{sigh} We Americans have them surgically removed in childhood, mainly because our parents had theirs removed, and their parents before them. The more people have something to lose, the less they're likely to defend their civil liberties. Doing so requires courage and the acceptance of risk... and we're pretty damn risk-averse nowadays.
Yeah, well my son flies Apaches. Not as impressive as being a fancy pants Army attorney, but he too says helping servicemen with problems such as this gives him much satisfaction.
Apaches, eh? Well, I'm sure he can poke a few holes in Dell's case. Maybe even bring this to an explosive conclusion.
I doubt that very much. And (as I've already repeated twice in this thread) I am not promoting the end of copyright.
Why not? You should. Copyright is immoral as it is inherently a denial of legitimate property rights.
Well, it's a tradeoff, and any good engineer knows that sometimes you have to make one. Whether or not we should have done so (or, more importantly, should continue to do so) is another story.
In any event, I was trying to unconfuse the issue: some people seem to think that having copyright means that government has the function of policing said rights. That's kind of mindblowing to me, actually. It's never been the case throughout U.S. history, and I fail to see why it should be now. Copyright gives you the right to seek redress for any infringement via the court system. The onus of detecting and prosecuting such infringement is the copyright owner's responsibility not law enforcement's. Well, that's how it used to be... apparently that's changing now. I believe that's wrong.
but if we're looking at ancient Amiga history, nothing beats the Amiga Kickstart 1.2 Easter Egg.
Kickstart, heh. I had an an Amiga 1000 and a couple of 500's at one point. Like a lot of game programmers at the time, I figured I was going to make my fortune on the Amiga. Too bad Commodore fumbled the ball so badly ("Only the Amiga makes it possible!" WHAT does it make possible?) Truth is, the original Easter Egg was right... they did fuck it up. Too bad: they were way out in the lead technology-wise.
Ah well. I was working at a game company that was one of the few that had prerelease Amiga 1000 systems (they were prototypes, in crude black-painted plywood boxes with no power-on/reset circuit.) I wasn't one of the hotshots that got to work on them (I did Apple ][ and PC stuff), matter of fact the things were behind a security door with an electronic lock. I remember that they had no development systems of their own: the work was all done on Sun Sparcstations running thick Ethernet.
Those were great times, however. Nothing cast in stone, anything was possible, nobody was really dominating the field yet. Not like today.
I can understand you thinking that Easter Eggs are unprofessional, but to keep insinuating that any extraneous code leads to flaming death is both disingenuous and insulting.
Sorry you take it that way, and an Easter Egg doesn't have to kill anyone to be a bad thing: you're the one taking it to an extreme (I didn't come up with the medical analogy anyway.) You're all thinking like programmers, and have made the (mistaken!) assumption that the bulk of users think the same way you do, and will appreciate your sense of humor. By and large, they won't, because programmer humor is not well understood by the general public. All an unauthorized Easter Egg has to do is piss off the wrong user: believe me, that can be consequence enough to your manager. I suppose if you're selling a ten dollar shareware utility, no big deal, but if you're in a bigger league you need to play things a bit closer to the vest.
It's been said that Man is a rationalizing animal, and needs training to become a rational one. All I'm trying to do is offset a massive level of rationalization for foolish behavior that I see running all through this thread. So go ahead, put your Easter Eggs in, don't tell your boss... just remember that there's really no upside to it.
Before internet, the gatekeepers to information were powers like NY Time.
That, actually, is what a lot of this is about. Sour grapes. Matter of fact, it applies to broadcast television as well. The Web has consumed a lot of and money that was previously spent on print/broadcast advertising, and a lot of eyeball time has been taken away from the traditional news outlets. They don't particularly like that.
But the day is nearing when the karma behemoths shall be cast down, and the whole moderation system dismantled, and all posters and and all posts shall be equal !
Yes, Comrade, but remember: some posts will be more equal than others.
when Fed is talking about directly planning the economy on the scale of trillion dollars, it's very socialist.
That's really not a good definition of socialism, nor does it really relate to what's happening here. Our government is far more likely to evolve into a corporatist state... well, in many ways that's here already.
Go read the post where I define what I think an Easter Egg is. You didn't describe one under those terms, so I really can't consider your post relevant. I'm talking about people who put crap into their code without management knowing what's going on, in the hope that somebody out there will find it. I've been pretty clear on that. It's not right and people shouldn't do it. If that's beyond your comprehension then I give up.
Huh? Everyone has a psychological aversion towards criticism
Ummm... Basically - no, you're wrong, they don't.
(I'd have liked to write a long and detailed reply, but I really can't add any more to what I just wrote...)
