The author is a Microsoftite. Microsoft is known to be against Bluetooth. They tried to highjack the standard but the Europeans balked. Its just like the situation with USB especialy USB2. If Microsoft can't control the technology, they will ALWAYS attempt to kill it. I sure as hell don't want to use 802.11 to connect my keyboard and mouse to my system, and I don't want to be limited to some half backed propietary Microsoft influenced design from Logitech either.
This benchmark is an aid in evaluating the performance of a card with tomorows games. The goal of this benchmark is to stay ahead of the current crop of games. Right now, 3DMark evaluates sytheticaly DirectX 9.0(?) performance. Few games use all of the DX9 spec. but they will. Given this, 3DMark has a valid use, though like any sythetic test, its results need to be taken cum grano salis.
As a writer of low level instrumentation drivers, I have often played around with adaptive optimization. It realy is trivial for a driver to asay the optimization appropriate during an executables run. Basicaly application specific optimisation on-the -fly. The problem is that doing this slows the driver down more then the optimizations speed it up. But if the info is stored, the next time the executable is run, the driver just needs to engage the optimizations it had learnt previously. The second run will be considerably faster. This type of driver could very well have behavior some have reported for nVidias drivers. Did the tester run the renamed executable with as many succesive runs as the originaly named executable? Probably not, they did one run and happily concluded the nVidias cheating.
There is actualy a whole bag of tricks related to DGPS that can be used, given the situation, to vastly improve relative position. Geology and cartagraphy are all about reletive position. On top of this, studies such as this one are most interested in average relative motion over long periods of time (e.g. mm/month). And this allows the use of even more tricks. This new project is not doing anything earthshaking. There have been studies like this for at least a decade. By doing a little research, one can find maps of the reative motions of all tectonic components of North America. The figure were all derived using satalite based positioning technology. I think this demonstrates that it can be done.
Calculus - yeah, read the book, do the assignments, complete the exam. Hooray, you know calculus - you pass.
Lets take this up a notch or two. The standard ordinary linear differential equations course is an introductory cookbook class that is shy on theory. Texts only cover a small subset of the techniques available. Instructors often have better ideas then those presented. Problems can be solved by a number of methods and the results can be expressed in multiple forms. Some students require a more theoretical basis then the normal presentation, so try to learn that on their own. All of this increases the necesity of teacher student and student student interaction. Also tests usualy require the instructor to read through the work even when they specify what form they want the answer to be in. I also found this to be true in Calc to an extent. I once came up with a proof for the existance of a real limit given a set of conditions. The the fact that a limit exists can be used to find the actual value for the limit. I wrote the proof in the margin and used it for many of the test problems, thus reducing my workload tremendusly. The prof got a kick out of what I had done. Math is as much about the solution as it is about getting the correct answer.
"Group" projects were a nightmare of conference calls, online chats, emailing drafts back and forth, etc
Sounds like the real world. Many programmers work on geographicaly dispersed teams. In my last position, I worked closly with programmers and engineers in Scotland and Malaysia. It helped that the company would send us on trips periodicly. That way we offen had a face ( with personality) to go with the name on the email.
In a former job, I worked with engineers and technicians in Hong Kong, France, Malaysia, Singapore, Korea, Japan, and the strangest of all, Texas. I personaly enjoy working with people from different culturs.
Not everyones daddy is rich enough to send them to collage. Some of us had to learn the hard way. On top of that, some of us do not learn well in the standard school setting and perfer a more hands on approch. I bought IBM Pascal/2 in 1988. I bought Borlands C++ for OS/2 in 1990(?). I did this to LEARN. Fortunatly, I was making good money as an RF Tech, otherwise I could not have afforded these packages. I tried the University thing once. They put me in a lecture hall with 400 other students with an instructor I could not hear to learn FORTRAN, a language I had been using for 10 years. That lasted about 2 weeks.
Now days there is all the GNU stuff. Its a lot cheaper to learn. I have just resently installed a lot of Ada stuff, including GNAT ( I've got an ancient distro that did not come with it). Once I am sure that I can use Ada to do what I want, I'll probably end up buying a commercial package. I will eventualy need the best compiler targetting my chosen platform, PPC running Linux.
How would you feel about submiting to a/. interview. Tech writting is an important part of any tech carrer. I have done quite a bit of it myself, including a 200+ page process procedure. I like to write SF short stories. When ever I do tech writing I pay as much attention to sentence structure and flow as when I write a story. The result is "wawawawawa". Nothing sticks. The prose is too smooth. That makes for a lousy procedure. The problem is that the procedure lacks a good plot.
