"Unless you are playing Ben Hur, you're not going to get close enough to another car's tires for it to become a problem -"
Oh man, you should drive in on 690 into Syrcause, NY at rush hour. I am not sure if it is something in the water, or fumes from the chem spill they call a lake, or what, but Ben would have cried like a baby having to deal with these people! 4-6"? Not a problem.
I cannot comment on the other areas of comparison from this article, but how is Wikipedia an analogy for Darwinism? Wikipedia is the result of a creator who, along with a team of others, regulate the beast. If Wikipedia started out by accident with absolutely no help from the outside, then I would agree with the article. But, if anything, such analogies give credence to a Creationist viewpoint more than Darwinian.
Of course, if you don't believe in a God, then it can't point to any such thing. But the least we must admit is that the analogy fails on so many points that comparing it to any aspect of Darwinism is a stretch to say the least.
But the biggest problem with code re-use is the human resources element, they caution. Hoyle pointed out that programmers are likely to say, "I can write you some of that. Reuse is for sissies. I'm a better programmer than they are."
This is just simply a poisoning of the well. Most of the time I have seen this when programmers aren't busy enough with other things. I have known a few workaholics, usually very young, who will simply keep taking on projects even though there is no way they will ever get them done. There simply is not enough hours in a day. But most I have met are more then willing to use 3rd party components when their schedule is already topped off and they are being realistic about meeting their goals. They are very unlikely to refuse a leg up.
That said, the last thing a programmer wants to do is implement a 3rd party component that he knows won't work with out a lot of additional work only to get blamed when the thing fails to do what management was told it would do from the provider. If a developer knows he can do a better job and have the confidence it is going to work right and it is most likely going to take about the same amount of time as "plugging in" a 3rd party solution, then he is right to offer his services.
To categorically state that programmers are "likely" to want to code from scratch for purely selfish reasons, however, only prejudices upper management against any protest the programmer might have regardless of its validity.
Oh my goodness! Aside from the scarry implications, this is the funniest email I have read. What are they thinking? This is a perfect example of someone's knowledge only serving to prove their ignorance.
That aside, I have always been wowed by Linux and FreeBSD being able to stay up for amazingly long periods of time. Which, of course, doesn't have the same implications as the XP/911 statement that was made. These OS's can be updated most of the time without a reboot. Which brings up an interesting point concerning the article: What was the time frame for uptime? If sysads where doing their jobs then downtime would occure for windows almost everytime an update occured. Looking at the dates I had patches installed I get dates like: 1/5, 1/6, 1/12, 2/24, 4/18, 4/28, 5/10, 5/15, 5/30. Between January and June only March was free of updates. I have used Linux enough to know that it can stay running longer then a month even with updates (unless we are talking about some major kernel update).
On the surface, the only thing I can assume from the article is that no updates were done on the windows boxes. Which would say something about the sysadmins, not the OS's.
None of what I am saying really affects the outcome of the study. Perhaps the Linux machines came down and no one knew enough to get the back up again. But that kind of stuff happens in windows too.
I have used both OS's and I have things I like about both and things I don't like about both. It sure would be nice to see a study that was done by someone who didn't give a hoot about the outcome.
But just in case anyone is wondering, not only is the NSA out of line, they are wasteing taxpayers money and their own time. But that aside, what do they do with the info? Where do they store it and how safe is it? Uncle Sam doesn't have a good running record when it comes to keeping their computers locked down.
Finally, I love this question:
What do you think is more important right now - (for the federal government to investigate possible terrorist threats, even if that intrudes on personal privacy); or (for the federal government not to intrude on personal privacy, even if that limits its ability to investigate possible terrorist threats)?
Why not ask:...for the feds to invade your privacy, even if it will do absolutely no good, or for the feds to not invade your privacy?
By the way, what is a terrorist? All the people on the phone are thinking, "Terrorist = crazy religious radical from the Middle East that blows himself up along with lots of innocent people." But what if we define terrorist as anyone who doesn't have the best interests of the US government? Or who speaks out against the US government? Or won't do what the government tells them to do? (Good grief, that's the entire/. community!)
