Now that is a gread idea. I am along time Slackware user and have never looked back. I do remember windows 95 reatail version comeing with a great game called "Hover" It was lots of fun, and was probably one of the better things about win95.
If there was a version of Vista that came with a game called "Balmer" it would be exactly the sort of thing that would get me back on the windows platform. Just think you could play a Steve and run from floor to floor and building to build on the M$ campus thowing chairs at precived enemies. Just like in good old Duke Nukem 3d when you scored points he would chant something like "Hail to the king baby" only Steve could start saying something like "Developers Developers Developers..". It would be the greatest FPS game concept ever.
No really Google is not being evil. Would they be doing humanity a favor in my opioion if they were to offer a forum where anyone could express anything they want to. Yes I think they would. They are not morally or legaly obligated to do any such thing however. Its there site they have a right to decide what is and is not posted on it. Demanding Goolge post anything you want on YouTube would be no different then me wanting to spray paint a political slogan on the side of your car. Hey by not letting my do it your infringing on my free speach you jerk! Free speach does not give you the right to say anything you want any place you want. It gives you the right to say what you want in public, limited to not cause a dangerouse disturbance. You can stand on a public side walk and say or distribute any literiture you like, you can host your own website and put it on the public internet with any content you like, that is what free speach gives you the right to do. It does not give you the right to post anything you want on private property. Google's site is their private property. Slashdot is private property. They allow us some freedome to express our opions. Its not your constitutional rite to say anything you want here. It is your rite to start your own website and say anything you want there.
Most likely because dispite Microsoft's reality vortex they still at least have the balls to admit to themselves that software still has not been realized as an engineering discipline. It would be nice if a large software project could be broken out into little modules with clear specifications that any coder could go off and make but it usually can't. Lots of development is very iterative, which means everything is changing. Lots of time stuff just has to be built to see how workable or unworkable it really is in practice; but when I change my interface it breaks your module. Maybe that is a minor problem easy to fix or maybe its a show stopper, how can I know.
Most large projects seem to work best with a few core team people who know basically how everything works at least at some level and can then farm out small clearly defined tasks to others. Their total bandwidth is bound to be limited though and so more 'others' does not always help. Growing the core team won't help much either because communication between them has to be total and constant, that is going to take longer the more specialed and nemerous those guys become.
Look at the Linux kernel for instance. You have Linus and pretty small core team that has different specialties. I know all those core team guys have some familiarity with the entire thing and Linus absoultly does. You can tell that from reading LKN. Maybe Jens is a block layer wizard but he know s how the network and VM layers work. He has to know inorder to mange block layer development well. He then has lots of other people submitting smallish patches and fixes to what is primarily his project.
I think we can reasonably assume that the Linux kernel and core GNU stuffs, includeing things like Gnome, have more developers.[qualified] contributing then M$ can put on windows even if they wanted. While those projects do seem to progress more rapidly then Windows its not by any means in an earth shattering way.
Yes, it might be hard but that is life. Life is hard, often for arbitrary reasons and often because people are exploiting each other. The difficulty of migracting away from Windows does not give you a cart blanche to break the law.
You need for and medication, if you don't have them you probably don't have the means to obtain them before you will no longer be doing anything ever again. The are a matter of survival. Software is not.
Your comments on education not being worth anything are a red haring. Nobody owns literacy, math, or basic facts about the world. The might own compilations or howto manuls but not the skills. People taught each other advanced mathematics and how to read for a long time before computer software. Its not even on the same plane
Right, your post really helps me clairify my feelings on the matter. Its wrong to rake someone over the coals for something that you know everyone else is doing, just to appease some corporate lobby, or any lobby for that matter. This is not justice, I think most people would be fine with justice, this is scape goating. You are entirely right about that.
1. Nobody should do prison time for infriging on a copyright. At least not when said infrigment is not part of a for profit activity. Even if you are one of those people that thinks copyright infringment and theft are not different, we still don't lock people up for shop lifting unless they are repeat offenders. We demand they make restitution and perhaps perform some community service as penence. As I say all the time the crime is not 100 times worse just because a computer was somehow used.
*yes this guy should be punished, just not so severly.
2. The other group of people want to argue that boohoo he can't afford Windows and other proprietary software and neither can alot of people in less well off parts of the world therfore they should be entitled. Look I think software copyrights and patents are lame, but for now the law is the law. You might and in my opinion probably are morally justified in brakeing it, especially if its in the name of makeing a social statement but if you do then you have to face the concequences. This is not like food or medicine nobody *needs* Windows period. If someone is only licensing their software/media for money you have choices, pay for it, infringe on it and take your chances, make your own, do without, or find a FOSS replacement.
*No we should not just let him off because he is the little guy getting screwed by big corporations and governments.
Would you sentence a 19 year old who spray painted his name on a wall to 3 years probation, and make the crime a felony...No you would not. We recognize that people sometimes do stupid things. Yes there is real damage Myspace network admins and DBAs probably had to do some clean up, just like you probably need to repaint that wall.
