Not to mention the fact all these protections makes it more difficult for legitimately licensed users, to use the products. With Dell machines we used to use, it was a lot easier to install pirated copies of Windows than the legit copies (that were in any case crammed with unwanted bloatware).
One of the reasons I like OSX - no product key complications, and the "family edition" or corporate licenses aren't outrageously expensive.
Cookies are often used to store user variables when they go from one page to another - patching holes the stateless web protocol forces on the user experience. Session or server-side variables may also be used for this, but that's more work for the web designer, who usually is up to his neck trying to support different versions of IE misbehavior.
Sites I've worked on have never used cookies to send back personal information, but they have used them to improve the user experience.
It should be obvious from the walk-around/interview if and how the company is using Lean or Agile or similar team-based short-term development cycles. Drill down.
"How is it working out for you?" Seems like most Agile implementations have problems, more so as they're getting started and learning the system.
If they aren't, "Have you considered/are you planning to try Agile". There's a lot of pain that goes along with that transition.
Compare their answers to how you personally feel about these methods.
But what about when the "bosses" require a certain kind of documentation (ISO 9000?) that fits some ugly formatting standard, does not help you understand the code or the process, and no one ever reads?
You're right, but the thing is, you can see the value most developers put in comments, in the quality and emphasis that programming languages put on comments. At best they're an afterthought, implementing what other languages have done before. I've never seen comments done "right" so I end up doing it myself.
I currently write in html, php, javascript, css, perl, sql, and command line script. Comments are supported differently in each. CSS is particularly awful, only supporting/* */ and including it in code-weight.
(mini-rant) There are many types of comments.
To begin with, there's code-header comments - program name, change date, inputs and outputs, platform, etc. I used to program in COBOL and these were mandatory. In some languages this can be used to autodocument.
There are declarative comments - the kind you usually expect. They tell what a function or program section should do.
There are temporary notes and to do comments - "remember to change this so that it won't fail if we get a negative", etc. I use #! and #? for these (or/* #!yaddayadda */ if # isn't supported).
Then there's comment-out: places where I leave the previous code in for a while so I can see what I changed. If I can I put the # in the left column for these; wish there was a whole different symbol for it.
Finally, there's well-formed/best practices code as its own "self-documenting" - but that does not substitute for good comments.
More practically, consider some future need to "localize" (or is it "localise"?) your software by using language tables, unicode, etc. to translate the program into other languages (of course, there are also cultural considerations with text positioning, fonts, colors, images, icon placement, and so on). It's a useful exercise to take a single simple program of yours and make it language-local in as many languages as you can think of.
I'd suggest you take a "sampler" introductory course in several different languages, just to get a feel for them. Just as it's useful to know a bit about what C, Pascal, Lisp, COBOL, Javascript, Fortran, etc. look and feel like, I think it's good to get an introduction and know how to say a few "hello, goodbye, thank you, excuse me, 1-10, where's the bathroom, may I please have another beer" sorts of things in a variety of languages ("!Hola, mundo!").
I'd personally sample Spanish, French, German, Russian, Mandarin, Japanese, Hindi, Swahili, and Arabic. Learn a dozen phrases in each. Then see which appeals to you.
A friend and I took a single phrase and learned to say it in as many languages as possible. He chose it: "The only way to kill Godzilla now is with a nuclear weapon" - I have no explanation for why, but it was fun and it gave me a taste of quite a few tongues (so to speak).
Ah, there it is in TFA, with the same link. "The most ambitious was Marshall Savage's Aquarius Project, which aimed at nothing less than the colonization of the universe."
The first section of the book describes massive floating islands created by concrete accreted from seawater using electricity derived from temperature differentials. Entertaining as science fiction, a long shot as far as actual science.
Yes, but Santos-Dumont make it popular for men to wear wristwatches, and threw "high parties" where everyone sat on chairs 8 feet tall so they could feel what it was like to fly.
I remember seeing a job listing for Nothrup's B2 ("Most expensive plane crash...ever.") program; they were looking for "Advanced Composite Fabricators". I decided these are the people who make up really really intricate lies to tell the government to justify their prices.
(beginner Facebook developer here) Email addresses aren't available to applications either, tho most of the other information you enter is.
I'd really like to see an interchange format (assumably XML) where I can choose to share or not share my "friends" with social networking sites as I choose, rather than having the data locked on their servers.
