The comments here fall into two primary all-or-nothing buckets that seem to be on opposite ends of the political spectrum. Yet when you look closely, it is plain to see that both sides are really talking about the same thing: fear of the unknown resulting from change.
This fear arises because we don't take the time to actually use our minds to think critically from all points of view. Fear paralyzes us - and we take the easy way out - resorting to regurgitating dogma from sources that we identify with our own world-view. We do ourselves and the people around us a disservice when we substitute dogma for thought.
Here is a simple rule to live by - and help you determine if your dogma is in the best interests of everyone. The Golden Rule or law of reciprocity is the principle of treating others as one would wish to be treated oneself. It is a maxim of altruism seen in many human religions and cultures the world over. Now - put yourself in the shoes of the people you are considering in the discussion - and assuming it is you who has to live with the outcome apply the dogma/position that you align with.
Now after doing that thought exercise, if you can honestly say that your position/dogma will not adversely impact others, then it is worthy of consideration. If it cannot, then you need to think about a new dogma.
The OP - which is me - didn't say that competence was tied to gender, only that gender is not fairly represented.
Given how screwed up the system is today under the last 800,000 years of male rule, my implication is having women in charge could certainly not be any worse.
If you expect to go into the office every day and do the same thing over and over and get paid a good wage for it in IT - those days are over.
Repetitive common tasks are being outsourced because - rightly or wrongly - they are being percieved as not requireing significant skills, and targets for automation.
On the other hand - if you are smart, you will look for unique opportunities and skills that are in demand. This is your opportunity to define yourself in the job market, rather than letting an employer define you.
The big push to patent everything that started around the turn of the century lead to not only software patents but also process patents - both of which are evil because they suppress innovation by the larger population, effectively blocking small businesses and individuals (who can't afford patents or to litigate patent disputes) from pursuing their ideas which before this ruling would run the risk of overlapping any number of patents in a web that was impossible in practical terms to identify fully.
Some here have argued that not having patents allows others to take your ideas and benefit from it. But there is nothing that says you have to open source your code. You can keep your code private - in which case others would need to develop their own solutions. To the uninformed that is called 'competition' and is a good thing for the market and your customers.
Overall - the good of being free of patent litigation for software outweighs any good achieved through patents by patent trolls and the litigation we've seen. The efforts in litigation add nothing in terms of competition or creation of new and better products for customers - and is a net drain on everyone except the pocketbook of the lawyers involved. I am happy to see some sanity is starting to prevail on this subject.
Given that 50 percent of the population is female, yet most jobs and management positions are held by males - a correction is in order.
Male dominated leadership and the associated misogynistic world view have lead to centuries of suffering by humanity. Its about time female leadership drives change.
In various languages, like C or Perl or Python, you can execute a print command and direct what file handle your output will go to. Some standard ones are standard out (aka STDOUT) - which usually goes to the terminal screen, and standard error (STDERR) which also goes to the terminal screen. A standard method when using file handles is to redirect their output to something else other than the screen (probably a good thing to do if you are running a GUI) - like a device such as a printer or text file - or my favorite/dev/null. This is a backwards compatibility with Unix - where everything in the operating system is a file - including devices. If you are running a Unix or Linux OS from a command line shell - you can redirect the standard file handles from the command line using shell redirection parameters.
So technically - if you are using the print commands from any one of these languages - you can indeed use your video card to print your output to the screen. And yes, I do save a lot on paper in my 'paperless' office as a result (though I usually print to a file - so I can peruse it later on a portable device at a later date).
If you are a person concerned about your information being useful/relevant to future generations - then you must curate the data (basically filter the raw data and add context to create information). Raw data of every moment of your lifetime is too much data to be relevant to human beings - although computers may find it useful -- assuming the algorithms and AI used to process it is perfect -=- which isn't likely. Of course, online services don't do this well at all - and there are no guarantees your data will survive the next merger or retirement of the companies behind the services your information is tied up in.
If your information is a program, or the output of a program, then you should build programs that take into account the need to preserve their runtime environment and provide conversion of data to open standards (e.g. xml etc) that can be reproduced easily without the need of a specific program. Virtual machines are an excellent means of doing this over time - and have had success in keeping old console games alive.
