Hehe, that sounds like an old, conservative fart! Maybe that's why I find going back to college for a postgrad so exciting: No stodgy old closed minds!
Good coders will produce good results with or without methodology
Ahh, but are they not "good" because they employ a methodology that works? You cannot build software without following some methodology. If you sit down and start coding, that's a methodology in itself. There's always methodology.
Why not try to take a look at some of the long time methods used by engineering industries to see how they go about designing bridges and cars and stuff like?
Here you open up a can of worms: First of all, traditional engineering solves much simpler problems that IT: Build a bridge that will support 100 tons, will last 50 years, and will be 100 feet wide. Pretty simple, huh? Will the specs change? Still the problem is pretty simple. Build a high-rise? Still pretty simple and straight forward.
IT has to meet demands not made of traditional engineers: Have you ever seen a 60-story high rise get an additional 30 stories added on? Now, how many computer system do you know that have had a 50% increase in load/features/etc...?
As for development methodology: Traditional engineering principles have been around for hundreds if not thousands of years. Humanity has been building and designing physical things for a great many years. IT is very much new. Not only are the demands increasing, but the underlying technology is changing as well, and very rapidly at that.
The systems we are building are very complex, and the systems we build are much more central to businesses (ie, which is more important to a business, the building it's housed in, or the IT system that it uses?). Add to that the volatile goals of IT systems and you have a monumental problem. It is not a "mind fuck," it is people trying to make change an integral part of systems development. In the face of changing systems requirements, you cannot simply develop an outdated solution because "that's the way it was planned."
It's not a secret, why business-driven software development so often turns to be a such a mess. The demanding part (management, customers) is just plain stupid
I'd argue that it is our professional responsibility to make management and customers happy, we should drive the process and we should feel responsible for success. Having said that, I'll be the first to say that there are customers out there that you do not want to have (I'm sure we all have war stories about these!).
I just want to make the point that business requirements change, clients (or employers) do not know exactly what they want, and all of that is a part of life. We do not get clearly-defined programming assignments like we got math problems in school. That is why methodologies that embrace change (like SCRUM) are so exciting.
When you are learning principles, a year is nothing. Lemme see, your gcc book might be old in a year or two, but your algorithms book from ten years ago is still very useful.
Same thing here, books about development methodologies never age (refer to The Mythical Man-Month, rightfully, still required CS reading).
If you think a year is too old for principles, then you follow fads too much.
Why is it that some/. questions posted are so dang stupid? We are seeing so many stupid and smart-assed answers because the questions is so awfully phrased. We are not made aware of the context of the use, the kinds of people doing the downloading, the download material, security requirements, the implementor skillset/proficiency, the other existing technology at the server location, the technology used to download, etc... In short, all the information really necessary to recommend any download method halfway seriously.
So we are left to be smart-assed and provide shots in the dark as to what the "best" solution is to this.
I have a different take on it: I think this is a good chance for Intel to start focusing on minimization... If they do this "single chip" thing long enough, then PDAs, cellphones, gameboys, etc... might eventually be running on top of a single-chip style platform from Intel.
I'm glad this is happening, more competition means better prices. I generally like Intel products, so this is good news for me.
You don't explicitly state it, but you are probably in Europe... I've been in Europe for assignments, and I can say Europeans' 6-week+ vacations and other work rules are VERY bad for your countries. Americans are infinitely more productive per capita than workers of any other country, even European countries.
Instead of seeing our 1 or 2 week vacations as our weakness, you should see it as a symptom of our productivity-oriented philosophy.
Anyway, I have always found myself sitting around waiting for European counterparts to do their end of the deal, so maybe that's just my bias, but the last time I checked a world economics book, Americans were the most productive people in the World (per capita). Germans followed, and Americans were 2.1 times more productive per capita (GDP-based) than them! Anyway, I've dealt with people in England, Germany, Spain, and France.
As a personal statement, I think we'll have better working conditions as soon as we stop voting republican...
Been there, done that (I researched EULAs in )... EULA's have been validated in court many times over. This lady will be told she's suing the wrong party and in a couple of years she'll get a refund for the purchase price.
You overcomplicate it... My entire point was that this company is going more and more toward the open source model. I was saying that the trend can only be a good thing.
