Perhaps you weren't paying attention. The idea is that children who have reached a level of web proficiency that allows them to type "Barbie" or "Furby" into Google or Yahoo! Search still won't be sophisticated enough to tell which websites in the resulting link list will be toy stores, collector sites, as opposed to porn sites trying to glom the unwary.
I realize it's a subtle point, but perhaps you aren't a parent. I'm the parent of a high-functioning autistic nine-year-old child, and as much as I want to be in the room all the time when he's using the computer, sometimes I just have to leave for biological reasons. Apparently innocent links on Google Video or YouTube can lead to pages with links that aren't so innocent, and I've already had to intervene multiple times when I'm there with him. (Not for porn. Mostly for "stupid people doing stupid things and ending up injured" kinds of videos. He doesn't need to see idiot skateboarders losing teeth or breaking jawbones, either.)
Purveyors of adult material who deliberately attempt to attract underage traffic are contemptible and deserve whatever force we can bring to bear against them. This measure isn't designed to stop adults, and any of the responders to this particular thread who pound on that point are missing the gist of the thesis.
To answer the direct question: yes, it does happen all that much--a lot more than you think. (Except, apparently, you didn't think.)
I took the quote entirely from the first paragraph of the article in question. It even says "In this article, I will show you how..." so how do you conclude that was written by a sub-editor? Even if that assertion turns out to be true, wrong is still wrong, isn't it?
From TFA: The closer to the metal you can get while programming, the faster your program will compile -- or so conventional wisdom would have you believe. In this article, I will show you how high-level languages like Java aren't slow by nature, and in fact low level languages may compile less efficiently.
I believe the phrase the faster your program will compile means "the faster the compiler will translate your program into machine-executable code." Apparently the author means "the compiler will generate faster code." He then makes the same mistake again, equivocating between the process of compilation and the quality of the compiled output.
If you can't manage to write a clear sentence defining what topic you're exploring...what else might you be getting wrong?
There isn't going to be any "more clueful" involved. There's been nearly 45 years in which to get a clue, no clue has arisen, and I don't see any clues looming on the horizon.
You and I understand software, but Joe MBA doesn't. Even when we try to express what we know, we're always trumped by "business" wisdom, logic, or what-have-you. That's because of two things, largely, and the major one of the pair is that they're the ones writing the paychecks, not us. The other reason is that they only understand one category of metrics, and software development refuses to be measured with that set of calipers. We have our own calipers, but the business people don't like them, so they don't use them.
I wrote 5,000 lines of code last month. Most of them were very, very, short. They're all in QA right now, too.
Yes, lines of code is a crap metric, but let's face it--the "manufacturing frozen hamburgers in a box"-school MBAs don't understand software development, and never will. I work for a subsidiary of Really Big Company (no, that's not implying their company name is RBC, or has those letters as the first part of any of their name bits), and Really Big Company mostly supplies a particular kind of hardware to the world of commerce. Our new company president has a degree in engineering, and historically he's been a hardware sort of guy.
(He's not a bad person. Honestly. He's under the same gun as the rest of us, and working hard to make sure we meet our targets. I'm not doing character assassination here--at least not directed toward specific individuals.)
The folks at Really Big Company give us revenue targets every year. If we miss those targets, the next year the targets are higher, no matter the state of the economy, the solvency of customers in our particular market niche, or our saturation level in that market niche. To me it makes no sense, but I'm not an MBA. (Clearly the management team at Really Big Company doesn't consist of too many dog owners. It's patently obvious that if a dachshund can't jump through a hoop two feet off the ground, it won't be able to jump through a hoop three feet off the ground. Perhaps they're avoiding that concept to skirt patent infringement issues.)
(Personal aside: my older cousin, a mechanical engineer by training, got an MBA last year. I consider him a traitor to the cause, and am no longer speaking with him. He doesn't know it, and I can't tell him, because I'm not speaking with him.)
