I've never tried it for a code base as large as 500k. My guess it that I used it up to 15k. I was very pleased with it. I agreed with just about every warning it raised, and was able to easily suppress individual instances or whole classes of errors. I also found it somewhat easier to get started with compared to the big tools from Rational et al.
I think it's a bit pricey for a an open-source coder like me, but it should be cheap enough for a company with a tools budget.
I don't think it'll be very long before, when you apply to a college or university, you also sign away all rights to everything you think, say, or do while you're there, in perpetuity, in any medium whatsoever.
I know that some universities put a claim on most of your school-related IP creation hidden in the recesses of a document that you never sign. I'll be interested to see that challenged, since when you join a university you're typically agreeing to abide by their student handbook, but you DON'T typically see the IP statement.
Our leaders aren't allowing American scientists to innovate.
This is also evident in the university, because military-related research grants (which fuel a lot of professors and grad students) are drying up. DARPA and the Office of Naval Research (ONR) funds are now being directed at things with "near time-frame" pay-off.
There are several problems from this:
The reduced funding makes it harder for graduates to afford to move onto grad school, because the stipends are harder to get.
Professors have less time to work on funded research, which makes it harder for them to advance the state of the art.
Not only does the reduced funding make it harder to get a grant, but it also means that a larger fraction of your time is spent competing for grants (writing proposals, talking to potential sponsors, etc.) This time is spent developing sales skills rather than advancing the state of the art.
When grad students see the pain in the ass that it is to get funding, they're reasonably less interested in going into teaching research. After all, how many people with the technical interest to complete a master's / PhD in math/cs/engineering really want to spend a lot of time begging for money?
I was really surprised to find that something so powerful and dangerous as 1 lb. of Uranium is selling in the $60-$80 USD range. Does anyone know how much energy a typical modern reactor squeezes out of a pound of uranium?
The golden age
on
TextMate
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· Score: 4, Interesting
You know what's great? Open-source software has developed to the point where I can usually say to myself, "That product is closed source? I'm not going to bother."
I.e., there will probably always be the exception where a closed-source product is so good that it's worthwhile accepting its closed-ness. But for things like text editors, etc., those exceptions are rare enough that I can defer looking at the product until I hear every tech news site praising the product from the rooftops.
It's a happy state of affairs for a software consumer.
Does anyone thing that maybe the reason we put up with this stuff is that we just don't know how to effectively change it? It seems like the only examples we have are
(a) Ineffectual: writing or congresspersons, letters to the editor, voting.
(b) (Typically) Crazy: armed revolt.
It's like none of us (including me) knows how to navigate the territory between those two extremes. Heck, I don't even know whether or not there is any territory in between.
Is this why we're damned to stand bye, then get over these things and go watch the newest B.S.G episode to forget about the state of the nation? We're just convinced that there's no effective way to deal with these things without resorting to violence, which we're (sensibly) loathe to do?
OK, so I'm a member of the widened market. Unfortunately this widened market seems to be soaking up all the Wii's as soon as they hit retailers' shelves.
Does anyone know when the northeast U.S. is supposed to have a supply to meet demand?
(I know you can get them at Ebay etc., but they're pretty over-priced. And walmart.com sells the bundles, but I don't want to drop $650 initially.)
I'm normally reluctant to bring a new tech into my house that will make the kids sit around turning into lumps. But with the Wii's apparent success in inducing physical activity and playing games *together*, it offers something that just doesn't seem to happen with the PS/3 or 360.
So I find it interesting that the Wii cracked its way into *my* home: the home of a gamer who didn't want his kids (previously) to have a console. Now if I could only find one in stores...
Let me give you a hint: All voting irregularities are 'stuff that matters' and it's stuff that matters to geeks as well as everyone else.
So do religion issues, how to get laid, and maximizing your 401(k) return. That's why we have (drum roll please) religion websites, hook-up tips websites, and investment websites. Here's a hint: it's called specialization of websites to particular topics.
It doesn't particularly bother me that./ carried this story, I just thought it was off-topic. You don't have to get all cranky about it.
Acceleration on Earth due to gravity is about 9.8 m/s, regardless of whether our belief in that fact is biologically pre-disposed.
If morality is objective, is it then fair to say that it's objective existence (or lack thereof) is unrelated to whether or not we're biologically predisposed to recognize it?
Re:Are they better, or just different?
on
eSATA Connectors
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· Score: 1
Actually, there is a product that can help with this. You might want to try it.
On the one hand, we OSS advocates can't afford to live in a dream world. If Windows is cheaper than Linux, we need to know about it, know why, and fix it. So from that angle I'm glad MicroNovell assented to it.
But we also know that statements like this are typically used out of context, especially by the professional liars who do advertisting for a living. Somehow, when MS runs ads talking about TCO, they'll forget to mention all of the qualifications that accompany this case study, such as the fact that it had a mixed Linux environment. So from this angle, I almost wish that MicroNovell hadn't assented at all, since it's likely to be used to mislead the general public rather than make them wiser.
I'm I the only person who sees plea bargains as unjust?