Yeah, well. You're right: the bigger people among us will cheerfully accept such input, learn from it, and move on. That doesn't mean they like being on the receiving end (I don't, mainly because I have no masochistic tendencies.)
Anyway, you're just being a sophist. You know what I meant.
that's like claiming someone who street races on the weekends shouldn't be a professional limousine driver for important people because he's not "responsible" behind a wheel.
That's not what I said. I was talking specifically about what people do on their jobs, not what they do on their own time. I don't know how you read that into my post. And I'm sorry if my post came off a little overbearing: that wasn't my intent and I apologize for it, but this is an issue that I find problematic in our business.
In any event, if you don't own the code (and we are talking about the actions of people who don't own the code because otherwise we wouldn't be talking about Easter Eggs) it doesn't matter whether your project is of a critical nature or not. It's irresponsible either way, because it's not your property to mess around with.
Look, I started out doing stuff that wasn't particularly critical or dangerous, but I still didn't put Easter Eggs or anything else like that in my code. Not that I wasn't tempted, and frankly I'm a practical joker from way back (I once put a magnesium flashbulb and a smoke bomb into a secretary's computer.) So call me "uptight" if you want, but it's not really that. It's just that I try to look at my work from both sides of the aisle.
As someone who ran a a small software business for about fifteen years, and hired people to do contract development, I'll tell you this: I wouldn't have tolerated an Easter Egg or anything else like that. I've never worked for anyone that would either. Hell, I used to be a game developer, and the people I worked for then would have canceled my contract on the spot if I'd tried to sneak something funny in. It's all about trust, when you get right down to it.
Nowadays, I work for the Man, and it's not my place as an employee to put unauthorized code of my choice into my employer's products. From a management perspective, it would be hard to trust a programmer that did.
Very true. There are other reasons (software tools and methodologies change so fast it's hard to develop the standards that characterize real engineering fields, etc.) but yeah, that's a big one all right.
Covering one's ass is certainly a necessity these days, but good documentation and a history of professional behavior covers that quite nicely.
That said, I think eggs are juvenile outlets, and utterly inappropriate for any class of software that can result in a more serious injury than a bent nose.
I think you are overreacting. Not every Easter egg is a flight simulator. For a mission critical product it might amount to a lighthearted message coming out of the debug console or something.
No, I think we're talking apples and oranges here. From where I sit, an Easter Egg is an unauthorized executable, not a lighthearted error message. The latter is unprofessional, the former is inexcusable.
Easter eggs are features that are not supposed to be there, and not part of the spec, something like a flight simulator.
Your #1 are *NOT* easter eggs. It *WAS* designed to be there. Just not publicly announced. Doesn't make it an easter egg at all.
Yes, and that seems to be the source of all the confusion in this thread.
Here's my definition of an Easter Egg:
1. Contains executable code, even if it's just a simple keyboard hook and a pop-up window.
2. Executes unpredictably from the user's viewpoint.
3. Placed into shipping executables by development staff without management approval or foreknowledge.
4. Does NOT pass QC testing requirements (can't be tested if nobody knows it's there.)
(If anyone else has some additional points, please add them to the list.)
When you lay it out like that, honestly I don't see why anyone would implement an Easter Egg. There's literally no upside to this scenario. Ego gratification is not sufficient justification to perform unauthorized modifications to a shipping application.
I'm excluding personalized signature strings or images in executables and other such non-Easter Eggs, just to avoid further argument on that subject. I consider those to be ethical lapses too, just not of the same magnitude as a true Easter Egg (less likely to cause a problem, although the risk is still non-zero.)
Come on, people, think. If it doesn't belong to you (and unless you hold the copyright to the code, it doesn't) play square with your employer.
Slashdot Mirror
Grow a spine.
{sigh} We Americans have them surgically removed in childhood, mainly because our parents had theirs removed, and their parents before them. The more people have something to lose, the less they're likely to defend their civil liberties. Doing so requires courage and the acceptance of risk ... and we're pretty damn risk-averse nowadays.
Are fossil fuels an energy source or a way of storing energy? Just a question of timescales.
Think of fossil fuels as a giant one-shot gas tank filled up by God, or Mother Nature or whoever.
maybe it's god's(buddha's) way punishing you for being involved in the illegal invasion and occupation of a sovereign foreign nation
Uh ... what? Your vitriol is not appreciated and serves no purpose. You may leave.
Yeah, well my son flies Apaches. Not as impressive as being a fancy pants Army attorney, but he too says helping servicemen with problems such as this gives him much satisfaction.
Apaches, eh? Well, I'm sure he can poke a few holes in Dell's case. Maybe even bring this to an explosive conclusion.