This is a clear case where once again the crime is being treated differently with irrational severity just because a computer or the internet is part of it. This was nothing more and nothing less then graffiti. It should not be a felony.
*Yes he should be made to either clean it up or pay myspace what ever it cost in terms of employee time to clean
*No he should not be put on probation for a substantial percentage of his young life. He probably just failed to think first. Just getting slapped on the wrist would be plenty to make him consider his actions the next time.
*No he should not be banned from the net. The net is an important to accessing informaiton in our society. Cutting someone off from the net would be like forbidding them to read 100 years ago. It puts them at a substantial disadvantage in to many ways to even begin to number.
*No he should not be label a convicted felon. That is going to make it hard for him to find jobs, prevent him from voteing, make it difficult(impossible?) to obtain credit and in many ways limit the things he can do for the rest of his life.
The punishment should fit the crim, this one does not come anywhere close. The crime was a minor defacement of property. This punishment is anything but minor/.
For crying out loud I hope that list was not supposed to be in order of importance.
Re:It needs more professionalism
on
Why Software is Hard
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· Score: 5, Informative
Yea, specifications *are* the biggest problem. Unless I happen to be the end user, rarely does the end user know what he wants me to build until I show him/her the first prototype. At that point they might start to clarify what they want, If I am lucky their ideas are heavily colored by what they saw in the prototype and we can go for there, if not its back to square one, and usually several more trips there after that.
I get requests like we need a program that users can run from the web that shows them if batch scans are in balance. I am then left to resolve on my own things like: *What is a batch scan *Where can one find a batch scan *What does it mean for it to balance *Can the thing just print a big Y or N in size 48font on the screen or does it need to detail something --Then comes the anticipatory stuff *Is the user going to expect to be able to correct an in blance *Now that I understand what a batch scan is *maybe* I see all this other stuff should I also report on those things *etc.. etc
People like to expect programming to go like engineering or architecture. Its not the coders don't want to apply discipline to their craft its that they can't. Nobody would dream of approaching an engineer or an architect without a pretty good idea of what they want to do. That is not to say the professional is not going to have to help them work out most of the details but the basics are going to be pretty clear. Imagine if I sent a request to an Architect asking for a "Structure that will be used by people." and gave no other information. I really doubt I would get a call back.
You can argue the PAs are not as good as they should be about requirements gathering, but I think there could be much more professionalism on the part of requesters as well. Its a waste of my time and theirs when they engage me as a developer before they have put even the most basic thought into what it is that they want. Some of this stuff is really esoteric and I understand that I will have to help them figure out how to solve the problem. I do feel they should know what the problem is.
Well I was stil laughing at a post form the other day suggestion that if Steve Jobs release iPony MS would follow on that too.
The obvious answer you your question though is that I would tll them to go home and convince their parents to buy our
Gold level Teir One Four hour Anual Renewal support Contract for SuperWonderfulMagicPony and that they should strongly consider spending their allowence on our Monthy Prefered User Program where:
Get this you can request and vote on the features you'd like to see in the next version of SuperWonderfulMagicPony.
That's right IBM has patent deals with Microsoft. Novell made a deal on behalf of other parties their customers supposedly. The did this without consultation of those customers. Which is even if legally possible is still from a view of actual justice highly questionable, especially when it puts other parties of unknow relationship to the Novell customers in grave danger.
Suppose I am and ISV that produces SuperWonderfulMagicPony for Linux. I run SUSE in house for my operational systems. The deal is great Microsoft won'y be sueing me. Wait they start sueing everyone else useing linux. I make a Linux product, I want as much Linux out there as possible regardless of distro because it means a bigger market for my wares. Suddenly I am not so happy with Novell. As there customer if they'd bothered to ask me if I wanted to have them stike this deal with M$ I would have declined.
IBM has made deal on behalf of IBM with M$. IBM worries about protecting or not protecting IBM's customers. Novell sold out and is letting M$ worry about their customers and possibly screw everyone else if they feel like it. Its not the same thing at all.
They are not in any bind. All they need to do is make Windows Profession need to authenticate with a Domain controler to operate. Naturally the DC has to have the suffencient number of cals or you can't connect. They do this with terminal services license servers already.
The home version is crippled enough corps won't use it and this would be adequate to stop most end users from ripping on Windows Pro. Most people are not going to want to run Windows Server, and they could get away with not supporting volume license installs for servers. I would guess even the biggest organizations have someone who gives a little bit of special attention and thought to each server or group of servers if we are talking clusters.
The only problem to solve then is how to deal with road warriors who are rarely on the network. Maybe you support some sort of delayed authentication. You can boot the system, but then you have to connect with a DC within 10min or it shuts down. That would give people time to get a VPN up. Perhaps you let the laptops go x days without authentication to a DC.
