I must say I just had a brilliant idea while I was shaving. We could actually achieve this today... imagine we made a beowulf cluster of all the/dev/random's in the world...
I'm sure we've even missed out on a couple of awesome OS releases by now... crap! We can't afford to wait any longer!
I don't think that's what he's expecting... I think he's expecting whatever software they need to integrate with his DB2 database from 1982. Not the other way around.
I also think he's made a valid accusation about a specific OSS model, without ever hinting that closed source is the solution... everyone on slashdot is making that (fallacious) link.
I hope you meant that as funny, because if you didn't, you sir have been the victim of sarchasm. Which is more or less the point being proven here... A program should be maintainable. Not a confusing mess of wires that only a student with nothing else to do with their live should be able to hack through in 7 months.
I think so. The guy is going through the hair tearing frenzy that anyone who's been through a company on a death march has been. I associate with him because like many I have been through at least 3 death marches myself.
Now, even though I Do think he's lost some of his cool and composure (e.g. citing PeopleSoft as a solution), I think he's got a very valid point which is that building software requires more than just the coding aspect of it, just like building jumbo jets is more than just the factory grounds work.
So, what this guy seems to be saying is that a major university with one of the finest CS departments in the world of whom Brian Frikken' Kernighan is a member isn't qualified to put up the university website
That is *exactly* right. A bunch of graduates, now matter how pumped up they are, are still only junior programmers on the market. It's a very dot-com idea to think there are hundreds of uber-hackers being spawned from these think tank universities that are just waiting to revolutionize the business. A website, unless it is a prototype for some really cool new gimmick (which these proteges might be able to do), or some very simple home page (which anyone can do), is a loong and tedious enterprise... not accomplishable in two weekends of hacking things together (think Mythical Man Month), and it is very irresponsible to think we can have students hack it together over their term holidays... And he says exactly this in the article... minus the rant.
But hey, I'm used to trying to read past rant, I read slashdot don't I? **rimshot**
Well, I thank you for being candid in your responding. I do see your point as well... He is being over emotional, to a zealotist point, so I probably am overlooking that aspect just because I tend to think the above regarding software design and the universe in general (not just OSS)... panaceas just don't cut it.
I personally think he has a very good point, in that free software has it's very interesting niches where it's good: and those are the framework niches. Apache is a framework. Apache is not a web site. (Just as linux is not a desktop).
What does that mean? it means that when a University needs a working useful LAN, sure you can use Linux/Apache/MySQL, just as you can use Windows/IIS/MSSQL, but what you can't use is an aboslutely free website that fits your needs perfectly. There is no Universal Open Source Intranet Site. In fact, it's more like: **every** single site is unique, which means that a website being Open Source will not mean it will miraculously appear out of sourceforge (until sourceforge starts employing an infinite number of monkeys yadi yada...) It most certainly doesn't mean that you can just bypass the most crucial - and most expensive - stages of software development namely: business analysis, architecture, design, and QA - because QA is not just about bugs, as any experienced software developer would know, QA is about making sure that you have nailed your specs.
It's nice to have the website open source, but really all that does is let others see the code in case they need a sample. Nothing more.
That's the illusion that this guy is debunking. Not that Open Source Software is useless.
Hey first of all, Microsoft is not the issue at all here. Slashdot is having one of it's usual fevers with every single post being a kurt refusal of the article.
Btw, before I go on to my post: The truth is that it takes far more techs to maintain a windows network, then say, a *nix network. FUD. Fucking FUD. a) you can't prove that b) you've probably never seen a good windows administrator. Heck you've probably never seen a good administrator.
Anyways, the point of the article, which is VERY valid IMO is that panaceas don't work. If you paid attention to the article, he never mentions Windows, nor does he ever mention Linux, nor Apache.
I think he has a very good point, in that free software has it's very interesting niches where it's good: and those are the framework niches. Apache is a framework. Apache is not a web site. (Just as linux is not a desktop).
