Of course it's not possible to take everything into consideration. things will break. the design will change. that is to be expected.
Sure, expose programmers to the big picture. They should know what they are working with. But don't expect them to pay attention to every single detail that is not in the scope of the module they are developing. That is your job.
If they think of something I hope they tell you, but IMO you have a bigger responsibility to watch out for things like that than they do. After all, you SHOULD have a much better understanding of how a fundamental change in one module will affect the others.
Communication between the programmers and between the programmers and the managers in any software development project is crucial. A black-box approach to things should not compromise that level of communication. The two are NOT mutually exclusive.
If the architecture is designed properly and EVERYTHING is taken into consideration at the design stage, the programmers in charge of developing the individual modules should be able to employ black-box techniques.
It is not the job of the programmers to see the "big picture". This is the responsibility of the system architect, or whatever you want to call him. I suppose it depends on how the "team" is set up.. in some cases the programmers would need to see the big picture.
But on most projects I've worked on there were several people (or just one) who's job it was to design and overlook the project. They would ensure that everything is taken into consideration and that all modules work well together. The individual programmers each worked on modules that were assigned to them, ignoring what everybody else was doing. It was the job of the system designer to then put all the modules together.. and even before all that happened, to ensure that all the specifications were correct.
In my opinion such an approach is more efficient.. and I know it's possible.
Black-box programming can be a very efficient practice if implemented properly.
Yes, the example I gave was on the other extreme of the spectrum. I did not imply that it should be used as a precedent to justify the current practices of software companies!
On the contrary; I disagree with current practices as much as the next guy and I think a lot can be done to improve the current system.. a LOT.
All I'm saying is this: Yes.. there are rules out there we have to follow even if we didn't review the written text first. Another example: as a student at the university of Waterloo I am expected to familiarize myself with certain policies. By deciding to attend this institution I am entering into an agreement with it. I must adhere to certain policies without having been specifically told about them.. and yes, there are several that might not have been available to me BEFORE I decided to attend.
Can this be used as an argument to back up the current practices? Probably Not.
> You are implying that companies have the same power or right as governments to set laws that apply necessarily to all. However, they do not.
Did you READ my post?
I wasn't implying anything; I did not claim that the power of governments to set laws should extend to software companies. I was simply pointing out that such powers exist, hoping people would comment on it and examine how this idea/precedent? might APPLY to software companies.
>Probably strongarmed into it by software companies, because if they allowed opened software there's a high risk for piracy (buy, copy, return)
Yes, there is a risk of piracy. But by not allowing you to return it because you MIGHT have pirated it, you are in fact being ACCUSSED of said act.
At least that's how I felt, as a consumer, when I attempted to return a DVD at Future Shop. I was told I couldn't return it since I could have made a copy. I don't know about you, but that sort of offended me. If the vendor doesn't respect the customer, how is the customer supposed to respect the vendor?
> How can you agree to something that you have not read?
There is a common practice.
By being a citizen of the country you reside in you are assumed to follow a multitude of rules and regulations, most of which you have probably never examined in writing. You agree to follow these rules simply by being a citizen of said country.
You can't claim you are innocent simply because you were not aware a law existed if taken to court for breaking it. You are EXPECTED to follow all of rules that apply to you whether you have examined them or not. It is up to the lawyers to decipher which rules apply to you, and how.
My post does not imply any opinions that i might or might not have about the article. I'm simply commenting on the previous post. (geez, now I'm sounding like a lawyer)
Re:I'm more amazed....
on
Baked Apple
·
· Score: 1
>I'm more amazed that no one asked her why she did it... Do we look down on non-computer people so much that we don't even bother to ask anymore why they do stupid things?
Because if you don't, other nations will take charge. The Chinese are planning a manned space mission and they have been talking about going to the moon. The Russians want to go to Mars. The EU and Japan have solid space programs. Countries like India, South Korea, and Brazil could start getting competitive within the decade.
You say America needs the military to remain the dominant world power. I say America needs the space program because of SPACE power, which complements world power and is increasingly important.
The Earth isn't the only place in the universe. The rest of the solar system will slowly start becoming the next strategic playground and if you don't keep up with the rest of the world your importance on the planet will slowly deteriorate.
Hmm, I'm curious about something. If you're an immigrant and your last name contains an accent that is not used in the country you moved to.. you simply get rid of the accent and everybody's happy. I'm from Canada and know a lot of people who have done this. Haven't heard of any problems with alternate meanings, or the names just looking wrong, or whatever.
So it seems to me that people are willing to drop the accents and adopt a new alphabet under certain circumstances.
