Consider the s/390 changes, a lot of PowerPC specific updates and tools.
Yeah, IBM has contributed stuff back. Linus Vepstas (sp?) was unhappy when IBM dropped their patches to cover the S/390 since it had been done as a "skunk works" project (hidden even from some of IBM's own management). There were plenty of stories about this a while back.
IIRC there've been a fair number of tweaks done for PowerPC code generation in order to pump up it's performance.
For other H/W, IBM provided drivers for a lot of their other hardware.
Additionally, without applications, Linux wouldn't sell so well, hence DB2, Websphere and even (God help us) Lotus Domino servers have been ported. While the middleware ain't free it sure beats writing your own (except maybe for Loathed Notes).
IBM also got snarled up when, instead of chalk, their "Peace Love Linux" logo program used spray paint instead.
As for AIX- AIX ain't gonna be dead any time soon (IMHO). AIX "AIn't uniX" and it's WAY better than Linux at moving data around on disks (and handles hot-swap devices with far more aplomb than Linux currently can boast). AIX 5L allows Linux-based apps (as long as byte sex is resolved) to be compiled and run on AIX so that it can take advantage of the huge fscking disk arrays that can be assembled there.
I use both Linux and AIX. Each has strengths and weaknesses. I like both. I apply the one that can best carry the load when I need it.
AIX is better at real-time processing than Linux- which means the scheduler runs more often. When running a compute-bound workload this takes cycles away from number crunching.
ISTR, BTW, that Blue Gene is supposed to study "protein folding" based on mRNA being processed by cellular ribosomes. I really hope this is a non-military project...
I'm thinking that the SP3 EULA makes a wonderful industrial espionage channel; Could you imagine Bill Gates NOT perusing the contents of Sam Palmisano's thinkpad? Or McNealy's? Or (pick a competitor)?
Of course it won't be long before each of our systems will become a file server for M$ (all of us with wee little pieces...) as their effort to deploy a "grid".
Consider that Spammers widen the net of anyone under suspicion, so then the FBI (NSA?) needs to track down the spammer so the spammer can be traced back... and so on... and so on...
It might be interesting if spam was stamped out just to make surveillance easier, though I wonder how these agencies would go about dealing w/ the Post Office in performing the same kind of trace?
Who was more productive on this day? Certainly Ingrid. Fred and Danny are not even finished creating their features yet. Ingrid's feature works completely, she has simplified the entire program, and the user interface is improved by reducing the apparent feature count. But note Ingrid's productivity included writing negative 2000 lines of code and spending little time in the office. While this example may seem fanciful, it is actually quite realistic. Getting away from a problem sometimes is a good way to solve it. And programmers who understand the big picture make smarter decisions, because they are able to reuse code and combine features effectively.
The process of software development is still a creative task, requiring the exercise of human imagination and judgement.
Few can properly measure the output of a programmer except in Yhellowstones (brown fluid in --> yellow fluid out) since this will remain a judgement call until this becomes a determinant rather than an emergent process.
A poet is still working even when gazing out the window.
Finally, usually communications/research time cuts down on code generation- and that's the real question. How can we have metrics unless there's a second opinion over whether code needs to be created?
"Trust" is what makes ANY civilization possible.
It is the single required currency all exchange on a daily basis.
Laws work only insofar as we trust others to follow them-
David Brin's book "The Postman" explored this trait far more than the Kevin Kostner movie.
Trust that others adhere to the same rules is key to living with other people.
In our technological society, you not only trust the people driving their cars to not hit you, but you're also trusting your mechanics (and their mechanics) to have fixed the brakes RIGHT.
If you lose such trust, there's nothing short of hunter-gatherer to fall back on- since an agrarian society depends upon trust in other to not take what they make.
Our problems with dependancies circles around the "monopoly" preference of economists- they have a problem picturing any reason to have more than ONE of anything that isn't "disposable".
So we end up dependant upon technologies that can bring down all of civilization with just a single-point failure. And this is where economists seem certain the "sweet spot" is for "efficiency" in resource utilization.