You oversimplify a point: "why not just go with truly open source software?" Well, for many reasons, for one, our Samba server locked up and kicked everyone out for no reason yesterday... What about the other servers (MS and Novell)? Well, they are still running with no problem (Some for over a year without even a reboot [hehe, these are the Novell servers that did not need no MS patch!:-)]). Will we go with "truly open source" server software anytime soon? No way. If our more critical systems had hiccuped the way Samba did, we woud have had a major event. The same reasoning will keep Sun people from switching away, or keep prospective new Open Source users (like my workplace) away from Open Source for a hefty long time.
This may the beginning of having people switch _servers_, not desktops! Which freekin' *nix will take over the desktop? The Mac is the closest to doing that, and its chances are near nil.
Hey, it'd be cool if they gave the $20 to free/OpenSource software products, no? At least eh $20 acts as a filter, the downloads will probably be faster because only mildly serious people will be using up the bandwidth...
According to Sun, it extends the 'enterprise class OS to the X86 market'. How nice of them.
Ok, so what is going to actually please this person? Sun gets closer and closer to the Open Source idea, and all we can have is sarcasm in the post? We should be CELEBRATING! Thanks, SUN!
For me it's simple: I enjoyed sales tax-free shopping while I was able to. When sales taxation becomes inescapable, then it's justy back to good ol' comparison shopping...
Is it not that simple?
How could this hurt the economy if we are going to buy stuff either way?
Since the BSA is sending letters threatening an investigation in an attempt to scare you into buying more software, it sounds like extortion.
DUH! If you buy the software as a result of the letter, then you are agreeing that you were out of compliance. You cannot say you were "extorted" to comply with a contract (EULA) you explicitly agreed to of your own free will! That's just ridiculous!
Why do replies like thwese get modded down? The whole idea is that for a great idea there needs to be no anniversary. Democracy has been around much more than the word "democracy" itself... So has the idea of open source.
Why don't you just choose "Dissenting opinion"? Isn't all of this about freedom? I guess the complete sentence is "free to do whatever you want unless we disagree with it..."
This shows the inherent weakness in open source: Waaaay to many times it happens that egos rise above the real goal: In this case a single intelligent productive contributor cannot get along with the rest for whatever reason. The result: He gets kicked out (or leaves, whatever) and maybe starts his own project.
Meanwhile, the corporate competition (we know who it is!) continues to finely tune their strategy of world domination, fixing petty problems like personality conflicts quietly and in the background, giving such problems the attention they deserve (little attention) keeping the rest of the organization focused on its goal.
Before you start talking about yet another fork to an open source O/S, understand that resources are limited, and five separate BSDs do NOT do anything against "the man." I would argue that five BSDs are much weaker than if everybody had contributed to a single one.
It is very sad to see this happen in open source again and again: We fight about petty ego-related issues: Project direction, naming (how lame is the "GNU/Linux" vs "Linux/GNU" vs "Linux" fight?), personality conflicts, contribution visibility ("You had better ask me nicely to include your patch!"), etc...
Anyway, people seem to think multiple versions of the same thing are badges of honor, I just don't see how it's a good thing...
Slashdot Mirror
Hehe, that sounds like an old, conservative fart! Maybe that's why I find going back to college for a postgrad so exciting: No stodgy old closed minds!
Ahh, but are they not "good" because they employ a methodology that works? You cannot build software without following some methodology. If you sit down and start coding, that's a methodology in itself. There's always methodology.
Here you open up a can of worms: First of all, traditional engineering solves much simpler problems that IT: Build a bridge that will support 100 tons, will last 50 years, and will be 100 feet wide. Pretty simple, huh? Will the specs change? Still the problem is pretty simple. Build a high-rise? Still pretty simple and straight forward.
IT has to meet demands not made of traditional engineers: Have you ever seen a 60-story high rise get an additional 30 stories added on? Now, how many computer system do you know that have had a 50% increase in load/features/etc...?
As for development methodology: Traditional engineering principles have been around for hundreds if not thousands of years. Humanity has been building and designing physical things for a great many years. IT is very much new. Not only are the demands increasing, but the underlying technology is changing as well, and very rapidly at that.
The systems we are building are very complex, and the systems we build are much more central to businesses (ie, which is more important to a business, the building it's housed in, or the IT system that it uses?). Add to that the volatile goals of IT systems and you have a monumental problem. It is not a "mind fuck," it is people trying to make change an integral part of systems development. In the face of changing systems requirements, you cannot simply develop an outdated solution because "that's the way it was planned."
Hehe, I see a budding consultant!
I'd argue that it is our professional responsibility to make management and customers happy, we should drive the process and we should feel responsible for success. Having said that, I'll be the first to say that there are customers out there that you do not want to have (I'm sure we all have war stories about these!).