The problem we were discussing is that.. well.. there are hundreds of alphabets in use around the world. You use the one that suits you most.. this usually being the alphabet in use where you live.
You start running into problems when you wish to reach an international audience. Which alphabet do you adopt? Should you change the spelling of your city/name? In my opinion, yes, if you have to. If you really wish to reach an international audience with whatever content you're pushing, use what they would be most comfortable with. If simply removing the accents changes the meaning of the world to something unacceptable.. by any means! change the word to something else.. use an alternate spelling.
Some might argue that cities with multiple names might confuse. There are dozens of examples around the world where this has occured and not caused any problems. Danzig/Gdansk, Cracovia/Kraków/Cracow, Moscow/Moskva, Copenhavn/Copenhagen, the list goes on and on.
>Has anyone else noticed that plain 'ole numbers >are becoming more important over time ? China >and India are being cited as the future >powerhouses of global commerce; the US and (to >a lesser extent) the EU are outsourcing huge >chunks of what would have been bread-and-butter >work to external countries, etc. Maybe EU >expansion isn't such a bad idea after all... >Perhaps it'll be Russia next:-)
The eastward expansion of the European Union has only slight economic advantages. Most of the countries that are/will be joining are either too small or too insignificant economically to make a big difference. You have to remember that most of these nations were under Soviet control for over 50 years! Change doesn't happen overnight.
As for the prospect of Russia joining the EU, I hope you were kidding. I wouldn't be surprised if Ukraine joined eventually, and possibly even Belarus and Moldovia! But Russia? No way! Norway and Switzerland will join eventually, the former Yugoslavian states will join up sooner or later as well.. But there is only so far you can go. It is the EUROPEAN union after all. The inclusion of Turkey is as "non-european" as we'll get. Of course I realize that most of the population of Russia resides in "Europe", but you can't just accept half the country into the EU, now can you?
The expansion of the EU is not driven by economics, but rather by politics. The Europeans have dominated world matters for perhaps a thousand years; America is in charge now. What has always hurt the Europeans is conflict; there were too many internal squabbles over too many matters. The EU was created to stabilize Europe and it will continue to do so. In 20 to 30 years an economically, politically, and to an extent culturally unified Europe will have a very strong voice in World matters.
As for your comment about numbers, it is not only numbers that are important. Sure, China's economic influence is increasing, but how far can this take them? Look at Russia and Brazil, they each have over a hundred million citizens. Are they economic powerhouses? China is doing better than it was 10 or 20 years ago, but this is mainly due to internal changes and reforms. Having a large workforce can be a blessing, but it can also be a problem. Proper management of the workforce is the key here, and I don't mean in a communist government-controlled way:)
> how are for instance americans supposed to type unique swedish characters to find the web site?
A simple solution would be to allow all sorts of different spellings. Of course it would cost more, but how many would you really need?
Usually the problem is that, as in your case, the name contains characters that are not native to other languages.. well.. get rid of the accents! That should fix everything. Use BOTH. (Of course, if such a thing were allowed.)
> And why are they not allowed to implement any dns method they choose ?
It's a standard that the industry has agreed on using. It's supposed to make things easier for everyone.
Of course this is unprecedented so you can't really say that they're not ALLOWED to do it. It's just not a very good idea and I'm sure most people would agree with me on this one.:)
> A very dirty hack and not in any way part of the DNS standard, but not advertising.
You might be right about that, but in my opinion this sets a very dangerous precedent.
Advertising comes to mind.. as does censorship.
Re:Reminds Me...
on
Infinite Games?
·
· Score: 1, Insightful
what's so interesting about that?
you can't do anything you want, i tried to do a lot of creative things and most of them didn't work. only the obvious did, like talking to the woman...
it seems to me that all this game is is a database of possible actions, each linked to an outcome. there is no artificial intelligence involved.
the problem with implementing something like this in an interactive 3D environment is obvious. you can't use the same technique employed in AISLE and statically correlate actions with outcomes. there are just too many!
i thought that the article made it fairly clear that the goal of the technologies in question is to examine the actions performed and dynamically update the story. AISLE does nothing of the sort. It reminds me more of oldschool adventure games like king's quest 1 and quest for glory.
the only interesting thing about AISLE, i suppose, could be the input parser. it doesn't seem very sophisticated tho.
Consider somebody who believes that murder is moral and should be allowed. For the most part, as a society, we agree that murder is in fact immoral. The views of the many, in this case, override the views of the few.
Take abortion. There are people who are strongly against it, and (and i'm only guessing here) an equal amount of people who are strongly for it. In fact, there are people spread all over the "abortion morality fuzzy-logic line", if I may call it that.