Here a little item where I ramble a bit; It doesn't fit perfectly, but it's not too awful either:
CyberDiversity
There seems to be a "don't call" list out there; My son tried one tactic on a female telemarketer by treating the call as a "phone-sex" call, asking her what she was wearing, etc.
We haven't had ANY such calls since.
Of course, this might not have been as convincing if he had tried it with a man...
A Sun Fire 15k contains up to 106 processors (72 with max i/o), a Sun Enterprise 10k contains up to 64 processors, and a Sun Fire 6800 contains 24 processors. Honestly this IBM server should be compared with either the 10k or 6800. It just can't scale as high as either the 10k or the 15k.
IIRC, the Sun E-10000 (10K) had loosely-coupled CPUs, which is very different from closely-coupled SMPs. Kinda like comparing a Univac-1100/80 4x2 against a 48 cpu Tandem doing a sort (the loaded down, memory starved 1100 came out ahead at better than 20:1). I would suspect that comparing single thread performance would be best before looking at other throughput models.
There are some jobs where single thread performance is critical.
As for the LPARs, I suspect those won't be as popular- though given the successes of VM and Linux that a hypervisor may appear for the pSeries (though that may be a pipe dream).
AIX, BTW, doesn't compare as easily to Linux as Solaris does- which is why Sun is more threatened by Linux than IBM's AIX.
How to pronounce AIX? Here's the key: "AIX 'n Panes"...
I'd say they're trying to take a piece of Sun's pie, and maybe try to keep some folks from moving to Win2K. Looks like a good price/performance system if you need that much to start with.
Actually, embracing Linux up and down the line ensures a "level playing field" for all Unix-based applications.
Picture it- if you run out of single-thread CPU cycles on an Intel platform (and you've got a Windows NT application) you're screwed.
If your application is written portably (remember byte sex?) for the Linux API, well, you can move up to a pSeries (RS/6000) if you need floating point computing, an iSeries (AS/400) if you need I/O bandwidth or (serious MoJo here) a zSeries (s/390) when nothing less will do.
And that's just IBM's product line!
(OK, so there aren't as many competitors w/ a broad a product line, but there's Sysinu|Unisys who seem to have gotten in bed w/ Intel and MicroSoft, so they're gonna get......well, you know. And I used to be a systems geek on the U/1100 systems...)
Once a good set of filters are out there, Microsoft WILL change the file formats, guaranteed. Ask the OS/2 people what maintaining compatibility with M$ was like, and how much it helped them.
Actually, this is true, but also may _not_ be true. If a competent office suite exists at a lower price point (licensing wise) and has a lower likelihood of maintenance (or other fetures that improve it's manageability within an "enterprise") then companies will likely embrace it- doing the document translation once of everthing on their servers, etc.
The idea being, once you've freed your hostages (all of your company's documents) from M$ you're not likely to be handing your hard-won assets back to the kidnapper, are you? Documentation, after all, is a corporation's information asset.
Who does it really belong to?
You only need to pay attention to import filters as long as the outputs are in a "well known" format (pick an old.doc format, if need be, something that ALL of the other office suites will accept, for instance) and you'll only need to worry about the incoming materials.
In the case of documents coming in from outside a company, perhaps the text needs to be stripped out and delivered as flat ASCII since you don't usually care about the presentation aspect, you're more interested in the content. Taking a.doc file, for instance, and bursting it into it's component parts as a set of MIME extensions will make it digestible to various mailer engines.
It's not like companies will be editing the document in situ and sending it back out, right?
That's why we see as "Save-as Word95/97" option in Office.
The whole reason for incompatibility is to ensure that everybody has to upgrade to the "latest" version. With the interconnectedness of the 'net, one person's upgrade forces every one else they correspond with and so on. It's a viral effect.
A co-worker brought in Win95 back during it's public trials and screwed the network- it wanted to be a WINS server but hosed any ability for WfW 3.11 to browse network resources.
Importing is the key.