The problem with hardware people, and it doesn't matter whether the hardware is computers, lawn mowers, or frozen hamburgers in a box, is that they deal in tangibles. At the end of the quarter, either one has 1,000 model 59-C units in the warehouse for delivery, or one doesn't. At any time during the quarter, one can count the number of computer model 59-C units and see whether or not the schedule will be met. One can determine whether or not vendors are supplying the parts required to build 1,000 model 59-C units at a rate commensurate with meeting the EOQ deadline.
The problem is, software is entirely intangible. We don't have vendor issues--if we have a compiler, an editor, and a computer on which to work, we're good. As far as the MBAs know, we're spinning moonbeams and weaving webs of purest electricity. While the reality is not quite that prosaic, it's not far from the truth. Everything I have ever done in my programming career (even that game I marketed 15 years ago, the source code for which is still on my latest computer at home) exists purely as an abstraction, nothing more than specifically-configured magnetic signatures.
What we know at the outset of the software project is that we want a Program That Works. What we don't know is how long that's going to take, and it's hard to estimate how long writing a new file system, security layer, or UI component might be, even if we've done it before in another context. The difference between building model 59-C units and writing software is that halfway through the manufacturing cycle no one comes to tell you that the model 59-C unit has been partially redesigned, and that it now uses a stainless steel internal frame instead of cast aluminum. (In the world of tangibles manufacture, the stainless steel version would have a new model number. This doesn't happen with software. The requirements change, and we keep calling it the same old thing.) Specific case, referencing Vista: suddenly WinFS is not part of the shipping configuration, so all the code in other parts of Vista that assumed WinFS would be present have to be rewritten, and then retested both at the unit and integration level. This stuff takes time. It can't be done on the original schedule.
LISP may have been elegant (if by elegant you mean "improbably difficult to read to the point of being obfuscated"), and perhaps the language is simple, but the programs themselves were not. From what I've been able to see over the years, LISP has been favored only by people that found using HP RP-notation calculators to be a fun and rewarding experience.
BASIC was designed as a teaching language, and looks like it. Attempts to extend it to the real world haven't been totally pointless, but come on--it's a teaching language.
FORTH shares some of the same problems LISP has, although it's more readable. 'Nuff said.
Java, more than anything, has been the cause of more anti-Microsoft conspiracy rants than any other language. Sun kept trying to sell that "Java operating system" crap until even they got sick of it. The idea that somehow a web browser and an interpreted language is equivalent to an operating system is something that will forever remain beyond my ken. Java was designed to run toasters. It was only after Sun failed to sell the vision of Talky Toaster (a shout-out to all the Red Dwarf fans!) that the language (aka the platform--ugh) was repositioned as a way to deliver applications within a web browser.
One more thing: as much as it might pain the/. readership to see it, it is nevertheless true that a slavish kowtowing to standards inhibits advancement. Innovation is stifled, not promoted, by standards committees. Phillipe Kahn's (more to the point, I suppose, Anders Hejlsberg's) version of Pascal was far better than the pap ISO was peddling from their pushcart.
I find it ironic that virtually all the Java wonks are big on standards committees and standards compliance--but not one of them remembers to mention that Sun won't put Java up to ISO or ANSI or ECMA for standardization. Must be some kind of self-denial.
Meanwhile, back at the OP's original question, I'd have to go with C# as the contender. I don't see any reason that C and C++ can't be replaced by C# as we move along. It does a great deal right--better than Java, IMHO. (Python? Logical blocking by indentation? Don't get me started.)
Oh, my karma is SO going to suffer because of this posting, but go ahead./. karma and $1.19 will get me a Diet Mountain Dew at Seven-Eleven--and I already have the $1.19.
Don't bother writing. The SIRA actually allows licenses to cover intermediate copies, not applies a separate fee to intermediate copies. Read the actual write-up from the Copyright Office and you'll see what's actually proposed. Apparently the hairless gits at the PAC can't read.
I don't see how this could have been modded as informative, since it's completely off the mark. The intent of the bill is precisely opposite what this poster concludes, and worse, the poster writes it up anonymously.
Saying that corporations (which are designed to make money) want our money is like saying that dogs like food. Of course Sony wants to make money. Thanks for the update, Darth Obvious. How they're going about it, or whether they're going about it in the wrong way, is an entirely different argument.
