Wow, my first accepted submission:) At last, an excuse to read Slashdot at work tomorrow!
I kept the submission fairly general, to avoid steering the discussion in any specific direction. Here are a few more details of our situation:
We're a small-to-medium business, and our reporting needs are relatively modest (at the moment - we are steadily growing). I would say no more than 10-20 people need to generate reports. Our software department is also quite small - we have a fair amount of in-house Java expertise, but no one who actually knows Crystal Reports. We're also using an old version, and the reports themselves are out of date. Our choices are to invest in a new version of Crystal, the time for one of us to learn it, and rewriting the reports anyway - or choosing an open-source Java solution and hope for the best. The constraint, as always, is very limited manpower...
Any feedback is welcome - I've seen some very good posts already, I'll have to read all the comments tomorrow in detail.
Glad to see Web Developer at the top of the list... it is, IMO, by far the most useful Firefox plugin out there. I've been using it at work for a few months, and even got a few co-workers to install Firefox specifically because they wanted to use this plugin...
Just one datapoint, but it reinforces in my mind how important plugins (they're plugins, dammit! why are they pushing the term "extension"!) are to Firefox's success. Which, I guess, was the whole point of this contest.
The more I hear about this story, the less it makes sense.
First of all, "rejects" seems a bit strong - if I'm reading the article correctly, this is just a counterargument, and the matter is still very much in the air - with a hearing on March 13. So far so good.
What I still don't get is what legal grounds the Justice Department has for filing this subpoena. I really, really, really don't get it. Can someone more familiar with US law or with this case enlighten me?
"The study does not involve examining the queries in more than a cursory way. It involves running a random sample of the queries through the Google search engine and categorizing the results," Stark, a statistics professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said.
That's great, but why can't they research their own set of queries? You know, the old fashioned way - paying some consultants a boatload of money to come up with some useless results? Or why not ask Google nicely? Okay, maybe that's a bit naive, but why not offer to hire Google to help them with their study? Why a SUBPOENA? And why Google, and not the other search engines? Have they already asked the other search engines and received a list of queries? If so, why are they still going after Google? If not, why haven't they?
I have to agree with the parent on this one. Stop and think for a minute. Do you SERIOUSLY think the iPod is as successful as it is because it's a better player than the others out there?
When it first came out, was your first reaction "OMG, that player is so much better than anything on the market, I want one"? Or did that only come later, when everyone and their dog was talking about it?
Let's face it, the "best" player on the market is a question of personal preference. There are other companies out there that make decent players, and some people prefer them (won't give examples to avoid being called astroturfer on top of the troll I'll undoubtedly get). The biggest difference is that none of them are fashion statements, while the iPod is. That comes from marketing, not from engineering.
Apple makes good products, undoubtedly (it's VERY hard to make an expensive product successful through marketing unless it also happens to be at least decent), but it's their marketing and their image that gives them the edge, not the "innovative engineering".
But why SHOULD they turn this data over? It's not connected to a criminal, or even civil, case. It's not even connected to "homeland security". The government is just asking for this data because they feel like it.
What amazes me the most about this whole affair - and that I haven't really seen addressed - is that this is the kind of data usually provided by studies... that the government would have to fund. I really don't see what basis they have for asking this as free information.
Put it another way - what would happen if the government said "we need to write an operating system that we can control, but that is 100% compatible with all the Windows apps" and requested the Windows source code from Microsoft, instead of writing their own? Again, for free? You know, just because they're the government, and they can ask for it? Besides the fact that Slashdot would implode because it wouldn't know which side to support, I can only assume Microsoft's reaction would be the same.
I don't think anyone really believes this is about "identifying information". Plain and simple, this mountain of data Google is sitting on is a huge part of their value as a company, and giving it away would be equivalent to suicide.