BTW, M$ bought Visio. When someone sends a back-level version of a V2K drawing, it's read only. How's that for crippleware?
I'm thinking that handing my Newton to my 2nd grade daughter (or getting her one of her own) would do wonders for her handwriting. The handwriting recognition S/W and the "writing practice" tool (which I often use as a "game" since it provides reassuring feedback) may be a useful means of encouraging handwriting skills that are "open source" (readable to others who ain'r pharmacists)...
Triana was a Political Project inspired by Al Gore
on
Triana Mothballed
·
· Score: 1
There's a fair amount of history- this was a waste and even adding "legitimate science" (which just duplicates what SOHO does) isn't enough to consider it a reasonable project.
It was merely a means to deliver a daylight side webcam of earth.
Sheesh
Check out
NASA Watch
Actually, how's about a Soyuz with 3 aboard to make an adult film?
OK, so they're not on a space station, but I would imagine such a film would be WILDLY popular-
or, at least, educational.
We'd at least get documentation on the advantages (and disadvantages) inherent in specific exercises...
There were (IIRC) 4 books that David Drake was involved in but had various SF authors collaborating in a specific "Universe".
The various folks in the military food-chain all had an "AID" (Artificially Intelligent Devices) that would clip on the belt.
Each had a "SCRAM" button that'd kill the puppy.
And, if you didn't kill 'em, they'd develop rather entertaining personalities.
(Sarcasm seemed to be the most common trait seen in the stories.)
Now I wish I remember the name of the series. Two of the titles were "The War Machine" and "An Honorable Defense".
The use of an AI personality to act as your agent in recording/accessing information has been considered at other times but I kinda like the attitudes some of these machines could take on to keep our wetware reasonably honest.
use the machanical motion of walking to drive power collectors- like the self-winding watch.
Hmmm... IBM's Linux Watch would be a nice package but you'd need wireless connections to the headpiece- another complication.
A belt-buckle Linux system (bringing a whole new meaning to "IP") would probably not be too bad, but collecting power may be an issue (though I'm sure that someone will say "well, display certain pictures and we can pull power from biological responses!).
Needless to say, fidgetters will have an advantage over the more laid-back in keeping the batteries charged.
Perhaps a whole set of interfaces needs to be considered.
A pen, for instance, could collect information about what is being written on, say, a regular piece of paper and capture it for later conversion.
A set of data-gloves could read sign language (and some more specialized gestures) and act as another data entry device.
The portable device isn't so much a computer as it is a data access (and low volume storage) device.
The concept of the "computer" starts fading, as technology moves away from the "Personal Computer" origins.
I have a Newton 130 which I like (despite the clunky cabling- there's no "hotsync" cradle!) and it's ability to actually read my writing (and I am using the habits ingrained for paper writing, so I'm not losing any good habits to learn graffiti) is helpful.
I have to add that, when handwriting recognition is a feature, size matters.:-)
I'm wondering whether there's something sneaking in the back door...
What about the END of a copyright period?
Does the digital copyright automatically expire and release the material into the public domain?
Will a DVD magically become un-encrypted when the 20 years are up?
There's so much question over access to the material DURING the life of a copyright, but what provisions are there for FREE access to the material once the copyrights (and their restrictions) expire?
Doesn't the material we've purchased access to (like buying a DVD or a CD) become completely OUR property once the rights expire?
I can just imagine what happens in 20 years or so
when the copyrights on the DVDs currently out there expire but the material is still encrypted.
Won't the manufacturers of the DVDs be liable for not providing an unencrypted version?
Will we need to sue the content owners for an un-encrypted copy of the same material we've already paid for?
Perhaps the DVD folks need to consider the end-of-life for their COPY rights when the ownership of the content reverts to US!
Then again, perhaps this is just a way of creating the "perpetual, non-expiring copy right" to ensure that royalties are due......forever.
Nokia's FireWalls (which use CheckPoint's FireWall-1) are Linux based.