Finally - storage technology itself will evolve over time - and now that most things are in a digital form, migrating the data to the new technologies is relatively painless.
The earliest computers were often programmed without the help of a programming language, by writing programs in absolute machine language. The programs, in decimal or binary form, were read in from punched cards or magnetic tape, or toggled in on switches on the front panel of the computer. Absolute machine languages were later termed first-generation programming languages (1GL).
The next step was development of so-called second-generation programming languages (2GL) or assembly languages, which were still closely tied to the instruction set architecture of the specific computer. These served to make the program much more human-readable, and relieved the programmer of tedious and error-prone address calculations.
The first high-level programming languages, or third-generation programming languages (3GL), were written in the 1950s. An early high-level programming language to be designed for a computer was Plankalkül, developed for the German Z3 by Konrad Zuse between 1943 and 1945. However, it was not implemented until 1998 and 2000. - Wikipedia
I concur - my own dark sense of optimism was formed at the Age of 2 thru 4 during the initial run of the show. After that, I refilled periodically with reruns...
I think this is what differentiates this 'border' generation (tweeners) - they were at the right age to absorb and appreciate Star Trek deeper than they consciously knew at the time. These are the people holding together the technological world today as the boomers go off and retire not really understanding it, and the generations that have followed never knowing a world without the technology they depend upon - and take for granted every day.
That being said, there are many people doing amazing things to help solve problems, and accomplish the piece parts that can make up a better world when put together. In fits and starts progress is being made - so I can't complain really. I continue to stand by my dark optimism.
Call it whatever you want. Apprentice/Master --- but there needs to be a way to differentiate - and thereby focus the work efforts. Master developers/designers need to be building a cohesive set of tools and a design that the Apprentice uses to get the job done.
An apprentice programmer should never be allowed to lead the design or implementation of a project - I don't care how many years they have with the company. Years of service does not equal quality of skill set. I've seen too many projects destroyed because the wrong people were in key positions in the team - and should not have been. The idea that every programmer is an interchangeable widget is a lie. If you are peddling that 'happy joy and rainbow land' view of the world - then you are part of the problem that I am talking about.
The truth is in the deliverables. Most of those deliverables are nowhere close to being right.
Allowing (or forcing) application programmers to do system programming. If your language forces the programmer to reinvent the wheel - he will invariably do it badly. The corollary to this: poor libraries/frameworks/abstractions built by aforementioned programmers then let bad programmers spread even more bad code.
This, by the way, is the source of all zero days.
If you have to do system programming - make sure you have a bona fide systems programmer - preferably who has a thorough understanding of secure programming - on the team; either as a reviewer, or designer.
Given that there aren't that many real system programmers out there - those that are should focus on building tools that keep application developers from shooting themselves in the foot (so they don't have to be there to keep the carnage from happening). In this instance, I am all for gun control. You don't give a child a loaded gun, and you shouldn't give an application programmer one either.
Huge efforts and money are spent protecting the edges of the network - whether it be firewalls and other router configurations, OS level configurations, and other filtering tools (such as virus detection and scanning, and log and packet inspection and analysis tools). There are also plenty of security companies willing to sell you a magical black box that will solve all of your security problems.
The opposite seems to be the case when it comes to spending time and money on the security of applications used by internal and external customers - either through retrofitting existing applications, or when building new applications. Companies don't want to spend money to retrofit sunk capital, and I don't see security firms talking about or creating tools and common standards for building new secure applications.
Given this dichotomy, do you think that is a correct characterization of the problem space, and do you think we are spending our time and money in the right places as a result?
Millennials are just starting in the workforce so they have much less to lose if they do get compromised. That also means that whatever setback occurs can be quickly recovered. While I can understand why they may not care now about exposure of their content and information today - that isn't to say that will be a constant throughout their lives.
Ask them the same question in 10 to 20 years and see what they say. If they have significant savings or other holdings that are compromised that took many years to acquire - or their credit gets trashed - you can bet they will change their answer. There may be edge cases - but the vast majority will have families, mortgages, and other issues that disruption through faulty security will be unacceptable.