Microsoft is playing along. They don't need to implement the content protection stuff on Vista. They could simply say "We produce an operating system for an open architecture, and it does what it does period. If you don't like it then don't licence any software players for your content."
The media giants would be hurt way more the M$ would by going this route. Its not like everyone is going to swich away from Windows, espically just to play DVD's, on their computers. Most people DONT want much media on their computers. They watch it on their hardware players. Microsoft is not even doing this to assure themsevels some pice of the online content dilevery pie. If M$ did not implement DRM we simple would not see any only media services beyond what exists today. They content providers would just say no. The piarates would put everything on line like the do now and the distribtion model would suffer and die, the traditional content producers along with it. I for one would say good riddence to bad rubbish. I don't care if Sony, BMG, Virgin, Disney, Pixar, Reprise, et al. die I really don't. I would suggest that you should not either unless you work for them or have a contract with them, just sit tight someone with better newer ideas will be along t o take their place.
M$'s role in DRM is abount the same thing most M$ inititives have been aoubt LOCK IN. They see this as an oppertunity to do something nobody other then maybe Apple can, play protected content on their system. Open source won't be able to do it legally becase any open source DRM system would be totally useless. Closed DRM systems are just mostly usless, they can atleast slow you down and inflict legal barriers; thanks DMCA. Just wait M$ will be advertising that Windows is the only place to enjoy a modern multimedia experience in a couple years. This is how they plan to protect their desktop monopoly; the will colude with the old media oligarthy to do it.
I read the TFA and I saw nothing in it about Google attempting to create an atrifical bandwidth shortage. I read it as, the are predicting there will be a shortage and are negotiating access to as much bandwidth as they think they are likely to need for the services they plan to offer in the future. He simply points out that this will have the effect of marginalizing the local cable and telco's importants in the network. It probably will. If Google has cached copies of the data most users want located everywhere then it will be Google and the large backbone providers who Google will need for replication and such who will matter. Anyone who can afford to buy up the local copper or pay to lay local fiber, (that might be Google might be somebody else) will be able to cut the ISPs out and RBOC's out of the picture. All he is saying is the right now there are more barriers in place for doing that and Google might be removing all but the last mile problem.
Actually from a standpoint of musical taxonomy Rock really has it roots in country and blues, not so much jaz. Rock has been cross bread with a little Ska here and there which people mistake for a Jazz influence. I am not saying thatthe great Jazz men/women have not contributed to Rock just that for the most part they were doing more Blues or Ska like work when they did. Jazz is a fantasic but very unique style that is hard to integrate with other things.
Dude you have never see the results of a COBOL to C translator before have you. We used one to migrate some of our store systems form COBOL ot C. The result is something we call C-BOL. You have C code but each of the WORKING-STORAGE SECTION. Paragraphs are made into structs, and any place you did a move by name or somehting results in an even crazier union. Trust me you don't really want to go this way...
THANK YOU> I have only been out of school for about a year and only working professionaly as a developer for about three years. I do think you have said the most import thing in this entire discussion though. Business applications are NEVER techinically all that complex. I have developed GOOD(both in the minds of users and other programers) products with languages I had never used before I started on that particular task. If you are methodical about your codeing and have the doumentation you need availble you should be able to make just about any langue work. Methodical is important. JSP(as in structured programing) WORKS even in OO languages. There are sometimes complex problems with massive data volumes and such but the solutions are generally well known. They reason it is hard to get business applications right is that the business is usually complex, has complex rules with lots of exceptions. There is entirly too much focus on technial langauge and nameing standards and the like, design the applicaion correctly, document the design, and document the business rules the application implements. If you do these three things I don't care what languague you use, with what nameing conventions, or how big it is. You will have maintainable code.
Well that's just it..it could be just about anything.
Maybe the Russian government did do it? and figures they can say "hey whe know better then to do anything so easily traced as this its obviously a set up." At the same time their critics will know or at least have to assume they were in fact behind it an behave acordingly. They get the best of both worlds. That is just one of the infinite possiblilites.
Squirt! Come one why did he use the word "Squirt". Of all the stupid ways to describe the wireles features of his product. What could be more off putting.
News flash Steve this country has gotten pretty darn liberal in the social sense compared to where it was say 20, 30, and espically 50 years ago but the average American still wants little or nothing to do with squirting anything, save maybe a water pistol and even then only children, on or at anyone else in (at least in public) much less haveing it done to them. The connotations are just bad. When we think of squirting Steve most of us imagine embassasing missadventures with a mustard packet at lunch not something sexy; even if we did think sex its not in a sexy way.
Really would it have been so hard to say "beam", "zap", "shoot", "send", or "pass". All of us understand concepts of exchanging media in terms of sending as in mail, beam as in Star Trek transporter(even non geeks know that one), shoot as in t-shirt cannon, pass and in hand off object; there was no need to use the word "squirt". I don't have a marketing background but I could have told you describing the sharing features in terms of "squriting" was about the most off putting way talking about it possible.