My office mate (who is an example of how much brain damage chemotherapy causes since he's comfortable sharing an office with me) was quite startled the first time he lit up one of these boxes. He knew I was a Linux geek so he dragged me into it (he's a networking guru for switches and stuff; firewalls is a recent mission for him).
Nokia's stuff has been cute but I was expecting the delivery of our firewalls to include the covers (like the phones have) so we can doctor their looks...
Why do you need multithreading?
IMHO, multithreading is most consistent when used to provide asynchronous I/O w/o any of that tedious mucking about w/ the AsyncIO libraries...
What does each thread REALLY do for you?
Each thread needs to keep track of it's own environment and must avoid stepping on resources belonging to someone else.
Writing device drivers teaches you a lot about what functions you place where.
How do your threads interact?
Hopefully you're not creating memory objects and passing them back-and-forth, are you?
When dealing with threads you need to think about them in a "transactional" way- yes, they can work as a team, but if you have multiple threads doing the same kind of work, well, you'll need a safe means of processing the queue for these.
I've dealt with some pretty odd multi-threaded systems WAY BACK WHEN and they were NEVER pretty.
If you're only doing this to be able to take advantage of an SMP, well, more power to you, but you'll still have to aggressively limit their scope- only the smallest amount of data should be common- and under exclusive accessing control.
Don't forget that a Multithreaded application usually qualifies as an Algowrithmic procedure...
IBM seems to have morphed into a services company rather than primarily a H/W & S/W vendor.
OK, so they provide services- many of which end up selling IBM's own H/W, but, doesn't Linux
undercut Windows?
IBM's AIX5L (L for Linux, eh?) provides a growth path for Linux based apps; Assuming Linux is a good low-end platform, at least an App can be ported to IBM's own AIX platform (if it cain't be run as a binary) which is NOT something that can be done for an NT-based Application. If IBM really encouraged the use of NT, then there's no real growth path for their customers since you can't take the applications with you. Of course, I suspect IBM's learned from the MFC error.
So- success of the Linux environment doesn't seem to hurt IBM. Amusingly, IBM seems to be betting on it since it can't be taken away (look at how blue they got over Sun's moves w/ Java 2).
"The Enemy of My Enemy is My Friend"- Especially if you find a way to avoid direct competition.
Let's see M$ get NT ported to the S/390 platform...
Slashdot Mirror
Consider the s/390 changes, a lot of PowerPC specific updates and tools.
Yeah, IBM has contributed stuff back. Linus Vepstas (sp?) was unhappy when IBM dropped their patches to cover the S/390 since it had been done as a "skunk works" project (hidden even from some of IBM's own management). There were plenty of stories about this a while back.
IIRC there've been a fair number of tweaks done for PowerPC code generation in order to pump up it's performance.
For other H/W, IBM provided drivers for a lot of their other hardware.
Additionally, without applications, Linux wouldn't sell so well, hence DB2, Websphere and even (God help us) Lotus Domino servers have been ported. While the middleware ain't free it sure beats writing your own (except maybe for Loathed Notes).
IBM also got snarled up when, instead of chalk, their "Peace Love Linux" logo program used spray paint instead.
As for AIX- AIX ain't gonna be dead any time soon (IMHO). AIX "AIn't uniX" and it's WAY better than Linux at moving data around on disks (and handles hot-swap devices with far more aplomb than Linux currently can boast). AIX 5L allows Linux-based apps (as long as byte sex is resolved) to be compiled and run on AIX so that it can take advantage of the huge fscking disk arrays that can be assembled there.
I use both Linux and AIX. Each has strengths and weaknesses. I like both. I apply the one that can best carry the load when I need it.
AIX is better at real-time processing than Linux- which means the scheduler runs more often. When running a compute-bound workload this takes cycles away from number crunching.
ISTR, BTW, that Blue Gene is supposed to study "protein folding" based on mRNA being processed by cellular ribosomes. I really hope this is a non-military project...
