We've been overrun by a bunch of uber-rich national charities like the Humane Society of the US, who swept in, got some television time, and then left everyone hanging. The local humane societies got screwed - they had to close a shelter because they couldn't afford to run it, meanwhile the HSUS get's millions. I'm sick of it. The same goes for the Red Cross... their CEO makes hundreds of thousands of dollars... the CEO of the Salvation Army makes $13k a year. Put your money in local charities. Avoid the national ones. If you must, at least the Salvation Army is one of the more respectable ones.
The National Guard have been the most professional, courteous and respected group in the city.
I wish I could say the same for FEMA or the Red Cross, but I can't. FEMA is the biggest government boondoggle ever.
The troops in the city have made us all feel safer. They've been 100% respectful and professional. I can flag down a group of soldiers at any time and if there's something they can help me with, they'll do what they can. They have held this city together. And I'm no right-winger.
You can not find a single person anywhere in New Orleans who will say anything bad about the National Guard. They have set a standard by which every other agency should aspire.
You want to know who's shooting first and asking questions later? Not the National Guard. I'm not going into it.
No disrespect intended, but it's too little, too late now.
I'm in New Orleans. I've been here since the hurricane. I've been rescuing people and pets. What we do not need at this time are people coming into the city clogging things up. Many of the aid stations have shut down because, contrary to what the media may be reporting, the outskirts of the city are slowly coming back into operation. So there's not much you can really do except get in the way.
Yea, you can come down and offer to help people with manual labor, but the media has scared the crap out of everybody with all the overblown looter/sniper reporting, you're likely to find people more suspicious than thankful.
I wish it weren't so, but that's the way it is.
If you want to help, don't vote Republican any more. Honestly, this will do more to help people in the area than anything else you can do. The current administration is giving away most of the federal aid to a small number of politically-connected corporations friendly with the current administration. At least the democrats put more emphasis on middle class and education.
We're screwed. I don't even want to talk about it honestly. I'm totally burned out from what I've had to go through.
I'm one of those people. I watch maybe two HOURS of tv a week.
And in those two hours of TV you watch on average, FOURTY MINUTES of commercials for diet pills, home re-finance schemes, truck ads, penis pills, annoying network news teasers, "amazing new closet organizers", crappy beer, and $200 tennis shoes.
Those of us with Tivo don't put up with the spam. I wouldn't watch any TV if I had to put up with that crap. In fact, I don't rent movies any more because all the new DVDs force you to watch more spam before you get to the feature.
Tivo: $99 One Year "Service Contract": ~$70 Entering a secret code on the remote and enabling 30-second skip: PRICELESS!!!
It's obvious most of the negative comments herein are made by people who don't have Tivo, so they don't know what they're talking about.
This is a revolutionary device that one shouldn't watch tv without. The Tivo company makes the best product of its genre on the market. The PROBLEM is that the cable monopolies don't see why they can't create their own [horribly crappy] DVR and foist it on their customers and shut Tivo out... this is what's happening and this is why Tivo is suffering financially, and it's also why some people who have non-Tivo DVRs are saying "Why is this so revolutionary?" -- that's because it's not a Tivo; it's a piece of sh*t from Comcast.
The Tivo company is battling the cable golaiths. We should all be supportive of them. They have the best product, but are having trouble getting market share because of the oppressive, controlling cable and satellite networks. This ultimately hurts consumers as well as endeavors to put the superior DVR company out of business.
This is no big deal. Most people that have Tivo couldn't imagine living without it. I'd agree to a contract because I can't imagine having a TV and not Tivo. It's that revolutionary, and if this helps keep the company afloat, that's great. The competitor's DVRs suck horribly.
I guess I got modded down by some script-kiddy who could figure out how to run the sendmail install script, but wasn't smart enough to know the command line option to have sendmail use a different port. LAME.
If you want to DIY, just run on a different port. If you can't figure out how to do that, then you shouldn't be running your own mail server.
I ran into this problem yesterday when I was setting up my computer from someone else's LAN that had port 25 blocked. I ssh'd into my server and set up another sendmail smtp instance on port 26.. 10 seconds. done. full mail service. Stop whining.
As someone who lives and works in New Orleans and just tonite finally found a place with electricity and net access, I want to say thanks to everyone who is helping with the efforts. Things are really bad for many people.