Not everyone is a networking guru (I know I'm not). I'm sure many people without much networking background have wondered the same thing as the article poster at some point or another, quite likely while reading all the "government/telcos/corporations/Godzilla are going to eat our Internet" stories here on Slashdot. The comments in this story are the perfect place to give these people a better understanding of how the internet works.
This isn't a question that's easy to Google if you don't already know what to look for (in which case you don't need to), and the poster shouldn't have to take a networking course just to get an answer. I would say it's a perfect question for Ask Slashdot - if you don't like the user's ignorance, you could take the time to educate him and the many other Slashdot readers like him with a more informative post.
This story never would've made it if it wasn't submitted as "Google launches"... now we're left with a slashvertisment for a rather ugly site desperately trying to be Web2.0-looking and that "is set to next month", a whole bunch of posts pointing out that it has nothing to do with Google that are unfortunately now getting modded off-topic, another bunch of posts linking to koders.com, and nothing of substance to talk about.
I love Slashdot:)/take notes for when I'll need to generate "buzz" for a product launch
I read this blog entry with a growing sense of unease, until I got to this point:
The benefits of a product design process are well documented. New products that deliver superior, unique benefits to the customer have a commercial success rate of 98% compared to 18.4% for undifferentiated products. These products reach an outstanding 53.5% market share.
As much as I wanted to finish reading the article, I just couldn't get past that. It is well documented that 83.8% of Slashdotters who share my interests and read the RTFA reacted the same way.
Cute illustrations, impressive list of references... but I haven't been able to extract any useful information from the article. Yes, writing software that people want to use is hard. Yes, listening to customers is very important, but also a lot trickier than "listen to your customers". Yes, to write successful software you need a mix of many different skills, not just programming, and yes, it is often difficult to even know what those skills are, let alone to find people who have them and to get them to work together productively.
Is any of this theory really that groundbreaking? I like to think that all these concepts are self-obvious to anyone involved in the software industry - the difficult part is actually translating them into reality.
Who is this Louis Savain guy, and why should we care that he thinks he's smarter than a long list of respected physicists/scientists/etc?
Let's take this little tidbit, randomly selected:
STEPHEN HAWKING: Time travel might be possible, but if that is the case why haven't we been overrun by tourists from the future?
[Here Sir Stephen is a skeptic regarding time travel to the past although, he subsequently changed his mind and now believes that time travel is possible. Still he believes in time travel toward the future and that makes him a time travel crackpot.]
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't time travel toward the future as simple as accelerating relative to an observer? Eg. austronauts returning to earth have "travelled" to the future a small amount of time relative to those who stayed on earth - and the amount would grow as they approach the speed of light?
I don't claim to understand this stuff, but I thought that much was agreed upon... if this guy doesn't seem aware even of this, why should I care about even one word he says?
Does it come with the deeds to a bridge?
on
Africa, The MMOG
·
· Score: 1
Here's what the 19-year-old programming wizard responsible for developing this ambitious MMOG promises he'll deliver just 10 months from now, thanks to supposed paradigm-changing technology that reduces development costs and timelines by "ninety percent or more"
Thanks... I needed the laugh:) Don't really need to read past that.
Everyone and their dog seems to be trying to make an MMOG. Heck, I have a few ideas of my own and I'd really love having the time and the resources to implement them. The truth is, though, that MMOGs are some of the most complex and difficult software built today... I don't think many people realize that. Add to that the fact that a MMOG lives and dies by how many people it attracts - the _Massively_ Multiplayer part - and... yeah, you can see where this is going.
Go to the Ogre3D (open-source 3d engine) forums and read all the posts from people saying they're starting their own MMOG project, and does anyone want to help. Take a wild guess what the usual response from the more experienced developers is:p
Nope... even after reading the article, I fail to see any mention of super-intelligent pigeons that have been trained or figured out how to use computers and post to blogs... my assertion stands;)
You might suggest that a blog entry would have to have meaning.