Polls like this are of limited value unless you can look beyond the poll itself to what is really behind how people are responding. Don't fall for the hype. Be a critical thinker.
Yes - lets squabble about this little blue marble, when there are quadrillions of tons of rare earths to be found in the asteroid belt.
Let's get off our collective butts, slap ourselves out of our collective malaise, and get the space elevator/ private sector affordable space launch vehicles/ Mars mission technology working NOW - so we can solve these problems without further destroying the earth.
Processors today are orders of magnitude faster and more capable than just a few years ago. There shouldn't be a question that our apps run faster on them.
The problem is we are loading them down with extraneous cruft. Remove the bloat and you remove the problem. Throwing hardware at it may solve some of the problem - but that is just a bandaid, and definitely won't allow you to lead the market if your competitor is producing leaner, faster code.
The 8 track was a continuous loop - you can see a great picture of the inner workings at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... It used a pinch roller system to drive the tape - it was pulled from the center of the spool, and fed back onto the outside of the spool. Of course that means you couldn't rewind the tape - only go forward - so if you wanted to hear the last track you just heard, you had to fast forward all the way around until you got back to the original track.
My dad's stereo system only played albums and 8 track tapes - so I bought a few 8 tracks (Jackson 5 Triumph was one; can't recall the others) to hear what it sounded like on something other than my boom box (which back then didn't have much bass). It sounded pretty nice.
The whole nail and hammer bit was a snarky crack about obsolete technology and its relative usefulness. Of course, if you want to take that to its logical conclusion - the rules require you to hammer the nail through the device without modification to secure it to the wall. Hanging it on the nail after hammering the nail into the wall is cheating. As a result, technologies that provide a void/hole at some point are more successful than technologies that don't.
I expect Apple to use their collective lips to kiss unmentionable parts of my anatomy.
There, now we are even (considering how I've been figuratively and financially bent over every time I've bought an Apple product). My Mac Mini from 2008 is still chugging along after 8 years...I expect nothing less from my other technology. Guess my next phone/watch purchase will not be an Apple product.
I got my vinyl album, a nail, and a hammer. I guess I'll just mount it on the wall here next to my CD, LaserDisk, Betamax, VHS, 8Track, and Compact Cassette tape.
I rate the most viable technologies by the level of damage the nail does to the technology in question. Right now the LaserDisk, CD, Compact Cassette, and vinyl record are leading, as the nail did a real number on the others.
If people would focus on their own life and actions, and treated everyone else with respect and tolerance rather than trying to insert their beliefs into someone else's life - maybe the rest of us who just want to be left to pursue happiness in our own way, wouldn't have to waste time calling BS every other day of the week.
... People lose rights when they are put in prison - that's the whole point of a prison sentence.
No - the point of imprisonment is not losing rights - it is primarily a means to reform the person so they can function in society again when their time is up, and some would see the time doing that as a just punishment for their crime.
It both saddens and amuses me that the very judgement handed down by this court could be equally applied to ALL religions. Is something not real because you don't believe in it? Conversely, is something real just because you believe in it? NO to both questions.
If we as a society are going to put limits on religion in these kinds of contexts - then they need to be applied equally to all religions in that environment.
The reason the framers of the Constitution made separation of church and state a key component is clearly illustrated here. We can not allow government bodies to give preferential treatment based on identification with 'acceptable' religions, at the expense of any other way of life. The tyranny of religious bigotry is no less dangerous than any tyranny that threatens freedom to choose.
In my domain - no. However, there are plenty of coders better than me in other arenas.
If you are better than everyone at everything - then you are really something special.
Information privacy or data protection laws prohibit the disclosure or misuse of information held on private individuals. These laws are based on Fair Information Practice, first developed in the United States in the 1970s by the Department for Health, Education and Welfare (HEW). The basic principles of data protection are:
For all data collected there should be a stated purpose.
