Might be more appropriate to show Intel bringing them down with friendly fire. If they hadn't bet the company on Itanium and instead kept MIPS going, they might still be a player.
I don't think Nielsen has been really relevant since the bubble burst. He's on the way to becoming as much of a nuisance as he was a help Back In The Day. Even most of his comments back then weren't really well-reasoned, but more like "this is what *I* want". He just happened to get out there first.
...I prefer to roll my own... Granted, it's only 250KHz of resolution (although you can change the filter, not sure how narrow you can get), but it's enough to get you started. I'm also seeing references to SA front-ends made from old TV IF strips. With lots of people upgrading their TVs, I expect to see a lot of these IF strips available.
Think of a flying datacenter with rackmount systems from a variety of different vendors
A variety of different vendors that all have to meet a spec, namely that the drive must be mounted in a non-metallic carrier of such-and-such dimensions. Or just specify that each drive must be mounted in a "Type SZW data carrier", and it's up to the primary contractor (who also supplies the SZWs) to make it all work. Either way, it's all pretty trivial: the Navy wants one of these mega-erasers for its P-3s, so (say) Lockheed figures out they're all using 5 1/4" drives, so designs an enclosure to fit. Navy then institutes an upgrade program for all specified aircraft, and new drives are obtained and installed into said enclosures. Not a terribly complicated retrofit, and for guaranteed security (if they can prove it), I'm sure they can justify the cost. Sure, there'll be a ton of engineering busy-work for somebody, figuring out how many drives are affected and designing the enclosure and associated cabling changes and documentation updates, but that's what new hires are for...;)
I used to have cable (TW RoadRunner service). Never had a problem with billing or availability, speeds were advertised as 5M/768 and I was seeing about that. But I was paying $55/month for it, and when my local phone company (Alltel) started advertising 1.5M/768 for $30, I couldn't say no. Yeah, downloads are a bit slower, but still not bad (I generally see ~170MB/sec down, vs. 280 or so w/cable). Latency seems to be about the same. My only real complaint is that with RR, I had a quasi-static IP that I could access from anywhere. Now my DSL modem gets a 192.168.x.x address, so I'll have to pay if I want to put my web site back up...:/ Still, I figure I'm saving $300/year, so I'm happy.
Most CS instructors will cram down students' throats that if they concentrate on principles they can pick up any language/platform as if it's nothing at all. It's a lie
Nope. I never finished college (got "hired out" my junior year), but I took all the fundamental CS courses (data structures, language design and implementation, discrete math) and I haven't had a problem picking up a new language or paradigm in the last twenty years. I went from C/Unix to 4GL/Unix to C/VMS to 4GL (a different one)/VMS to assembler(6809 & PDP-11)/bare metal+RT-11 to YA4GL/Windows to VB/Windows to Java/Windows to Java/Unix. Now I work for a company that has to integrate with lots of different systems (PeopleSoft, Java,.NET, RPG-III using Oracle/DB2/SQL Server/Sybase/Informix), writing interfaces between their systems and ours (which is based on Lotus Domino).
In response to the original question, you should be able to find a "support group" of some sort out on the internet. See if there's a Usenet newsgroup or a Yahoo discussion group for your target technology. Lots of times vendors will have forums on their websites to discuss their technology (great if you want to keep up with Oracle or Java). Sourceforge will also have discussion groups for projects, and you can often find pointers in those threads to larger forums. There may also be a portal site (like TheServerSide.com for Java) that aggregates press releases and book/article reviews. The real problem I have isn't finding the information, it's finding the time to read and evaluate it all. My computer at home is like a cyber-garage: half-finished projects shoved into every available corner, tech examples and prototypes hanging from the rafters, random tools jumbled all over...
Short answer: get busy. Keeping current can be a full-time job in and of itself if you want.