What does that mean? it means that when a University needs a working useful LAN, sure you can use Linux/Apache/MySQL, just as you can use Windows/IIS/MSSQL, but what you can't use is an aboslutely free website that fits your needs perfectly. There is no Universal Open Source Intranet Site. In fact, it's more like: **every** single site is unique, which means that a website being Open Source will not mean it will miraculously appear out of sourceforge (until sourceforge starts employing an infinite number of monkeys yadi yada...) It most certainly doesn't mean that you can just bypass the most crucial - and most expensive - stages of software development namely: business analysis, architecture, design, and QA - because QA is not just about bugs, as any experienced software developer would know, QA is about making sure that you have nailed your specs.
It's nice to have the website open source, but really all that does is let others see the code in case they need a sample. Nothing more.
That's the illusion that this guy is debunking. Not that Open Source Software is useless.
We can look forward to wars over resources in the relatively near future
I think they haven't "already started", they've been going on for at least 30 years since the first Petroleum crisis of the seventies.
Aside from that though, the earth is humoungous, we will kill each other well before we run out of harvestable food bearing land. Just a number: something 80% of american produce is wasted (in transport or other places).
The reason ethiopia doesn't have food is not exactly because they don't have land, but rather because they don't have water to irrigate it... ie money.
Uh, if you had RTFA, you would see that the cycle isn't chaotic, but is actually precisely 4 years long.
It's not news really, that cycle has been going on for centuries, probably millenia before it was posted on slashdot... I guess it kind of depends on your definition of news.
Uhh, cause the Saturn's were extremely expensive and mostly trashed after each flight. Only in the 60's would you have such garguatuan levels of waste.
There you go, just one more reason why I'm baffled to hear people get struck by lightning and survive. If not the 50 thousand volts, wouldn't the sound at least hurt them??
It's just a matter of scale as far as the rockets are concerned. The laws of physics don't change
The laws might not change, but the constants in the equations do. Specifically, air is much 'more viscous' for a model, after all, if the model is 1/70th the scale, then the atmospehere it's going in should be 1/70th of a bar.
Also the drag coefficient of everything doesn't scale properly. It's really a question of scalability, and I think the IT crowd of all people should understnad that.
The great Library of Alexandria was burnt to a crisp. If you look at a site with the title History of Mathematics, they mention of a text the Chou-pei, dating back to about 1105 B.C. which has a references to the triangle of Pythagorus. Probably not proven formally, but at least exposed.
The fact that they existed back then isn't really the point so much as how much of that information has been retained. And really that is the ultimate point: we probably see more about Western history because the non western world's traces have pretty much been 'lost'...
That being said, I was just replying to a previous post saying that nothing happens before 800 B.C. anyways, so it's a legitimate cut-off date. Also I'm not really disputing the authors claims since I haven't read them.
Shit...you'd think a message board where everyone bitches about DMCA shutting down free speech, and "freedom as in speech," would understand the value of a marketplace of ideas. But I guess some people see the word "marketplace" and go apopleptic automatically.
No, no, it's not at all what you think. In fact, here's a post from earlier this week and my reply to it... Draw your own conclusions.
'
Sure it might be in the middle of a flame, but believe me, it's not the first time I've had such a conversation with someone on slashdot.
1. The west embraces the free marketplace of ideas more than others.
What has that got to do with anything? What about the Chinese overlords (from waaaay back) that had well fed advisors to do research and science. What about the Tao Te Ching... What about the Chou-pei from 1105 B.C. which contained among other things a section on the Pythagorean triangle...
Free market place is a very very young concept, you might be happy to see Stalin fail, and Castro made to fail, but the free market place still has a thousand years to go before it proves its real worthieness...
You may like them, but as the parent poster pointed out, it's because you look from a Westerner's point of view. Arabs are known to have had very advanced mathematical techniques very early on.
I won't link to (and destroy) a particular site, but just check this google search out. Also, of great importance was the discovery of 0...
Also, don't forget the great library of Alexandria, and also the Incas and Mayas.
In the end, those cultures are lost, and maybe even their fruits are lost, but that doesn't mean they didn't exist. Who knows, maybe western civilisation as we know it is about to be extinguished in a hundred years to leave a world for eskimos to flourish in...
I ask you then, how is France which is far more socialist than it is capitalist doing in your eyes? is it a failure?
If they're faring comparably then I win the argument which started by saying that communism was a monumental failure to which I replied capitalism wasn't a monumental success.
