If I lose my internet connectivity at home, I merely switch my activities to improving my LAN; I write code, I do remote sysadmin work on my daughter's linux box (i.e. snooping the logs for questionable activity:) ), and I write.
Since initiating DSL service over 3 years ago - I have never had a complete outage as a result of the service provider:
Outages - several which have all turned out to be my Linksys router locking up or the crappy job I did crimping the RJ45 connectors onto the Cat5 cable...(I bought the wrong connectors for the type of cable sheathing I have).
Routing - Telco blocked a route to a particular (large) subnet; I provided the content of a traceroute which identified the name of the box in question for the technical support engineer, and it was corrected within an hour.
I think he actually enjoys what he is doing; its all a very big [high stakes] game to him. This is indicated by his allusion to 'David and Goliath' and the 'grasshopper'/'master' remarks at the end of the CRN interview. Alot of money is being made by shareowners because of this play.
Several items point to the hypocrisy behind the whole issue:
1. His allusion that the 'big boys' opposing SCO were purely motivated by Capitalism - while his poor little company was merely pursuing their righteous imperative.
2. Then, he states that he has no responsiblity to 'sing kumbaya around the campfire' with the linux users - not customers he is quick to state ["There are only two industries who use the term 'users,' computers and drugs"] - only a responsibility to increase shareowner value (sounds like capitalism to me, particularly as he went on to brag about the SCO stock going from $1 to $14).
The key here is that they are attempting to put something together that our naive end users will be able to dig and thus buy - pushing the precentage of desktops more on an even keel with you know who. This can't be bad for the Linux world domination conspiracy -er- Linux users...:)
One of the major complaints I hear is about differing interpretations of the file system hierarchy. While I think standardization is good, I also believe developers should have a certain amount of flexibility - which the standard allows. The key here, I think, is for the distributions to honor the locations that the developers established for their files - so compatability crosses all boundaries and documentation can be maintained by the developer on the particulars of his application - instead of the distributor. In cases where the application creates problems due to inappropriate placement - the issue needs to be raised to the developer to correct his implementation; distributors would have the option not to include the application/system if it was too disruptive - but that is all (more than this and the distributor can cause more problems than he intends to fix). Developers need to understand the standard; distribution creators need to cede the responsibility for application locations to the developers - with the right to veto bad locations from entering their distro until corrections are made by the developer. This way, no matter which distribution you are using, foo.ini is located in the same place every time.
Related to this, and probably more frustrating for end users, is when application developers make assumptions about libraries and other applications that exist on the system during the build. For hard core *nix system administrators this is no big issue - something they have been dealing with for years; however, for a general purpose workstation this has to be idiot proof. Coupled with standard locations includes being able to check those locations for particular files, and if not found, have the confidence to load them for the user, rather than simply complaining and dropping back to the command line. Again, the onus is on the developer to include all parts necessary to work with his tool (perhaps even going so far as loading a different library in an alternate location [sub directory in standardized path location] - then changing an environmental variable used exclusively by the application to locate it without disturbing an existing library or any applications that depend upon it - lets definitely do it smarter than Microsoft DLL hell)
These two items coupled together would make installation and maintenance across all distributions easy - and dependent on the documentation and careful work of the developer community - instead of left at the whim of the distribution agents - who are not on the same sheet of music. If developer X creates app Y and puts it in location Z - then Z should be where everyone finds Y when they look on their system.
Finally, I think easy to use tools for administering very clearly standardized core items (the rc.d run level scripts, crontab management, X configurations etc...) should leverage existing text based configuration files. Lets not get into the trap of reimplementing the Microsoft registry - as a single point of failure. Up to this point these types of tools have been adhoc; someone needs to take the ball and run with it to create something that is clearly superior and usable for all distributions that intend to target the niave user (hmmm - sounds like a good open source project to me - maybe a python Tk gui with a builtin command language parser for power users...:)
These are the core items I think are critical to a successful linux desktop to compete with Microsoft's dynasty.
One additional frill I would suggest: Implementation of a better 'Annotea' W3C
I have never had the pleasure of playing with PostgreSQL - does it allow you to partition your database (multiple buckets) so that a flat search on all fields returns in a reasonable period of time (a la Oracle 9i Rac)? Along those lines does it allow raw mode access, as well as file access?