Interestingly enough, our main NOC is located in the CBD of New Orleans and is still online as of now, running on a generator. I don't know how long it will last -- but since our generator is located no more than 10 feet above the street level, the water can't be that bad down there.
Two days ago we donated our generator for the backup NOC to a group that was doing search and rescue - it created a small outage of a few web sites that happened to be situated there (that we're mirroring now to servers out of state), but we felt it was better to put the generator to use to directly help people save lives, as opposed to keeping a few web sites up advertising restaurants that may or may not ever open again.
Take a hammer and beat the IT directors at every major broadband ISP over the head until they finally decide to start filtering port 25. Simple. Elegant, and more effective than any other idea that's been presented.
Its really ironic that Google is exhibiting prejudice towards an entity that calls attention to its privacy-invading capability by using its CEO as an example. This seems to contradict with Google's self-proclaimed policy of "not being evil."
There seems to be concern in the community about whether or not all the data Google is aggrigating will be used for evil purposes and that's a valid issue, as evidenced by the items on google-watch.org:
1. Google's immortal cookie: Google was the first search engine to use a cookie that expires in 2038. This was at a time when federal websites were prohibited from using persistent cookies altogether. Now it's years later, and immortal cookies are commonplace among search engines; Google set the standard because no one bothered to challenge them. This cookie places a unique ID number on your hard disk. Anytime you land on a Google page, you get a Google cookie if you don't already have one. If you have one, they read and record your unique ID number.
2. Google records everything they can: For all searches they record the cookie ID, your Internet IP address, the time and date, your search terms, and your browser configuration. Increasingly, Google is customizing results based on your IP number. This is referred to in the industry as "IP delivery based on geolocation."
3. Google retains all data indefinitely: Google has no data retention policies. There is evidence that they are able to easily access all the user information they collect and save.
4. Google won't say why they need this data: Inquiries to Google about their privacy policies are ignored. When the New York Times (2002-11-28) asked Sergey Brin about whether Google ever gets subpoenaed for this information, he had no comment.
5. Google hires spooks: Matt Cutts, a key Google engineer, used to work for the National Security Agency. Google wants to hire more people with security clearances, so that they can peddle their corporate assets to the spooks in Washington.
6. Google's toolbar is spyware: With the advanced features enabled, Google's free toolbar for Explorer phones home with every page you surf, and yes, it reads your cookie too. Their privacy policy confesses this, but that's only because Alexa lost a class-action lawsuit when their toolbar did the same thing, and their privacy policy failed to explain this. Worse yet, Google's toolbar updates to new versions quietly, and without asking. This means that if you have the toolbar installed, Google essentially has complete access to your hard disk every time you connect to Google (which is many times a day). Most software vendors, and even Microsoft, ask if you'd like an updated version. But not Google. Any software that updates automatically presents a massive security risk.
7. Google's cache copy is illegal: Judging from Ninth Circuit precedent on the application of U.S. copyright laws to the Internet, Google's cache copy appears to be illegal. The only way a webmaster can avoid having his site cached on Google is to put a "noarchive" meta in the header of every page on his site. Surfers like the cache, but webmasters don't. Many webmasters have deleted questionable material from their sites, only to discover later that the problem pages live merrily on in Google's cache. The cache copy should be "opt-in" for webmasters, not "opt-out."
8. Google is not your friend: By now Google enjoys a 75 percent monopoly for all external referrals to most websites. Webmasters cannot avoid seeking Google's approval these days, assuming they want to increase traffic to their site. If they try to take advantage of some of the known weaknesses in Google's semi-secret algorithms, they may find themselves penalized by Google, and their traffic disappears. There are no detailed, published standards issued by Google, and there is no appeal process for penalized sites. Google is completely unaccountable. Most of the time Google doesn't even answer email from webmasters.
All I know if my world. I turned a hobby of computer programming into a vocation.
I understand that you, probably the "new generation" of programmers don't understand how it used to be, and don't realize how much power you actually have. You work in cubicles, and you constantly have to conform to corporate ideals. To me, programming is art, and if you pursue it without compromise you can be rewarded far beyond what you think are your limitations.
Obviously this guy (modded up to 5) has not actually worked in the real world.
What "real world" are you talking about?
I've written software (SOLO) that has recieved "Editor's Choice" in PC Magazine, as well as the highest honors in other publications in the industry. Have you? What "real world" are YOU talking about?
