool, I'm on the pill." A woman has no real reason to lie and say that she's on the pill if she isn't, and if she does lie then she has to suffer the consequences.
Thanks for the advice...
:-)
I've tried this and it works for *some* applications. But it doesn't work for many of the applications that I use the most -- I can't get it to respond correctly for BBEdit, for example.
Very frustrating. *sigh*
Anyways, this isn't a Mac Help forum, so I'll shut my trap.
I actually use a Mac with Virtual PC running WIndows, and I frequently evangelize the Mac/Open Source and dismiss and deride Microsoft and Windows, so I'd say I'm a perfect person to be asked to justify my behavior.
Worse--although I do in fact have OS X on my machine, I don't use it. What is the real reason most people use WIndoze?
Habit. Habit and Familiarity.
Let's be honest. Unless you're work for an oil drilling company like the man mentioned above, odds are you can find a piece of software for the *nix platform (especially if you include OS X). As many people above have pointed out, plenty of alternatives to favorites exist, and many games have been ported over to *Nix platforms.
However, people use their computers as efficient tools. I don't bother even looking at the toolbar when I click on a button, or glance more than 2 seconds at a menu, or pause before entering a key combination. They have all become automatic.
However, were I to switch to another OS, I would have to learn its nuances, and that would take time that I'm not so interested in spending. Even though I'm eager to use a command-driven interface, I find it frustrating constantly having to "learn" how to do things which I easily do in Mac OS 9, and have been doing for over 10 years now.
The reason I haven't switched over to OS X? Believe it or not, there's only one reason: that stupid Open File dialog. I can't grok it, I can't figure it out, and worst of all I can't just type in the first few letters of the file I want in the folder and have it be selected, as has been the case since Mac OS 6.x (back when it was just called "System 6").
I think one of the problems, in fact, is that so many Slashdot users are power users -- dedicated gamers, programmers, coders, designers, developers-- who have become accustomed to using their computers as an extension of themselves. For most everyday users, the biggest difference between a Windows machine, a OS X machine, and a machine running a GUI Linux would be the color of the windows and icons. They don't try to juice their programs as much. After all, if the most complex action you perform as a user is hitting the back button on your browser, it can be any browser on any software platform. But if you're used to coding in a specific text editor, moving to another can be a painful experience.
Sorry, coding isn't saddlery. Or glass-blowing. Or painting. Heck, it isn't even woodworking.
People like to talk about coding as a "craft", and in a sense, it can be. And sometimes, really gorgeous code (either because it's really well written, or beautifully obfuscated and compressed) can be treated like a work of art.
However, the greatest use of coding isn't for creating masterpieces to hang on the walls of the Met. Instead, it is for businesses so, yes, business has to be mixed in with design.
Starving artists are artists who, because they refuse to commercialize their art in any way, shape or form, are unable to sell it (until they're dead, at which point it sells like hotcakes). Ever heard of the phrase, "starving programmer"? You probably haven't. And there's a reason for that. While not all programmers are poor, those who do it for a profession generally try to make their code into a commercial product, or are paid by a business to create it in the first place.
In my own experience, whenever there is a sense of "ownership" over a project or code within that project, the project suffers. It no longer becomes about the code, it becomes about the personality of the programmer.
I think that valuing individuals is a function of company politics, not development practices. Never underestimate the downside of being "irreplaceable." Right now I work in a firm where I'm the only one who is working on a specific project. I"m desperately trying to get others at my job understand it. Why? So I can go on vacation without feeling guilty or anxious about things going wrong, or about the client needing new features. So I can eventually leave the company and go on to other places, without leaving the company in a lurch.
Programmers aren't becoming robots; they still far exceed computers in being able to translate real-world needs into working code.
I am leery of anyone who feels that they are a guru. If you see Buddha coding on your computer, kill him. But eliminate the "guru" label: Since a pair of fools are better than one [more experienced programmer] under extreme programming, you can fire the guru. Wrong. The more experienced programmer can help manage the project, or can serve as one of the paired programmers. A pair of fools are not better. A pair of good programmers are. If the "guru" is truly wise, he will be glad to work within the team. If he choose to be a loner, he probably has some personal issues to work through, and work is not the place to do it.
By the way, it was the ZDNet article.
:-)
All of the others correctly say 64GB.
A beefed-up system with 128 processors and 64MB of memory sells for $2.9 million.
Imagine how much the version with 128 MB must cost!
With the source code open, it's possible that someone might find a security flaw in the system. Now, in an ideal world that person might announce that flaw to the world, and a patch would be implemented immediately.
But what if that person chose to exploit that flaw instead?
Before voting systems code is moved to open source, there needs to be a discussion made of what efforts are taking place to prevent someone from tampering with the results through flaws in the code.
Perhaps, but I think the trust has little to do with the underlying technology.
People will mistrust the computers and the people operating the systems, not the licenses and code behind the voting system. While there might be a small number (never more than 100,000 people, say) who might distrust the system just because it isn't open source, most people mistrust it for less technological reasons. Their mistrust is just as valid, in my opinion.
My definition of portal is a lot broader than yours, I guess.
I feel that the format of a portal, be it reverse chronological (thus emulating a weblog), or more "frontpage" style, is really secondary to its purpose and use.
My definition of a portal really is an interactive, frequently updated destination point for gathered information, and in this sense Slashdot really excels.
"Great. We want it done by next Monday."
Maybe you really could set up the whole works by Monday, but sometimes it's better to take somebody else's wheel, clumsy at may be, rather than crafting it yourself.
On the other hand, if you have plenty of time to develop it, that's great. Coding it yourself gives you the best form of control, but often making these products do everything that is required of them takes much longer than expected, especially since there will often be a lot of back-and-forth exchanges with the client about features that they want.
I completely forgot to mention the number one consumer of portals these days:
Individual companies.
Portals are an excellent "intranet" tool, offering company news and documents to their employees. They're often a better and cheaper alternative to investing in one of the Intranet-ware applications that are provided by M$ and others or trying to develop them in-house, since generally most of what an intranet needs to do is share documents, which can be done easily and well through a portal.
On the other hand, industry specific portals are hugely successful. You're looking at one right now, but examples exist in many industries.
The point is that many of these portals now make money by:
- promoting certain companies outright, not through banner ads but with articles, detailed press releases, and product showcasing
- online catalogs, which sell items of great interest (not bumper stickers or t-shirts) to the customer
- actually charging the user for access
Also, if you look at portals that are still in existance, most of them rely heavily on volunteer-provided content. About.com is a good example. It's still going fairly strong, mostly because its costs aren't that huge (sure, they have to cover hosting costs, but in the long run, providing their own content would have been much, much costlier). Notice also that they employ two of the other "success techniques" -- they promote other companies (using sponsored links -- studies have proven that people have developed banner ad "blind spots", but they still pay attention to links, sponsored or not) and have links to purchase products.