I think that would be overestimating blogs;)
I WOULD, however, suggest that some level of awareness or conciousness would have to be involved. I'll go as far as saying that if a person considers that they're posting information to a blog - or at least is aware that they're selecting some information to be shared with others - then it's a blog. That's about as general a definition as you can get.
Re:It could very well be considered blogging.
on
Pigeons to Blog Pollution
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Would a PHP random number generator script count as blogging? What about a script that generates a random blurb based on a random number generator?
In terms of information, it's roughly equivalent. I'm going to go out on a limb here and, even without reading the article, assert that the pigeons themselves are not "posting short blurbs of information" anywhere.
A bit surprised to see Smalltalk in the list of languages to use "beyond java", since (unless I'm wrong) the language is a fair bit older than Java...
To the more experienced developers on Slashdot - is Smalltalk still used today? I have a decent idea of where the other languages mentioned in the article are used - but the only times I've heard of Smalltalk is generally connected to learning OO concepts. Has it gone the way of Pascal, or is there still some niche outside of academia where it thrives?
And no, I'm not trolling, it's an honest question:p
John Romero is to developing an MMO......like Microsoft is to writing secure software?...like the RIAA is to sharing music?...like Slashdot editors are to using proper grammar?
I was going to reply with something along the lines of a resounding "DUH!!!" (remember the last days of Napster?), but Taco's from the see-thats-why-i-misspell-stuff dept. made me laugh out loud and forgot what I wanted to say. Well done:)
I think iTunes shows that people are willing to pay (for a reasonable price), but that they want the convenience of electronic distribution.
Yes, but grandparent is saying that the "peer-to-peer" part of P2P is the least important or wanted for people, not that they don't want electronic distribution.
I'd guess the hierarchy of desirability for methods of electronic distribution would go something like this:
1) Free, dedicated (eg. download-only) 2) Free, shared (eg. peer-to-peer - have to upload as well) 3) Pay, dedicated 4) Pay, shared
Sounds like WB's scheme is at the bottom of the list, AND without signficiant price savings over simply buying the physical media.
Slashdot Mirror
Wow, my first accepted submission :) At last, an excuse to read Slashdot at work tomorrow!
I kept the submission fairly general, to avoid steering the discussion in any specific direction. Here are a few more details of our situation:
We're a small-to-medium business, and our reporting needs are relatively modest (at the moment - we are steadily growing). I would say no more than 10-20 people need to generate reports. Our software department is also quite small - we have a fair amount of in-house Java expertise, but no one who actually knows Crystal Reports. We're also using an old version, and the reports themselves are out of date. Our choices are to invest in a new version of Crystal, the time for one of us to learn it, and rewriting the reports anyway - or choosing an open-source Java solution and hope for the best. The constraint, as always, is very limited manpower...
Any feedback is welcome - I've seen some very good posts already, I'll have to read all the comments tomorrow in detail.
Thanks!
Glad to see Web Developer at the top of the list... it is, IMO, by far the most useful Firefox plugin out there. I've been using it at work for a few months, and even got a few co-workers to install Firefox specifically because they wanted to use this plugin...
Just one datapoint, but it reinforces in my mind how important plugins (they're plugins, dammit! why are they pushing the term "extension"!) are to Firefox's success. Which, I guess, was the whole point of this contest.
First of all, "rejects" seems a bit strong - if I'm reading the article correctly, this is just a counterargument, and the matter is still very much in the air - with a hearing on March 13. So far so good.
What I still don't get is what legal grounds the Justice Department has for filing this subpoena. I really, really, really don't get it. Can someone more familiar with US law or with this case enlighten me?
That's great, but why can't they research their own set of queries? You know, the old fashioned way - paying some consultants a boatload of money to come up with some useless results? Or why not ask Google nicely? Okay, maybe that's a bit naive, but why not offer to hire Google to help them with their study? Why a SUBPOENA? And why Google, and not the other search engines? Have they already asked the other search engines and received a list of queries? If so, why are they still going after Google? If not, why haven't they?