I've sold over one million copies of commercial software I've written. Not only that, I've built a software publishing company from the ground up, handling not only programming, but marketing, tech support and all other aspects. I've also developed systems that run public utilities in many states in the nation; systems for the DOD and UN and a few years back I designed an online system that sold for $7M to one of the Internet's largest operations.
I could respond to your arguments tit-for-tat, but I don't really think it's necessary. If I hired you, I suspect I'd end up having to re-do a lot of what you did, because you seem to be very good at coming up with excuses, which is what a good programmer doesn't do. Anyone who thinks that not documenting code is practical in any environment is not someone I'd respect as a "good programmer". Obviously, your milage does vary. Talk to me when you've developed commercial software that has sold millions of copies and recieved numerous honors and awards. I know what that's like.
Suing someone because they refused to answer the phone when you call
If they don't want to hear from you, that's their choice; if their employer or parents don't want you tying up the phone line, they can block you, and if you don't like it, tough.
Spammers have no inalienable right to send you their junk mail any more than the neighborhood trucking company can park their 18-wheelers in your driveway.
There's a big difference between snail mail and spam. Snail mail costs money to send; most spammers steal resources which is what makes their efforts economically viable even if their offers are unappreciated. People that send junk snail mail can only do it so long before it becomes economically impractical if their recipients have no need of their offers. Spammers however, don't have that problem, so they annoy people indefinitely until they're stopped.
Here's what I think is the difference between a good programmer and a bad programmer:
1. It has nothing to do with money. You can find good quality developers at both ends of the pay spectrum. In fact, I adamantely believe that the further you get towards the high end of the pay spectrum, the worst the quality is. Too cheap is bad too, but not as bad as too expensive.
2. A good programmer isn't limited to a narrow set of tools or technologies. He will pick the best platform and language/tools based on the application's needs. A bad programmer is one who only knows a small subset of technology and ends up forcing applications to operate within the confines of resources which limit stability, flexibility, performance and productivity.
3. A good programmer spends a lot of time researching the project before ever writing a single line of code. A good programmer demands the client/employer be as detailed as possible regarding the specs of the application. A bad programmer is comfortable with ambiguity relating to product specs. A good programmer, in lieu of getting detailed specs from the client, will create his own outline of what the application will involve and make it finite before coding even starts and make sure the client signs off. Good programmers don't tolerate ambiguity in specs.
4. A good programmer/sub-contractor is more likely to charge a flat rate for the development of the project than an ambiguous time-based wage (but all sub-contractors have to have provisions to deal with project creep and problem clients).
5. Good programmers expose bugs in applications and platforms. Bad programmers create them where they didn't exist.
6. Good programmers always exceed the client's expectations in terms of flexibility and versatility. Bad programmers tend to literally interpret feature lists and make program structure more finite than modular.
and last but by no means least...
7. Good programmers ALWAYS DOCUMENT THEIR CODE WELL! Bad programmers take great pride in making sure nobody can understand what they're doing.
It's really disheartening to see so many "programmers" who are "language-centric". This seems to specifically be a problem for people who are into Java.
Maybe the way they teach computer science is different nowadays, but when I went to school, we were taught multiple languages and the idea that no single language was ideal for every environment.
As a result, I write code in dozens of languages based on the need of the application: C, C++, Perl, Java, Javascript, PHP, etc... Each has strengths and weaknesses. I resist the urge to say one language is dramatically superior (though if I had to make a choice, I'd say C/C++ is the best of all worlds). What I tend to see are people who have narrow experience limited to one set of tools, go rambling about the superiority of their designated choice without really knowing much about the other systems.
What's ironic is you expect this from Java guys, who IMO seem to be the most tool-centric evangelists, but Perl has always been an intermediate language that was used by those working with more formal system in different languages. Perl is more of a compliment to other systems for generating reports and querying and parsing data.
It just boggles me there is any substantive group evangelizing for Perl as a superior real time web platform. That's just nuts, but I have to assume a lot of these people don't know much about the alternatives. Then again, once you can understand Perl's goofy mnemonics, I think it goes to your head. That might explain some things, like why people speak Klingon.
I love the language sycophants modding my post as a troll. They probably don't even program.
I use Perl and I use PHP as well as many other languages and tools on a daily basis. They each have their place. Running Perl in a real-time, high-traffic environment is like running NT. It has too much overhead for the application's need and is overkill. PHP does many things far more efficiently than Perl. But Perl is incredibly useful in other areas. This isn't a one-language-is-better-than-another-language argument. It's about which tools work best for which processes. And along those lines, Perl is a hackjob for real-time web work. You can hack the API a thousand times to make it come close to being efficient, but in the end, you did a huge hack job to make a language do something it wasn't designed to do. That is the reality.