I believe that any sort of moral dilemma has a line like that, and the way that points (people's opinions) are distributed on it depends on the state of the world, peace/war, economic outlook, race, gender, etc.
Now.. I also believe that you should be able to create a probability model simulating something like this. Also.. and I'm making a leap here.. The mean will shift in the appropriate direction depending on social factors.
Coming back to abortion, the mean of that particular model might shift to the "pro-abortion" side if, for example, the population of the country in question (or region) increased. An extensive campaign by a pro-life group might shift it slightly in the other direction.
Now.. quantifying opinion might be a hard thing to do, or it might not. I am guessing that it would be possible to collect such data with an acceptable error margin. an error margin which could actually be computed using the probability model.
in any case.. i don't think that something like this is feasible. BUT. looking at morality using probability models as i've suggested might give us more insight into the whole debate.
Making it okay for you to beat the living shit out of another person is not a WACKY law. It's stupid!
You totally missed the point of my post.
I was trying to show that the bible can't be used as a moral guide.
The examples you gave might be somewhat outdated, yet they still apply to some aspect of our society. There are no laws (and please, correct me if i'm wrong) that allow you to beat up another person with a metal rod. In fact, I would guess that there are numerous laws in place that prohibit that sort of behaviour.
When did Christianity become an authority on morality?
You could find a quote in the bible to back up pretty much ANY claim.
"If a man strikes his servant or his maid with a rod, and he dies under his hand, he shall surely be punished. Notwithstanding, if he gets up after a day or two, he shall not be punished, for he is his property. " - Exodus 21:20
I've always wanted to beat up my maid and now I can do it with the blessing of the lord (and a large metal rod)!
*cough*
They're not? They were imprisoned during a war, were they not?
prisoner of war: A person taken by or surrendering to enemy forces in wartime.
war: A state of open, armed, often prolonged conflict carried on between nations, states, or parties.
(the above were taken from dictionary.com)
I am sorry, they ARE prisoners of war.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course it's not possible to take everything into consideration. things will break. the design will change. that is to be expected.
Sure, expose programmers to the big picture. They should know what they are working with. But don't expect them to pay attention to every single detail that is not in the scope of the module they are developing. That is your job.
If they think of something I hope they tell you, but IMO you have a bigger responsibility to watch out for things like that than they do. After all, you SHOULD have a much better understanding of how a fundamental change in one module will affect the others.
Communication between the programmers and between the programmers and the managers in any software development project is crucial. A black-box approach to things should not compromise that level of communication. The two are NOT mutually exclusive.
If the architecture is designed properly and EVERYTHING is taken into consideration at the design stage, the programmers in charge of developing the individual modules should be able to employ black-box techniques.
It is not the job of the programmers to see the "big picture". This is the responsibility of the system architect, or whatever you want to call him. I suppose it depends on how the "team" is set up.. in some cases the programmers would need to see the big picture.
But on most projects I've worked on there were several people (or just one) who's job it was to design and overlook the project. They would ensure that everything is taken into consideration and that all modules work well together. The individual programmers each worked on modules that were assigned to them, ignoring what everybody else was doing. It was the job of the system designer to then put all the modules together.. and even before all that happened, to ensure that all the specifications were correct.
In my opinion such an approach is more efficient.. and I know it's possible.
Black-box programming can be a very efficient practice if implemented properly.
Yes, the example I gave was on the other extreme of the spectrum. I did not imply that it should be used as a precedent to justify the current practices of software companies!
On the contrary; I disagree with current practices as much as the next guy and I think a lot can be done to improve the current system.. a LOT.
All I'm saying is this: Yes.. there are rules out there we have to follow even if we didn't review the written text first. Another example: as a student at the university of Waterloo I am expected to familiarize myself with certain policies. By deciding to attend this institution I am entering into an agreement with it. I must adhere to certain policies without having been specifically told about them.. and yes, there are several that might not have been available to me BEFORE I decided to attend.
Can this be used as an argument to back up the current practices? Probably Not.
Is it relevant to this discussion? YES.
> You are implying that companies have the same power or right as governments to set laws that apply necessarily to all. However, they do not.
Did you READ my post?
I wasn't implying anything; I did not claim that the power of governments to set laws should extend to software companies. I was simply pointing out that such powers exist, hoping people would comment on it and examine how this idea/precedent? might APPLY to software companies.
>Probably strongarmed into it by software companies, because if they allowed opened software there's a high risk for piracy (buy, copy, return)
Yes, there is a risk of piracy. But by not allowing you to return it because you MIGHT have pirated it, you are in fact being ACCUSSED of said act.