I would be interested in getting my hands dirty if it would be worth my while.
The really sad part about all of this is that developers will be less motivated to be really inventive on the job - saving their best ideas for themselves. They will see no benefit to going above and beyond because there is no tangible reward for doing so.
Overall quality will only remain mediocre at best.
Your assumption is false (see my post elsewhere in this thread).
Perhaps the reality is that what you are advocating is really wrong/incorrect (heaven forbid) - and the mod point assignments were justified.
It takes a person of strong character to look themselves in the eye and really accept who they are and live with the consequences (or change for the better).
Focusing on your karma points at the exclusion of your board identity on a consistent basis is disingenuous - and makes me wonder what your motivations are on these boards (truth or power?). Perhaps it also points to why you get modded down so often (as you preceive it). Interstingly, this parallels Microsoft's moral approach (power at the expense of truth) and might explain some things about why you identify with Microsoft.
I can see the use of the AC for such things as whistle blowing, or other things that serve to protect a slashdot identity's moral standing in the community. I can not see it as a valid means to protect your precious karma points because that tells me that you are not confident in the veracity of your own thoughts.
Given that there are more Microsoft users and system administrators than there are Unix (*nix) users and system administrators - your point is moot.
Given a standard distribution, the pro Microsoft postings should be the 'tyranny of the majority'.
The fact of the matter is, as hard as you find it to swallow, even Microsoft adherents find supporting all 'pro Microsoft' viewpoints all of the time distasteful, or at least indefensible.
It doesn't matter how loud I yell - I am only one Unix guy - compared to your several hundred Microsofties. Why don't you get your superior voting block together and mod us down consistently? I will tell you why: because the majority of people see the truth, and mod accordingly outside of any blind loyalty they may have - again, refuting your argument to the contrary.
There is no reason to post anonymously in 'pro Microsoft' posts - unless you are embarassed by what you are saying.
That is not what I said. This is more along the lines of what I advocate:
1) Make simple product that works 2) Release simple product into the wild 3) Get feedback from users and fellow developers. 4) Fold in changes to create better product and provide frequent incremental releases. 5) Repeat over lifetime of product.
The user buys the product once (really they are buying more than the product - they are buying a service revolving around the product - and can choose the software maturity at which they are comfortable forking out money) - and gets the benefit (or not - its up to them) of the feedback loop by loading the latest stable patch.
You are stuck in a waterfall mentality. The reality is software is so complex today that there is no way to perfectly specify it before hand with 100% accuracy - unless it is a toy application. Now, given that we can't be perfect out of the box, isn't what I suggest better than what we have now in the proprietary marketplace? Of course, no one is going to get rich doing this - unless they are a very bright and capable small shop. As more and more open source software becomes mature, the large software companies will fall by the wayside.
The age of software behemoths is nearing its end - you have to be smart and lean to succeed in the future.
I want to believe these CEOs and lawyers were once human beings.
Unfortunately, it all started going downhill for them when their temper tantrums brought Mommy and Daddy running to slacken their every discomfort. The rest, as they say, is history...
I think you are confusing the symptoms with the real issue. A paradigm of 'ready,shoot,aim' is not bad provided you shoot more than once and correct your aim in between each iteration by getting detailed customer feedback from very tight (monthly or less) incremental releases. This does not happen in the large software companies.
It does happen in agile teams and in the open source/free software tossed salad.
It is the future. Traditional 'oldschool' development is on the way out - except for a few systems that have high demands on perfection right out of the box (such as software for the space shuttle or a nuclear power station). These types of programs traditionally have large time frames and funds available to keep programmers employed over extended periods. For most business applications the need for flexibility and customer responsiveness is more important than perfection.