And thanks to their liberation, some ARE saying this, freely, in the streets, for the first time in almost 40 years. We can disagree about the US involvement and whether its right or wrong, but regardless, the people of Iraq ARE better off, and the majority ARE glad we are there. Fortunately, the minority NOW has the right to protest in the streets without fear of retribution.
Again I point you back to your history lessons. The US was the one (via the CIA) to instate Saddam to power in Iraq. Same for Bin Laden.
This is really amusing me... please tell more of this freedom you speak of...
And the fact that American's HAVE more than most other is no secret. No one, including ME, said that made us better or superior. Its just a fact that American's on average are better fed than say, Africans, Iraqis, Serbs, etc.
I commend your choice of poor countries as comparisons to the US, but I would also prefer a more fresh perspective which is that of France and Germany let's say.
This whole conversation started on how extreme the Bolcheviks were and how that was the reason of Communism's failure. We've kind of agreed that extremism is not the way to bring it about. But France and Germany are *much* more socialist than they are capitalist. And they're doing pretty well. In fact, I'm pretty sure they're doing better than the US as far as per capita level of life. Sure only in the United States would you find people as rich and powerful as Ted Turner, but then again, why should any human being be proud of such a perversion.
You flatter yourself by making remarks about how I don't read your post. Flatter yourself some more... I'm not commenting any more on that issue.
On a side note, you don't really understand why people hate the States, and that is the fundamental problem you see... The US public is acting the sad puppy dog eyes and not understanding why Iraqi civilians "don't like US troups", even though those troups are there to "Liberate and Free" them. You see, you don't realize it maybe, and I don't blame you, heck you guys are 100% brainwashed over there, your media is the biggest most successful propaganda machine ever - even better than the Soviet/Communist machine because you feel you are on the land of the free... yes, you don't realize it, but your way of life is *not* the only way of life, let alone the best way of life. It's going to take your empire's collapse for you to maybe grasp that there are other ways, and I guarantee it, better ways.
I will tell you this: as a citizen of a country near Iraq, all I say to you is "Leave us the fuck alone! go back home and deal with your fucking Gov. Davis' and Jeb Bush's... not OUR FUCKING COUNTRIES".
You can go ahead and be proud of whatever you have... I just have contempt for it.
And you consider your capitalism a monumental succes? Look at the US. Practically everyone on the planet hates you. The only reason you are in power is *not* because you are capitalist, but because you took hold of all the oil fields in the world.
Heck even look at your sad little sig.
If you knew a bit about history, you would know about the revolutions that took place in Russia to instill communism. The Bolscheviks vs. the Menscheviks etc. Only a mentality like yours, pragmatic to the last drop (which btw will be the end of your country) would consider a theory to be a failure by looking at its applications.
Zealot who will defend his rights because RFID is invading his privacy, but will have absoltutely no qualms about "biased news".
Idiot Zealot who will cry "rape of our rights!" when cease and desist orders are sent, but will very happily welcome propaganda... even defend it. Because make no mistake about it, Idiot Zealot, biased news is nothing but propaganda.
Slashdot Mirror
I must say I just had a brilliant idea while I was shaving. We could actually achieve this today... imagine we made a beowulf cluster of all the /dev/random's in the world...
I'm sure we've even missed out on a couple of awesome OS releases by now... crap! We can't afford to wait any longer!
I also think he's made a valid accusation about a specific OSS model, without ever hinting that closed source is the solution... everyone on slashdot is making that (fallacious) link.
What's with the AC anyways? lame
That's what I think he's not knocking, and everyone here seems to think... He's not knocking Linux, nor Apache. He's knocking a business model of:
1) get a million student
2) ...?
3) profit
I think so. The guy is going through the hair tearing frenzy that anyone who's been through a company on a death march has been. I associate with him because like many I have been through at least 3 death marches myself.
Now, even though I Do think he's lost some of his cool and composure (e.g. citing PeopleSoft as a solution), I think he's got a very valid point which is that building software requires more than just the coding aspect of it, just like building jumbo jets is more than just the factory grounds work.