I'm thinking that the SP3 EULA makes a wonderful industrial espionage channel; Could you imagine Bill Gates NOT perusing the contents of Sam Palmisano's thinkpad? Or McNealy's? Or (pick a competitor)?
Of course it won't be long before each of our systems will become a file server for M$ (all of us with wee little pieces...) as their effort to deploy a "grid".
It might be interesting if spam was stamped out just to make surveillance easier, though I wonder how these agencies would go about dealing w/ the Post Office in performing the same kind of trace?
Well, it certainly enforces the "IE" only websites! Perhaps too much effort in Konqueror went into IE compatibility by duplicating IE's flaws?
The process of software development is still a creative task, requiring the exercise of human imagination and judgement.
Few can properly measure the output of a programmer except in Yhellowstones (brown fluid in --> yellow fluid out) since this will remain a judgement call until this becomes a determinant rather than an emergent process.
A poet is still working even when gazing out the window.
Finally, usually communications/research time cuts down on code generation- and that's the real question. How can we have metrics unless there's a second opinion over whether code needs to be created?
David Brin's book "The Postman" explored this trait far more than the Kevin Kostner movie. Trust that others adhere to the same rules is key to living with other people.
In our technological society, you not only trust the people driving their cars to not hit you, but you're also trusting your mechanics (and their mechanics) to have fixed the brakes RIGHT. If you lose such trust, there's nothing short of hunter-gatherer to fall back on- since an agrarian society depends upon trust in other to not take what they make.
So we end up dependant upon technologies that can bring down all of civilization with just a single-point failure. And this is where economists seem certain the "sweet spot" is for "efficiency" in resource utilization.
Here a little item where I ramble a bit; It doesn't fit perfectly, but it's not too awful either:
CyberDiversity
Efficiency may be nice, but survival is nicer.
There seems to be a "don't call" list out there; My son tried one tactic on a female telemarketer by treating the call as a "phone-sex" call, asking her what she was wearing, etc.
We haven't had ANY such calls since.
Of course, this might not have been as convincing if he had tried it with a man...
A Sun Fire 15k contains up to 106 processors (72 with max i/o), a Sun Enterprise 10k contains up to 64 processors, and a Sun Fire 6800 contains 24 processors. Honestly this IBM server should be compared with either the 10k or 6800. It just can't scale as high as either the 10k or the 15k.
IIRC, the Sun E-10000 (10K) had loosely-coupled CPUs, which is very different from closely-coupled SMPs. Kinda like comparing a Univac-1100/80 4x2 against a 48 cpu Tandem doing a sort (the loaded down, memory starved 1100 came out ahead at better than 20:1). I would suspect that comparing single thread performance would be best before looking at other throughput models.
There are some jobs where single thread performance is critical.
As for the LPARs, I suspect those won't be as popular- though given the successes of VM and Linux that a hypervisor may appear for the pSeries (though that may be a pipe dream).
AIX, BTW, doesn't compare as easily to Linux as Solaris does- which is why Sun is more threatened by Linux than IBM's AIX.
How to pronounce AIX? Here's the key: "AIX 'n Panes"...
I'd say they're trying to take a piece of Sun's pie, and maybe try to keep some folks from moving to Win2K. Looks like a good price/performance system if you need that much to start with.
...well, you know. And I used to be a systems geek on the U/1100 systems...)
Actually, embracing Linux up and down the line ensures a "level playing field" for all Unix-based applications.
Picture it- if you run out of single-thread CPU cycles on an Intel platform (and you've got a Windows NT application) you're screwed.
If your application is written portably (remember byte sex?) for the Linux API, well, you can move up to a pSeries (RS/6000) if you need floating point computing, an iSeries (AS/400) if you need I/O bandwidth or (serious MoJo here) a zSeries (s/390) when nothing less will do.
And that's just IBM 's product line!
(OK, so there aren't as many competitors w/ a broad a product line, but there's Sysinu|Unisys who seem to have gotten in bed w/ Intel and MicroSoft, so they're gonna get...
If you guys hate MS so much why do you spend so much energy talking about it?