Actually, here is an excerpt of a real 'dissociated-press' filter of the keynote with my annotations and emphasis added for clarity:
"Microsoft has a traditional firewally betting[tradition of hoping it won't get through the firewall?] acrose different thing ple appenew level of take advan e-mail message[takes advantage of email messages?]. He's going to do hervices, those are can go againdustry [i.e. rehashing old ideas - or as Bill likes to say: 'inovation'] got still quite an effechnology [weak technology - from the root 'effete'] ause Micreate boundaries[artificial boundaries created by Bill?], to the screen from outside a template, ther shot at applications on the very first time Web site[some reference to Linux? - refering to open source/agile development 'ready, shoot, aim' paradigm], more than Exceliver all of our enterpriser interfaces[absolutely - 'All ur base belong us!']. We see one of them. So, now, what of progre to the Signature initially used is about in my exploring within your hard drive[omg!!], or second ge of the and the type compage, and it's goin somethis breaks down[whats new?], station of infor a long time, and wrist-to-end things cant future but are goings like that I'm talkin this that the Implicationference[the 'implication-inference' is that we will not use keyboards, but instead talk to our computers], every of my remarks of machines to desktops, of these.)
Oh, basic principles are, continues that we've buill be used."
I have to agree with that: "continues that we've buill [Bill-bull] be used."
Scary as these 'tea leaves' may be, I think they shed some light on Microsoft directions: firewally bettingagaindustryeffechnology!
I wonder why all of the Microsofties post anonymously? Could it be they are embarassed about the sheer absurdity of supporting such a wrong approach - both morally as well as technically? Perhaps mister/miss 'anonymous' can answer that for us...
(DP)After regaining my composure, I realized their take on the Matrix was all wrong. The horse suppository sized pill was mis-marked, should have been the Windows pill. It should have gone in the other end, after Balmer, timidly pointing to the small Linux pill, finally submits - smiling and whistling a show tune. - Vin Dozier, Las Vegas
This was just feeding dog food to the dogs - nothing more, nothing less.
I have about one hundred different revision numbers for various things (projects at work as well as open source stuff) floating about in my head - its easy to mix up some things when typing 'off the cuff'. I was probably thinking about the Slackware 9.1 distribution.
I keep seeing people say that 'Redhat Linux' is not free. That is not entirely true.
Basically, what Redhat has done is forked their distribution, providing what they call 'Redhat Enterprise' as a 'stable' fully supported (and thus with a dollar cost associated with it) distribution targeted at businesses, and 'Fedora', a 'development' platform for use by open source contributors and linux enthusiasts (a free downloadable distribution). Items that Redhat sees as valuable for the 'Enterprise' will be rolled from Fedora into the Redhat Enterprise product.
Redhat is pushing their 'Enterprise' product as being gold-plated and stable for businesses, and by definition, conversely that 'Fedora' is a toy. That is probably not very accurate an assumption - and serves to put more money in Red Hat's bank account more than anything else. Of course, the money will be coming from businesses - so who cares?
Currently I am running Redhat 8.1 and Slackware on my machines. I am seriously considering going 100% Slackware if Fedora turns into a seriously uncompatable fork - compared to other stable distributions. On the other hand, Fedora might free developers to build some really neat things into the distribution for desktop home users - such as industrial strength WineX out of the box for Gamers etc... It might just be the shot in the arm that linux on the desktop needs to gain momentum. I guess what I am saying is 'we shall see'.
I think we can agree, however, that standardization throughout the 50s and into the 60s meant IBM - so, I got that partially correct; standardization existed if you bought IBM, but general 'open' standards as we see today did not show up on the scene until much later.
I stand corrected:
"On October 19, 1973, US Federal Judge Earl R. Larson signed his decision following a lengthy court trial which declared the ENIAC patent of Mauchly and Eckert invalid and named Atanasoff the inventor of the electronic digital computer -- the Atanasoff-Berry Computer or the ABC."
I would love to do that; however, my company is refusing to allow hires from outside of the company. What will happen is as positions are trimmed down people will get a certain amount of time to find a new job inside of the company. If they can't find a new job inside, then they are let go.
Which means the position I have open will either be filled with someone who is not qualified to do the job (who has some political connections), or will continue to go unfilled.
Either way I get stuck doing twice the work for the same salary.
Looking at the list - I would laugh, but the reality of it makes me want to cry.