So, what this guy seems to be saying is that a major university with one of the finest CS departments in the world of whom Brian Frikken' Kernighan is a member isn't qualified to put up the university website
That is *exactly* right. A bunch of graduates, now matter how pumped up they are, are still only junior programmers on the market. It's a very dot-com idea to think there are hundreds of uber-hackers being spawned from these think tank universities that are just waiting to revolutionize the business. A website, unless it is a prototype for some really cool new gimmick (which these proteges might be able to do), or some very simple home page (which anyone can do), is a loong and tedious enterprise... not accomplishable in two weekends of hacking things together (think Mythical Man Month), and it is very irresponsible to think we can have students hack it together over their term holidays... And he says exactly this in the article... minus the rant.
But hey, I'm used to trying to read past rant, I read slashdot don't I? **rimshot**
What does that mean? it means that when a University needs a working useful LAN, sure you can use Linux/Apache/MySQL, just as you can use Windows/IIS/MSSQL, but what you can't use is an aboslutely free website that fits your needs perfectly. There is no Universal Open Source Intranet Site. In fact, it's more like: **every** single site is unique, which means that a website being Open Source will not mean it will miraculously appear out of sourceforge (until sourceforge starts employing an infinite number of monkeys yadi yada...) It most certainly doesn't mean that you can just bypass the most crucial - and most expensive - stages of software development namely: business analysis, architecture, design, and QA - because QA is not just about bugs, as any experienced software developer would know, QA is about making sure that you have nailed your specs.
It's nice to have the website open source, but really all that does is let others see the code in case they need a sample. Nothing more.
That's the illusion that this guy is debunking. Not that Open Source Software is useless.
Btw, before I go on to my post: The truth is that it takes far more techs to maintain a windows network, then say, a *nix network. FUD. Fucking FUD. a) you can't prove that b) you've probably never seen a good windows administrator. Heck you've probably never seen a good administrator.
Anyways, the point of the article, which is VERY valid IMO is that panaceas don't work. If you paid attention to the article, he never mentions Windows, nor does he ever mention Linux, nor Apache.
I think he has a very good point, in that free software has it's very interesting niches where it's good: and those are the framework niches. Apache is a framework. Apache is not a web site. (Just as linux is not a desktop).
What does that mean? it means that when a University needs a working useful LAN, sure you can use Linux/Apache/MySQL, just as you can use Windows/IIS/MSSQL, but what you can't use is an aboslutely free website that fits your needs perfectly. There is no Universal Open Source Intranet Site. In fact, it's more like: **every** single site is unique, which means that a website being Open Source will not mean it will miraculously appear out of sourceforge (until sourceforge starts employing an infinite number of monkeys yadi yada...) It most certainly doesn't mean that you can just bypass the most crucial - and most expensive - stages of software development namely: business analysis, architecture, design, and QA - because QA is not just about bugs, as any experienced software developer would know, QA is about making sure that you have nailed your specs.
It's nice to have the website open source, but really all that does is let others see the code in case they need a sample. Nothing more.
That's the illusion that this guy is debunking. Not that Open Source Software is useless.
I think they haven't "already started", they've been going on for at least 30 years since the first Petroleum crisis of the seventies.
Aside from that though, the earth is humoungous, we will kill each other well before we run out of harvestable food bearing land. Just a number: something 80% of american produce is wasted (in transport or other places).
The reason ethiopia doesn't have food is not exactly because they don't have land, but rather because they don't have water to irrigate it... ie money.
It's not news really, that cycle has been going on for centuries, probably millenia before it was posted on slashdot... I guess it kind of depends on your definition of news.
<fight... urge..... to... make... crack-shot comment>
Uhh, cause the Saturn's were extremely expensive and mostly trashed after each flight. Only in the 60's would you have such garguatuan levels of waste.
Baffles me I tell ya.
The laws might not change, but the constants in the equations do. Specifically, air is much 'more viscous' for a model, after all, if the model is 1/70th the scale, then the atmospehere it's going in should be 1/70th of a bar.
Also the drag coefficient of everything doesn't scale properly. It's really a question of scalability, and I think the IT crowd of all people should understnad that.
The great Library of Alexandria was burnt to a crisp. If you look at a site with the title History of Mathematics, they mention of a text the Chou-pei, dating back to about 1105 B.C. which has a references to the triangle of Pythagorus. Probably not proven formally, but at least exposed.