Choosing Dell was probably the only thing you should have done differently. I haven't heard much praise about them.
Yeah, he'd have been better of buying a used Thinkpad off of EBay. I did, actually, and I've been real happy with it (pre-Lenovo model.)
He doesn't have the laptop so he can't submit the story. Dell knows this so they aren't worried.
What?
I doubt that very much. And (as I've already repeated twice in this thread) I am not promoting the end of copyright.
Why not? You should. Copyright is immoral as it is inherently a denial of legitimate property rights.
Well, it's a tradeoff, and any good engineer knows that sometimes you have to make one. Whether or not we should have done so (or, more importantly, should continue to do so) is another story.
... apparently that's changing now. I believe that's wrong.
In any event, I was trying to unconfuse the issue: some people seem to think that having copyright means that government has the function of policing said rights. That's kind of mindblowing to me, actually. It's never been the case throughout U.S. history, and I fail to see why it should be now. Copyright gives you the right to seek redress for any infringement via the court system. The onus of detecting and prosecuting such infringement is the copyright owner's responsibility not law enforcement's. Well, that's how it used to be
but if we're looking at ancient Amiga history, nothing beats the Amiga Kickstart 1.2 Easter Egg.
Kickstart, heh. I had an an Amiga 1000 and a couple of 500's at one point. Like a lot of game programmers at the time, I figured I was going to make my fortune on the Amiga. Too bad Commodore fumbled the ball so badly ("Only the Amiga makes it possible!" WHAT does it make possible?) Truth is, the original Easter Egg was right ... they did fuck it up. Too bad: they were way out in the lead technology-wise.
Ah well. I was working at a game company that was one of the few that had prerelease Amiga 1000 systems (they were prototypes, in crude black-painted plywood boxes with no power-on/reset circuit.) I wasn't one of the hotshots that got to work on them (I did Apple ][ and PC stuff), matter of fact the things were behind a security door with an electronic lock. I remember that they had no development systems of their own: the work was all done on Sun Sparcstations running thick Ethernet.
Those were great times, however. Nothing cast in stone, anything was possible, nobody was really dominating the field yet. Not like today.
I can understand you thinking that Easter Eggs are unprofessional, but to keep insinuating that any extraneous code leads to flaming death is both disingenuous and insulting.
Sorry you take it that way, and an Easter Egg doesn't have to kill anyone to be a bad thing: you're the one taking it to an extreme (I didn't come up with the medical analogy anyway.) You're all thinking like programmers, and have made the (mistaken!) assumption that the bulk of users think the same way you do, and will appreciate your sense of humor. By and large, they won't, because programmer humor is not well understood by the general public. All an unauthorized Easter Egg has to do is piss off the wrong user: believe me, that can be consequence enough to your manager. I suppose if you're selling a ten dollar shareware utility, no big deal, but if you're in a bigger league you need to play things a bit closer to the vest.
... just remember that there's really no upside to it.
It's been said that Man is a rationalizing animal, and needs training to become a rational one. All I'm trying to do is offset a massive level of rationalization for foolish behavior that I see running all through this thread. So go ahead, put your Easter Eggs in, don't tell your boss
Before internet, the gatekeepers to information were powers like NY Time.
That, actually, is what a lot of this is about. Sour grapes. Matter of fact, it applies to broadcast television as well. The Web has consumed a lot of and money that was previously spent on print/broadcast advertising, and a lot of eyeball time has been taken away from the traditional news outlets. They don't particularly like that.
But the day is nearing when the karma behemoths shall be cast down, and the whole moderation system dismantled, and all posters and and all posts shall be equal !
Yes, Comrade, but remember: some posts will be more equal than others.
when Fed is talking about directly planning the economy on the scale of trillion dollars, it's very socialist.
That's really not a good definition of socialism, nor does it really relate to what's happening here. Our government is far more likely to evolve into a corporatist state ... well, in many ways that's here already.
"unknown to the rest of us." americans are funny
Yes, indeed we are. You're not.
It's fitting that the NY Times used the word protean to describe Google
I have the feeling they probably meant "Promethean".
Repeat after me: IT DEPENDS ON THE PROJECT.
Repeat after me: NO IT DOES NOT.
Go read the post where I define what I think an Easter Egg is. You didn't describe one under those terms, so I really can't consider your post relevant. I'm talking about people who put crap into their code without management knowing what's going on, in the hope that somebody out there will find it. I've been pretty clear on that. It's not right and people shouldn't do it. If that's beyond your comprehension then I give up.
Ah well, you don't get it either.
Bye bye. I'm done.