On the flip side of that issue, I am currently looking for a software developer to fill a peer position with me in my shop. I am requesting the following:
Languages: shell (bash, sh preferably - csh less desireable) Perl and/or Python + Tk gui development Java and/or C/C++ Knowledge of SQL and basic Database design and administration. Experience: *nix system administration experience. Preferably 5 years or more development experience. Desired: Knowledge of Agile development methods. Education: 4 year degree in Computer Science or equivalent experience. Synopsis: Candidate will work with customers (our customers are mostly internal customers) to develop software specifications, project managers and possibly vendors to implement said applications. Additional duties include Tier 4 trouble escalation for said applications. (to put it in a nutshell we will be building tools for our NOC, Technical Support, Customer Service Center, System Administrators, Network Engineers, Management, and on a rare basis - outside business customers)
No specific salary amount is listed (a large range from $xx,xxx up to $xxx,xxx - negotiable).
I don't think that list is far outside of the reasonable arena (I have all of those skills and experience and much more than that). Here is the kicker: I can't find anyone qualified to do the job I am currently doing (barely treading water btw - doing two jobs for the price of one). Here are the reasons:
1. We can't hire anyone from outside of the company! I can understand the need to keep our people gainfully employed instead of letting them go...I would certainly want that chance if my current job was on the line.
2. Most of the people who apply for the position aparently don't even read the requirements before posting. This is the worse part. I get glorified clerks, and middle management personel managers who think the job is managing people (no - you actually have to know how to develop an application specification, write the code in the appropriate language for the job, or read a vender's code and understand how he is implementing your design - as well as a host of other things, like fighting with internal and external developers to get them to do incremental releases once a month - instead of a big roll-up every 4 months!).
Along this vein I also get people who only know one narrow discipline. For example, 'Visual Basic IDE and MS Access database experience'. While they might be trainable - they are certainly going to be an albatros around my neck until they are trained up on more than just using their mouse to build applications on a Windows box.
Here is my advice to those of you looking for a real steady job in the computer field:
Stop thinking of yourself as a 'Programmer' or a 'Coder', or a 'DBA' or whatever narrowly defined field you think you are in. From now on you are a 'System Integrator', 'System Developer', 'Computer Guru'. Stand up straight - stick out that chin - be proud of who you are.
Learn as much as you can about iterative/agile development - characterized by rapid prototyping, frequent incremental releases, and a really meaningful feedback loop with your customers and team members that addresses the three key questions: What did we do not so well this iteration? What did we do very well this iteration, and finally, what can we do to improve ourselves for the next iteration?
Avoid the strict waterfall method (where specifications are defined in detail - often taking many weeks or months - before implementation - during which specifications are frozen until final release. At which point the application is 'maintained' and changes have to go through a review process - many months - and vye for IT resources with other projects; I have lived through these - and it is not pretty); build quickly to get something in the hands of the users so they can gi
There was no 'first' computer - there were actually two identical computers built at the same time during the second world war - the Colossus electronic cryptanalytic machine - used to break the Enigma code used by the Germans - both machines destroyed shortly after the war, under orders from Winston Churchhill to break it up into pieces "not larger than a man's fist". Since they were Top Secret devices, and not disclosed to the public until the 1970s, the British did not get credit for building the first computer.
The Germans also had a device that was very close to being a computer, but did not store its programs - more akin to a Babbage difference engine without conditional branching - built in 1937 by Konrad Zuse. It used Binary arithmetic - an interesting advance for its time; Zuse calculaters were used in the engineering of the V2 rocket.
The computers built after that were one of a kind - there was no 'standard hardware' or 'standard software' floating around from different vendors.
Back in the days of the Dinosaurs, Real Programmers built the first operating systems for the new beasties - and generally ended up rewriting their creations when hardware became obsolete and new equipment entered the data centre. Not until the introduction of the mini-computer did standardization, interoperability and portability start to show up on the radar screen (circa 1960s).
Slashdot Mirror
Thats not very nice. However, it is true.
(CS major here)
If I lose my internet connectivity at home, I merely switch my activities to improving my LAN; I write code, I do remote sysadmin work on my daughter's linux box (i.e. snooping the logs for questionable activity :) ), and I write.