People are excusing the NSA's actions based on a definition of a word that may not be the same for the NSA or our government. Even if it is the same today, will it be tomorrow?
That/. does the same thing. I don't believe it, but just in case I am thinking of switching to ***** where I can finally have peace of mind. ***** doesn't censor anyway. Maybe we should all switch over to ***** for our news, eh?
We tell children all the time that nature belongs in nature. Don't feed the animals, don't steal the babies, don't try to pet the bears, etc. In other words, let things be the way they flow naturally and stay out of the way. Of course, there have to be rules and production quotas have to be met, but the best environments I have been in were the ones where the managers got involved as minimally as possible. They let the grunts know what they needed, how important it was on the priority list and then stepped back. In my current job my boss made it clear that I had 100% freedom to do what I wanted. He only would take those freedoms away if I wasn't doing my job. He has lived up to that promise. I can take time off when I need, come in when I want, talk to whom I want, when I want as long as I want. As long as I get the job done and play well with the others.
Of course, I am a programmer and these things become harder if you work in an environment like an assembly line or other such high paced fields. But even then the job can be made much more enjoyable if the managers just learn to back off and let people do their job.
In the end, however, it is still work. Like someone else posted here, can work ever be "fun"? Maybe not. But it should be satisfying and, at least some of the time, enjoyable.
That said, the worst environments I have ever worked in were the ones where the managers tried to make working "fun".
You assume that I have a son or daughter and that they would, someday, be on a battle field. A bit much on your part.
Second of all, being an RN, I am well aware of how many 4x4's it takes to cover a really nasty cut, let alone a puctured artery or really deep laceration. No matter which way you slice it, $1000 dollars (estimate) for a large cut is only going to go so far before the back roll runs out.
In other words, I won't have to worry about my sons or daughters (that I may or may not have) going to war (which they may or may not) and needing sea food wraps because, at the current price, we will all be too bankrupt to go to war in the first place.
It's either that or we trade in our bombs and fancy machines for sticks and horses so that we can have access to the best gastronomical elastoplasts.
Or you could just not take my comments seriously and have a nice day.
But how to soften the financial blow those things are bound to cause.
I can just imagine...
Soldier: "Medic!!!"
Medic: "Here, let me wrap that wound..."
Soldier: "Hey, why are those 4x4s all red?"
Medic: "Er...well...with all the cut backs and stuff...we...ummm...have to reuse these things. Hey, they cost 100 smackers you know!"
Oh! Better yet...
"Hey, nice party, Marg."
"Thanks Ralph."
"But Marg, what are those funny looking things around the shrimp cocktail?"
"Oh, those. Well, when Johnny came back from Iraq..."
Hey, just some suggestions. Those are tax dollars. We should have some say how they are used. Right?
Ballmer said the security fears some governments had about using Microsoft software were overblown.
Overblown? Not unfounded? I love his choice of words.
"We think our software is far more secure than open-source software. It is more secure because we stand behind it, we fixed it, because we built it. Nobody ever knows who built open-source software," he said.
Oh yeah, We all know who built Windows. Bill Gates right? And Linus built linux! What a wonderful world Steve lives in. I wish he would invite me over to play. Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy. I wonder if Bill cringes everytime he hears that Steve has opened his mouth?
It is a riot to read through all these posts on Pascal.
When I was knee high to a grasshopper I used Pascal to...
I remember once using pascal in high school to...
Man, Pascal is such a great language! Why I remember the last time I used it, it was just like yesterday...25 years ago...
Cut me some slack! Yes, it is a good language, I even have used it from time to time. But the adjectives pleasurable, cool, awesome, etc., are not what I would use to describe the experience. Perhaps okay, humdrum, yawn and eh? are some words I could use.
I know that people still use it but Borland/Inprise (yeah, remember the Inprise fiasco?) seem to do a real good job killing it. In fact, I would go so far as to suggest that Borland is Delphi's worse enemy.
I won't go down the list of things I hate about the language or Delphi, but if I were looking for a language to use for my next project, and I read the posts here, I would NOT choose a language that seems to have only fond memories going for it (btw, try doing a search for books about Delphi on Amazon).