Information collected by an individual cannot be disclosed to other organizations or individuals unless specifically authorized by law or by consent of the individual
Records kept on an individual should be accurate and up to date
There should be mechanisms for individuals to review data about them, to ensure accuracy. This may include periodic reporting
Data should be deleted when it is no longer needed for the stated purpose
Transmission of personal information to locations where "equivalent" personal data protection cannot be assured is prohibited
Some data is too sensitive to be collected, unless there are extreme circumstances (e.g., sexual orientation, religion)
Slashdot Mirror
The comments here fall into two primary all-or-nothing buckets that seem to be on opposite ends of the political spectrum. Yet when you look closely, it is plain to see that both sides are really talking about the same thing: fear of the unknown resulting from change.
This fear arises because we don't take the time to actually use our minds to think critically from all points of view. Fear paralyzes us - and we take the easy way out - resorting to regurgitating dogma from sources that we identify with our own world-view. We do ourselves and the people around us a disservice when we substitute dogma for thought.
Here is a simple rule to live by - and help you determine if your dogma is in the best interests of everyone. The Golden Rule or law of reciprocity is the principle of treating others as one would wish to be treated oneself. It is a maxim of altruism seen in many human religions and cultures the world over. Now - put yourself in the shoes of the people you are considering in the discussion - and assuming it is you who has to live with the outcome apply the dogma/position that you align with.
Now after doing that thought exercise, if you can honestly say that your position/dogma will not adversely impact others, then it is worthy of consideration. If it cannot, then you need to think about a new dogma.
The OP - which is me - didn't say that competence was tied to gender, only that gender is not fairly represented.
Given how screwed up the system is today under the last 800,000 years of male rule, my implication is having women in charge could certainly not be any worse.
If you expect to go into the office every day and do the same thing over and over and get paid a good wage for it in IT - those days are over. Repetitive common tasks are being outsourced because - rightly or wrongly - they are being percieved as not requireing significant skills, and targets for automation.
On the other hand - if you are smart, you will look for unique opportunities and skills that are in demand. This is your opportunity to define yourself in the job market, rather than letting an employer define you.
Security, Data Analytics, and related automation are easy low hanging fruit. Additional areas that you might focus on include data driven AI, robotics, and healthcare. Reference: http://www.modis.com/it-insights/infographics/top-it-jobs-of-2017/
The big push to patent everything that started around the turn of the century lead to not only software patents but also process patents - both of which are evil because they suppress innovation by the larger population, effectively blocking small businesses and individuals (who can't afford patents or to litigate patent disputes) from pursuing their ideas which before this ruling would run the risk of overlapping any number of patents in a web that was impossible in practical terms to identify fully.
Some here have argued that not having patents allows others to take your ideas and benefit from it. But there is nothing that says you have to open source your code. You can keep your code private - in which case others would need to develop their own solutions. To the uninformed that is called 'competition' and is a good thing for the market and your customers.
Overall - the good of being free of patent litigation for software outweighs any good achieved through patents by patent trolls and the litigation we've seen. The efforts in litigation add nothing in terms of competition or creation of new and better products for customers - and is a net drain on everyone except the pocketbook of the lawyers involved. I am happy to see some sanity is starting to prevail on this subject.
I for one welcome our female overlords.
In various languages, like C or Perl or Python, you can execute a print command and direct what file handle your output will go to. Some standard ones are standard out (aka STDOUT) - which usually goes to the terminal screen, and standard error (STDERR) which also goes to the terminal screen. A standard method when using file handles is to redirect their output to something else other than the screen (probably a good thing to do if you are running a GUI) - like a device such as a printer or text file - or my favorite /dev/null. This is a backwards compatibility with Unix - where everything in the operating system is a file - including devices. If you are running a Unix or Linux OS from a command line shell - you can redirect the standard file handles from the command line using shell redirection parameters.
So technically - if you are using the print commands from any one of these languages - you can indeed use your video card to print your output to the screen. And yes, I do save a lot on paper in my 'paperless' office as a result (though I usually print to a file - so I can peruse it later on a portable device at a later date).
If you are a person concerned about your information being useful/relevant to future generations - then you must curate the data (basically filter the raw data and add context to create information). Raw data of every moment of your lifetime is too much data to be relevant to human beings - although computers may find it useful -- assuming the algorithms and AI used to process it is perfect -=- which isn't likely. Of course, online services don't do this well at all - and there are no guarantees your data will survive the next merger or retirement of the companies behind the services your information is tied up in.