Since initiating DSL service over 3 years ago - I have never had a complete outage as a result of the service provider:
Outages - several which have all turned out to be my Linksys router locking up or the crappy job I did crimping the RJ45 connectors onto the Cat5 cable...(I bought the wrong connectors for the type of cable sheathing I have).
Routing - Telco blocked a route to a particular (large) subnet; I provided the content of a traceroute which identified the name of the box in question for the technical support engineer, and it was corrected within an hour.
I haven't used a modem in 3 years.
I think he actually enjoys what he is doing; its all a very big [high stakes] game to him. This is indicated by his allusion to 'David and Goliath' and the 'grasshopper'/'master' remarks at the end of the CRN interview. Alot of money is being made by shareowners because of this play.
Several items point to the hypocrisy behind the whole issue:
1. His allusion that the 'big boys' opposing SCO were purely motivated by Capitalism - while his poor little company was merely pursuing their righteous imperative.
2. Then, he states that he has no responsiblity to 'sing kumbaya around the campfire' with the linux users - not customers he is quick to state ["There are only two industries who use the term 'users,' computers and drugs"] - only a responsibility to increase shareowner value (sounds like capitalism to me, particularly as he went on to brag about the SCO stock going from $1 to $14).
The key here is that they are attempting to put something together that our naive end users will be able to dig and thus buy - pushing the precentage of desktops more on an even keel with you know who. This can't be bad for the Linux world domination conspiracy -er- Linux users... :)
:)
One of the major complaints I hear is about differing interpretations of the file system hierarchy. While I think standardization is good, I also believe developers should have a certain amount of flexibility - which the standard allows. The key here, I think, is for the distributions to honor the locations that the developers established for their files - so compatability crosses all boundaries and documentation can be maintained by the developer on the particulars of his application - instead of the distributor. In cases where the application creates problems due to inappropriate placement - the issue needs to be raised to the developer to correct his implementation; distributors would have the option not to include the application/system if it was too disruptive - but that is all (more than this and the distributor can cause more problems than he intends to fix). Developers need to understand the standard; distribution creators need to cede the responsibility for application locations to the developers - with the right to veto bad locations from entering their distro until corrections are made by the developer. This way, no matter which distribution you are using, foo.ini is located in the same place every time.
Related to this, and probably more frustrating for end users, is when application developers make assumptions about libraries and other applications that exist on the system during the build. For hard core *nix system administrators this is no big issue - something they have been dealing with for years; however, for a general purpose workstation this has to be idiot proof. Coupled with standard locations includes being able to check those locations for particular files, and if not found, have the confidence to load them for the user, rather than simply complaining and dropping back to the command line. Again, the onus is on the developer to include all parts necessary to work with his tool (perhaps even going so far as loading a different library in an alternate location [sub directory in standardized path location] - then changing an environmental variable used exclusively by the application to locate it without disturbing an existing library or any applications that depend upon it - lets definitely do it smarter than Microsoft DLL hell)
These two items coupled together would make installation and maintenance across all distributions easy - and dependent on the documentation and careful work of the developer community - instead of left at the whim of the distribution agents - who are not on the same sheet of music. If developer X creates app Y and puts it in location Z - then Z should be where everyone finds Y when they look on their system.
Finally, I think easy to use tools for administering very clearly standardized core items (the rc.d run level scripts, crontab management, X configurations etc...) should leverage existing text based configuration files. Lets not get into the trap of reimplementing the Microsoft registry - as a single point of failure. Up to this point these types of tools have been adhoc; someone needs to take the ball and run with it to create something that is clearly superior and usable for all distributions that intend to target the niave user (hmmm - sounds like a good open source project to me - maybe a python Tk gui with a builtin command language parser for power users...
These are the core items I think are critical to a successful linux desktop to compete with Microsoft's dynasty.
One additional frill I would suggest:
Implementation of a better 'Annotea' W3C
I have never had the pleasure of playing with PostgreSQL - does it allow you to partition your database (multiple buckets) so that a flat search on all fields returns in a reasonable period of time (a la Oracle 9i Rac)? Along those lines does it allow raw mode access, as well as file access?
I would be interested in getting my hands dirty if it would be worth my while.
My question is, if they won't let you run Cygwin, what in Babbage's name makes you think they will let you run Postgres?...