If Delphi is so good and [ any language pascal users hate ] is so bad then how come Delphi is doing so miserably in the market? Ok, Ok! Yes, if you go to Brazil or the Ukraine EVERYONE and their grandmother is using it. But for as sucky as C/C++ (according to Pascalites) is it sure gets a whole LOT more air time then Pascal/Delphi. We could blame it on MSonopolies and cooperations, but that doesn't seem to go vary far either when you look at the open source community. And if cooperate America drove the use of language (not saying they don't have some say it it) then Java would be a rip roaring hit. Is it? NOT! It has a following but even it bills itself as a language that is much like C++. Even C# has a very C-ish look and feel (with a very Pascal-ish smell).
I remember once during a Delphi campaign Borland (or were they Inprise then?) tried to convince VB programmers that moving to Delphi would be easy and painless. If that doesn't give you chills then you are dead.
Sometime, if we all get together, I will show you my b&w photos of me using Pascal.
Seems like microsoft isn't the only one having fun with this sort of stuff. They are just getting on the band wagon. In the end I wonder who or what will be left standing.
Re:It's the legal system
on
Complications
·
· Score: 2, Funny
ummm, you would lose the law suit anyway....you wouldn't have a leg to stand on!
Slashdot Mirror
I am thinking of a new rendition of Battleship.
"Unless you are playing Ben Hur, you're not going to get close enough to another car's tires for it to become a problem -"
Oh man, you should drive in on 690 into Syrcause, NY at rush hour. I am not sure if it is something in the water, or fumes from the chem spill they call a lake, or what, but Ben would have cried like a baby having to deal with these people! 4-6"? Not a problem.
I cannot comment on the other areas of comparison from this article, but how is Wikipedia an analogy for Darwinism? Wikipedia is the result of a creator who, along with a team of others, regulate the beast. If Wikipedia started out by accident with absolutely no help from the outside, then I would agree with the article. But, if anything, such analogies give credence to a Creationist viewpoint more than Darwinian. Of course, if you don't believe in a God, then it can't point to any such thing. But the least we must admit is that the analogy fails on so many points that comparing it to any aspect of Darwinism is a stretch to say the least.
But the biggest problem with code re-use is the human resources element, they caution. Hoyle pointed out that programmers are likely to say, "I can write you some of that. Reuse is for sissies. I'm a better programmer than they are."
This is just simply a poisoning of the well. Most of the time I have seen this when programmers aren't busy enough with other things. I have known a few workaholics, usually very young, who will simply keep taking on projects even though there is no way they will ever get them done. There simply is not enough hours in a day. But most I have met are more then willing to use 3rd party components when their schedule is already topped off and they are being realistic about meeting their goals. They are very unlikely to refuse a leg up.
That said, the last thing a programmer wants to do is implement a 3rd party component that he knows won't work with out a lot of additional work only to get blamed when the thing fails to do what management was told it would do from the provider. If a developer knows he can do a better job and have the confidence it is going to work right and it is most likely going to take about the same amount of time as "plugging in" a 3rd party solution, then he is right to offer his services.
To categorically state that programmers are "likely" to want to code from scratch for purely selfish reasons, however, only prejudices upper management against any protest the programmer might have regardless of its validity.
Oh my goodness! Aside from the scarry implications, this is the funniest email I have read. What are they thinking? This is a perfect example of someone's knowledge only serving to prove their ignorance.
That aside, I have always been wowed by Linux and FreeBSD being able to stay up for amazingly long periods of time. Which, of course, doesn't have the same implications as the XP/911 statement that was made. These OS's can be updated most of the time without a reboot. Which brings up an interesting point concerning the article: What was the time frame for uptime? If sysads where doing their jobs then downtime would occure for windows almost everytime an update occured. Looking at the dates I had patches installed I get dates like: 1/5, 1/6, 1/12, 2/24, 4/18, 4/28, 5/10, 5/15, 5/30. Between January and June only March was free of updates. I have used Linux enough to know that it can stay running longer then a month even with updates (unless we are talking about some major kernel update).