I wasn't bothered by the UMD format because it was specific to the PSP; sending out PSP games on SD cards or other compatible media was a waste of time because the games wouldn't run on any other system in the first place. Movies on UMD were inevitable since the PSP is a pretty good movie player, other things being equal. That Sony figured it was going to license the UMD format to other vendors seems pretty short-sighted to me, though. (Likewise Memory Sticks. Yuck.)
So, I agree with the idea that Sony is taking the wrong tack. I just need something more substantial than "Sony wants our money" as the rationale.
It might be a little while before they launch. The gravity on Neptune is about 110% that of Earth. Neptune is mostly gas (just like/., really). These planets are rocky, which means that the gravity on them will be somewhere in the neighborhood of 3.35 x Earth's (assuming the same density as Earth, 5.5 gm/cm3); higher densities (meaning, less or no water) will lead to higher gravity. Now, assuming that there's no water at all, they're likely never coming, but even with water there, launching something into orbit will be quite a feat.
If they get here, though, they're going to be really short, but great jumpers. You think Jordan had air? Wait until you see Grxbnyz!
I'm with the poster on this. For fsck sake, it's a cartoon. A long cartoon, but it's still a cartoon. If there's something that Freudian memes ought to be right out of, it's cartoons.
What about that odd relationship between Yogi and Boo-boo? Gay? Incestuous, even? Who knows? But who needs to know, it's a friggin' cartoon, and only a completely over-the-top Socialist would even be looking for subtext!
Besides, everybody looks like Speed Racer was his or her father.
...but where I work, we aggregate critical business requirement documents and estimate spreadsheets in a common location, and we expect that anything of consequence will be done in them, not in e-mail. When I have a software issue to resolve, I communicate with the Business Analyst via e-mail, so siloing occurs, but the BA is the locus of all requests, so he has a trail of everything that was sent regarding the project. I don't see what he communicates with the Project Manager, because according to our internal security rules, I'm not allowed access to that information. (Put another way, if they want me to see it, I'll get it in e-mail, or see it in one of the central documents.)
The patent submission was September, 2003. Now, unless I'm totally off the beam here, Windows 95 used an activation scheme like that mentioned in the patent back in, oh, 1995? PRIOR ART????
Ideals are always lovely, but reality is often larger, with bigger teeth and claws.
There are some things that are just better written by the people that are close to the hardware in question. The FSF is holding out for ideals, and yippee-gee-whiz for them, but open-source drivers make about as much sense as refining your own gasoline. It's just not cost-effective, and the end product isn't as good as what you can get from a real provider.
(Note to the poster who said that open source software is written by "some of the best programmers in the world" or some such. Yes, some. Not all. This is why you'd want the video drivers written by the OEMs. It's certainly true that the OEMs don't have all the good developers, but they certainly have developers who are good enough to get paid for writing code, which is more than I can say for a lot of open source projects.)
Airbus has had a terrible record with their flight control software. What's worse, it's nearly impossible to turn off. On the aircraft in the video (referenced elsewhere the thread), the flight control software decided that the plane should be landing, so it kicked into landing mode. The pilots were trying to throttle up and pull back the yoke, but the software had a built-in timer requiring at least 11 seconds of attempted counter-commands before it allowed the override. That was enough to put the plane in the trees.
A former manager of mine mentioned a case with an A300 in Europe that wouldn't go below 6000ft because the computer decided that it just wasn't going to. Finally the flight engineer, in contact with Airbus folks on the ground, ended up under the panels pulling out modules until the auto-pilot was singing "Bicycle built for two," and they managed to get the thing onto the ground in Bonn in one piece.
Most professional pilots in the USA can't stand the Airbus planes for that reason; on the Boeings, you just slap down a couple of paddles and you're in control. (I wrote flight performance computer simulations for desk-top flight trainers for a few years. I heard some stories.)
"The language of business means real things to the people who deal with it, just like technical terms mean real things to others."