Sounds like it sucks to be you right now.
The really sad part about all of this is that developers will be less motivated to be really inventive on the job - saving their best ideas for themselves. They will see no benefit to going above and beyond because there is no tangible reward for doing so.
Overall quality will only remain mediocre at best.
Your assumption is false (see my post elsewhere in this thread).
Perhaps the reality is that what you are advocating is really wrong/incorrect (heaven forbid) - and the mod point assignments were justified.
It takes a person of strong character to look themselves in the eye and really accept who they are and live with the consequences (or change for the better).
Focusing on your karma points at the exclusion of your board identity on a consistent basis is disingenuous - and makes me wonder what your motivations are on these boards (truth or power?). Perhaps it also points to why you get modded down so often (as you preceive it). Interstingly, this parallels Microsoft's moral approach (power at the expense of truth) and might explain some things about why you identify with Microsoft.
I can see the use of the AC for such things as whistle blowing, or other things that serve to protect a slashdot identity's moral standing in the community. I can not see it as a valid means to protect your precious karma points because that tells me that you are not confident in the veracity of your own thoughts.
Given that there are more Microsoft users and system administrators than there are Unix (*nix) users and system administrators - your point is moot.
Given a standard distribution, the pro Microsoft postings should be the 'tyranny of the majority'.
The fact of the matter is, as hard as you find it to swallow, even Microsoft adherents find supporting all 'pro Microsoft' viewpoints all of the time distasteful, or at least indefensible.
It doesn't matter how loud I yell - I am only one Unix guy - compared to your several hundred Microsofties. Why don't you get your superior voting block together and mod us down consistently? I will tell you why: because the majority of people see the truth, and mod accordingly outside of any blind loyalty they may have - again, refuting your argument to the contrary.
There is no reason to post anonymously in 'pro Microsoft' posts - unless you are embarassed by what you are saying.
That is not what I said. This is more along the lines of what I advocate:
1) Make simple product that works
2) Release simple product into the wild
3) Get feedback from users and fellow developers.
4) Fold in changes to create better product and provide frequent incremental releases.
5) Repeat over lifetime of product.
The user buys the product once (really they are buying more than the product - they are buying a service revolving around the product - and can choose the software maturity at which they are comfortable forking out money) - and gets the benefit (or not - its up to them) of the feedback loop by loading the latest stable patch.
You are stuck in a waterfall mentality. The reality is software is so complex today that there is no way to perfectly specify it before hand with 100% accuracy - unless it is a toy application. Now, given that we can't be perfect out of the box, isn't what I suggest better than what we have now in the proprietary marketplace? Of course, no one is going to get rich doing this - unless they are a very bright and capable small shop. As more and more open source software becomes mature, the large software companies will fall by the wayside.
The age of software behemoths is nearing its end - you have to be smart and lean to succeed in the future.
Okay, they are our alien overlords. I, for one, wel-... ah, nevermind...
I want to believe these CEOs and lawyers were once human beings.
Unfortunately, it all started going downhill for them when their temper tantrums brought Mommy and Daddy running to slacken their every discomfort. The rest, as they say, is history...
I think you are confusing the symptoms with the real issue. A paradigm of 'ready,shoot,aim' is not bad provided you shoot more than once and correct your aim in between each iteration by getting detailed customer feedback from very tight (monthly or less) incremental releases. This does not happen in the large software companies.
It does happen in agile teams and in the open source/free software tossed salad.
It is the future. Traditional 'oldschool' development is on the way out - except for a few systems that have high demands on perfection right out of the box (such as software for the space shuttle or a nuclear power station). These types of programs traditionally have large time frames and funds available to keep programmers employed over extended periods. For most business applications the need for flexibility and customer responsiveness is more important than perfection.