None of this makes sense to me. Any help?
Too bad it doesn't have a gradient background and the word "blog" somewhere... then it'd be complete :)
Ahh, and the fanboys come out of the woodwork.
I have to agree with the parent on this one. Stop and think for a minute. Do you SERIOUSLY think the iPod is as successful as it is because it's a better player than the others out there?
When it first came out, was your first reaction "OMG, that player is so much better than anything on the market, I want one"? Or did that only come later, when everyone and their dog was talking about it?
Let's face it, the "best" player on the market is a question of personal preference. There are other companies out there that make decent players, and some people prefer them (won't give examples to avoid being called astroturfer on top of the troll I'll undoubtedly get). The biggest difference is that none of them are fashion statements, while the iPod is. That comes from marketing, not from engineering.
Apple makes good products, undoubtedly (it's VERY hard to make an expensive product successful through marketing unless it also happens to be at least decent), but it's their marketing and their image that gives them the edge, not the "innovative engineering".
But why SHOULD they turn this data over? It's not connected to a criminal, or even civil, case. It's not even connected to "homeland security". The government is just asking for this data because they feel like it.
What amazes me the most about this whole affair - and that I haven't really seen addressed - is that this is the kind of data usually provided by studies... that the government would have to fund. I really don't see what basis they have for asking this as free information.
Put it another way - what would happen if the government said "we need to write an operating system that we can control, but that is 100% compatible with all the Windows apps" and requested the Windows source code from Microsoft, instead of writing their own? Again, for free? You know, just because they're the government, and they can ask for it? Besides the fact that Slashdot would implode because it wouldn't know which side to support, I can only assume Microsoft's reaction would be the same.
I don't think anyone really believes this is about "identifying information". Plain and simple, this mountain of data Google is sitting on is a huge part of their value as a company, and giving it away would be equivalent to suicide.
Oh, chill out.
Not everyone is a networking guru (I know I'm not). I'm sure many people without much networking background have wondered the same thing as the article poster at some point or another, quite likely while reading all the "government/telcos/corporations/Godzilla are going to eat our Internet" stories here on Slashdot. The comments in this story are the perfect place to give these people a better understanding of how the internet works.
This isn't a question that's easy to Google if you don't already know what to look for (in which case you don't need to), and the poster shouldn't have to take a networking course just to get an answer. I would say it's a perfect question for Ask Slashdot - if you don't like the user's ignorance, you could take the time to educate him and the many other Slashdot readers like him with a more informative post.
This story never would've made it if it wasn't submitted as "Google launches"... now we're left with a slashvertisment for a rather ugly site desperately trying to be Web2.0-looking and that "is set to next month", a whole bunch of posts pointing out that it has nothing to do with Google that are unfortunately now getting modded off-topic, another bunch of posts linking to koders.com, and nothing of substance to talk about.
:) /take notes for when I'll need to generate "buzz" for a product launch
I love Slashdot
As much as I wanted to finish reading the article, I just couldn't get past that. It is well documented that 83.8% of Slashdotters who share my interests and read the RTFA reacted the same way.
Cute illustrations, impressive list of references... but I haven't been able to extract any useful information from the article. Yes, writing software that people want to use is hard. Yes, listening to customers is very important, but also a lot trickier than "listen to your customers". Yes, to write successful software you need a mix of many different skills, not just programming, and yes, it is often difficult to even know what those skills are, let alone to find people who have them and to get them to work together productively.
Is any of this theory really that groundbreaking? I like to think that all these concepts are self-obvious to anyone involved in the software industry - the difficult part is actually translating them into reality.
The same is true for anyone who would ever install Norton Antivirus (as opposed to Symantec Antivirus) in a business environment...
:p
So I'm really conflicted here, because it almost seems like a situation where two wrongs make a right
Next on Slashdot: the founder of Baskin Robbins explains why icecream is cold!