I'm interested in tech writiting and would like to do it better. I'm sure there are there/.ers who feel the same way. It would be nice to get the perspective of some one whos been there.
Telestra probably still has the mind set of a govermental agency. It looks like privatization is not working to well. Testra is only partialy privatised. Its effectivly a "For Profit", publicaly traded, Governmantal Agency. I don't think this a workable combination. Thats too bad. I tend to be a Libertarian ( for those not familiar with US politics, Libertarians like vary small, modular government). Between this and some resent events in the US, it seems that gradual de-governmentation is difficult to impossible. That means that achieving the Libertarian ideal from were we are today is not going to be easy. Succesfull de-governmetation probably involves a complete break. This is just like an Alcoholic can't achieve sobriaty by tappering off of drinking.
Your comment is irrelevant. Currently there are five or six orginizations that represents well over half the world audience. Things are a bit worse inb the US and Europe. These organizations are in the same buisness and have the same gouls. The intense competion, especialy between the smaller outfits against the behemoths, actualy does more to limit choice. These factors result in most media ( waited against size of audience) generating the same distortions of fact.
Examples: The day Pitbulls around the US went crazy and started killing people. They did this for about six months, with almost daily incidences. Then one day, they just stopped.
The summer of shark attacks that took place during a year with lower then average shark incidents.
Edison was a true pioneer. He took FUD to new hights. He used paten portfolios to styfle competion in ways never dreamed of by his predicesors. He accuired the ownership of patens in very unsavory ways. He was one of the first to enslave inventors (read developers). Between him and Standard Oil, they wrote the book on monopolistic tyrany. Bill Gates is just extending the techniques pioneered by Edison.
I'm repying to my post instead of all the/.er who responded to me. I appreciate the feedback. I am also glad that I did'nt get flamed. There was some common points. One being alternatives such as OCaml and Common Lisp. I had seriosely (sp?, I've got 6 dictionaries and I can't find one!) concidered OCaml, but decided on using Ada for tthe low level and Python(?) for the high level. I feel that Ada and Python make a good match.
The main reason that I did not go with OCaml is the size of the project. It has the potential of being rather big and might eventualy involve a diverse development community. I don't know how good OCaml is for large projects, or how easy OCaml code is to maintain. On the other hand, OCaml targets the problem space I am working in ( which I have'nt mentioned). At some point I will be writing a toy OOP OS in OCaml, Oh my.
I also like Common Lisp. I have never used it but I plan to. Unfortunatly, my plate is kinda full right now. Honestly, I never concidered using it for my current project. BTW, I do plan on writing an experimental 3D desktop in Lisp. Ok, so I'm sick.
Another poster mentioned Jython. Jython was one of the factors that helped me decide to use Python. Yet another mentioned Ant. Ant realy needs to leave the Java anthole. Why it has not gained more acceptance is beyond me. Ant can be more then "that build system for Java". Build, packaging, and distribution/installation issues are one of my specialities. I know more about "make" then is healthy. I have developed techniques to get around almost all the limitations of make ( without relying on ksh!). The problem is the obnoxious syntax that results. Even with the greatest care taken to maximize maintainibility, the resulting Makefiles are often downright Byzintine. For huge projects ( which are also the ones that require the most attention to maintainibility), make just falls apart. One point to make, both Ada and Python take care of a lot of the configuration managment taskes normaly delegated to make.
It also appears that using Java does not result in a potentaly abusive relationship with Sun. The fact that Sun owns Java still makes me a bit nervouse.
A final note, after 20 years, I am pretty fed up with fixing bad C code and I find C++ obnoxious. I do not plan on using either for any of my non-job-related projects, though I might make a acception for C in some very special circumstances.
Why would a developer use Java which is "owned" and not supported by an open standard when languages like Python exist? As far as I can tell, Python can do everything Java can without Sun entangelments. This is not a troll, though I am trolling for information. It is a serious question. The only Java person I know, bases his buisness on providing Java solutions so his opinion is a bit biased.
A number of my former-coworkers and myself are starting a little buisness. I am goining to be the primary software architect. We are still selecting tools. I tend to be an agressive persuader, able to defend my position even if I'm wrong. I am pushing for using Python. Another developer likes Java, but I have effectivly convinced him to go with Python. Because of my agressive nature, I must be carfull to gather as much data a posible. Then I need to insure that I base my decisions on an unbiased evaluation of the data. I hate making decisions and cramming them down everyones throught only to find out a year later that the decisions were flawed. BTW, my Java friend uses the same techniques as me in achieving team concensis!