Now where can I find an pretty girl to rope with the end a 2' headset wire as another man named Steve with equally severe, though less discusting, reality distortion issues suggested.
Certainly Novells actions are bogus and not designed for the good of the OS community at all but we don't need to fear their code any more then code from any place else; Microsoft wants Linux out of the picture and is a fearce competitor in any market it participates in; especially is core markets like PC and micro server operating systems.
Microsoft business is good sales are up but that is because the market is growing, others like Apple and Linux are takeing a part of the share M$ is used to haveing about 98% the writing on the wall says it won't stay that way unless something is done. Think about it we are rapidly approching the point where everyone has a PC or many and business have about as many as they know what to do with. Thats not to say people and orgainzations won't be always buying computer they will but it will be mostly a retire replace thing rather then a 1 + 1 = 2 like it has been the last 2 decades. Microsoft wants to keep 98% share. They know how to deal with traditional competitors. They can't deal with everyone and their brother producing different but mostly compatable platforms and more then the business modle IBM had around the PC could deal with the clone market. They sure can deal with RH and SUSE though. They are trying to play a patent game and ensure a finite number of traitional large corporate competition so they can do what they have always done; give away enough of their crack to get people hooked and at the same time starve the competition for revenue.
If M$ can kill the Linux market outside of Novell watch for windows to be suddenly free(as in beer) and come with free as in beer support. M$ can give windows away; after all they have other products to sell for you to run on top of it. Most people will then see windows as cheak as suse not understadning that with suse they'd be getting all the other stuff like web,sql,office apps, to and pick windows because its familiar. That is what M$ wants; they want to be able to kill linux they way they killed Netscape, Netware and countless others. They can't manage that right now because with all sorts of basically not for profit distros, debian and small commecial distros that are selected by very specific people for specific reasons like slackware. There is no clear revenue stream to attack. The mass of people useing and developing the software remains big enough that it continues to improve and inovate to the point where it becomes dangerous to them and they cant stop it.
Think about GNU/Linux is not quite but almost good enough to push replace windows in just about every desktop and server space it owns save a few without much pain. It does not need to be as good as windows just good enough and cheaper. Now even when those conditions are reached its still not going to be a big Linux title wave; in fact nothing at all will happen because people generally like the status quo. Ahh but what if a KILL APP was found something that you just can't do with windows but you could do easily with GNU/Linux. I don't know what that would be but at that point the war would be won over night. Windows would be a legacy platform like netware. That is what they fear.
In the mean time though M$ played their cards wrong and so did Novel. Novel was thinking this little patent game with M$ could effectivly make them a Monopoly or part of a Oligopoly in the Linux market which while not huge would be better from their point of view then the current situation. Novel is wrong of couse because if it worked out that the developers would dry up. Nobody wants to write free code for Novel. They want to write code that the whole community can use. They do it because its fun to have your name on something that lots of people depend on. They do it because its a fun challenge and it produces a useful product for them and friends. They do it because they benifited from and OS project and feel they should give something back. They do it to show off their skills and make themsevels more marketable. They do it for all sorts of ot
I think its interesting for other reasons as well. The parent is correct in that the author does indeed discredit his own ability to predict enviornmental impact in an artical about the very subject but the point he makes about Chernobyl is a bit off base as well.
Chernobyl was a very minor nuclear disaster as the potential for nuclear disasters goes. The Russians basically got very lucky that when the thing went up and blew the cap off the reactor, said cap happend to land more or less back where it was supposed to be. The incided also did not do much damage to the cement shell of the plant either. Basically most of the radiation has been confined to the pant itself and the reactor, very little got out compared to what might have been. I saw a nova sepecial on it once. They indicated that the radiation levels inside where almost 100 times what they are just outside the door. If other meltdowns happen other places there is no reason at all to think those folks would be as lucky interms of damage confinement and by extension no reason to think those areas would not become nuclear deserts.
Google is probably safer then you think. You can only clam damages from a copyright / patent violation if you can show you have attempted to protect your rights. If google the king of indexing can show a publishers content was on the site and that it was generating a resonably large amount of traffic and thefore know to the general masses to be availible. They should be mostly off the hook for any more then a cease and disist type order. Courts won't let content providers get away with we did not care before about the infrigement but not that they guy doing has deep pockets we do... Legislatures will but Courts won't so google at least has some time to reap the profits before they get shutdown and they will be then protected expost facto law.
My guess is this whole thing lasts about long enough for Google to double their investment before legal wranglings and legislative acts destroy it and turn it into something nothing like the original just as they did with online music services ala Napster. Google will get in get rich and get out.
Slashdot Mirror
Windows Vista Ultimate Chair Throwing Edition
Now that is a gread idea. I am along time Slackware user and have never looked back. I do remember windows 95 reatail version comeing with a great game called "Hover" It was lots of fun, and was probably one of the better things about win95.