If your information is a program, or the output of a program, then you should build programs that take into account the need to preserve their runtime environment and provide conversion of data to open standards (e.g. xml etc) that can be reproduced easily without the need of a specific program. Virtual machines are an excellent means of doing this over time - and have had success in keeping old console games alive.
Finally - storage technology itself will evolve over time - and now that most things are in a digital form, migrating the data to the new technologies is relatively painless.
"Assembly" is not a programming language...
I think you need to rethink that statement.
I concur - my own dark sense of optimism was formed at the Age of 2 thru 4 during the initial run of the show. After that, I refilled periodically with reruns...
I think this is what differentiates this 'border' generation (tweeners) - they were at the right age to absorb and appreciate Star Trek deeper than they consciously knew at the time. These are the people holding together the technological world today as the boomers go off and retire not really understanding it, and the generations that have followed never knowing a world without the technology they depend upon - and take for granted every day.
That being said, there are many people doing amazing things to help solve problems, and accomplish the piece parts that can make up a better world when put together. In fits and starts progress is being made - so I can't complain really. I continue to stand by my dark optimism.
BBC America...
Call it whatever you want. Apprentice/Master --- but there needs to be a way to differentiate - and thereby focus the work efforts. Master developers/designers need to be building a cohesive set of tools and a design that the Apprentice uses to get the job done.
An apprentice programmer should never be allowed to lead the design or implementation of a project - I don't care how many years they have with the company. Years of service does not equal quality of skill set. I've seen too many projects destroyed because the wrong people were in key positions in the team - and should not have been. The idea that every programmer is an interchangeable widget is a lie. If you are peddling that 'happy joy and rainbow land' view of the world - then you are part of the problem that I am talking about.
The truth is in the deliverables. Most of those deliverables are nowhere close to being right.
Allowing (or forcing) application programmers to do system programming. If your language forces the programmer to reinvent the wheel - he will invariably do it badly. The corollary to this: poor libraries/frameworks/abstractions built by aforementioned programmers then let bad programmers spread even more bad code.
This, by the way, is the source of all zero days.
If you have to do system programming - make sure you have a bona fide systems programmer - preferably who has a thorough understanding of secure programming - on the team; either as a reviewer, or designer.
Given that there aren't that many real system programmers out there - those that are should focus on building tools that keep application developers from shooting themselves in the foot (so they don't have to be there to keep the carnage from happening). In this instance, I am all for gun control. You don't give a child a loaded gun, and you shouldn't give an application programmer one either.
Huge efforts and money are spent protecting the edges of the network - whether it be firewalls and other router configurations, OS level configurations, and other filtering tools (such as virus detection and scanning, and log and packet inspection and analysis tools). There are also plenty of security companies willing to sell you a magical black box that will solve all of your security problems.
The opposite seems to be the case when it comes to spending time and money on the security of applications used by internal and external customers - either through retrofitting existing applications, or when building new applications. Companies don't want to spend money to retrofit sunk capital, and I don't see security firms talking about or creating tools and common standards for building new secure applications.
Given this dichotomy, do you think that is a correct characterization of the problem space, and do you think we are spending our time and money in the right places as a result?
Millennials are just starting in the workforce so they have much less to lose if they do get compromised. That also means that whatever setback occurs can be quickly recovered. While I can understand why they may not care now about exposure of their content and information today - that isn't to say that will be a constant throughout their lives.
Ask them the same question in 10 to 20 years and see what they say. If they have significant savings or other holdings that are compromised that took many years to acquire - or their credit gets trashed - you can bet they will change their answer. There may be edge cases - but the vast majority will have families, mortgages, and other issues that disruption through faulty security will be unacceptable.
Polls like this are of limited value unless you can look beyond the poll itself to what is really behind how people are responding. Don't fall for the hype. Be a critical thinker.
Yes - lets squabble about this little blue marble, when there are quadrillions of tons of rare earths to be found in the asteroid belt.