I could do it in less the 15 min. I know because I do this type of thing every day. Its my job. Its called using libraries. I can do the same thing in Python, with fewer libraries, as it comes with utilities to write coma delimited files, and to handle the GUI stuff.
I wish I could comment on what is happening right now at the huge T&M company I use to be with. Its pretty disgusting, e.g. imagine a highly complicated real time measurment device using WindowsXP. Other then a few choice tidbits, I would lituraly be puttting some of my friends jobs at risk if commented farther.
Q. How do you design the a Windows based O-scope?
A. Use Windows to start up an O-scope app which shuts down Windows save some GUI stuff and effectivly becomes the OS.
I've been doing instrument control for nearly 20 years. I have always seen better duplication of results from machine to machine with HP-UX, Linux, and SunOS ( even between machines running different Unicies) then I have with any Windows machine with itself.
Umm VB and Windows are broke. And for your info there is far far better support for instrumentation in UNIX then Macrohard has ever thought of. The difficulty is 100% due to MS pressuring the manufacturers of Data Accuisition devises to only support ( publicly) Windows with their drivers.
To many to enumerate. For starters, serious memory issues, timing issues, necessity of overly complicated drivers, encouragment of BAD code, difficulty of maintainance, inability to scale up to even medium sized systems, math errors, bulky mechinisms needed to support REAL code reuse, and lastly, it is available for only one platform.
VB is suitible for very trivial things, or temporary solutions. It is only through intimidation by MS that VB ever got a foothold in this area. It is far easier for a vendor to provide drivers that have an bindings for Python, then for VB. VB was designrd to write macro viruses in. Its use should be limited to that. Any other application is inappropriate.
As a specialist in instrmentation, I can say that VB is NOT they way to go. Python is a much much better choise. BTW, here is a paraphrase of a MS salesdroids statement I heard in a meeting:
"With VB.net, we have fixed all those problems with VB." He did not mention that MS has been denying the very problems he listed for years.
Microsoft is determined to take over instrumentation. It is a Buisness priority. It would be very bad for them if the cheap comodity hardware, that everyone wants, was running Linux. What is in the lab soon gets to production. That means assemblers, testers, technicians, prduction engineers might get a lot of exposure to Linux. If they see Linux first hand, they will realise that it is not big and bad and only for geeks. At least some of the non-computor geek types in this catagory will give Linux a try at home. And this would be a major crack in the MS desktop Monopoly. All manufacturers of instrumentation are within MSs sights. Some have already been taken over. The long term goal for MS, is to have all instrumentation running Windows ( even though this is assinine). Windows only drivers will be supplied and the interface protocals will be propiatary. On top of that, the instruments will come with a EULA that will prohibit the instrument from being controled from a system that does not have a valid MS lisence. Technical and legel problems have prevented much success. The lates anti-trust coart case also put a major dampaner on things. But with the disruption in the industry caused by the current economic turmoil, MS sees a perfect time to let slip the dogs of war. And no, this is not all hot air and paranoia. I have seen indications of this for at least four years.
Slashdot Mirror
The author is a Microsoftite. Microsoft is known to be against Bluetooth. They tried to highjack the standard but the Europeans balked. Its just like the situation with USB especialy USB2. If Microsoft can't control the technology, they will ALWAYS attempt to kill it. I sure as hell don't want to use 802.11 to connect my keyboard and mouse to my system, and I don't want to be limited to some half backed propietary Microsoft influenced design from Logitech either.
This benchmark is an aid in evaluating the performance of a card with tomorows games. The goal of this benchmark is to stay ahead of the current crop of games. Right now, 3DMark evaluates sytheticaly DirectX 9.0(?) performance. Few games use all of the DX9 spec. but they will. Given this, 3DMark has a valid use, though like any sythetic test, its results need to be taken cum grano salis.
As a writer of low level instrumentation drivers, I have often played around with adaptive optimization. It realy is trivial for a driver to asay the optimization appropriate during an executables run. Basicaly application specific optimisation on-the -fly. The problem is that doing this slows the driver down more then the optimizations speed it up. But if the info is stored, the next time the executable is run, the driver just needs to engage the optimizations it had learnt previously. The second run will be considerably faster. This type of driver could very well have behavior some have reported for nVidias drivers. Did the tester run the renamed executable with as many succesive runs as the originaly named executable? Probably not, they did one run and happily concluded the nVidias cheating.