Actually, here is an excerpt of a real 'dissociated-press' filter of the keynote with my annotations and emphasis added for clarity:
"Microsoft has a traditional firewally betting [tradition of hoping it won't get through the firewall?] acrose different thing ple appenew level of take advan e-mail message[takes advantage of email messages?]. He's going to do hervices, those are can go againdustry [i.e. rehashing old ideas - or as Bill likes to say: 'inovation'] got still quite an effechnology [weak technology - from the root 'effete'] ause Micreate boundaries[artificial boundaries created by Bill?], to the screen from outside a template, ther shot at applications on the very first time Web site[some reference to Linux? - refering to open source/agile development 'ready, shoot, aim' paradigm], more than Exceliver all of our enterpriser interfaces[absolutely - 'All ur base belong us!']. We see one of them. So, now, what of progre to the Signature initially used is about in my exploring within your hard drive[omg!!], or second ge of the and the type compage, and it's goin somethis breaks down[whats new?], station of infor a long time, and wrist-to-end things cant future but are goings like that I'm talkin this that the Implicationference [the 'implication-inference' is that we will not use keyboards, but instead talk to our computers], every of my remarks of machines to desktops, of these.)
Oh, basic principles are, continues that we've buill be used."
I have to agree with that: "continues that we've buill [Bill-bull] be used."
Scary as these 'tea leaves' may be, I think they shed some light on Microsoft directions:
firewally betting againdustry effechnology!
I wonder why all of the Microsofties post anonymously? Could it be they are embarassed about the sheer absurdity of supporting such a wrong approach - both morally as well as technically? Perhaps mister/miss 'anonymous' can answer that for us...
From the Dissociated Press:
(DP)After regaining my composure, I realized their take on the Matrix was all wrong. The horse suppository sized pill was mis-marked, should have been the Windows pill. It should have gone in the other end, after Balmer, timidly pointing to the small Linux pill, finally submits - smiling and whistling a show tune.
- Vin Dozier, Las Vegas
This was just feeding dog food to the dogs - nothing more, nothing less.
Read the thread - I think we already beat that dead horse to death...
I like this part the best:
No right to create modifications or derivatives of this Specification is granted herein.
I just had a flashback to when I was a kid and my Dad was giving me the old "do as I say, not as I do" lecture...
I have about one hundred different revision numbers for various things (projects at work as well as open source stuff) floating about in my head - its easy to mix up some things when typing 'off the cuff'. I was probably thinking about the Slackware 9.1 distribution.
:>(>
Sorry I'm not perfect, unlike you.
I keep seeing people say that 'Redhat Linux' is not free. That is not entirely true.
Basically, what Redhat has done is forked their distribution, providing what they call 'Redhat Enterprise' as a 'stable' fully supported (and thus with a dollar cost associated with it) distribution targeted at businesses, and 'Fedora', a 'development' platform for use by open source contributors and linux enthusiasts (a free downloadable distribution). Items that Redhat sees as valuable for the 'Enterprise' will be rolled from Fedora into the Redhat Enterprise product.
Redhat is pushing their 'Enterprise' product as being gold-plated and stable for businesses, and by definition, conversely that 'Fedora' is a toy. That is probably not very accurate an assumption - and serves to put more money in Red Hat's bank account more than anything else. Of course, the money will be coming from businesses - so who cares?
Currently I am running Redhat 8.1 and Slackware on my machines. I am seriously considering going 100% Slackware if Fedora turns into a seriously uncompatable fork - compared to other stable distributions. On the other hand, Fedora might free developers to build some really neat things into the distribution for desktop home users - such as industrial strength WineX out of the box for Gamers etc... It might just be the shot in the arm that linux on the desktop needs to gain momentum. I guess what I am saying is 'we shall see'.
You both bring up good points that I overlooked.
I think we can agree, however, that standardization throughout the 50s and into the 60s meant IBM - so, I got that partially correct; standardization existed if you bought IBM, but general 'open' standards as we see today did not show up on the scene until much later.
I stand corrected:
"On October 19, 1973, US Federal Judge Earl R. Larson signed his decision following a lengthy court trial which declared the ENIAC patent of Mauchly and Eckert invalid and named Atanasoff the inventor of the electronic digital computer -- the Atanasoff-Berry Computer or the ABC."
I would love to do that; however, my company is refusing to allow hires from outside of the company. What will happen is as positions are trimmed down people will get a certain amount of time to find a new job inside of the company. If they can't find a new job inside, then they are let go.
Which means the position I have open will either be filled with someone who is not qualified to do the job (who has some political connections), or will continue to go unfilled.
