About a year ago, I took advantage of my employer's "Innovation" program to promote our internal use of a code-search tool called Krugle. I took point in contacting Krugle, arranged for a free demo period, and administered the demo on a machine in our network. Of course, I fell afoul of the "Innovation" program, because my version of "Innovation" was something to help us develop a better product. In fact, the program was intended to find a better color for the box, so my Krugle effort was lost on them, but hey I'm not bitter....
Ok, on to the point. I got a dozen developers to participate in the evaluation of a Krugle copy running inside our firewall. It indexed millions of lines of legacy code, organized across a dozen different projects. In my opinion, and I believe the majority of other evaluators as well, being able to search our code exhaustively was a major benefit in getting "arms around" the code base. It changes your outlook. You start asking questions like
Where are all the places that a different component calls this API?
What the heck does error code 4872339 mean, and who generates it?
How many derived classes override this virtual function?
If you surf on over to Krugle.com, you will see that they now offer a free evaluation copy as a standard product. If you want to get a feeling for what can be done with the tool, just check out Krugle.org, where lots of open-source projects are indexed online. I would definitely recommend using the free evaluation tool as a way of speeding your high-level understanding of any new-to-you code base.
Well, if you do this stuff "under your own seal" anywhere, then your questions are way over my head! As I said in my post, I am just repeating what I heard at Cal Earth to the best of my memory.
I *do* remember them talking about load testing "3 times greater" than something, but they lost me there. The best I could do for more info is to email them through their web site, which, of course, you could do as well...
As to the matter of taste, I tend to agree with you. My house uses wood, and I'm used to the look and feel. They have an experimental ranch house (2 car garage, 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, etc, etc) under construction, but this is clearly not their main mission.
Their main mission is to find a way that the world's masses can have housing that is not dependent on the corruption, graft, and honest costs associated with highly-manufactured and shipped materials. For that end, they are well aware of the problems, but seem to be working through them pretty well.
You make several good points; it's almost as if you were at Nader's presentation:) Let me reply from memory of his presentation:
They [Geodesic Domes] can also be constructed from easily available materials such as wood or concrete Apparently, wood is the most expensive building material you could choose, in much of the undeveloped world. You might at well suggest they build from gold. And, expense just scales down from there, dependent mostly on energy of manufacture content. Portland cement (concrete) is actually pretty high on the energy scale; it has to be heated to high temps during manufacture. Nader considers it an unfortunate but necessary compromise to require stabilzation with 10% concrete.
But more importantly, they are designs your local building inspector can wrap their brain around so you can actually get a permit to build one You are right again, this was one of the big battles they face. Nader actually said he chose to site in the US for the first tests specifically so that, once he got permits here, it would be easier to get permits elsewhere! Looks like one of his students has finally beaten down the inspectors, answered all their concerns, and gotten a permit in LA county. Of course, the system relies heavily on precedence, so they think the dam is about to break on this front.
They still have the frame that the inspectors used for earthquake testing, less the hydraulic equipment. After the structure passed the tests, they attempted to test to desctruction (research facility, they can rebuild, I guess). Unfortunately, the hydraulic equipment destructed first, so they still don't know what it would take to knock one down!
Slashdot Mirror
If you surf on over to Krugle.com, you will see that they now offer a free evaluation copy as a standard product. If you want to get a feeling for what can be done with the tool, just check out Krugle.org, where lots of open-source projects are indexed online. I would definitely recommend using the free evaluation tool as a way of speeding your high-level understanding of any new-to-you code base.
Yes, it is better, and I already have one. Check it out at http://www.abptech.com/mainpages/products/HCL-Wire lessIP5000.html
I *do* remember them talking about load testing "3 times greater" than something, but they lost me there. The best I could do for more info is to email them through their web site, which, of course, you could do as well...
As to the matter of taste, I tend to agree with you. My house uses wood, and I'm used to the look and feel. They have an experimental ranch house (2 car garage, 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, etc, etc) under construction, but this is clearly not their main mission.
Their main mission is to find a way that the world's masses can have housing that is not dependent on the corruption, graft, and honest costs associated with highly-manufactured and shipped materials. For that end, they are well aware of the problems, but seem to be working through them pretty well.
They [Geodesic Domes] can also be constructed from easily available materials such as wood or concrete Apparently, wood is the most expensive building material you could choose, in much of the undeveloped world. You might at well suggest they build from gold. And, expense just scales down from there, dependent mostly on energy of manufacture content. Portland cement (concrete) is actually pretty high on the energy scale; it has to be heated to high temps during manufacture. Nader considers it an unfortunate but necessary compromise to require stabilzation with 10% concrete.
But more importantly, they are designs your local building inspector can wrap their brain around so you can actually get a permit to build one You are right again, this was one of the big battles they face. Nader actually said he chose to site in the US for the first tests specifically so that, once he got permits here, it would be easier to get permits elsewhere! Looks like one of his students has finally beaten down the inspectors, answered all their concerns, and gotten a permit in LA county. Of course, the system relies heavily on precedence, so they think the dam is about to break on this front.
They still have the frame that the inspectors used for earthquake testing, less the hydraulic equipment. After the structure passed the tests, they attempted to test to desctruction (research facility, they can rebuild, I guess). Unfortunately, the hydraulic equipment destructed first, so they still don't know what it would take to knock one down!
Cheers, ClosedLoop