Volc. A: "The new report just came in. It seems the lava dome is rising about 4cm/day. s**!"
Volc. B: "Lets get the flock outa here NOW!"
Volc. A: "Ok, but I need to get my laptop first."
There is actualy a whole bag of tricks related to DGPS that can be used, given the situation, to vastly improve relative position. Geology and cartagraphy are all about reletive position. On top of this, studies such as this one are most interested in average relative motion over long periods of time (e.g. mm/month). And this allows the use of even more tricks. This new project is not doing anything earthshaking. There have been studies like this for at least a decade. By doing a little research, one can find maps of the reative motions of all tectonic components of North America. The figure were all derived using satalite based positioning technology. I think this demonstrates that it can be done.
I did'nt bother with the silly artical. I just knew I'd see better coverage and insight by skipping to the posts. I was right.
Lets take this up a notch or two. The standard ordinary linear differential equations course is an introductory cookbook class that is shy on theory. Texts only cover a small subset of the techniques available. Instructors often have better ideas then those presented. Problems can be solved by a number of methods and the results can be expressed in multiple forms. Some students require a more theoretical basis then the normal presentation, so try to learn that on their own. All of this increases the necesity of teacher student and student student interaction. Also tests usualy require the instructor to read through the work even when they specify what form they want the answer to be in. I also found this to be true in Calc to an extent. I once came up with a proof for the existance of a real limit given a set of conditions. The the fact that a limit exists can be used to find the actual value for the limit. I wrote the proof in the margin and used it for many of the test problems, thus reducing my workload tremendusly. The prof got a kick out of what I had done. Math is as much about the solution as it is about getting the correct answer.
Sounds like the real world. Many programmers work on geographicaly dispersed teams. In my last position, I worked closly with programmers and engineers in Scotland and Malaysia. It helped that the company would send us on trips periodicly. That way we offen had a face ( with personality) to go with the name on the email.
In a former job, I worked with engineers and technicians in Hong Kong, France, Malaysia, Singapore, Korea, Japan, and the strangest of all, Texas. I personaly enjoy working with people from different culturs.
Even better. I'm sure most /.ers, who would be interested, have no formal training in writing either.
Now days there is all the GNU stuff. Its a lot cheaper to learn. I have just resently installed a lot of Ada stuff, including GNAT ( I've got an ancient distro that did not come with it). Once I am sure that I can use Ada to do what I want, I'll probably end up buying a commercial package. I will eventualy need the best compiler targetting my chosen platform, PPC running Linux.
I'm interested in tech writiting and would like to do it better. I'm sure there are there /.ers who feel the same way. It would be nice to get the perspective of some one whos been there.
Telestra probably still has the mind set of a govermental agency. It looks like privatization is not working to well. Testra is only partialy privatised. Its effectivly a "For Profit", publicaly traded, Governmantal Agency. I don't think this a workable combination. Thats too bad. I tend to be a Libertarian ( for those not familiar with US politics, Libertarians like vary small, modular government). Between this and some resent events in the US, it seems that gradual de-governmentation is difficult to impossible. That means that achieving the Libertarian ideal from were we are today is not going to be easy. Succesfull de-governmetation probably involves a complete break. This is just like an Alcoholic can't achieve sobriaty by tappering off of drinking.
Examples: The day Pitbulls around the US went crazy and started killing people. They did this for about six months, with almost daily incidences. Then one day, they just stopped.
The summer of shark attacks that took place during a year with lower then average shark incidents.
I have to go. I'll write more examples later.
Edison was a true pioneer. He took FUD to new hights. He used paten portfolios to styfle competion in ways never dreamed of by his predicesors. He accuired the ownership of patens in very unsavory ways. He was one of the first to enslave inventors (read developers). Between him and Standard Oil, they wrote the book on monopolistic tyrany. Bill Gates is just extending the techniques pioneered by Edison.
The main reason that I did not go with OCaml is the size of the project. It has the potential of being rather big and might eventualy involve a diverse development community. I don't know how good OCaml is for large projects, or how easy OCaml code is to maintain. On the other hand, OCaml targets the problem space I am working in ( which I have'nt mentioned). At some point I will be writing a toy OOP OS in OCaml, Oh my.