In other words, the braying of donkeys means something to other donkeys. And while many corporate types are, in fact, donkeys--just with a shorter spelling of the word--I have to say that you're just flat wrong. For one thing, TCP/IP isn't all network traffic--there's UDP and ICMP as well. When the technical guy says TCP/IP, that's what he means. It's plain English as rendered, unlike the example I'm about to give.
That example is: "We intend to leverage existing competencies going forward." Never mind the junk in the middle--I'm interested in "going forward." While it certainly has meaning to the other donkeys ("in the future"), it's semantically dubious because in that context, there is no such thing as "going backward" or "going sideways." There's only one way to do something you haven't done yet, and that's in the future. (There's also only one way to continue doing something you're already doing, and it's still in the future.) Why don't they just say "in the future," if they absolutely have to be redundant about it? "We intend to leverage existing competencies" is already complete, since the phrase "intend to leverage" implies future activity.
Never mind the semantic issues, though: the language of business is simply a variant of the language of diplomacy, which is designed on purpose to confuse and misdirect. The mission is never to be clear exactly what you're thinking, or what you're planning.
The REAL reason that business types do this is that they don't understand language. They equate complexity (or simple length) of statement with prestige. The longer it takes to say, the more important it must be. They're not interested in actual content so much as how good the speech sounds while they're speaking. (This is, in part, due to the fact that the average Wal-Mart-shopping "American Idol" viewer doesn't know anything about language, either, so he or she is impressed, too. When the president of Ford Motor Company gets on television and maunders his mealy-mouthed marketing muck, what he's really saying is "Hey, you caught us--our cars suck. We're going to make better cars now," but that doesn't sell cars. The reality is that making good products sells products, but business people don't really understand that. I don't know why that is, but it's true everywhere I've been.)
So the donkeys bray on. The problem is, of course, that they don't realize that the rest of the animals around them aren't donkeys. More to the point--we don't want to be donkeys.
Having written in Java, C++, and now in the process of learning C#, I have to say that I prefer C#. It fixes a lot of what's wrong in C++, and it's new enough not to have suffered the bloat that Java has.
Yes, bloat.
If I never see another BuffereredDataStreamBufferReaderWriterBufferStream Reader (or whatever that was), it'll be too soon. Bleh. Java is soooo last-century.
Don't start with me about Microsoft-only with C#. There's Mono, you know, so why not broaden that Linu-centric viewpoint you have, eh?
I don't do business drone-like things. You know what I mean by that--have endless, usually pointless, meetings (not to mention "pre-meetings," whatever the hell those are), generate tons of paperwork in an effort to appear like I'm actually working, and rely on charts and graphs to know my position in the world. I don't treat automobiles, houses/neighborhoods, or wives as some kind of a status symbol. I'm down on the metal, doing what I do best--sculpting in pure electricity.
So, I don't feel any particular need to dress like a business drone. I think it's a good thing for me to dress in such a way that people can tell the difference, so they know what to expect.
Socially aware? Please. My social contract with the world at large is not to show up naked. That's it. Beyond that, it's all up to me. The world can deal with it, because the world benefits from what I do. [You better believe it--what I've done over the past 10 years, in concert with a small team of very talented people, has revolutionized a very large world-wide industry.] If the world wants what I have, then the world deals on my terms. I didn't ask to be in the game, and nobody offered me an opportunity to determine the rules. Ipso facto.
For the record, I don't have a ponytail and I don't wear sandals. I also don't wear long-sleeved shirts, or dress pants. If that gives the business guys an aneurysm--GOOD.
Slashdot Mirror
I realize it's a subtle point, but perhaps you aren't a parent. I'm the parent of a high-functioning autistic nine-year-old child, and as much as I want to be in the room all the time when he's using the computer, sometimes I just have to leave for biological reasons. Apparently innocent links on Google Video or YouTube can lead to pages with links that aren't so innocent, and I've already had to intervene multiple times when I'm there with him. (Not for porn. Mostly for "stupid people doing stupid things and ending up injured" kinds of videos. He doesn't need to see idiot skateboarders losing teeth or breaking jawbones, either.)