If there was a version of Vista that came with a game called "Balmer" it would be exactly the sort of thing that would get me back on the windows platform. Just think you could play a Steve and run from floor to floor and building to build on the M$ campus thowing chairs at precived enemies. Just like in good old Duke Nukem 3d when you scored points he would chant something like "Hail to the king baby" only Steve could start saying something like "Developers Developers Developers..". It would be the greatest FPS game concept ever.
No really Google is not being evil. Would they be doing humanity a favor in my opioion if they were to offer a forum where anyone could express anything they want to. Yes I think they would. They are not morally or legaly obligated to do any such thing however. Its there site they have a right to decide what is and is not posted on it. Demanding Goolge post anything you want on YouTube would be no different then me wanting to spray paint a political slogan on the side of your car. Hey by not letting my do it your infringing on my free speach you jerk! Free speach does not give you the right to say anything you want any place you want. It gives you the right to say what you want in public, limited to not cause a dangerouse disturbance. You can stand on a public side walk and say or distribute any literiture you like, you can host your own website and put it on the public internet with any content you like, that is what free speach gives you the right to do. It does not give you the right to post anything you want on private property. Google's site is their private property. Slashdot is private property. They allow us some freedome to express our opions. Its not your constitutional rite to say anything you want here. It is your rite to start your own website and say anything you want there.
or maybe he layency is so good he was able to post after reading your reply and still have it hit slashdot before yours did.
Most likely because dispite Microsoft's reality vortex they still at least have the balls to admit to themselves that software still has not been realized as an engineering discipline. It would be nice if a large software project could be broken out into little modules with clear specifications that any coder could go off and make but it usually can't. Lots of development is very iterative, which means everything is changing. Lots of time stuff just has to be built to see how workable or unworkable it really is in practice; but when I change my interface it breaks your module. Maybe that is a minor problem easy to fix or maybe its a show stopper, how can I know.
Most large projects seem to work best with a few core team people who know basically how everything works at least at some level and can then farm out small clearly defined tasks to others. Their total bandwidth is bound to be limited though and so more 'others' does not always help. Growing the core team won't help much either because communication between them has to be total and constant, that is going to take longer the more specialed and nemerous those guys become.
Look at the Linux kernel for instance. You have Linus and pretty small core team that has different specialties. I know all those core team guys have some familiarity with the entire thing and Linus absoultly does. You can tell that from reading LKN. Maybe Jens is a block layer wizard but he know s how the network and VM layers work. He has to know inorder to mange block layer development well. He then has lots of other people submitting smallish patches and fixes to what is primarily his project.
I think we can reasonably assume that the Linux kernel and core GNU stuffs, includeing things like Gnome, have more developers.[qualified] contributing then M$ can put on windows even if they wanted. While those projects do seem to progress more rapidly then Windows its not by any means in an earth shattering way.
Yes, it might be hard but that is life. Life is hard, often for arbitrary reasons and often because people are exploiting each other. The difficulty of migracting away from Windows does not give you a cart blanche to break the law.
You need for and medication, if you don't have them you probably don't have the means to obtain them before you will no longer be doing anything ever again. The are a matter of survival. Software is not.
Your comments on education not being worth anything are a red haring. Nobody owns literacy, math, or basic facts about the world. The might own compilations or howto manuls but not the skills. People taught each other advanced mathematics and how to read for a long time before computer software. Its not even on the same plane
Right, your post really helps me clairify my feelings on the matter. Its wrong to rake someone over the coals for something that you know everyone else is doing, just to appease some corporate lobby, or any lobby for that matter. This is not justice, I think most people would be fine with justice, this is scape goating. You are entirely right about that.
There are two major things wrong here.
1. Nobody should do prison time for infriging on a copyright. At least not when said infrigment is not part of a for profit activity. Even if you are one of those people that thinks copyright infringment and theft are not different, we still don't lock people up for shop lifting unless they are repeat offenders. We demand they make restitution and perhaps perform some community service as penence. As I say all the time the crime is not 100 times worse just because a computer was somehow used.
*yes this guy should be punished, just not so severly.
2. The other group of people want to argue that boohoo he can't afford Windows and other proprietary software and neither can alot of people in less well off parts of the world therfore they should be entitled. Look I think software copyrights and patents are lame, but for now the law is the law. You might and in my opinion probably are morally justified in brakeing it, especially if its in the name of makeing a social statement but if you do then you have to face the concequences. This is not like food or medicine nobody *needs* Windows period. If someone is only licensing their software/media for money you have choices, pay for it, infringe on it and take your chances, make your own, do without, or find a FOSS replacement.
*No we should not just let him off because he is the little guy getting screwed by big corporations and governments.