If someone did a crime, he deserves an appropriate penalty. If he did no crime, he deserves no penalty.
Plea bargains say, we're kind of sure you did the time, but you can't afford the risk of a defense and/or the risk of being falsely convicted, and we'd rather not spend the money investigating / prosecuting to the point where we could convince a jury, so how about we split the difference?
The result: the guilty go free, and the innocent pay a price. Nice.
Do you really think anyone has the intelligence to evaluate the relative plausibility of those two propositions? I know #2 has some evidence, regardless of whether or not you just it to be valid. I don't know about #1.
A lot of these people are focused on "how do I meet this product spec?" and not necessarily a solution fit for purpose.
Meeting the spec helps you keep your job. Failing to meet the job to pursue what the programmer calls, "fitness for purpose" is typically unrewarded idealism, especially when contracts are involved. Many programmers want to bash their own brains when coding something they know isn't fit for purpose but meets the spec. But you can only argue with management for so long before you have the choice of code what they're asking for or getting fired.
There's also a certain amount of humility and being a team player here. Large projects sometimes can't afford the time for every programmer, especially those new to the problem domain at hand, to have strong buy-in to a particular set of specs before they start coding them. On a good day the people that code to fit purpose rather than spec are called "professionals". On a bad they they're called primadonnas or "that guy who got us sued because we didn't meet the spec in our contract."
I routinely encounter situations where enumeration comparisons are done using strings and searches are implemented using a linear search (I kid you not, I once reduced a program run from 90 mins to 4 mins by replacing a single linear search with a binary search). Just because every 6 months there is a more powerful CPU on the market doesn't justify ever increasingly sloppy coding.
There's usually a trade-off between the time you have to program a solution to a problem vs. the efficiency of the resulting program. Again, management often forces where on this trade-off curve the program lies. (I don't mean to make excuses for programs that unnecessarily lie below that curve. I'm sure it happens often.) So if you get an inexperienced or under-trained programmer, only give him 3 hours to get the program done, and it takes him 3.5 hours to make it work at all, then one might expect to see the problems you're describing.
So far Google has caved when secular governments have gone after people for civil disobedience.
I wonder what they'd do in an officially Muslim like Iran if someone posted a blog saying, "I was a Muslim but I converted to Christianity", and the government demanded that Google turn over that person's identifying information?
If Google refused, then they're giving up on the broad claim that their presence a blessing to a country regardless of what censorship / person-finding they assist with. If they went along with it, then they show the true vacuousness of their "moral" reasoning.
I don't want such a test case to arise, but I'd be (morbidly) curious to see how it plays out.
Does Google leadership believe that "Do no evil" "Obey all laws"?
Or have they simply abandoned "Do no evil" in favor of, "Do not much evil, and even then only do it if you want to gain a foothold in countries with rapidly growing economies."?
The program apparently uses the same process as the Pentagon's Total Information Awareness project, which was aborted in 2003 due to privacy concerns."
But TIA was part of the military. This is for the defense of our homeland, so the trade-off in liberty must be worth it.
Slashdot Mirror
http://www.gimpel.com/html/lintinfo.htm/
I've never tried it for a code base as large as 500k. My guess it that I used it up to 15k. I was very pleased with it. I agreed with just about every warning it raised, and was able to easily suppress individual instances or whole classes of errors. I also found it somewhat easier to get started with compared to the big tools from Rational et al.
I think it's a bit pricey for a an open-source coder like me, but it should be cheap enough for a company with a tools budget.
I know that some universities put a claim on most of your school-related IP creation hidden in the recesses of a document that you never sign. I'll be interested to see that challenged, since when you join a university you're typically agreeing to abide by their student handbook, but you DON'T typically see the IP statement.
This is also evident in the university, because military-related research grants (which fuel a lot of professors and grad students) are drying up. DARPA and the Office of Naval Research (ONR) funds are now being directed at things with "near time-frame" pay-off.
There are several problems from this:
I was really surprised to find that something so powerful and dangerous as 1 lb. of Uranium is selling in the $60-$80 USD range. Does anyone know how much energy a typical modern reactor squeezes out of a pound of uranium?
Sorry, I'm not for sale.
You know what's great? Open-source software has developed to the point where I can usually say to myself, "That product is closed source? I'm not going to bother."
I.e., there will probably always be the exception where a closed-source product is so good that it's worthwhile accepting its closed-ness. But for things like text editors, etc., those exceptions are rare enough that I can defer looking at the product until I hear every tech news site praising the product from the rooftops.
It's a happy state of affairs for a software consumer.
(a) Ineffectual: writing or congresspersons, letters to the editor, voting.
(b) (Typically) Crazy: armed revolt.
It's like none of us (including me) knows how to navigate the territory between those two extremes. Heck, I don't even know whether or not there is any territory in between.
Is this why we're damned to stand bye, then get over these things and go watch the newest B.S.G episode to forget about the state of the nation? We're just convinced that there's no effective way to deal with these things without resorting to violence, which we're (sensibly) loathe to do?OK, so I'm a member of the widened market. Unfortunately this widened market seems to be soaking up all the Wii's as soon as they hit retailers' shelves.