At least that's how I felt, as a consumer, when I attempted to return a DVD at Future Shop. I was told I couldn't return it since I could have made a copy. I don't know about you, but that sort of offended me. If the vendor doesn't respect the customer, how is the customer supposed to respect the vendor?
> How can you agree to something that you have not read?
There is a common practice.
By being a citizen of the country you reside in you are assumed to follow a multitude of rules and regulations, most of which you have probably never examined in writing. You agree to follow these rules simply by being a citizen of said country.
You can't claim you are innocent simply because you were not aware a law existed if taken to court for breaking it. You are EXPECTED to follow all of rules that apply to you whether you have examined them or not. It is up to the lawyers to decipher which rules apply to you, and how.
My post does not imply any opinions that i might or might not have about the article. I'm simply commenting on the previous post. (geez, now I'm sounding like a lawyer)
>I'm more amazed that no one asked her why she did it... Do we look down on non-computer people so much that we don't even bother to ask anymore why they do stupid things?
I have an explanation
She's retarded
Why continue supporting the space program?
Because if you don't, other nations will take charge. The Chinese are planning a manned space mission and they have been talking about going to the moon. The Russians want to go to Mars. The EU and Japan have solid space programs. Countries like India, South Korea, and Brazil could start getting competitive within the decade.
You say America needs the military to remain the dominant world power. I say America needs the space program because of SPACE power, which complements world power and is increasingly important.
The Earth isn't the only place in the universe. The rest of the solar system will slowly start becoming the next strategic playground and if you don't keep up with the rest of the world your importance on the planet will slowly deteriorate.
Hmm, I'm curious about something. If you're an immigrant and your last name contains an accent that is not used in the country you moved to.. you simply get rid of the accent and everybody's happy. I'm from Canada and know a lot of people who have done this. Haven't heard of any problems with alternate meanings, or the names just looking wrong, or whatever.
So it seems to me that people are willing to drop the accents and adopt a new alphabet under certain circumstances.
The problem we were discussing is that.. well.. there are hundreds of alphabets in use around the world. You use the one that suits you most.. this usually being the alphabet in use where you live.
You start running into problems when you wish to reach an international audience. Which alphabet do you adopt? Should you change the spelling of your city/name? In my opinion, yes, if you have to. If you really wish to reach an international audience with whatever content you're pushing, use what they would be most comfortable with. If simply removing the accents changes the meaning of the world to something unacceptable.. by any means! change the word to something else.. use an alternate spelling.
Some might argue that cities with multiple names might confuse. There are dozens of examples around the world where this has occured and not caused any problems. Danzig/Gdansk, Cracovia/Kraków/Cracow, Moscow/Moskva, Copenhavn/Copenhagen, the list goes on and on.
Sure, but most of the EU are lackey states, with decrepit cohesion, sort of waiting for their next handout. Sort of like bums lying in the gutter.
Sort of like some American states, don't you think?
:)
Just kidding folks. This guy, of course, has no idea what he's babbling about.
>Has anyone else noticed that plain 'ole numbers >are becoming more important over time ? China >and India are being cited as the future >powerhouses of global commerce; the US and (to >a lesser extent) the EU are outsourcing huge >chunks of what would have been bread-and-butter >work to external countries, etc. Maybe EU >expansion isn't such a bad idea after all... >Perhaps it'll be Russia next :-)
:)
The eastward expansion of the European Union has only slight economic advantages. Most of the countries that are/will be joining are either too small or too insignificant economically to make a big difference. You have to remember that most of these nations were under Soviet control for over 50 years! Change doesn't happen overnight.
As for the prospect of Russia joining the EU, I hope you were kidding. I wouldn't be surprised if Ukraine joined eventually, and possibly even Belarus and Moldovia! But Russia? No way! Norway and Switzerland will join eventually, the former Yugoslavian states will join up sooner or later as well.. But there is only so far you can go. It is the EUROPEAN union after all. The inclusion of Turkey is as "non-european" as we'll get. Of course I realize that most of the population of Russia resides in "Europe", but you can't just accept half the country into the EU, now can you?
The expansion of the EU is not driven by economics, but rather by politics. The Europeans have dominated world matters for perhaps a thousand years; America is in charge now. What has always hurt the Europeans is conflict; there were too many internal squabbles over too many matters. The EU was created to stabilize Europe and it will continue to do so. In 20 to 30 years an economically, politically, and to an extent culturally unified Europe will have a very strong voice in World matters.