I just want to make the point that business requirements change, clients (or employers) do not know exactly what they want, and all of that is a part of life. We do not get clearly-defined programming assignments like we got math problems in school. That is why methodologies that embrace change (like SCRUM) are so exciting.
In that case, no development methodology will work. The best methodology to follow is to send the team (non)member home.
When you are learning principles, a year is nothing. Lemme see, your gcc book might be old in a year or two, but your algorithms book from ten years ago is still very useful.
Same thing here, books about development methodologies never age (refer to The Mythical Man-Month, rightfully, still required CS reading).
If you think a year is too old for principles, then you follow fads too much.
So we are left to be smart-assed and provide shots in the dark as to what the "best" solution is to this.
I'm glad this is happening, more competition means better prices. I generally like Intel products, so this is good news for me.
The Next Generation?
Instead of seeing our 1 or 2 week vacations as our weakness, you should see it as a symptom of our productivity-oriented philosophy.
Anyway, I have always found myself sitting around waiting for European counterparts to do their end of the deal, so maybe that's just my bias, but the last time I checked a world economics book, Americans were the most productive people in the World (per capita). Germans followed, and Americans were 2.1 times more productive per capita (GDP-based) than them! Anyway, I've dealt with people in England, Germany, Spain, and France.
As a personal statement, I think we'll have better working conditions as soon as we stop voting republican...
I should think before pressing "submit"... I researched EULAs in a graduate course I took.
Been there, done that (I researched EULAs in )... EULA's have been validated in court many times over. This lady will be told she's suing the wrong party and in a couple of years she'll get a refund for the purchase price.
You oversimplify a point: "why not just go with truly open source software?" Well, for many reasons, for one, our Samba server locked up and kicked everyone out for no reason yesterday... What about the other servers (MS and Novell)? Well, they are still running with no problem (Some for over a year without even a reboot [hehe, these are the Novell servers that did not need no MS patch! :-)]). Will we go with "truly open source" server software anytime soon? No way. If our more critical systems had hiccuped the way Samba did, we woud have had a major event. The same reasoning will keep Sun people from switching away, or keep prospective new Open Source users (like my workplace) away from Open Source for a hefty long time.
I guess you'd rather have the download be free (from a small company), but they would have a 768K DSL and then NO ONE would be able to get it...
This may the beginning of having people switch _servers_, not desktops! Which freekin' *nix will take over the desktop? The Mac is the closest to doing that, and its chances are near nil.
Hey, it'd be cool if they gave the $20 to free/OpenSource software products, no? At least eh $20 acts as a filter, the downloads will probably be faster because only mildly serious people will be using up the bandwidth...
Ok, so what is going to actually please this person? Sun gets closer and closer to the Open Source idea, and all we can have is sarcasm in the post? We should be CELEBRATING! Thanks, SUN!
Is it not that simple?
How could this hurt the economy if we are going to buy stuff either way?
Have you read a EULA lately? (Hint: It's that thing you agreed to by clicking "OK")
The BSA has no legal jurisdiction over anybody.
Unless they represent a party that has a contract whose terms you freely agreed to...
DUH! If you buy the software as a result of the letter, then you are agreeing that you were out of compliance. You cannot say you were "extorted" to comply with a contract (EULA) you explicitly agreed to of your own free will! That's just ridiculous!
Why do replies like thwese get modded down? The whole idea is that for a great idea there needs to be no anniversary. Democracy has been around much more than the word "democracy" itself... So has the idea of open source.
Why don't you just choose "Dissenting opinion"? Isn't all of this about freedom? I guess the complete sentence is "free to do whatever you want unless we disagree with it..."
Meanwhile, the corporate competition (we know who it is!) continues to finely tune their strategy of world domination, fixing petty problems like personality conflicts quietly and in the background, giving such problems the attention they deserve (little attention) keeping the rest of the organization focused on its goal.
Before you start talking about yet another fork to an open source O/S, understand that resources are limited, and five separate BSDs do NOT do anything against "the man." I would argue that five BSDs are much weaker than if everybody had contributed to a single one.
It is very sad to see this happen in open source again and again: We fight about petty ego-related issues: Project direction, naming (how lame is the "GNU/Linux" vs "Linux/GNU" vs "Linux" fight?), personality conflicts, contribution visibility ("You had better ask me nicely to include your patch!"), etc...
Anyway, people seem to think multiple versions of the same thing are badges of honor, I just don't see how it's a good thing...
Hey, is it just me, or has anyone else noticed: X-MAS = Christmas?