Purveyors of adult material who deliberately attempt to attract underage traffic are contemptible and deserve whatever force we can bring to bear against them. This measure isn't designed to stop adults, and any of the responders to this particular thread who pound on that point are missing the gist of the thesis.
To answer the direct question: yes, it does happen all that much--a lot more than you think. (Except, apparently, you didn't think.)
Next, I suppose, aliens from Planet Zontar in Zeta Reticuli will have stolen those very same computers from which the Unix and Dynix code was deleted.
I took the quote entirely from the first paragraph of the article in question. It even says "In this article, I will show you how..." so how do you conclude that was written by a sub-editor? Even if that assertion turns out to be true, wrong is still wrong, isn't it?
I believe the phrase the faster your program will compile means "the faster the compiler will translate your program into machine-executable code." Apparently the author means "the compiler will generate faster code." He then makes the same mistake again, equivocating between the process of compilation and the quality of the compiled output.
If you can't manage to write a clear sentence defining what topic you're exploring...what else might you be getting wrong?
Oh. NOW. That would have been my first idea. Sensitive data? Encrypt it!
That's why I don't work in network security.
Oh wait--yeah we did.
You and I understand software, but Joe MBA doesn't. Even when we try to express what we know, we're always trumped by "business" wisdom, logic, or what-have-you. That's because of two things, largely, and the major one of the pair is that they're the ones writing the paychecks, not us. The other reason is that they only understand one category of metrics, and software development refuses to be measured with that set of calipers. We have our own calipers, but the business people don't like them, so they don't use them.
Hey, too bad I don't get paid by the word for this.
Yes, lines of code is a crap metric, but let's face it--the "manufacturing frozen hamburgers in a box"-school MBAs don't understand software development, and never will. I work for a subsidiary of Really Big Company (no, that's not implying their company name is RBC, or has those letters as the first part of any of their name bits), and Really Big Company mostly supplies a particular kind of hardware to the world of commerce. Our new company president has a degree in engineering, and historically he's been a hardware sort of guy.
(He's not a bad person. Honestly. He's under the same gun as the rest of us, and working hard to make sure we meet our targets. I'm not doing character assassination here--at least not directed toward specific individuals.)
The folks at Really Big Company give us revenue targets every year. If we miss those targets, the next year the targets are higher, no matter the state of the economy, the solvency of customers in our particular market niche, or our saturation level in that market niche. To me it makes no sense, but I'm not an MBA. (Clearly the management team at Really Big Company doesn't consist of too many dog owners. It's patently obvious that if a dachshund can't jump through a hoop two feet off the ground, it won't be able to jump through a hoop three feet off the ground. Perhaps they're avoiding that concept to skirt patent infringement issues.)
(Personal aside: my older cousin, a mechanical engineer by training, got an MBA last year. I consider him a traitor to the cause, and am no longer speaking with him. He doesn't know it, and I can't tell him, because I'm not speaking with him.)
The problem with hardware people, and it doesn't matter whether the hardware is computers, lawn mowers, or frozen hamburgers in a box, is that they deal in tangibles. At the end of the quarter, either one has 1,000 model 59-C units in the warehouse for delivery, or one doesn't. At any time during the quarter, one can count the number of computer model 59-C units and see whether or not the schedule will be met. One can determine whether or not vendors are supplying the parts required to build 1,000 model 59-C units at a rate commensurate with meeting the EOQ deadline.
The problem is, software is entirely intangible. We don't have vendor issues--if we have a compiler, an editor, and a computer on which to work, we're good. As far as the MBAs know, we're spinning moonbeams and weaving webs of purest electricity. While the reality is not quite that prosaic, it's not far from the truth. Everything I have ever done in my programming career (even that game I marketed 15 years ago, the source code for which is still on my latest computer at home) exists purely as an abstraction, nothing more than specifically-configured magnetic signatures.