Does anyone know when the northeast U.S. is supposed to have a supply to meet demand?
(I know you can get them at Ebay etc., but they're pretty over-priced. And walmart.com sells the bundles, but I don't want to drop $650 initially.)
I'm normally reluctant to bring a new tech into my house that will make the kids sit around turning into lumps. But with the Wii's apparent success in inducing physical activity and playing games *together*, it offers something that just doesn't seem to happen with the PS/3 or 360.
So I find it interesting that the Wii cracked its way into *my* home: the home of a gamer who didn't want his kids (previously) to have a console. Now if I could only find one in stores...
So do religion issues, how to get laid, and maximizing your 401(k) return. That's why we have (drum roll please) religion websites, hook-up tips websites, and investment websites. Here's a hint: it's called specialization of websites to particular topics.
It doesn't particularly bother me that ./ carried this story, I just thought it was off-topic. You don't have to get all cranky about it.
What on *earth* does this have to do with "news for nerds"?
Look, if they just don't want to use Windows why can't they say so???
So no more banding?
Acceleration on Earth due to gravity is about 9.8 m/s, regardless of whether our belief in that fact is biologically pre-disposed.
If morality is objective, is it then fair to say that it's objective existence (or lack thereof) is unrelated to whether or not we're biologically predisposed to recognize it?
Actually, there is a product that can help with this. You might want to try it.
I can see it now:
Mac: I'm... a... um. a... Mac!
PC: I'm a PC. Are you high?
Mac: (Burst out laughing) Nooo...... no.. What? I just know how to have a good time.
PC: You *are* high! I've never had a joint in my life!
Mac: Is that right.?
On the one hand, we OSS advocates can't afford to live in a dream world. If Windows is cheaper than Linux, we need to know about it, know why, and fix it. So from that angle I'm glad MicroNovell assented to it.
But we also know that statements like this are typically used out of context, especially by the professional liars who do advertisting for a living. Somehow, when MS runs ads talking about TCO, they'll forget to mention all of the qualifications that accompany this case study, such as the fact that it had a mixed Linux environment. So from this angle, I almost wish that MicroNovell hadn't assented at all, since it's likely to be used to mislead the general public rather than make them wiser.
I'm I the only person who sees plea bargains as unjust?
If someone did a crime, he deserves an appropriate penalty. If he did no crime, he deserves no penalty.
Plea bargains say, we're kind of sure you did the time, but you can't afford the risk of a defense and/or the risk of being falsely convicted, and we'd rather not spend the money investigating / prosecuting to the point where we could convince a jury, so how about we split the difference?
The result: the guilty go free, and the innocent pay a price. Nice.
Do you really think anyone has the intelligence to evaluate the relative plausibility of those two propositions? I know #2 has some evidence, regardless of whether or not you just it to be valid. I don't know about #1.
It would add some credibility when I tell my girlfriend that the porn in my browser history came ex nihilo.
Meeting the spec helps you keep your job. Failing to meet the job to pursue what the programmer calls, "fitness for purpose" is typically unrewarded idealism, especially when contracts are involved. Many programmers want to bash their own brains when coding something they know isn't fit for purpose but meets the spec. But you can only argue with management for so long before you have the choice of code what they're asking for or getting fired.
There's also a certain amount of humility and being a team player here. Large projects sometimes can't afford the time for every programmer, especially those new to the problem domain at hand, to have strong buy-in to a particular set of specs before they start coding them. On a good day the people that code to fit purpose rather than spec are called "professionals". On a bad they they're called primadonnas or "that guy who got us sued because we didn't meet the spec in our contract."
There's usually a trade-off between the time you have to program a solution to a problem vs. the efficiency of the resulting program. Again, management often forces where on this trade-off curve the program lies. (I don't mean to make excuses for programs that unnecessarily lie below that curve. I'm sure it happens often.) So if you get an inexperienced or under-trained programmer, only give him 3 hours to get the program done, and it takes him 3.5 hours to make it work at all, then one might expect to see the problems you're describing.
So far Google has caved when secular governments have gone after people for civil disobedience.
I wonder what they'd do in an officially Muslim like Iran if someone posted a blog saying, "I was a Muslim but I converted to Christianity", and the government demanded that Google turn over that person's identifying information?
If Google refused, then they're giving up on the broad claim that their presence a blessing to a country regardless of what censorship / person-finding they assist with. If they went along with it, then they show the true vacuousness of their "moral" reasoning.
I don't want such a test case to arise, but I'd be (morbidly) curious to see how it plays out.
Does Google leadership believe that "Do no evil" "Obey all laws"?
Or have they simply abandoned "Do no evil" in favor of, "Do not much evil, and even then only do it if you want to gain a foothold in countries with rapidly growing economies."?
Take a platform who's only real reason for existing is stealth, and give it a navigation system that reveals its presence and location.
If (manned) submarines don't care about their location that can just surface to antenna depth and use the (*&^^## GPS.
But TIA was part of the military. This is for the defense of our homeland, so the trade-off in liberty must be worth it.