Um, he didn't claim that it was bad, he claimed that he didn't like it. Maybe he's like me and got burned by it missing some basic functionality (nested sub-queries, say) previously, and can't be bothered poring over the docs to find out what's still not there. If it was the only player in the FOSS database space, then I'd be cheering them on, but when you've got players like PostgreSQL (and now Ingres) or Firebird, why bother with a 'roided-up ISAM manager?
Unless you're just serving ads or a message board on a low-end machine. Then MySQL is probably your best choice. It's got its niche, but I personally can't be bothered when I've got a solid full-featured database available instead.
everybody is a database guy and a UI guy and an everything-in-between guy
As long as you don't have to start the project that way. To really get things moving, have the developers, the designer and the database guy sit down and decide what needs to be done, then have the database guy create the core database, the designer come up with the stylesheet(s) and some mock-up pages, and the developers create (or set up) the framework, then everybody gets together to make everything work together. Once that's done, then the developers get to play with the database, the database guy gets to write some code, and the designer gets to tweak the layout and gather content and fsck up the developers by designing pages that require jumping through hoops of flame to populate and validate.
At least, that's the way the best projects I've ever worked on went...
As long as sites like the sourceforge are around, people will be able to communicate freely
Might want to take a break from the bong for a few days, dude. Sites have to be accessed, so if someone else controls the access it doesn't matter how free & open the site is. There was an open relay notifier, but it's gone now, which kind of sums up the situation.
Re:Could also be because IIS is easy to get runnin
on
Apache down, IIS up
·
· Score: 1
Am I missing the point here? Comparing the installation and integration of Apache, PHP and MySQL with the simple installation of IIS is fair? Does IIS just magically (black magic, perhaps) know how to connect to SQL Server, and how to execute ASP pages? If not, then I don't think your comparison is valid.
I've heard xubuntu or dsl might be better for those kind of specs, and I'd be interested to hear any experiences of them.
<AOL/>
I've got a couple of old boxes (200 MHz PPro and 450MHz P-II), and while I'm a pretty hard-core BSD (and Solaris, these days) guy, I'm interested in seeing what Linux has to offer these days (I used RH 5.1 and Debian "Potato", but wasn't impressed with either one). I loaded up an Ubuntu Live CD and it looked pretty nice, but I wouldn't mind getting something efficient for my older boxes.
What, you've never fired up the browser on a server to download a patch or look up some configuration information? Or to see if anyone else has reported seeing a business-critical application exit with "Application exiting (hope that's OK!)" in the error log? I could easily see someone hopping over to w3schools to check out some fine point of CSS usage when configuring their 404 page while setting up Apache.
It's a web app. If you're not using any currently, then this isn't for you. Personally, installing & configuring Apache and Tomcat (and PostgreSQL) is just part of my default install ritual, but I realize lots of people don't want to leave a dozen or so extra processes lying about (exp. when one of them is a JVM sucking down 70-100K of memory).
This follows on to the theft of several laptops worth of corporate employee data. Almost makes me want to open up a consumer credit protection business...
When I was doing LIMS for large pharmaceutical R&D shops, they used Macs a lot for molecular modeling. They used ChemDraw for modeling, and JChem for looking up matching compounds in the database. Oh, and stuff from Daylight -- we used their libraries to add some capabilities to our stuff.
This was all five or six years ago, not sure what's available now.
Quick random question: how's the scoping in Delphi? One of the (few) things I miss about Pascal (and PL/I) is the ability to reference variables via the call stack. E.g., if I've got a function foo() that calls bar(), bar() can reference variable "xyzzy" declared in foo(). If function baz() also declares "xyzzy", and baz() calls bar(), then bar() references "xyzzy" declared in baz(). An odd shade of polymorphism, but it was pretty handy at times. I also miss the ability to declare local functions within a function, which is just another side to the scoping issue.
I don't miss the hokey I/O, or the lack of proper bitwise logical operations...
Bah. It's always been this way. You think if you design your application to run on Linux that you'll be safe in twenty years? What if you depend on a kernel module for the 2.0.36 kernel, can you even load that on a contemporary system?