On the surface, the only thing I can assume from the article is that no updates were done on the windows boxes. Which would say something about the sysadmins, not the OS's.
None of what I am saying really affects the outcome of the study. Perhaps the Linux machines came down and no one knew enough to get the back up again. But that kind of stuff happens in windows too.
I have used both OS's and I have things I like about both and things I don't like about both. It sure would be nice to see a study that was done by someone who didn't give a hoot about the outcome.
b--
But just in case anyone is wondering, not only is the NSA out of line, they are wasteing taxpayers money and their own time. But that aside, what do they do with the info? Where do they store it and how safe is it? Uncle Sam doesn't have a good running record when it comes to keeping their computers locked down.
Finally, I love this question:
...for the feds to invade your privacy, even if it will do absolutely no good, or for the feds to not invade your privacy?
/. community!)
What do you think is more important right now - (for the federal government to investigate possible terrorist threats, even if that intrudes on personal privacy); or (for the federal government not to intrude on personal privacy, even if that limits its ability to investigate possible terrorist threats)?
Why not ask:
By the way, what is a terrorist? All the people on the phone are thinking, "Terrorist = crazy religious radical from the Middle East that blows himself up along with lots of innocent people." But what if we define terrorist as anyone who doesn't have the best interests of the US government? Or who speaks out against the US government? Or won't do what the government tells them to do? (Good grief, that's the entire
People are excusing the NSA's actions based on a definition of a word that may not be the same for the NSA or our government. Even if it is the same today, will it be tomorrow?
It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt. -- Martin Luther King Jr.
Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent,
and discerning if he holds his tongue.
Proverbs 17:28
God beat him to the punch by a few thousand years.
Researchers at CalTech have discovered how bees fly, putting one more nail in the coffin of Intelligent Design.
I don't follow the logic. This is like figuring out how a car engine works and coming to the conclusion that there are no engineers.
That /. does the same thing. I don't believe it, but just in case I am thinking of switching to ***** where I can finally have peace of mind. ***** doesn't censor anyway. Maybe we should all switch over to ***** for our news, eh?
Oops, sorry. Just noticed the author. Since he is a techie maybe that makes the dif. I was just going on the summery.
And next week on Slashdot: Dr. Phil on how to be a better you!
/. was techie sort of news site. Oh well, live and learn.
My fault, I am sure, but I guess I was under the impression
We tell children all the time that nature belongs in nature. Don't feed the animals, don't steal the babies, don't try to pet the bears, etc. In other words, let things be the way they flow naturally and stay out of the way. Of course, there have to be rules and production quotas have to be met, but the best environments I have been in were the ones where the managers got involved as minimally as possible. They let the grunts know what they needed, how important it was on the priority list and then stepped back. In my current job my boss made it clear that I had 100% freedom to do what I wanted. He only would take those freedoms away if I wasn't doing my job. He has lived up to that promise. I can take time off when I need, come in when I want, talk to whom I want, when I want as long as I want. As long as I get the job done and play well with the others.
Of course, I am a programmer and these things become harder if you work in an environment like an assembly line or other such high paced fields. But even then the job can be made much more enjoyable if the managers just learn to back off and let people do their job.
In the end, however, it is still work. Like someone else posted here, can work ever be "fun"? Maybe not. But it should be satisfying and, at least some of the time, enjoyable.
That said, the worst environments I have ever worked in were the ones where the managers tried to make working "fun".
If this bold social experiment produces lots of isolated people...
In a country the size of Montana with a population of over 127 million people? It seems to me that the opposite would be true.
The fact is pointed out that some things are much easier to break then to fix.
You assume that I have a son or daughter and that they would, someday, be on a battle field. A bit much on your part.
Second of all, being an RN, I am well aware of how many 4x4's it takes to cover a really nasty cut, let alone a puctured artery or really deep laceration. No matter which way you slice it, $1000 dollars (estimate) for a large cut is only going to go so far before the back roll runs out.
In other words, I won't have to worry about my sons or daughters (that I may or may not have) going to war (which they may or may not) and needing sea food wraps because, at the current price, we will all be too bankrupt to go to war in the first place.