Back around 2000, my domain name, www.sideshowfreak.com, was at Netcom, and they somehow managed to drop it in the middle of a back-end transfer. I found out two weeks later when my emails stopped coming.
I did what you suggested, asked nicely, offered to double his transfer expenses, explained that I was setting it up for some friends doing a circus.
He was a total and complete jackass. Hurling obscenities, suggesting unreasonable prices ($100,000). I gave up. It wasn't worth the effort or the agony. I did manage to call his mom, who had the phone number that the account was registered to - the guy was in college and didn't have a phone. The poor woman sounded like she had had this conversation dozens of times. "Please, I don't know why my son is doing this, can you speak to him and ask him to stop, I'm getting so many calls, he's just out of control..." Eventually he anonomized the whois.
That domain name is STILL hosted by a domain name farmer - don't know if it's still him. I expect whoever it is uses some metric of number of hits to determine how valuable a name is, so listing it here might bump up its value.
Domain name farming should be killed. If you're actually using a domain, fine. But if you're just holding it waiting for someone to pay an unreasonably high price, someone with a legit claim (say, the previous owner) should be able to snipe it back.
Military Surplus lap desk
on
Lap Desks
·
· Score: 1
Now that I've read the other responses, I see I'm -1 redundant.
That said, I also found a metal folding lap desk at a military surplus store, that's awesome (though heavy). It has a tilting top so it works flat, or angled like a drafting table; folding legs that bring the desk from bed height up to lap height.
I've done this with a "TV Dinner Table" - a small, single person wooden folding table. Remove the legs, and bob's your uncle. If necessary, add a pillow underneath, or attach other stuff to the top. Costs around $10 at BBB.
Hence my point about not being able to get them used from the UK where they're less than $10K, and the models I want (110 pickup, specifically) that were never offered in the US.
Apologist (off-road and off-topic):
0. $35K is way too much, of course. Actually I've found them for around $20K which is still too much. But...
1. 10 years does not a "rustbucket" make; I have restored 40 year old vehicles with no rust, because they've been driven in the West where we don't salt the roads as a matter of course, and because...
2. Land Rover body skins are made of an aluminum ("al-yew-min-ee-yum") alloy that does not rust; the frames are anti-rust treated; and I'd pull the painted steel body cappings off and have them galvanized the way they used to be. And even if the vehicle does rust, every panel or structural member is available and fairly easily replaceable, even by an amateur like me. One of the reasons they hold their value.
3. The few D90s that were sold here were for some bizarre reason marketed as luxury vehicles. Probably because Range Rovers sold so well to soccer moms and hiphop rappers. In the UK and the rest of the world, they're marketed as farm and utility vehicles, which is what they are. In any case, many of these were treated as garage queens, never taken off road (which is like buying your M3 and never exceeding the speed limit). Many are actually as good as new. Mileage does matter, and while all the running gear is durable and easily replaceable as well, it tends to be expensive and need service every 60K or so - service costs more but lasts longer than similar Asian 4x4s.
4. I actually drive a Discovery, which is great, and while more comfortable and nearly as capable off-road, it doesn't have the utility (strap stuff to the roof throw stuff in the back beat the crap out of it and drive it home) of the Defenders. But at least there's documented ways to mount a carputer in a discovery, for displaying GPS topo maps.
Slashdot Mirror
Not to mention the fact all these protections makes it more difficult for legitimately licensed users, to use the products. With Dell machines we used to use, it was a lot easier to install pirated copies of Windows than the legit copies (that were in any case crammed with unwanted bloatware).
One of the reasons I like OSX - no product key complications, and the "family edition" or corporate licenses aren't outrageously expensive.
Cookies are often used to store user variables when they go from one page to another - patching holes the stateless web protocol forces on the user experience. Session or server-side variables may also be used for this, but that's more work for the web designer, who usually is up to his neck trying to support different versions of IE misbehavior.
Sites I've worked on have never used cookies to send back personal information, but they have used them to improve the user experience.
It should be obvious from the walk-around/interview if and how the company is using Lean or Agile or similar team-based short-term development cycles. Drill down.
"How is it working out for you?" Seems like most Agile implementations have problems, more so as they're getting started and learning the system.
If they aren't, "Have you considered/are you planning to try Agile". There's a lot of pain that goes along with that transition.