At some point, the rubber's got to meet the road, and if your application is in any way "real" (read: has to meet performance thresholds), you're going to have to take advantage of the underlying system. To do this is to tie yourself to it in some fashion. Nowadays it's feasible to throw an abstraction layer over just about everything (I/O system, database connection, GUI), but not so long ago machines couldn't support that (try funneling every call to a GUI widget through a virtualization layer on a VAX -- it's bad enough when it's native!).
Not trying to start a "you kids don't know how good you have it today" thread, just wanted to point out that any performance-oriented software is going to have to leverage the hardware, and you can't let worrying about vendors maintaining backwards compatability stop you from doing that.
when you consider that there are over 30,000 individual items and locations onboard, it gets a little hard to manage.
Sounds like one of the first reasonable applications of an RFID system. If you're looking for something, you grab a "magic wand" (RFID reader) and start waving it around. When the want gets a signal from the thing you're looking for, it beeps and lights up and you get to spend a minute or so playing "hot or cold" until you zero in on it.
We are as far away today or further from tools that can generate applications transcendentally.
True, but the fallout's been useful. Ever used Rational XDE? I see Sun has something similar in the latest Sun Studio 8 Enterprise, but I haven't used it. Basically, it's a round-trip UML modeler: lay out your class diagram, and XDE will generate the code for it. Update the generated skeleton with "real" code, and XDE will update your model from the changes. It's much nicer than trying to do things with Rational Rose -- then again, pulling our your toenails with rust pliers is nicer than trying to do some things in Rose (say, trying to reverse-engineer a subset of your project that references a class that isn't part of the subset you're working on).
Like it or not, UML is the new flow charts, and any tool that makes using it easier ultimately makes it easier for a team to communicate. I would wrap this up succinctly, but I see it's after 1700 on a Friday, so... beer.
Slashdot Mirror
Might be more appropriate to show Intel bringing them down with friendly fire. If they hadn't bet the company on Itanium and instead kept MIPS going, they might still be a player.
I don't think Nielsen has been really relevant since the bubble burst. He's on the way to becoming as much of a nuisance as he was a help Back In The Day. Even most of his comments back then weren't really well-reasoned, but more like "this is what *I* want". He just happened to get out there first.
...I prefer to roll my own... Granted, it's only 250KHz of resolution (although you can change the filter, not sure how narrow you can get), but it's enough to get you started. I'm also seeing references to SA front-ends made from old TV IF strips. With lots of people upgrading their TVs, I expect to see a lot of these IF strips available.
Obviously, Slashdot is outsourcing its editor jobs...
"Slashdot. News is for the nerds. Stuff that is the matter."
A variety of different vendors that all have to meet a spec, namely that the drive must be mounted in a non-metallic carrier of such-and-such dimensions. Or just specify that each drive must be mounted in a "Type SZW data carrier", and it's up to the primary contractor (who also supplies the SZWs) to make it all work. Either way, it's all pretty trivial: the Navy wants one of these mega-erasers for its P-3s, so (say) Lockheed figures out they're all using 5 1/4" drives, so designs an enclosure to fit. Navy then institutes an upgrade program for all specified aircraft, and new drives are obtained and installed into said enclosures. Not a terribly complicated retrofit, and for guaranteed security (if they can prove it), I'm sure they can justify the cost. Sure, there'll be a ton of engineering busy-work for somebody, figuring out how many drives are affected and designing the enclosure and associated cabling changes and documentation updates, but that's what new hires are for...
I used to have cable (TW RoadRunner service). Never had a problem with billing or availability, speeds were advertised as 5M/768 and I was seeing about that. But I was paying $55/month for it, and when my local phone company (Alltel) started advertising 1.5M/768 for $30, I couldn't say no. Yeah, downloads are a bit slower, but still not bad (I generally see ~170MB/sec down, vs. 280 or so w/cable). Latency seems to be about the same. My only real complaint is that with RR, I had a quasi-static IP that I could access from anywhere. Now my DSL modem gets a 192.168.x.x address, so I'll have to pay if I want to put my web site back up... :/ Still, I figure I'm saving $300/year, so I'm happy.