As for your comment about numbers, it is not only numbers that are important. Sure, China's economic influence is increasing, but how far can this take them? Look at Russia and Brazil, they each have over a hundred million citizens. Are they economic powerhouses? China is doing better than it was 10 or 20 years ago, but this is mainly due to internal changes and reforms. Having a large workforce can be a blessing, but it can also be a problem. Proper management of the workforce is the key here, and I don't mean in a communist government-controlled way
> how are for instance americans supposed to type unique swedish characters to find the web site?
A simple solution would be to allow all sorts of different spellings. Of course it would cost more, but how many would you really need?
Usually the problem is that, as in your case, the name contains characters that are not native to other languages.. well.. get rid of the accents! That should fix everything. Use BOTH. (Of course, if such a thing were allowed.)
> And why are they not allowed to implement any dns method they choose ?
:)
It's a standard that the industry has agreed on using. It's supposed to make things easier for everyone.
Of course this is unprecedented so you can't really say that they're not ALLOWED to do it. It's just not a very good idea and I'm sure most people would agree with me on this one.
> A very dirty hack and not in any way part of the DNS standard, but not advertising.
You might be right about that, but in my opinion this sets a very dangerous precedent.
Advertising comes to mind.. as does censorship.
what's so interesting about that?
you can't do anything you want, i tried to do a lot of creative things and most of them didn't work. only the obvious did, like talking to the woman...
it seems to me that all this game is is a database of possible actions, each linked to an outcome. there is no artificial intelligence involved.
the problem with implementing something like this in an interactive 3D environment is obvious. you can't use the same technique employed in AISLE and statically correlate actions with outcomes. there are just too many!
i thought that the article made it fairly clear that the goal of the technologies in question is to examine the actions performed and dynamically update the story. AISLE does nothing of the sort. It reminds me more of oldschool adventure games like king's quest 1 and quest for glory.
the only interesting thing about AISLE, i suppose, could be the input parser. it doesn't seem very sophisticated tho.
True.. to an extent!
Consider somebody who believes that murder is moral and should be allowed. For the most part, as a society, we agree that murder is in fact immoral. The views of the many, in this case, override the views of the few.
Take abortion. There are people who are strongly against it, and (and i'm only guessing here) an equal amount of people who are strongly for it. In fact, there are people spread all over the "abortion morality fuzzy-logic line", if I may call it that.
I believe that any sort of moral dilemma has a line like that, and the way that points (people's opinions) are distributed on it depends on the state of the world, peace/war, economic outlook, race, gender, etc.
Now.. I also believe that you should be able to create a probability model simulating something like this. Also.. and I'm making a leap here.. The mean will shift in the appropriate direction depending on social factors.
Coming back to abortion, the mean of that particular model might shift to the "pro-abortion" side if, for example, the population of the country in question (or region) increased. An extensive campaign by a pro-life group might shift it slightly in the other direction.
Now.. quantifying opinion might be a hard thing to do, or it might not. I am guessing that it would be possible to collect such data with an acceptable error margin. an error margin which could actually be computed using the probability model.
in any case.. i don't think that something like this is feasible. BUT. looking at morality using probability models as i've suggested might give us more insight into the whole debate.
Morality is something that has been discussed and argued over by millions of people over thousands of years.
Why? Because we're all individuals and there will always be people who will disagree with you given a moral dilemma.
There is no universal moral code and that is something we must live with.. as we have been doing!
In some situations neither party is "right". There's just no way around that.
*cough*
Making it okay for you to beat the living shit out of another person is not a WACKY law. It's stupid!
You totally missed the point of my post.
I was trying to show that the bible can't be used as a moral guide.
The examples you gave might be somewhat outdated, yet they still apply to some aspect of our society. There are no laws (and please, correct me if i'm wrong) that allow you to beat up another person with a metal rod. In fact, I would guess that there are numerous laws in place that prohibit that sort of behaviour.
Umm..
When did Christianity become an authority on morality?
You could find a quote in the bible to back up pretty much ANY claim.
"If a man strikes his servant or his maid with a rod, and he dies under his hand, he shall surely be punished. Notwithstanding, if he gets up after a day or two, he shall not be punished, for he is his property. " - Exodus 21:20
I've always wanted to beat up my maid and now I can do it with the blessing of the lord (and a large metal rod)!
SECOND POST MOTHERFUCKERS
*cough* They're not? They were imprisoned during a war, were they not? prisoner of war: A person taken by or surrendering to enemy forces in wartime. war: A state of open, armed, often prolonged conflict carried on between nations, states, or parties. (the above were taken from dictionary.com) I am sorry, they ARE prisoners of war.