Compare their answers to how you personally feel about these methods.
If so, which ones do we get to try? Because there are some new ones out there that I've heard are awesome.
But what about when the "bosses" require a certain kind of documentation (ISO 9000?) that fits some ugly formatting standard, does not help you understand the code or the process, and no one ever reads?
You're right, but the thing is, you can see the value most developers put in comments, in the quality and emphasis that programming languages put on comments. At best they're an afterthought, implementing what other languages have done before. I've never seen comments done "right" so I end up doing it myself.
I currently write in html, php, javascript, css, perl, sql, and command line script. Comments are supported differently in each. CSS is particularly awful, only supporting /* */ and including it in code-weight.
(mini-rant)
There are many types of comments.
To begin with, there's code-header comments - program name, change date, inputs and outputs, platform, etc. I used to program in COBOL and these were mandatory. In some languages this can be used to autodocument.
There are declarative comments - the kind you usually expect. They tell what a function or program section should do.
There are temporary notes and to do comments - "remember to change this so that it won't fail if we get a negative", etc. I use #! and #? for these (or /* #!yaddayadda */ if # isn't supported).
Then there's comment-out: places where I leave the previous code in for a while so I can see what I changed. If I can I put the # in the left column for these; wish there was a whole different symbol for it.
Finally, there's well-formed/best practices code as its own "self-documenting" - but that does not substitute for good comments.
(here's my blog rant)
http://www.obtainium.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=234:250&catid=7:programming&Itemid=2
How about one called "I'm with Stupid" that's a mirror?
(...continuing reply to self)
More practically, consider some future need to "localize" (or is it "localise"?) your software by using language tables, unicode, etc. to translate the program into other languages (of course, there are also cultural considerations with text positioning, fonts, colors, images, icon placement, and so on). It's a useful exercise to take a single simple program of yours and make it language-local in as many languages as you can think of.
I'd suggest you take a "sampler" introductory course in several different languages, just to get a feel for them. Just as it's useful to know a bit about what C, Pascal, Lisp, COBOL, Javascript, Fortran, etc. look and feel like, I think it's good to get an introduction and know how to say a few "hello, goodbye, thank you, excuse me, 1-10, where's the bathroom, may I please have another beer" sorts of things in a variety of languages ("!Hola, mundo!").
I'd personally sample Spanish, French, German, Russian, Mandarin, Japanese, Hindi, Swahili, and Arabic. Learn a dozen phrases in each. Then see which appeals to you.
A friend and I took a single phrase and learned to say it in as many languages as possible. He chose it: "The only way to kill Godzilla now is with a nuclear weapon" - I have no explanation for why, but it was fun and it gave me a taste of quite a few tongues (so to speak).
(gratuitous reply to self)
Ah, there it is in TFA, with the same link.
"The most ambitious was Marshall Savage's Aquarius Project, which aimed at nothing less than the colonization of the universe."
The first section of the book describes massive floating islands created by concrete accreted from seawater using electricity derived from temperature differentials. Entertaining as science fiction, a long shot as far as actual science.
He must have read this one:
http://www.amazon.com/Millennial-Project-Colonizing-Galaxy-Eight/dp/0316771635
Yes, but Santos-Dumont make it popular for men to wear wristwatches, and threw "high parties" where everyone sat on chairs 8 feet tall so they could feel what it was like to fly.
...that a crazy Brazilian invented the airplane, before the Wright Brothers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberto_Santos-Dumont
http://www.amazon.com/Wings-Madness-Alberto-Santos-Dumont-Invention/dp/B000FVHJ94
I remember seeing a job listing for Nothrup's B2 ("Most expensive plane crash...ever.") program; they were looking for "Advanced Composite Fabricators". I decided these are the people who make up really really intricate lies to tell the government to justify their prices.
I'm a newbie Facebook app developer.
Here's the info I can see for any user that adds my app and clicks the box:
uid*, first_name, last_name, name*, pic_small, pic_big, pic_square, pic, affiliations, profile_update_time, timezone, religion, birthday, sex, hometown_location, meeting_sex, meeting_for, relationship_status, significant_other_id, political, current_location, activities, interests, is_app_user, music, tv, movies, books, quotes, about_me, hs_info, education_history, work_history, notes_count, wall_count, status, has_added_app
(More info on the already-linked http://developers.facebook.com/documentation.php?doc=fql )
To me this seems like way, way too much. I haven't told our marketing people we can get all this.