The fact that they existed back then isn't really the point so much as how much of that information has been retained. And really that is the ultimate point: we probably see more about Western history because the non western world's traces have pretty much been 'lost'...
That being said, I was just replying to a previous post saying that nothing happens before 800 B.C. anyways, so it's a legitimate cut-off date. Also I'm not really disputing the authors claims since I haven't read them.
No, no, it's not at all what you think. In fact, here's a post from earlier this week and my reply to it... Draw your own conclusions.
' Sure it might be in the middle of a flame, but believe me, it's not the first time I've had such a conversation with someone on slashdot.
What has that got to do with anything? What about the Chinese overlords (from waaaay back) that had well fed advisors to do research and science. What about the Tao Te Ching... What about the Chou-pei from 1105 B.C. which contained among other things a section on the Pythagorean triangle...
Free market place is a very very young concept, you might be happy to see Stalin fail, and Castro made to fail, but the free market place still has a thousand years to go before it proves its real worthieness...
I won't link to (and destroy) a particular site, but just check this google search out. Also, of great importance was the discovery of 0...
Also, don't forget the great library of Alexandria, and also the Incas and Mayas.
In the end, those cultures are lost, and maybe even their fruits are lost, but that doesn't mean they didn't exist. Who knows, maybe western civilisation as we know it is about to be extinguished in a hundred years to leave a world for eskimos to flourish in...
If they're faring comparably then I win the argument which started by saying that communism was a monumental failure to which I replied capitalism wasn't a monumental success.
Again I point you back to your history lessons. The US was the one (via the CIA) to instate Saddam to power in Iraq. Same for Bin Laden.
This is really amusing me... please tell more of this freedom you speak of...
I commend your choice of poor countries as comparisons to the US, but I would also prefer a more fresh perspective which is that of France and Germany let's say.
This whole conversation started on how extreme the Bolcheviks were and how that was the reason of Communism's failure. We've kind of agreed that extremism is not the way to bring it about. But France and Germany are *much* more socialist than they are capitalist. And they're doing pretty well. In fact, I'm pretty sure they're doing better than the US as far as per capita level of life. Sure only in the United States would you find people as rich and powerful as Ted Turner, but then again, why should any human being be proud of such a perversion.
You flatter yourself by making remarks about how I don't read your post. Flatter yourself some more... I'm not commenting any more on that issue.
On a side note, you don't really understand why people hate the States, and that is the fundamental problem you see... The US public is acting the sad puppy dog eyes and not understanding why Iraqi civilians "don't like US troups", even though those troups are there to "Liberate and Free" them. You see, you don't realize it maybe, and I don't blame you, heck you guys are 100% brainwashed over there, your media is the biggest most successful propaganda machine ever - even better than the Soviet/Communist machine because you feel you are on the land of the free... yes, you don't realize it, but your way of life is *not* the only way of life, let alone the best way of life. It's going to take your empire's collapse for you to maybe grasp that there are other ways, and I guarantee it, better ways.
I will tell you this: as a citizen of a country near Iraq, all I say to you is "Leave us the fuck alone! go back home and deal with your fucking Gov. Davis' and Jeb Bush's... not OUR FUCKING COUNTRIES".
You can go ahead and be proud of whatever you have... I just have contempt for it.
Oh you self righteous prick... get off it already! You really do think that you are superior don't you.
I'm refusing to read anything else from your post... and you know what, go ahead: think that you're better.
Heck even look at your sad little sig.
If you knew a bit about history, you would know about the revolutions that took place in Russia to instill communism. The Bolscheviks vs. the Menscheviks etc. Only a mentality like yours, pragmatic to the last drop (which btw will be the end of your country) would consider a theory to be a failure by looking at its applications.
By that same logic, cryptography is a failure.
But I see your point.
Why? How do you define false positives?
Zealot
Zealot who will defend his rights because RFID is invading his privacy, but will have absoltutely no qualms about "biased news".
Idiot Zealot who will cry "rape of our rights!" when cease and desist orders are sent, but will very happily welcome propaganda... even defend it. Because make no mistake about it, Idiot Zealot, biased news is nothing but propaganda.