I can take a pencil and use it to sew; I can spend a ton of time so that I can demonstrate that *I* can sew using a pencil faster than someone else using a needle. That doesn't mean that the pencil is superior to the needle for sewing. It means you have too much time on your hands and are wasting energy trying to shove a square peg into a round hole. Congrats you did it! Proves nothing.
Re:The regex example as it should have displayed:
on
Learning Perl, 4th Ed.
·
· Score: 1
(snoopy dance)
I learned something useful on Slashdot today!
(snoopy dance)
Sorry, couldn't resist... thanks for the great post.
Use it if mod_perl isn't available, but if you have a choice, learn something with power rather than scaffolding.
Puh leeze!
Perl was never designed for the web. PHP was designed from the ground up to be a web scripting language. As such, it blows the doors off of Perl in terms of speed, funtionality, ease-of-use, deployment, understanding and security. PERIOD.
I love Perl. But Slashdot is an uber minority when it comes to selecting Perl as the real-time scripting language to use on the web. They've done a fine job, but if the application were written in PHP instead of Perl, it would likely perform twice as fast. No disrespect to Perl, but the sysops of this site are using the language outside of the environment for which it was designed.
PHP is a fine language, and if you want to talk about the superiority of Perl over PHP, one area you do NOT talk about is real-time web-database applications, because PHP had Perl beat dead. Perl is a very powerful and useful language, but only crazy people use it in high-traffic, mission critical, real-time enviroments like./ - Perl is designed more for offline processing.
Next you'll be ranting about how great Java is.. ROFL
Slashdot Mirror
Screw the Red Cross.
The Salvation Army OTOH is worth helping.
Better yet... donate to the Humane Society of Louisiana.
We've been overrun by a bunch of uber-rich national charities like the Humane Society of the US, who swept in, got some television time, and then left everyone hanging. The local humane societies got screwed - they had to close a shelter because they couldn't afford to run it, meanwhile the HSUS get's millions. I'm sick of it. The same goes for the Red Cross... their CEO makes hundreds of thousands of dollars... the CEO of the Salvation Army makes $13k a year. Put your money in local charities. Avoid the national ones. If you must, at least the Salvation Army is one of the more respectable ones.
That's total bullshit.
The National Guard have been the most professional, courteous and respected group in the city.
I wish I could say the same for FEMA or the Red Cross, but I can't. FEMA is the biggest government boondoggle ever.
The troops in the city have made us all feel safer. They've been 100% respectful and professional. I can flag down a group of soldiers at any time and if there's something they can help me with, they'll do what they can. They have held this city together. And I'm no right-winger.
You can not find a single person anywhere in New Orleans who will say anything bad about the National Guard. They have set a standard by which every other agency should aspire.
You want to know who's shooting first and asking questions later? Not the National Guard. I'm not going into it.
No disrespect intended, but it's too little, too late now.
I'm in New Orleans. I've been here since the hurricane. I've been rescuing people and pets. What we do not need at this time are people coming into the city clogging things up. Many of the aid stations have shut down because, contrary to what the media may be reporting, the outskirts of the city are slowly coming back into operation. So there's not much you can really do except get in the way.
Yea, you can come down and offer to help people with manual labor, but the media has scared the crap out of everybody with all the overblown looter/sniper reporting, you're likely to find people more suspicious than thankful.
I wish it weren't so, but that's the way it is.
If you want to help, don't vote Republican any more. Honestly, this will do more to help people in the area than anything else you can do. The current administration is giving away most of the federal aid to a small number of politically-connected corporations friendly with the current administration. At least the democrats put more emphasis on middle class and education.
We're screwed. I don't even want to talk about it honestly. I'm totally burned out from what I've had to go through.
I'm one of those people. I watch maybe two HOURS of tv a week.
And in those two hours of TV you watch on average, FOURTY MINUTES of commercials for diet pills, home re-finance schemes, truck ads, penis pills, annoying network news teasers, "amazing new closet organizers", crappy beer, and $200 tennis shoes.
Those of us with Tivo don't put up with the spam. I wouldn't watch any TV if I had to put up with that crap. In fact, I don't rent movies any more because all the new DVDs force you to watch more spam before you get to the feature.