Let's take this little tidbit, randomly selected:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't time travel toward the future as simple as accelerating relative to an observer? Eg. austronauts returning to earth have "travelled" to the future a small amount of time relative to those who stayed on earth - and the amount would grow as they approach the speed of light?
I don't claim to understand this stuff, but I thought that much was agreed upon... if this guy doesn't seem aware even of this, why should I care about even one word he says?
I agree. 4D gaming is definitely the future.
Here's what the 19-year-old programming wizard responsible for developing this ambitious MMOG promises he'll deliver just 10 months from now, thanks to supposed paradigm-changing technology that reduces development costs and timelines by "ninety percent or more"
:) Don't really need to read past that.
:p
Thanks... I needed the laugh
Everyone and their dog seems to be trying to make an MMOG. Heck, I have a few ideas of my own and I'd really love having the time and the resources to implement them. The truth is, though, that MMOGs are some of the most complex and difficult software built today... I don't think many people realize that. Add to that the fact that a MMOG lives and dies by how many people it attracts - the _Massively_ Multiplayer part - and... yeah, you can see where this is going.
Go to the Ogre3D (open-source 3d engine) forums and read all the posts from people saying they're starting their own MMOG project, and does anyone want to help. Take a wild guess what the usual response from the more experienced developers is
Nope... even after reading the article, I fail to see any mention of super-intelligent pigeons that have been trained or figured out how to use computers and post to blogs... my assertion stands ;)
You might suggest that a blog entry would have to have meaning.
;)
I think that would be overestimating blogs
I WOULD, however, suggest that some level of awareness or conciousness would have to be involved. I'll go as far as saying that if a person considers that they're posting information to a blog - or at least is aware that they're selecting some information to be shared with others - then it's a blog. That's about as general a definition as you can get.
Would a PHP random number generator script count as blogging? What about a script that generates a random blurb based on a random number generator?
In terms of information, it's roughly equivalent. I'm going to go out on a limb here and, even without reading the article, assert that the pigeons themselves are not "posting short blurbs of information" anywhere.
A bit surprised to see Smalltalk in the list of languages to use "beyond java", since (unless I'm wrong) the language is a fair bit older than Java...
:p
To the more experienced developers on Slashdot - is Smalltalk still used today? I have a decent idea of where the other languages mentioned in the article are used - but the only times I've heard of Smalltalk is generally connected to learning OO concepts. Has it gone the way of Pascal, or is there still some niche outside of academia where it thrives?
And no, I'm not trolling, it's an honest question
...or like me to using paragraphs and the preview button.
I'll go crawl into my hole now.
John Romero is to developing an MMO... ...like Microsoft is to writing secure software? ...like the RIAA is to sharing music? ...like Slashdot editors are to using proper grammar?
I was going to reply with something along the lines of a resounding "DUH!!!" (remember the last days of Napster?), but Taco's from the see-thats-why-i-misspell-stuff dept. made me laugh out loud and forgot what I wanted to say. Well done :)
No...at first glance, I think this is a book about how to get the kissing disease easier.
Learning C# will make it more likely to kiss girls?
I am SO confused.
I think iTunes shows that people are willing to pay (for a reasonable price), but that they want the convenience of electronic distribution.
Yes, but grandparent is saying that the "peer-to-peer" part of P2P is the least important or wanted for people, not that they don't want electronic distribution.
I'd guess the hierarchy of desirability for methods of electronic distribution would go something like this:
1) Free, dedicated (eg. download-only)
2) Free, shared (eg. peer-to-peer - have to upload as well)
3) Pay, dedicated
4) Pay, shared
Sounds like WB's scheme is at the bottom of the list, AND without signficiant price savings over simply buying the physical media.
The question was probably something like:
Is it not true that you do not not believe in creationism/ID/evolution?
Thus getting a nice smooth distribution once everyone was confused enough and answered at random.
How, geo-centric of you.
:p
Well excuuuuse us for not living in space!