It's like sex; If you talk about it, you ain't doing it...
It sure sounds like the "Cerebral Communicator" plan we first heard about in The President's Analyst.
Once a good set of filters are out there, Microsoft WILL change the file formats, guaranteed. Ask the OS/2 people what maintaining compatibility with M$ was like, and how much it helped them.
.doc format, if need be, something that ALL of the other office suites will accept, for instance) and you'll only need to worry about the incoming materials.
.doc file, for instance, and bursting it into it's component parts as a set of MIME extensions will make it digestible to various mailer engines.
Actually, this is true, but also may _not_ be true. If a competent office suite exists at a lower price point (licensing wise) and has a lower likelihood of maintenance (or other fetures that improve it's manageability within an "enterprise") then companies will likely embrace it- doing the document translation once of everthing on their servers, etc.
The idea being, once you've freed your hostages (all of your company's documents) from M$ you're not likely to be handing your hard-won assets back to the kidnapper, are you? Documentation, after all, is a corporation's information asset.
Who does it really belong to?
You only need to pay attention to import filters as long as the outputs are in a "well known" format (pick an old
In the case of documents coming in from outside a company, perhaps the text needs to be stripped out and delivered as flat ASCII since you don't usually care about the presentation aspect, you're more interested in the content. Taking a
It's not like companies will be editing the document in situ and sending it back out, right?
That's why we see as "Save-as Word95/97" option in Office.
The whole reason for incompatibility is to ensure that everybody has to upgrade to the "latest" version. With the interconnectedness of the 'net, one person's upgrade forces every one else they correspond with and so on. It's a viral effect.
A co-worker brought in Win95 back during it's public trials and screwed the network- it wanted to be a WINS server but hosed any ability for WfW 3.11 to browse network resources.
Importing is the key.
BTW, M$ bought Visio. When someone sends a back-level version of a V2K drawing, it's read only. How's that for crippleware?
Even Microsoft has stated their default save type will be XML.
...with patented extensions.
You left out:
I'm thinking that handing my Newton to my 2nd grade daughter (or getting her one of her own) would do wonders for her handwriting. The handwriting recognition S/W and the "writing practice" tool (which I often use as a "game" since it provides reassuring feedback) may be a useful means of encouraging handwriting skills that are "open source" (readable to others who ain'r pharmacists)...
There's a fair amount of history- this was a waste and even adding "legitimate science" (which just duplicates what SOHO does) isn't enough to consider it a reasonable project.
It was merely a means to deliver a daylight side webcam of earth.
Sheesh
Check out NASA Watch
Already posted: Microsoft's Land War in Asia
Should be worth a chuckle...
Actually, how's about a Soyuz with 3 aboard to make an adult film? OK, so they're not on a space station, but I would imagine such a film would be WILDLY popular- or, at least, educational. We'd at least get documentation on the advantages (and disadvantages) inherent in specific exercises...
There were (IIRC) 4 books that David Drake was involved in but had various SF authors collaborating in a specific "Universe".
The various folks in the military food-chain all had an "AID" (Artificially Intelligent Devices) that would clip on the belt.
Each had a "SCRAM" button that'd kill the puppy.
And, if you didn't kill 'em, they'd develop rather entertaining personalities.
(Sarcasm seemed to be the most common trait seen in the stories.)
Now I wish I remember the name of the series. Two of the titles were "The War Machine" and "An Honorable Defense".
The use of an AI personality to act as your agent in recording/accessing information has been considered at other times but I kinda like the attitudes some of these machines could take on to keep our wetware reasonably honest.
Hmmm... IBM's Linux Watch would be a nice package but you'd need wireless connections to the headpiece- another complication. A belt-buckle Linux system (bringing a whole new meaning to "IP") would probably not be too bad, but collecting power may be an issue (though I'm sure that someone will say "well, display certain pictures and we can pull power from biological responses!). Needless to say, fidgetters will have an advantage over the more laid-back in keeping the batteries charged.