Tivo: $99
One Year "Service Contract": ~$70
Entering a secret code on the remote and enabling 30-second skip: PRICELESS!!!
Excellent points.
It's obvious most of the negative comments herein are made by people who don't have Tivo, so they don't know what they're talking about.
This is a revolutionary device that one shouldn't watch tv without. The Tivo company makes the best product of its genre on the market. The PROBLEM is that the cable monopolies don't see why they can't create their own [horribly crappy] DVR and foist it on their customers and shut Tivo out... this is what's happening and this is why Tivo is suffering financially, and it's also why some people who have non-Tivo DVRs are saying "Why is this so revolutionary?" -- that's because it's not a Tivo; it's a piece of sh*t from Comcast.
The Tivo company is battling the cable golaiths. We should all be supportive of them. They have the best product, but are having trouble getting market share because of the oppressive, controlling cable and satellite networks. This ultimately hurts consumers as well as endeavors to put the superior DVR company out of business.
This is no big deal. Most people that have Tivo couldn't imagine living without it. I'd agree to a contract because I can't imagine having a TV and not Tivo. It's that revolutionary, and if this helps keep the company afloat, that's great. The competitor's DVRs suck horribly.
I guess I got modded down by some script-kiddy who could figure out how to run the sendmail install script, but wasn't smart enough to know the command line option to have sendmail use a different port. LAME.
If you want to DIY, just run on a different port. If you can't figure out how to do that, then you shouldn't be running your own mail server.
I ran into this problem yesterday when I was setting up my computer from someone else's LAN that had port 25 blocked. I ssh'd into my server and set up another sendmail smtp instance on port 26.. 10 seconds. done. full mail service. Stop whining.
As someone who lives and works in New Orleans and just tonite finally found a place with electricity and net access, I want to say thanks to everyone who is helping with the efforts. Things are really bad for many people.
Interestingly enough, our main NOC is located in the CBD of New Orleans and is still online as of now, running on a generator. I don't know how long it will last -- but since our generator is located no more than 10 feet above the street level, the water can't be that bad down there.
Two days ago we donated our generator for the backup NOC to a group that was doing search and rescue - it created a small outage of a few web sites that happened to be situated there (that we're mirroring now to servers out of state), but we felt it was better to put the generator to use to directly help people save lives, as opposed to keeping a few web sites up advertising restaurants that may or may not ever open again.
BS.
If you run your own mail server, you map a different port. Otherwise Bellsouth, and other ISPs could greatly benefit from adopting this policy.
Take a hammer and beat the IT directors at every major broadband ISP over the head until they finally decide to start filtering port 25. Simple. Elegant, and more effective than any other idea that's been presented.
I typed in "Radiohead" and it recommended "Coldplay".
NO THANKS!
Argon Zark
You can't have any discussion of web-comics without including the father of all Internet comics.
Excite had their system around before Alta-Vista. It was publicly released in 1995. I'm sure they can show prior art probably back as far as 1993.
For only $50k you too can impress your friends by pretending to embrace alternative energy sources while you squader a disproportionate amount of electricity.
Its really ironic that Google is exhibiting prejudice towards an entity that calls attention to its privacy-invading capability by using its CEO as an example. This seems to contradict with Google's self-proclaimed policy of "not being evil."
There seems to be concern in the community about whether or not all the data Google is aggrigating will be used for evil purposes and that's a valid issue, as evidenced by the items on google-watch.org:
1. Google's immortal cookie:
Google was the first search engine to use a cookie that expires in 2038. This was at a time when federal websites were prohibited from using persistent cookies altogether. Now it's years later, and immortal cookies are commonplace among search engines; Google set the standard because no one bothered to challenge them. This cookie places a unique ID number on your hard disk. Anytime you land on a Google page, you get a Google cookie if you don't already have one. If you have one, they read and record your unique ID number.
2. Google records everything they can:
For all searches they record the cookie ID, your Internet IP address, the time and date, your search terms, and your browser configuration. Increasingly, Google is customizing results based on your IP number. This is referred to in the industry as "IP delivery based on geolocation."
3. Google retains all data indefinitely:
Google has no data retention policies. There is evidence that they are able to easily access all the user information they collect and save.
4. Google won't say why they need this data:
Inquiries to Google about their privacy policies are ignored. When the New York Times (2002-11-28) asked Sergey Brin about whether Google ever gets subpoenaed for this information, he had no comment.