Nope. I never finished college (got "hired out" my junior year), but I took all the fundamental CS courses (data structures, language design and implementation, discrete math) and I haven't had a problem picking up a new language or paradigm in the last twenty years. I went from C/Unix to 4GL/Unix to C/VMS to 4GL (a different one)/VMS to assembler(6809 & PDP-11)/bare metal+RT-11 to YA4GL/Windows to VB/Windows to Java/Windows to Java/Unix. Now I work for a company that has to integrate with lots of different systems (PeopleSoft, Java,
In response to the original question, you should be able to find a "support group" of some sort out on the internet. See if there's a Usenet newsgroup or a Yahoo discussion group for your target technology. Lots of times vendors will have forums on their websites to discuss their technology (great if you want to keep up with Oracle or Java). Sourceforge will also have discussion groups for projects, and you can often find pointers in those threads to larger forums. There may also be a portal site (like TheServerSide.com for Java) that aggregates press releases and book/article reviews. The real problem I have isn't finding the information, it's finding the time to read and evaluate it all. My computer at home is like a cyber-garage: half-finished projects shoved into every available corner, tech examples and prototypes hanging from the rafters, random tools jumbled all over...
Short answer: get busy. Keeping current can be a full-time job in and of itself if you want.
Right there, man! Keep up!
According to this article at Ars Technica, yes.
Um, he didn't claim that it was bad, he claimed that he didn't like it. Maybe he's like me and got burned by it missing some basic functionality (nested sub-queries, say) previously, and can't be bothered poring over the docs to find out what's still not there. If it was the only player in the FOSS database space, then I'd be cheering them on, but when you've got players like PostgreSQL (and now Ingres) or Firebird, why bother with a 'roided-up ISAM manager?
Unless you're just serving ads or a message board on a low-end machine. Then MySQL is probably your best choice. It's got its niche, but I personally can't be bothered when I've got a solid full-featured database available instead.
In Soviet US, government politicians bonify YOU!
I believe that's actually referred to as a gateway psychosis...
As long as you don't have to start the project that way. To really get things moving, have the developers, the designer and the database guy sit down and decide what needs to be done, then have the database guy create the core database, the designer come up with the stylesheet(s) and some mock-up pages, and the developers create (or set up) the framework, then everybody gets together to make everything work together. Once that's done, then the developers get to play with the database, the database guy gets to write some code, and the designer gets to tweak the layout and gather content and fsck up the developers by designing pages that require jumping through hoops of flame to populate and validate.
At least, that's the way the best projects I've ever worked on went...
Might want to take a break from the bong for a few days, dude. Sites have to be accessed, so if someone else controls the access it doesn't matter how free & open the site is. There was an open relay notifier, but it's gone now, which kind of sums up the situation.
Am I missing the point here? Comparing the installation and integration of Apache, PHP and MySQL with the simple installation of IIS is fair? Does IIS just magically (black magic, perhaps) know how to connect to SQL Server, and how to execute ASP pages? If not, then I don't think your comparison is valid.
<AOL/>
I've got a couple of old boxes (200 MHz PPro and 450MHz P-II), and while I'm a pretty hard-core BSD (and Solaris, these days) guy, I'm interested in seeing what Linux has to offer these days (I used RH 5.1 and Debian "Potato", but wasn't impressed with either one). I loaded up an Ubuntu Live CD and it looked pretty nice, but I wouldn't mind getting something efficient for my older boxes.
What, you've never fired up the browser on a server to download a patch or look up some configuration information? Or to see if anyone else has reported seeing a business-critical application exit with "Application exiting (hope that's OK!)" in the error log? I could easily see someone hopping over to w3schools to check out some fine point of CSS usage when configuring their 404 page while setting up Apache.