It's either that or we trade in our bombs and fancy machines for sticks and horses so that we can have access to the best gastronomical elastoplasts.
Or you could just not take my comments seriously and have a nice day.
Wow! Talking about the Six Million Dollar Man!
But how to soften the financial blow those things are bound to cause.
I can just imagine...
Soldier: "Medic!!!"Medic: "Here, let me wrap that wound..."
Soldier: "Hey, why are those 4x4s all red?"
Medic: "Er...well...with all the cut backs and stuff...we...ummm...have to reuse these things. Hey, they cost 100 smackers you know!"
Oh! Better yet...
"Hey, nice party, Marg.""Thanks Ralph."
"But Marg, what are those funny looking things around the shrimp cocktail?"
"Oh, those. Well, when Johnny came back from Iraq..."
Hey, just some suggestions. Those are tax dollars. We should have some say how they are used. Right?
Tiger-direct is their name not Tiger
Actually, their name is TigerDirect. Eitherway, I can't see how having an OS called Tiger around could cause a problem to this company.
Besides, what about:
http://www.5tigers.org/
http://www.tigerhaven.org/
http://www.tigerairways.com/
http://www.infotiger.com/
http://www.tigerlillies.com/2003/index.php
etc...
Just seems to me that TigerDirect is looking for a little extra cash.
How in the world are they going to prove that Tiger hurt the sales of TigerDirect or in any way caused a problem?
Guess that's the last time I buy from those people.
Hey, near the flash...I...am I the only one that can see a faint outline of....ELVIS! The king HAS returned!
Overblown? Not unfounded? I love his choice of words.
"We think our software is far more secure than open-source software. It is more secure because we stand behind it, we fixed it, because we built it. Nobody ever knows who built open-source software," he said.
Oh yeah, We all know who built Windows. Bill Gates right? And Linus built linux! What a wonderful world Steve lives in. I wish he would invite me over to play. Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy. I wonder if Bill cringes everytime he hears that Steve has opened his mouth?
It is a riot to read through all these posts on Pascal.
When I was knee high to a grasshopper I used Pascal to...
I remember once using pascal in high school to...
Man, Pascal is such a great language! Why I remember the last time I used it, it was just like yesterday...25 years ago...
Cut me some slack! Yes, it is a good language, I even have used it from time to time. But the adjectives pleasurable, cool, awesome, etc., are not what I would use to describe the experience. Perhaps okay, humdrum, yawn and eh? are some words I could use.
I know that people still use it but Borland/Inprise (yeah, remember the Inprise fiasco?) seem to do a real good job killing it. In fact, I would go so far as to suggest that Borland is Delphi's worse enemy.
I won't go down the list of things I hate about the language or Delphi, but if I were looking for a language to use for my next project, and I read the posts here, I would NOT choose a language that seems to have only fond memories going for it (btw, try doing a search for books about Delphi on Amazon).
If Delphi is so good and [ any language pascal users hate ] is so bad then how come Delphi is doing so miserably in the market? Ok, Ok! Yes, if you go to Brazil or the Ukraine EVERYONE and their grandmother is using it. But for as sucky as C/C++ (according to Pascalites) is it sure gets a whole LOT more air time then Pascal/Delphi. We could blame it on MSonopolies and cooperations, but that doesn't seem to go vary far either when you look at the open source community. And if cooperate America drove the use of language (not saying they don't have some say it it) then Java would be a rip roaring hit. Is it? NOT! It has a following but even it bills itself as a language that is much like C++. Even C# has a very C-ish look and feel (with a very Pascal-ish smell).
I remember once during a Delphi campaign Borland (or were they Inprise then?) tried to convince VB programmers that moving to Delphi would be easy and painless. If that doesn't give you chills then you are dead.
Sometime, if we all get together, I will show you my b&w photos of me using Pascal.
Seems like microsoft isn't the only one having fun with this sort of stuff. They are just getting on the band wagon. In the end I wonder who or what will be left standing.
ummm, you would lose the law suit anyway....you wouldn't have a leg to stand on!