Would you sentence a 19 year old who spray painted his name on a wall to 3 years probation, and make the crime a felony...No you would not. We recognize that people sometimes do stupid things. Yes there is real damage Myspace network admins and DBAs probably had to do some clean up, just like you probably need to repaint that wall.
This is a clear case where once again the crime is being treated differently with irrational severity just because a computer or the internet is part of it. This was nothing more and nothing less then graffiti. It should not be a felony.
*Yes he should be made to either clean it up or pay myspace what ever it cost in terms of employee time to clean
*No he should not be put on probation for a substantial percentage of his young life. He probably just failed to think first. Just getting slapped on the wrist would be plenty to make him consider his actions the next time.
*No he should not be banned from the net. The net is an important to accessing informaiton in our society. Cutting someone off from the net would be like forbidding them to read 100 years ago. It puts them at a substantial disadvantage in to many ways to even begin to number.
*No he should not be label a convicted felon. That is going to make it hard for him to find jobs, prevent him from voteing, make it difficult(impossible?) to obtain credit and in many ways limit the things he can do for the rest of his life.
The punishment should fit the crim, this one does not come anywhere close. The crime was a minor defacement of property. This punishment is anything but minor/.
For crying out loud I hope that list was not supposed to be in order of importance.
Yea, specifications *are* the biggest problem. Unless I happen to be the end user, rarely does the end user know what he wants me to build until I show him/her the first prototype. At that point they might start to clarify what they want, If I am lucky their ideas are heavily colored by what they saw in the prototype and we can go for there, if not its back to square one, and usually several more trips there after that.
.. etc
I get requests like we need a program that users can run from the web that shows them if batch scans are in balance. I am then left to resolve on my own things like:
*What is a batch scan
*Where can one find a batch scan
*What does it mean for it to balance
*Can the thing just print a big Y or N in size 48font on the screen or does it need to detail something
--Then comes the anticipatory stuff
*Is the user going to expect to be able to correct an in blance
*Now that I understand what a batch scan is *maybe* I see all this other stuff should I also report on those things
*etc
People like to expect programming to go like engineering or architecture. Its not the coders don't want to apply discipline to their craft its that they can't. Nobody would dream of approaching an engineer or an architect without a pretty good idea of what they want to do. That is not to say the professional is not going to have to help them work out most of the details but the basics are going to be pretty clear. Imagine if I sent a request to an Architect asking for a "Structure that will be used by people." and gave no other information. I really doubt I would get a call back.
You can argue the PAs are not as good as they should be about requirements gathering, but I think there could be much more professionalism on the part of requesters as well. Its a waste of my time and theirs when they engage me as a developer before they have put even the most basic thought into what it is that they want. Some of this stuff is really esoteric and I understand that I will have to help them figure out how to solve the problem. I do feel they should know what the problem is.
called they want their Halloween documents back!
Well I was stil laughing at a post form the other day suggestion that if Steve Jobs release iPony MS would follow on that too.
The obvious answer you your question though is that I would tll them to go home and convince their parents to buy our
Gold level Teir One Four hour Anual Renewal support Contract for SuperWonderfulMagicPony and that they should strongly consider spending their allowence on our Monthy Prefered User Program where:
Get this you can request and vote on the features you'd like to see in the next version of SuperWonderfulMagicPony.
It's kinda of the reverse of the old line about STDs.
"remember you are having sex with everyone they have ever been with"
In this case its
"remember you are trusting every future owner of the ip"
That's right IBM has patent deals with Microsoft. Novell made a deal on behalf of other parties their customers supposedly. The did this without consultation of those customers. Which is even if legally possible is still from a view of actual justice highly questionable, especially when it puts other parties of unknow relationship to the Novell customers in grave danger.
Suppose I am and ISV that produces SuperWonderfulMagicPony for Linux. I run SUSE in house for my operational systems. The deal is great Microsoft won'y be sueing me. Wait they start sueing everyone else useing linux. I make a Linux product, I want as much Linux out there as possible regardless of distro because it means a bigger market for my wares. Suddenly I am not so happy with Novell. As there customer if they'd bothered to ask me if I wanted to have them stike this deal with M$ I would have declined.
IBM has made deal on behalf of IBM with M$. IBM worries about protecting or not protecting IBM's customers. Novell sold out and is letting M$ worry about their customers and possibly screw everyone else if they feel like it. Its not the same thing at all.
They are not in any bind. All they need to do is make Windows Profession need to authenticate with a Domain controler to operate. Naturally the DC has to have the suffencient number of cals or you can't connect. They do this with terminal services license servers already.
The home version is crippled enough corps won't use it and this would be adequate to stop most end users from ripping on Windows Pro. Most people are not going to want to run Windows Server, and they could get away with not supporting volume license installs for servers. I would guess even the biggest organizations have someone who gives a little bit of special attention and thought to each server or group of servers if we are talking clusters.