5. Google hires spooks:
Matt Cutts, a key Google engineer, used to work for the National Security Agency. Google wants to hire more people with security clearances, so that they can peddle their corporate assets to the spooks in Washington.
6. Google's toolbar is spyware:
With the advanced features enabled, Google's free toolbar for Explorer phones home with every page you surf, and yes, it reads your cookie too. Their privacy policy confesses this, but that's only because Alexa lost a class-action lawsuit when their toolbar did the same thing, and their privacy policy failed to explain this. Worse yet, Google's toolbar updates to new versions quietly, and without asking. This means that if you have the toolbar installed, Google essentially has complete access to your hard disk every time you connect to Google (which is many times a day). Most software vendors, and even Microsoft, ask if you'd like an updated version. But not Google. Any software that updates automatically presents a massive security risk.
7. Google's cache copy is illegal:
Judging from Ninth Circuit precedent on the application of U.S. copyright laws to the Internet, Google's cache copy appears to be illegal. The only way a webmaster can avoid having his site cached on Google is to put a "noarchive" meta in the header of every page on his site. Surfers like the cache, but webmasters don't. Many webmasters have deleted questionable material from their sites, only to discover later that the problem pages live merrily on in Google's cache. The cache copy should be "opt-in" for webmasters, not "opt-out."
8. Google is not your friend:
By now Google enjoys a 75 percent monopoly for all external referrals to most websites. Webmasters cannot avoid seeking Google's approval these days, assuming they want to increase traffic to their site. If they try to take advantage of some of the known weaknesses in Google's semi-secret algorithms, they may find themselves penalized by Google, and their traffic disappears. There are no detailed, published standards issued by Google, and there is no appeal process for penalized sites. Google is completely unaccountable. Most of the time Google doesn't even answer email from webmasters.
9. Google i
It's funny what people call the "real world."
All I know if my world. I turned a hobby of computer programming into a vocation.
I understand that you, probably the "new generation" of programmers don't understand how it used to be, and don't realize how much power you actually have. You work in cubicles, and you constantly have to conform to corporate ideals. To me, programming is art, and if you pursue it without compromise you can be rewarded far beyond what you think are your limitations.
The world is what you make of it.
Obviously this guy (modded up to 5) has not actually worked in the real world.
What "real world" are you talking about?
I've written software (SOLO) that has recieved "Editor's Choice" in PC Magazine, as well as the highest honors in other publications in the industry. Have you? What "real world" are YOU talking about?
I've sold over one million copies of commercial software I've written. Not only that, I've built a software publishing company from the ground up, handling not only programming, but marketing, tech support and all other aspects. I've also developed systems that run public utilities in many states in the nation; systems for the DOD and UN and a few years back I designed an online system that sold for $7M to one of the Internet's largest operations.
What real world am I not part of?
Obviously you disagree.
I could respond to your arguments tit-for-tat, but I don't really think it's necessary. If I hired you, I suspect I'd end up having to re-do a lot of what you did, because you seem to be very good at coming up with excuses, which is what a good programmer doesn't do. Anyone who thinks that not documenting code is practical in any environment is not someone I'd respect as a "good programmer". Obviously, your milage does vary. Talk to me when you've developed commercial software that has sold millions of copies and recieved numerous honors and awards. I know what that's like.
Personal experience.
This has nothing to do with free speech.
The spammer's argument is analagous to:
Suing someone because they refused to answer the phone when you call
If they don't want to hear from you, that's their choice; if their employer or parents don't want you tying up the phone line, they can block you, and if you don't like it, tough.
Spammers have no inalienable right to send you their junk mail any more than the neighborhood trucking company can park their 18-wheelers in your driveway.
There's a big difference between snail mail and spam. Snail mail costs money to send; most spammers steal resources which is what makes their efforts economically viable even if their offers are unappreciated. People that send junk snail mail can only do it so long before it becomes economically impractical if their recipients have no need of their offers. Spammers however, don't have that problem, so they annoy people indefinitely until they're stopped.
Here's what I think is the difference between a good programmer and a bad programmer:
1. It has nothing to do with money. You can find good quality developers at both ends of the pay spectrum. In fact, I adamantely believe that the further you get towards the high end of the pay spectrum, the worst the quality is. Too cheap is bad too, but not as bad as too expensive.