Let's get off our collective butts, slap ourselves out of our collective malaise, and get the space elevator/ private sector affordable space launch vehicles/ Mars mission technology working NOW - so we can solve these problems without further destroying the earth.
...is people!
Processors today are orders of magnitude faster and more capable than just a few years ago. There shouldn't be a question that our apps run faster on them.
The problem is we are loading them down with extraneous cruft. Remove the bloat and you remove the problem. Throwing hardware at it may solve some of the problem - but that is just a bandaid, and definitely won't allow you to lead the market if your competitor is producing leaner, faster code.
The 8 track was a continuous loop - you can see a great picture of the inner workings at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... It used a pinch roller system to drive the tape - it was pulled from the center of the spool, and fed back onto the outside of the spool. Of course that means you couldn't rewind the tape - only go forward - so if you wanted to hear the last track you just heard, you had to fast forward all the way around until you got back to the original track.
My dad's stereo system only played albums and 8 track tapes - so I bought a few 8 tracks (Jackson 5 Triumph was one; can't recall the others) to hear what it sounded like on something other than my boom box (which back then didn't have much bass). It sounded pretty nice.
The whole nail and hammer bit was a snarky crack about obsolete technology and its relative usefulness. Of course, if you want to take that to its logical conclusion - the rules require you to hammer the nail through the device without modification to secure it to the wall. Hanging it on the nail after hammering the nail into the wall is cheating. As a result, technologies that provide a void/hole at some point are more successful than technologies that don't.
I expect Apple to use their collective lips to kiss unmentionable parts of my anatomy.
There, now we are even (considering how I've been figuratively and financially bent over every time I've bought an Apple product). My Mac Mini from 2008 is still chugging along after 8 years...I expect nothing less from my other technology. Guess my next phone/watch purchase will not be an Apple product.
I got my vinyl album, a nail, and a hammer. I guess I'll just mount it on the wall here next to my CD, LaserDisk, Betamax, VHS, 8Track, and Compact Cassette tape.
I rate the most viable technologies by the level of damage the nail does to the technology in question. Right now the LaserDisk, CD, Compact Cassette, and vinyl record are leading, as the nail did a real number on the others.
If people would focus on their own life and actions, and treated everyone else with respect and tolerance rather than trying to insert their beliefs into someone else's life - maybe the rest of us who just want to be left to pursue happiness in our own way, wouldn't have to waste time calling BS every other day of the week.
... People lose rights when they are put in prison - that's the whole point of a prison sentence.
No - the point of imprisonment is not losing rights - it is primarily a means to reform the person so they can function in society again when their time is up, and some would see the time doing that as a just punishment for their crime.
Otherwise, what you said made rational sense.
It both saddens and amuses me that the very judgement handed down by this court could be equally applied to ALL religions. Is something not real because you don't believe in it? Conversely, is something real just because you believe in it? NO to both questions.
If we as a society are going to put limits on religion in these kinds of contexts - then they need to be applied equally to all religions in that environment.
The reason the framers of the Constitution made separation of church and state a key component is clearly illustrated here. We can not allow government bodies to give preferential treatment based on identification with 'acceptable' religions, at the expense of any other way of life. The tyranny of religious bigotry is no less dangerous than any tyranny that threatens freedom to choose.
In my domain - no. However, there are plenty of coders better than me in other arenas. If you are better than everyone at everything - then you are really something special.
Information privacy or data protection laws prohibit the disclosure or misuse of information held on private individuals. These laws are based on Fair Information Practice, first developed in the United States in the 1970s by the Department for Health, Education and Welfare (HEW). The basic principles of data protection are:
For all data collected there should be a stated purpose.
Information collected by an individual cannot be disclosed to other organizations or individuals unless specifically authorized by law or by consent of the individual
Records kept on an individual should be accurate and up to date
There should be mechanisms for individuals to review data about them, to ensure accuracy. This may include periodic reporting
Data should be deleted when it is no longer needed for the stated purpose
Transmission of personal information to locations where "equivalent" personal data protection cannot be assured is prohibited
Some data is too sensitive to be collected, unless there are extreme circumstances (e.g., sexual orientation, religion)