Either way I get stuck doing twice the work for the same salary.
On the flip side of that issue, I am currently looking for a software developer to fill a peer position with me in my shop. I am requesting the following:
Languages:
shell (bash, sh preferably - csh less desireable)
Perl and/or Python + Tk gui development
Java and/or C/C++
Knowledge of SQL and basic Database design and administration.
Experience:
*nix system administration experience.
Preferably 5 years or more development experience.
Desired:
Knowledge of Agile development methods.
Education:
4 year degree in Computer Science or equivalent experience.
Synopsis:
Candidate will work with customers (our customers are mostly internal customers) to develop software specifications, project managers and possibly vendors to implement said applications. Additional duties include Tier 4 trouble escalation for said applications. (to put it in a nutshell we will be building tools for our NOC, Technical Support, Customer Service Center, System Administrators, Network Engineers, Management, and on a rare basis - outside business customers)
No specific salary amount is listed (a large range from $xx,xxx up to $xxx,xxx - negotiable).
I don't think that list is far outside of the reasonable arena (I have all of those skills and experience and much more than that). Here is the kicker: I can't find anyone qualified to do the job I am currently doing (barely treading water btw - doing two jobs for the price of one). Here are the reasons:
1. We can't hire anyone from outside of the company! I can understand the need to keep our people gainfully employed instead of letting them go...I would certainly want that chance if my current job was on the line.
2. Most of the people who apply for the position aparently don't even read the requirements before posting. This is the worse part. I get glorified clerks, and middle management personel managers who think the job is managing people (no - you actually have to know how to develop an application specification, write the code in the appropriate language for the job, or read a vender's code and understand how he is implementing your design - as well as a host of other things, like fighting with internal and external developers to get them to do incremental releases once a month - instead of a big roll-up every 4 months!).
Along this vein I also get people who only know one narrow discipline. For example, 'Visual Basic IDE and MS Access database experience'. While they might be trainable - they are certainly going to be an albatros around my neck until they are trained up on more than just using their mouse to build applications on a Windows box.
Here is my advice to those of you looking for a real steady job in the computer field:
Stop thinking of yourself as a 'Programmer' or a 'Coder', or a 'DBA' or whatever narrowly defined field you think you are in. From now on you are a 'System Integrator', 'System Developer', 'Computer Guru'. Stand up straight - stick out that chin - be proud of who you are.
Learn as much as you can about iterative/agile development - characterized by rapid prototyping, frequent incremental releases, and a really meaningful feedback loop with your customers and team members that addresses the three key questions: What did we do not so well this iteration? What did we do very well this iteration, and finally, what can we do to improve ourselves for the next iteration?
Avoid the strict waterfall method (where specifications are defined in detail - often taking many weeks or months - before implementation - during which specifications are frozen until final release. At which point the application is 'maintained' and changes have to go through a review process - many months - and vye for IT resources with other projects; I have lived through these - and it is not pretty); build quickly to get something in the hands of the users so they can gi
There was no 'first' computer - there were actually two identical computers built at the same time during the second world war - the Colossus electronic cryptanalytic machine - used to break the Enigma code used by the Germans - both machines destroyed shortly after the war, under orders from Winston Churchhill to break it up into pieces "not larger than a man's fist". Since they were Top Secret devices, and not disclosed to the public until the 1970s, the British did not get credit for building the first computer.
The Germans also had a device that was very close to being a computer, but did not store its programs - more akin to a Babbage difference engine without conditional branching - built in 1937 by Konrad Zuse. It used Binary arithmetic - an interesting advance for its time; Zuse calculaters were used in the engineering of the V2 rocket.
The computers built after that were one of a kind - there was no 'standard hardware' or 'standard software' floating around from different vendors.
Back in the days of the Dinosaurs, Real Programmers built the first operating systems for the new beasties - and generally ended up rewriting their creations when hardware became obsolete and new equipment entered the data centre. Not until the introduction of the mini-computer did standardization, interoperability and portability start to show up on the radar screen (circa 1960s).
I thought virii were non-reproducing outside of a host cell?
If these things reproduce, and do damage to host cells, then we have a serious problem if they get into the wrong hands... (hot zone X 10).