2. A good programmer isn't limited to a narrow set of tools or technologies. He will pick the best platform and language/tools based on the application's needs. A bad programmer is one who only knows a small subset of technology and ends up forcing applications to operate within the confines of resources which limit stability, flexibility, performance and productivity.
3. A good programmer spends a lot of time researching the project before ever writing a single line of code. A good programmer demands the client/employer be as detailed as possible regarding the specs of the application. A bad programmer is comfortable with ambiguity relating to product specs. A good programmer, in lieu of getting detailed specs from the client, will create his own outline of what the application will involve and make it finite before coding even starts and make sure the client signs off. Good programmers don't tolerate ambiguity in specs.
4. A good programmer/sub-contractor is more likely to charge a flat rate for the development of the project than an ambiguous time-based wage (but all sub-contractors have to have provisions to deal with project creep and problem clients).
5. Good programmers expose bugs in applications and platforms. Bad programmers create them where they didn't exist.
6. Good programmers always exceed the client's expectations in terms of flexibility and versatility. Bad programmers tend to literally interpret feature lists and make program structure more finite than modular.
and last but by no means least...
7. Good programmers ALWAYS DOCUMENT THEIR CODE WELL! Bad programmers take great pride in making sure nobody can understand what they're doing.
It's really disheartening to see so many "programmers" who are "language-centric". This seems to specifically be a problem for people who are into Java.
Maybe the way they teach computer science is different nowadays, but when I went to school, we were taught multiple languages and the idea that no single language was ideal for every environment.
As a result, I write code in dozens of languages based on the need of the application: C, C++, Perl, Java, Javascript, PHP, etc... Each has strengths and weaknesses. I resist the urge to say one language is dramatically superior (though if I had to make a choice, I'd say C/C++ is the best of all worlds). What I tend to see are people who have narrow experience limited to one set of tools, go rambling about the superiority of their designated choice without really knowing much about the other systems.
What's ironic is you expect this from Java guys, who IMO seem to be the most tool-centric evangelists, but Perl has always been an intermediate language that was used by those working with more formal system in different languages. Perl is more of a compliment to other systems for generating reports and querying and parsing data.
It just boggles me there is any substantive group evangelizing for Perl as a superior real time web platform. That's just nuts, but I have to assume a lot of these people don't know much about the alternatives. Then again, once you can understand Perl's goofy mnemonics, I think it goes to your head. That might explain some things, like why people speak Klingon.
I love the language sycophants modding my post as a troll. They probably don't even program.
I use Perl and I use PHP as well as many other languages and tools on a daily basis. They each have their place. Running Perl in a real-time, high-traffic environment is like running NT. It has too much overhead for the application's need and is overkill. PHP does many things far more efficiently than Perl. But Perl is incredibly useful in other areas. This isn't a one-language-is-better-than-another-language argument. It's about which tools work best for which processes. And along those lines, Perl is a hackjob for real-time web work. You can hack the API a thousand times to make it come close to being efficient, but in the end, you did a huge hack job to make a language do something it wasn't designed to do. That is the reality.
I can take a pencil and use it to sew; I can spend a ton of time so that I can demonstrate that *I* can sew using a pencil faster than someone else using a needle. That doesn't mean that the pencil is superior to the needle for sewing. It means you have too much time on your hands and are wasting energy trying to shove a square peg into a round hole. Congrats you did it! Proves nothing.
(snoopy dance)
I learned something useful on Slashdot today!
(snoopy dance)
Sorry, couldn't resist... thanks for the great post.
Use it if mod_perl isn't available, but if you have a choice, learn something with power rather than scaffolding.
./ - Perl is designed more for offline processing.
Puh leeze!
Perl was never designed for the web. PHP was designed from the ground up to be a web scripting language. As such, it blows the doors off of Perl in terms of speed, funtionality, ease-of-use, deployment, understanding and security. PERIOD.
I love Perl. But Slashdot is an uber minority when it comes to selecting Perl as the real-time scripting language to use on the web. They've done a fine job, but if the application were written in PHP instead of Perl, it would likely perform twice as fast. No disrespect to Perl, but the sysops of this site are using the language outside of the environment for which it was designed.
PHP is a fine language, and if you want to talk about the superiority of Perl over PHP, one area you do NOT talk about is real-time web-database applications, because PHP had Perl beat dead. Perl is a very powerful and useful language, but only crazy people use it in high-traffic, mission critical, real-time enviroments like
Next you'll be ranting about how great Java is.. ROFL