It's a web app. If you're not using any currently, then this isn't for you. Personally, installing & configuring Apache and Tomcat (and PostgreSQL) is just part of my default install ritual, but I realize lots of people don't want to leave a dozen or so extra processes lying about (exp. when one of them is a JVM sucking down 70-100K of memory).
This follows on to the theft of several laptops worth of corporate employee data. Almost makes me want to open up a consumer credit protection business...
Ernst & Young lose data on a quarter-million Hotels.com customers
Ernst & Young (hey, there is a theme here!) lose information on Sun employees (including then-CEO Scott McNealy). Also included were employee records for IBM, Nokia and Cisco.
Wells Fargo proves it can play the game too.
And not to be left out, let's not forget Fidelity's loss of 200,000 HP employee records.
What's scary is that both Fidelity and E&Y audit other companies for security and regulatory compliance (including HIPAA and Sarbanes-Oxley)...
When I was doing LIMS for large pharmaceutical R&D shops, they used Macs a lot for molecular modeling. They used ChemDraw for modeling, and JChem for looking up matching compounds in the database. Oh, and stuff from Daylight -- we used their libraries to add some capabilities to our stuff.
This was all five or six years ago, not sure what's available now.
Dude, Uzi's weren't even invented back then. Al wasted his stoolies with a decent, American-made Thompson submachine gun (the infamous "Tommy gun").
Quick random question: how's the scoping in Delphi? One of the (few) things I miss about Pascal (and PL/I) is the ability to reference variables via the call stack. E.g., if I've got a function foo() that calls bar(), bar() can reference variable "xyzzy" declared in foo(). If function baz() also declares "xyzzy", and baz() calls bar(), then bar() references "xyzzy" declared in baz(). An odd shade of polymorphism, but it was pretty handy at times. I also miss the ability to declare local functions within a function, which is just another side to the scoping issue.
I don't miss the hokey I/O, or the lack of proper bitwise logical operations...
Bah. It's always been this way. You think if you design your application to run on Linux that you'll be safe in twenty years? What if you depend on a kernel module for the 2.0.36 kernel, can you even load that on a contemporary system?
At some point, the rubber's got to meet the road, and if your application is in any way "real" (read: has to meet performance thresholds), you're going to have to take advantage of the underlying system. To do this is to tie yourself to it in some fashion. Nowadays it's feasible to throw an abstraction layer over just about everything (I/O system, database connection, GUI), but not so long ago machines couldn't support that (try funneling every call to a GUI widget through a virtualization layer on a VAX -- it's bad enough when it's native!).
Not trying to start a "you kids don't know how good you have it today" thread, just wanted to point out that any performance-oriented software is going to have to leverage the hardware, and you can't let worrying about vendors maintaining backwards compatability stop you from doing that.
Sounds like one of the first reasonable applications of an RFID system. If you're looking for something, you grab a "magic wand" (RFID reader) and start waving it around. When the want gets a signal from the thing you're looking for, it beeps and lights up and you get to spend a minute or so playing "hot or cold" until you zero in on it.
What could possibly go wrong???
We are as far away today or further from tools that can generate applications transcendentally.
... beer.
True, but the fallout's been useful. Ever used Rational XDE? I see Sun has something similar in the latest Sun Studio 8 Enterprise, but I haven't used it. Basically, it's a round-trip UML modeler: lay out your class diagram, and XDE will generate the code for it. Update the generated skeleton with "real" code, and XDE will update your model from the changes. It's much nicer than trying to do things with Rational Rose -- then again, pulling our your toenails with rust pliers is nicer than trying to do some things in Rose (say, trying to reverse-engineer a subset of your project that references a class that isn't part of the subset you're working on).
Like it or not, UML is the new flow charts, and any tool that makes using it easier ultimately makes it easier for a team to communicate. I would wrap this up succinctly, but I see it's after 1700 on a Friday, so