Perhaps a whole set of interfaces needs to be considered. A pen, for instance, could collect information about what is being written on, say, a regular piece of paper and capture it for later conversion. A set of data-gloves could read sign language (and some more specialized gestures) and act as another data entry device.
The portable device isn't so much a computer as it is a data access (and low volume storage) device. The concept of the "computer" starts fading, as technology moves away from the "Personal Computer" origins.
I have a Newton 130 which I like (despite the clunky cabling- there's no "hotsync" cradle!) and it's ability to actually read my writing (and I am using the habits ingrained for paper writing, so I'm not losing any good habits to learn graffiti) is helpful. I have to add that, when handwriting recognition is a feature, size matters. :-)
I'm wondering whether there's something sneaking in the back door...
What about the END of a copyright period? Does the digital copyright automatically expire and release the material into the public domain? Will a DVD magically become un-encrypted when the 20 years are up?
There's so much question over access to the material DURING the life of a copyright, but what provisions are there for FREE access to the material once the copyrights (and their restrictions) expire? Doesn't the material we've purchased access to (like buying a DVD or a CD) become completely OUR property once the rights expire?
I can just imagine what happens in 20 years or so when the copyrights on the DVDs currently out there expire but the material is still encrypted. Won't the manufacturers of the DVDs be liable for not providing an unencrypted version? Will we need to sue the content owners for an un-encrypted copy of the same material we've already paid for?
Perhaps the DVD folks need to consider the end-of-life for their COPY rights when the ownership of the content reverts to US!
Then again, perhaps this is just a way of creating the "perpetual, non-expiring copy right" to ensure that royalties are due... ...forever.
Nokia's FireWalls (which use CheckPoint's FireWall-1) are Linux based.
My office mate (who is an example of how much brain damage chemotherapy causes since he's comfortable sharing an office with me) was quite startled the first time he lit up one of these boxes. He knew I was a Linux geek so he dragged me into it (he's a networking guru for switches and stuff; firewalls is a recent mission for him).
Nokia's stuff has been cute but I was expecting the delivery of our firewalls to include the covers (like the phones have) so we can doctor their looks...
Some items to think about:
IMHO, multithreading is most consistent when used to provide asynchronous I/O w/o any of that tedious mucking about w/ the AsyncIO libraries...
Each thread needs to keep track of it's own environment and must avoid stepping on resources belonging to someone else.
Writing device drivers teaches you a lot about what functions you place where.
Hopefully you're not creating memory objects and passing them back-and-forth, are you?
When dealing with threads you need to think about them in a "transactional" way- yes, they can work as a team, but if you have multiple threads doing the same kind of work, well, you'll need a safe means of processing the queue for these.
I've dealt with some pretty odd multi-threaded systems WAY BACK WHEN and they were NEVER pretty.
If you're only doing this to be able to take advantage of an SMP, well, more power to you, but you'll still have to aggressively limit their scope- only the smallest amount of data should be common- and under exclusive accessing control.
Don't forget that a Multithreaded application usually qualifies as an Algowrithmic procedure...
... IBM is Linux's best friend,
And why is this?
IBM seems to have morphed into a services company rather than primarily a H/W & S/W vendor.
OK, so they provide services- many of which end up selling IBM's own H/W, but, doesn't Linux
undercut Windows?
IBM's AIX5L (L for Linux, eh?) provides a growth path for Linux based apps; Assuming Linux is a good low-end platform, at least an App can be ported to IBM's own AIX platform (if it cain't be run as a binary) which is NOT something that can be done for an NT-based Application. If IBM really encouraged the use of NT, then there's no real growth path for their customers since you can't take the applications with you. Of course, I suspect IBM's learned from the MFC error.
So- success of the Linux environment doesn't seem to hurt IBM. Amusingly, IBM seems to be betting on it since it can't be taken away (look at how blue they got over Sun's moves w/ Java 2).
"The Enemy of My Enemy is My Friend"- Especially if you find a way to avoid direct competition.
Let's see M$ get NT ported to the S/390 platform...