The only problem to solve then is how to deal with road warriors who are rarely on the network. Maybe you support some sort of delayed authentication. You can boot the system, but then you have to connect with a DC within 10min or it shuts down. That would give people time to get a VPN up. Perhaps you let the laptops go x days without authentication to a DC.
Microsoft is playing along. They don't need to implement the content protection stuff on Vista. They could simply say "We produce an operating system for an open architecture, and it does what it does period. If you don't like it then don't licence any software players for your content."
The media giants would be hurt way more the M$ would by going this route. Its not like everyone is going to swich away from Windows, espically just to play DVD's, on their computers. Most people DONT want much media on their computers. They watch it on their hardware players. Microsoft is not even doing this to assure themsevels some pice of the online content dilevery pie. If M$ did not implement DRM we simple would not see any only media services beyond what exists today. They content providers would just say no. The piarates would put everything on line like the do now and the distribtion model would suffer and die, the traditional content producers along with it. I for one would say good riddence to bad rubbish. I don't care if Sony, BMG, Virgin, Disney, Pixar, Reprise, et al. die I really don't. I would suggest that you should not either unless you work for them or have a contract with them, just sit tight someone with better newer ideas will be along t o take their place.
M$'s role in DRM is abount the same thing most M$ inititives have been aoubt LOCK IN. They see this as an oppertunity to do something nobody other then maybe Apple can, play protected content on their system. Open source won't be able to do it legally becase any open source DRM system would be totally useless. Closed DRM systems are just mostly usless, they can atleast slow you down and inflict legal barriers; thanks DMCA. Just wait M$ will be advertising that Windows is the only place to enjoy a modern multimedia experience in a couple years. This is how they plan to protect their desktop monopoly; the will colude with the old media oligarthy to do it.
I read the TFA and I saw nothing in it about Google attempting to create an atrifical bandwidth shortage. I read it as, the are predicting there will be a shortage and are negotiating access to as much bandwidth as they think they are likely to need for the services they plan to offer in the future. He simply points out that this will have the effect of marginalizing the local cable and telco's importants in the network. It probably will. If Google has cached copies of the data most users want located everywhere then it will be Google and the large backbone providers who Google will need for replication and such who will matter. Anyone who can afford to buy up the local copper or pay to lay local fiber, (that might be Google might be somebody else) will be able to cut the ISPs out and RBOC's out of the picture. All he is saying is the right now there are more barriers in place for doing that and Google might be removing all but the last mile problem.
Actually from a standpoint of musical taxonomy Rock really has it roots in country and blues, not so much jaz. Rock has been cross bread with a little Ska here and there which people mistake for a Jazz influence. I am not saying thatthe great Jazz men/women have not contributed to Rock just that for the most part they were doing more Blues or Ska like work when they did. Jazz is a fantasic but very unique style that is hard to integrate with other things.
Dude you have never see the results of a COBOL to C translator before have you. We used one to migrate some of our store systems form COBOL ot C. The result is something we call C-BOL. You have C code but each of the WORKING-STORAGE SECTION. Paragraphs are made into structs, and any place you did a move by name or somehting results in an even crazier union. Trust me you don't really want to go this way...
THANK YOU> I have only been out of school for about a year and only working professionaly as a developer for about three years. I do think you have said the most import thing in this entire discussion though. Business applications are NEVER techinically all that complex. I have developed GOOD(both in the minds of users and other programers) products with languages I had never used before I started on that particular task. If you are methodical about your codeing and have the doumentation you need availble you should be able to make just about any langue work. Methodical is important. JSP(as in structured programing) WORKS even in OO languages. There are sometimes complex problems with massive data volumes and such but the solutions are generally well known. They reason it is hard to get business applications right is that the business is usually complex, has complex rules with lots of exceptions. There is entirly too much focus on technial langauge and nameing standards and the like, design the applicaion correctly, document the design, and document the business rules the application implements. If you do these three things I don't care what languague you use, with what nameing conventions, or how big it is. You will have maintainable code.
Well that's just it..it could be just about anything.
Maybe the Russian government did do it? and figures they can say "hey whe know better then to do anything so easily traced as this its obviously a set up." At the same time their critics will know or at least have to assume they were in fact behind it an behave acordingly. They get the best of both worlds. That is just one of the infinite possiblilites.
Squirt! Come one why did he use the word "Squirt". Of all the stupid ways to describe the wireles features of his product. What could be more off putting.
News flash Steve this country has gotten pretty darn liberal in the social sense compared to where it was say 20, 30, and espically 50 years ago but the average American still wants little or nothing to do with squirting anything, save maybe a water pistol and even then only children, on or at anyone else in (at least in public) much less haveing it done to them. The connotations are just bad. When we think of squirting Steve most of us imagine embassasing missadventures with a mustard packet at lunch not something sexy; even if we did think sex its not in a sexy way.