What we know at the outset of the software project is that we want a Program That Works. What we don't know is how long that's going to take, and it's hard to estimate how long writing a new file system, security layer, or UI component might be, even if we've done it before in another context. The difference between building model 59-C units and writing software is that halfway through the manufacturing cycle no one comes to tell you that the model 59-C unit has been partially redesigned, and that it now uses a stainless steel internal frame instead of cast aluminum. (In the world of tangibles manufacture, the stainless steel version would have a new model number. This doesn't happen with software. The requirements change, and we keep calling it the same old thing.) Specific case, referencing Vista: suddenly WinFS is not part of the shipping configuration, so all the code in other parts of Vista that assumed WinFS would be present have to be rewritten, and then retested both at the unit and integration level. This stuff takes time. It can't be done on the original schedule.
The
BASIC was designed as a teaching language, and looks like it. Attempts to extend it to the real world haven't been totally pointless, but come on--it's a teaching language.
FORTH shares some of the same problems LISP has, although it's more readable. 'Nuff said.
Java, more than anything, has been the cause of more anti-Microsoft conspiracy rants than any other language. Sun kept trying to sell that "Java operating system" crap until even they got sick of it. The idea that somehow a web browser and an interpreted language is equivalent to an operating system is something that will forever remain beyond my ken. Java was designed to run toasters. It was only after Sun failed to sell the vision of Talky Toaster (a shout-out to all the Red Dwarf fans!) that the language (aka the platform--ugh) was repositioned as a way to deliver applications within a web browser.
One more thing: as much as it might pain the /. readership to see it, it is nevertheless true that a slavish kowtowing to standards inhibits advancement. Innovation is stifled, not promoted, by standards committees. Phillipe Kahn's (more to the point, I suppose, Anders Hejlsberg's) version of Pascal was far better than the pap ISO was peddling from their pushcart.
I find it ironic that virtually all the Java wonks are big on standards committees and standards compliance--but not one of them remembers to mention that Sun won't put Java up to ISO or ANSI or ECMA for standardization. Must be some kind of self-denial.
Meanwhile, back at the OP's original question, I'd have to go with C# as the contender. I don't see any reason that C and C++ can't be replaced by C# as we move along. It does a great deal right--better than Java, IMHO. (Python? Logical blocking by indentation? Don't get me started.)
Oh, my karma is SO going to suffer because of this posting, but go ahead. /. karma and $1.19 will get me a Diet Mountain Dew at Seven-Eleven--and I already have the $1.19.
Don't bother writing. The SIRA actually allows licenses to cover intermediate copies, not applies a separate fee to intermediate copies. Read the actual write-up from the Copyright Office and you'll see what's actually proposed. Apparently the hairless gits at the PAC can't read.
Mod back down, willya?
I wasn't bothered by the UMD format because it was specific to the PSP; sending out PSP games on SD cards or other compatible media was a waste of time because the games wouldn't run on any other system in the first place. Movies on UMD were inevitable since the PSP is a pretty good movie player, other things being equal. That Sony figured it was going to license the UMD format to other vendors seems pretty short-sighted to me, though. (Likewise Memory Sticks. Yuck.)
So, I agree with the idea that Sony is taking the wrong tack. I just need something more substantial than "Sony wants our money" as the rationale.
If they get here, though, they're going to be really short, but great jumpers. You think Jordan had air? Wait until you see Grxbnyz!
What about that odd relationship between Yogi and Boo-boo? Gay? Incestuous, even? Who knows? But who needs to know, it's a friggin' cartoon, and only a completely over-the-top Socialist would even be looking for subtext!
Besides, everybody looks like Speed Racer was his or her father.
*YAWN*
Where's the problem, again?
How could the patent even be issued?
Gore voters.
There are some things that are just better written by the people that are close to the hardware in question. The FSF is holding out for ideals, and yippee-gee-whiz for them, but open-source drivers make about as much sense as refining your own gasoline. It's just not cost-effective, and the end product isn't as good as what you can get from a real provider.
(Note to the poster who said that open source software is written by "some of the best programmers in the world" or some such. Yes, some. Not all. This is why you'd want the video drivers written by the OEMs. It's certainly true that the OEMs don't have all the good developers, but they certainly have developers who are good enough to get paid for writing code, which is more than I can say for a lot of open source projects.)