(beginner Facebook developer here) Email addresses aren't available to applications either, tho most of the other information you enter is.
I'd really like to see an interchange format (assumably XML) where I can choose to share or not share my "friends" with social networking sites as I choose, rather than having the data locked on their servers.
You mean like:
War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.
We have always been at war with Eastasia.
Seems like it's working out pretty well for the current (US) government.
Nokia N810
and/or
ASUS Eee PC
and/or
OLPC Give One Get One
Pleo
Arduino
iPod Touch 16GB (jailbroken)
Apple Tablet (will have to wait for January. Or when hell freezes over.)
Back around 2000, my domain name, www.sideshowfreak.com, was at Netcom, and they somehow managed to drop it in the middle of a back-end transfer. I found out two weeks later when my emails stopped coming.
I did what you suggested, asked nicely, offered to double his transfer expenses, explained that I was setting it up for some friends doing a circus.
He was a total and complete jackass. Hurling obscenities, suggesting unreasonable prices ($100,000). I gave up. It wasn't worth the effort or the agony. I did manage to call his mom, who had the phone number that the account was registered to - the guy was in college and didn't have a phone. The poor woman sounded like she had had this conversation dozens of times. "Please, I don't know why my son is doing this, can you speak to him and ask him to stop, I'm getting so many calls, he's just out of control..." Eventually he anonomized the whois.
That domain name is STILL hosted by a domain name farmer - don't know if it's still him. I expect whoever it is uses some metric of number of hits to determine how valuable a name is, so listing it here might bump up its value.
Domain name farming should be killed. If you're actually using a domain, fine. But if you're just holding it waiting for someone to pay an unreasonably high price, someone with a legit claim (say, the previous owner) should be able to snipe it back.
Now that I've read the other responses, I see I'm -1 redundant.
That said, I also found a metal folding lap desk at a military surplus store, that's awesome (though heavy). It has a tilting top so it works flat, or angled like a drafting table; folding legs that bring the desk from bed height up to lap height.
I tried google and I can't find it - d'oh.
I've done this with a "TV Dinner Table" - a small, single person wooden folding table. Remove the legs, and bob's your uncle. If necessary, add a pillow underneath, or attach other stuff to the top. Costs around $10 at BBB.
I for one welcome our Lego mindstorm exoskeleton overlords.
n. ????
n+1. PROFIT!
Hence my point about not being able to get them used from the UK where they're less than $10K, and the models I want (110 pickup, specifically) that were never offered in the US.
Apologist (off-road and off-topic):
0. $35K is way too much, of course. Actually I've found them for around $20K which is still too much. But...
1. 10 years does not a "rustbucket" make; I have restored 40 year old vehicles with no rust, because they've been driven in the West where we don't salt the roads as a matter of course, and because...
2. Land Rover body skins are made of an aluminum ("al-yew-min-ee-yum") alloy that does not rust; the frames are anti-rust treated; and I'd pull the painted steel body cappings off and have them galvanized the way they used to be. And even if the vehicle does rust, every panel or structural member is available and fairly easily replaceable, even by an amateur like me. One of the reasons they hold their value.
3. The few D90s that were sold here were for some bizarre reason marketed as luxury vehicles. Probably because Range Rovers sold so well to soccer moms and hiphop rappers. In the UK and the rest of the world, they're marketed as farm and utility vehicles, which is what they are. In any case, many of these were treated as garage queens, never taken off road (which is like buying your M3 and never exceeding the speed limit). Many are actually as good as new. Mileage does matter, and while all the running gear is durable and easily replaceable as well, it tends to be expensive and need service every 60K or so - service costs more but lasts longer than similar Asian 4x4s.
4. I actually drive a Discovery, which is great, and while more comfortable and nearly as capable off-road, it doesn't have the utility (strap stuff to the roof throw stuff in the back beat the crap out of it and drive it home) of the Defenders. But at least there's documented ways to mount a carputer in a discovery, for displaying GPS topo maps.
Seeing as how I occasionally drive through mud puddles higher than the door tops of an M3, I put it somewhat above.
Of course there are plenty of eurosport vehicles that also qualify for the "can't get in the US", I'm into the militutilitary flavors.