Really would it have been so hard to say "beam", "zap", "shoot", "send", or "pass". All of us understand concepts of exchanging media in terms of sending as in mail, beam as in Star Trek transporter(even non geeks know that one), shoot as in t-shirt cannon, pass and in hand off object; there was no need to use the word "squirt". I don't have a marketing background but I could have told you describing the sharing features in terms of "squriting" was about the most off putting way talking about it possible.
Now where can I find an pretty girl to rope with the end a 2' headset wire as another man named Steve with equally severe, though less discusting, reality distortion issues suggested.
Certainly Novells actions are bogus and not designed for the good of the OS community at all but we don't need to fear their code any more then code from any place else; Microsoft wants Linux out of the picture and is a fearce competitor in any market it participates in; especially is core markets like PC and micro server operating systems.
Microsoft business is good sales are up but that is because the market is growing, others like Apple and Linux are takeing a part of the share M$ is used to haveing about 98% the writing on the wall says it won't stay that way unless something is done. Think about it we are rapidly approching the point where everyone has a PC or many and business have about as many as they know what to do with. Thats not to say people and orgainzations won't be always buying computer they will but it will be mostly a retire replace thing rather then a 1 + 1 = 2 like it has been the last 2 decades. Microsoft wants to keep 98% share. They know how to deal with traditional competitors. They can't deal with everyone and their brother producing different but mostly compatable platforms and more then the business modle IBM had around the PC could deal with the clone market. They sure can deal with RH and SUSE though. They are trying to play a patent game and ensure a finite number of traitional large corporate competition so they can do what they have always done; give away enough of their crack to get people hooked and at the same time starve the competition for revenue.
If M$ can kill the Linux market outside of Novell watch for windows to be suddenly free(as in beer) and come with free as in beer support. M$ can give windows away; after all they have other products to sell for you to run on top of it. Most people will then see windows as cheak as suse not understadning that with suse they'd be getting all the other stuff like web,sql,office apps, to and pick windows because its familiar. That is what M$ wants; they want to be able to kill linux they way they killed Netscape, Netware and countless others. They can't manage that right now because with all sorts of basically not for profit distros, debian and small commecial distros that are selected by very specific people for specific reasons like slackware. There is no clear revenue stream to attack. The mass of people useing and developing the software remains big enough that it continues to improve and inovate to the point where it becomes dangerous to them and they cant stop it.
Think about GNU/Linux is not quite but almost good enough to push replace windows in just about every desktop and server space it owns save a few without much pain. It does not need to be as good as windows just good enough and cheaper. Now even when those conditions are reached its still not going to be a big Linux title wave; in fact nothing at all will happen because people generally like the status quo. Ahh but what if a KILL APP was found something that you just can't do with windows but you could do easily with GNU/Linux. I don't know what that would be but at that point the war would be won over night. Windows would be a legacy platform like netware. That is what they fear.
In the mean time though M$ played their cards wrong and so did Novel. Novel was thinking this little patent game with M$ could effectivly make them a Monopoly or part of a Oligopoly in the Linux market which while not huge would be better from their point of view then the current situation. Novel is wrong of couse because if it worked out that the developers would dry up. Nobody wants to write free code for Novel. They want to write code that the whole community can use. They do it because its fun to have your name on something that lots of people depend on. They do it because its a fun challenge and it produces a useful product for them and friends. They do it because they benifited from and OS project and feel they should give something back. They do it to show off their skills and make themsevels more marketable. They do it for all sorts of ot
I think its interesting for other reasons as well. The parent is correct in that the author does indeed discredit his own ability to predict enviornmental impact in an artical about the very subject but the point he makes about Chernobyl is a bit off base as well.
Chernobyl was a very minor nuclear disaster as the potential for nuclear disasters goes. The Russians basically got very lucky that when the thing went up and blew the cap off the reactor, said cap happend to land more or less back where it was supposed to be. The incided also did not do much damage to the cement shell of the plant either. Basically most of the radiation has been confined to the pant itself and the reactor, very little got out compared to what might have been. I saw a nova sepecial on it once. They indicated that the radiation levels inside where almost 100 times what they are just outside the door. If other meltdowns happen other places there is no reason at all to think those folks would be as lucky interms of damage confinement and by extension no reason to think those areas would not become nuclear deserts.
Google is probably safer then you think. You can only clam damages from a copyright / patent violation if you can show you have attempted to protect your rights. If google the king of indexing can show a publishers content was on the site and that it was generating a resonably large amount of traffic and thefore know to the general masses to be availible. They should be mostly off the hook for any more then a cease and disist type order. Courts won't let content providers get away with we did not care before about the infrigement but not that they guy doing has deep pockets we do... Legislatures will but Courts won't so google at least has some time to reap the profits before they get shutdown and they will be then protected expost facto law.
My guess is this whole thing lasts about long enough for Google to double their investment before legal wranglings and legislative acts destroy it and turn it into something nothing like the original just as they did with online music services ala Napster. Google will get in get rich and get out.