I also like Common Lisp. I have never used it but I plan to. Unfortunatly, my plate is kinda full right now. Honestly, I never concidered using it for my current project. BTW, I do plan on writing an experimental 3D desktop in Lisp. Ok, so I'm sick.
Another poster mentioned Jython. Jython was one of the factors that helped me decide to use Python. Yet another mentioned Ant. Ant realy needs to leave the Java anthole. Why it has not gained more acceptance is beyond me. Ant can be more then "that build system for Java". Build, packaging, and distribution/installation issues are one of my specialities. I know more about "make" then is healthy. I have developed techniques to get around almost all the limitations of make ( without relying on ksh!). The problem is the obnoxious syntax that results. Even with the greatest care taken to maximize maintainibility, the resulting Makefiles are often downright Byzintine. For huge projects ( which are also the ones that require the most attention to maintainibility), make just falls apart. One point to make, both Ada and Python take care of a lot of the configuration managment taskes normaly delegated to make.
It also appears that using Java does not result in a potentaly abusive relationship with Sun. The fact that Sun owns Java still makes me a bit nervouse.
A final note, after 20 years, I am pretty fed up with fixing bad C code and I find C++ obnoxious. I do not plan on using either for any of my non-job-related projects, though I might make a acception for C in some very special circumstances.
A number of my former-coworkers and myself are starting a little buisness. I am goining to be the primary software architect. We are still selecting tools. I tend to be an agressive persuader, able to defend my position even if I'm wrong. I am pushing for using Python. Another developer likes Java, but I have effectivly convinced him to go with Python. Because of my agressive nature, I must be carfull to gather as much data a posible. Then I need to insure that I base my decisions on an unbiased evaluation of the data. I hate making decisions and cramming them down everyones throught only to find out a year later that the decisions were flawed. BTW, my Java friend uses the same techniques as me in achieving team concensis!
It seems Nullsoft is forgetting who eats the bread they butter!
I could do it in less the 15 min. I know because I do this type of thing every day. Its my job. Its called using libraries. I can do the same thing in Python, with fewer libraries, as it comes with utilities to write coma delimited files, and to handle the GUI stuff.
Q. How do you design the a Windows based O-scope?
A. Use Windows to start up an O-scope app which shuts down Windows save some GUI stuff and effectivly becomes the OS.
I've been doing instrument control for nearly 20 years. I have always seen better duplication of results from machine to machine with HP-UX, Linux, and SunOS ( even between machines running different Unicies) then I have with any Windows machine with itself.
Umm VB and Windows are broke. And for your info there is far far better support for instrumentation in UNIX then Macrohard has ever thought of. The difficulty is 100% due to MS pressuring the manufacturers of Data Accuisition devises to only support ( publicly) Windows with their drivers.
To many to enumerate. For starters, serious memory issues, timing issues, necessity of overly complicated drivers, encouragment of BAD code, difficulty of maintainance, inability to scale up to even medium sized systems, math errors, bulky mechinisms needed to support REAL code reuse, and lastly, it is available for only one platform.
P.S. I write instrument drivers for a living.
As a specialist in instrmentation, I can say that VB is NOT they way to go. Python is a much much better choise. BTW, here is a paraphrase of a MS salesdroids statement I heard in a meeting: "With VB.net, we have fixed all those problems with VB." He did not mention that MS has been denying the very problems he listed for years.
Microsoft is determined to take over instrumentation. It is a Buisness priority. It would be very bad for them if the cheap comodity hardware, that everyone wants, was running Linux. What is in the lab soon gets to production. That means assemblers, testers, technicians, prduction engineers might get a lot of exposure to Linux. If they see Linux first hand, they will realise that it is not big and bad and only for geeks. At least some of the non-computor geek types in this catagory will give Linux a try at home. And this would be a major crack in the MS desktop Monopoly. All manufacturers of instrumentation are within MSs sights. Some have already been taken over. The long term goal for MS, is to have all instrumentation running Windows ( even though this is assinine). Windows only drivers will be supplied and the interface protocals will be propiatary. On top of that, the instruments will come with a EULA that will prohibit the instrument from being controled from a system that does not have a valid MS lisence. Technical and legel problems have prevented much success. The lates anti-trust coart case also put a major dampaner on things. But with the disruption in the industry caused by the current economic turmoil, MS sees a perfect time to let slip the dogs of war. And no, this is not all hot air and paranoia. I have seen indications of this for at least four years.