A former manager of mine mentioned a case with an A300 in Europe that wouldn't go below 6000ft because the computer decided that it just wasn't going to. Finally the flight engineer, in contact with Airbus folks on the ground, ended up under the panels pulling out modules until the auto-pilot was singing "Bicycle built for two," and they managed to get the thing onto the ground in Bonn in one piece.
Most professional pilots in the USA can't stand the Airbus planes for that reason; on the Boeings, you just slap down a couple of paddles and you're in control. (I wrote flight performance computer simulations for desk-top flight trainers for a few years. I heard some stories.)
In other words, the braying of donkeys means something to other donkeys. And while many corporate types are, in fact, donkeys--just with a shorter spelling of the word--I have to say that you're just flat wrong. For one thing, TCP/IP isn't all network traffic--there's UDP and ICMP as well. When the technical guy says TCP/IP, that's what he means. It's plain English as rendered, unlike the example I'm about to give.
That example is: "We intend to leverage existing competencies going forward." Never mind the junk in the middle--I'm interested in "going forward." While it certainly has meaning to the other donkeys ("in the future"), it's semantically dubious because in that context, there is no such thing as "going backward" or "going sideways." There's only one way to do something you haven't done yet, and that's in the future. (There's also only one way to continue doing something you're already doing, and it's still in the future.) Why don't they just say "in the future," if they absolutely have to be redundant about it? "We intend to leverage existing competencies" is already complete, since the phrase "intend to leverage" implies future activity.
Never mind the semantic issues, though: the language of business is simply a variant of the language of diplomacy, which is designed on purpose to confuse and misdirect. The mission is never to be clear exactly what you're thinking, or what you're planning.
The REAL reason that business types do this is that they don't understand language. They equate complexity (or simple length) of statement with prestige. The longer it takes to say, the more important it must be. They're not interested in actual content so much as how good the speech sounds while they're speaking. (This is, in part, due to the fact that the average Wal-Mart-shopping "American Idol" viewer doesn't know anything about language, either, so he or she is impressed, too. When the president of Ford Motor Company gets on television and maunders his mealy-mouthed marketing muck, what he's really saying is "Hey, you caught us--our cars suck. We're going to make better cars now," but that doesn't sell cars. The reality is that making good products sells products, but business people don't really understand that. I don't know why that is, but it's true everywhere I've been.)
So the donkeys bray on. The problem is, of course, that they don't realize that the rest of the animals around them aren't donkeys. More to the point--we don't want to be donkeys.
"Crap, it's cold out here."
Yes, bloat.
If I never see another BuffereredDataStreamBufferReaderWriterBufferStream Reader (or whatever that was), it'll be too soon. Bleh. Java is soooo last-century.
Don't start with me about Microsoft-only with C#. There's Mono, you know, so why not broaden that Linu-centric viewpoint you have, eh?
I don't recall using a technology named "Jerry Taylor." Could you provide some more information on it?
I am not a business drone.
I don't do business drone-like things. You know what I mean by that--have endless, usually pointless, meetings (not to mention "pre-meetings," whatever the hell those are), generate tons of paperwork in an effort to appear like I'm actually working, and rely on charts and graphs to know my position in the world. I don't treat automobiles, houses/neighborhoods, or wives as some kind of a status symbol. I'm down on the metal, doing what I do best--sculpting in pure electricity.
So, I don't feel any particular need to dress like a business drone. I think it's a good thing for me to dress in such a way that people can tell the difference, so they know what to expect.
Socially aware? Please. My social contract with the world at large is not to show up naked. That's it. Beyond that, it's all up to me. The world can deal with it, because the world benefits from what I do. [You better believe it--what I've done over the past 10 years, in concert with a small team of very talented people, has revolutionized a very large world-wide industry.] If the world wants what I have, then the world deals on my terms. I didn't ask to be in the game, and nobody offered me an opportunity to determine the rules. Ipso facto.
For the record, I don't have a ponytail and I don't wear sandals. I also don't wear long-sleeved shirts, or dress pants. If that gives the business guys an aneurysm--GOOD.