Huh? Everyone has a psychological aversion towards criticism
Ummm... Basically - no, you're wrong, they don't.
(I'd have liked to write a long and detailed reply, but I really can't add any more to what I just wrote...)
Yeah, well. You're right: the bigger people among us will cheerfully accept such input, learn from it, and move on. That doesn't mean they like being on the receiving end (I don't, mainly because I have no masochistic tendencies.)
Anyway, you're just being a sophist. You know what I meant.
that's like claiming someone who street races on the weekends shouldn't be a professional limousine driver for important people because he's not "responsible" behind a wheel.
That's not what I said. I was talking specifically about what people do on their jobs, not what they do on their own time. I don't know how you read that into my post. And I'm sorry if my post came off a little overbearing: that wasn't my intent and I apologize for it, but this is an issue that I find problematic in our business.
In any event, if you don't own the code (and we are talking about the actions of people who don't own the code because otherwise we wouldn't be talking about Easter Eggs) it doesn't matter whether your project is of a critical nature or not. It's irresponsible either way, because it's not your property to mess around with.
Look, I started out doing stuff that wasn't particularly critical or dangerous, but I still didn't put Easter Eggs or anything else like that in my code. Not that I wasn't tempted, and frankly I'm a practical joker from way back (I once put a magnesium flashbulb and a smoke bomb into a secretary's computer.) So call me "uptight" if you want, but it's not really that. It's just that I try to look at my work from both sides of the aisle.
As someone who ran a a small software business for about fifteen years, and hired people to do contract development, I'll tell you this: I wouldn't have tolerated an Easter Egg or anything else like that. I've never worked for anyone that would either. Hell, I used to be a game developer, and the people I worked for then would have canceled my contract on the spot if I'd tried to sneak something funny in. It's all about trust, when you get right down to it.
Nowadays, I work for the Man, and it's not my place as an employee to put unauthorized code of my choice into my employer's products. From a management perspective, it would be hard to trust a programmer that did.
Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
This is why programming is not ENGINEERING
Very true. There are other reasons (software tools and methodologies change so fast it's hard to develop the standards that characterize real engineering fields, etc.) but yeah, that's a big one all right.
My only point is that google is an attractive target for a great many political interests both domestically and abroad.
Nah. If they take down Google, how else are they going to find out what to do with all those bombmaking materials?
That said, I think eggs are juvenile outlets, and utterly inappropriate for any class of software that can result in a more serious injury than a bent nose.
And that, my friend, is all I was trying to say.
I think you are overreacting. Not every Easter egg is a flight simulator. For a mission critical product it might amount to a lighthearted message coming out of the debug console or something.
No, I think we're talking apples and oranges here. From where I sit, an Easter Egg is an unauthorized executable, not a lighthearted error message. The latter is unprofessional, the former is inexcusable.
He's a wise choice, a rational voice is a sea of stupidity. Picking him would represent a striking change, a sudden outbreak of common sense.
Therefore it ain't gonna happen.
Yes, well, I understand that it's popular to vote for change nowadays.
Code goes in a version control system.
CVS Annotate or SVN Blame are your best friends.
No need to leave grafitti in the code.
Oh, I agree. But some places aren't that organized.
Where I work, fixing bugs without explicit permission is grounds for dismissal. I know, because it happened to me.
Good thing the company president likes me; he put me in charge of IT (with a raise) instead of letting my ex-manager fire me.
I guess Easter Eggs are out then.
Easter eggs are features that are not supposed to be there, and not part of the spec, something like a flight simulator.
Your #1 are *NOT* easter eggs. It *WAS* designed to be there. Just not publicly announced. Doesn't make it an easter egg at all.
Yes, and that seems to be the source of all the confusion in this thread.
Here's my definition of an Easter Egg:
1. Contains executable code, even if it's just a simple keyboard hook and a pop-up window.
2. Executes unpredictably from the user's viewpoint.
3. Placed into shipping executables by development staff without management approval or foreknowledge.
4. Does NOT pass QC testing requirements (can't be tested if nobody knows it's there.)
(If anyone else has some additional points, please add them to the list.)
When you lay it out like that, honestly I don't see why anyone would implement an Easter Egg. There's literally no upside to this scenario. Ego gratification is not sufficient justification to perform unauthorized modifications to a shipping application.
I'm excluding personalized signature strings or images in executables and other such non-Easter Eggs, just to avoid further argument on that subject. I consider those to be ethical lapses too, just not of the same magnitude as a true Easter Egg (less likely to cause a problem, although the risk is still non-zero.)
Come on, people, think. If it doesn't belong to you (and unless you hold the copyright to the code, it doesn't) play square with your employer.