Given that Microsoft has had a massive PR success with Windows 7 beta, why not just let anyone and everyone download it?
A bigger BETA test is better for Microsoft. More people using the Windows 7 beta means that more more bugs will be reported, it will lead to more positive press about the product and that will probably translate to more sales.
So I'll ask the question: Why kill downloads of the beta?
What purpose does it serve other than disenfranchising people who are hearing about Windows 7 through their geek friends?
Hold on a second. A theorem is code. You can write out a theorem as a set of inference rules operating on expressions. The chain of expressions eventually arrives at a given result with a given provable property.
Before someone belches: "Halting problem." I very much doubt that the halting problem has any impact on our ability to do this. The theorems are designed by humans not algorithms, all the program does is check that the conclusion really does follow from the premise.
What's to stop us creating an open source library of theorems based upon given sets of axioms that can be verified automatically with a theorem prover? Then the computer can verify a result, all the way from the basic assumptions of Peano's axioms to the dizzying heights of Fermat's last theorem in a fraction of a second.
Think of it is the Test Driven Development of mathematics. It's not enough to just write the theorem and hope for the best, you have to actually show it works like you anticipated on computer before it can be published.
We can fix the quality problem and I believe we can do so elegantly.
I'm not quite as cynical as you in that I don't think Microsoft can stop this revolution.
In order to make money they have to charge something for their software. Linux will always be cheaper than a Windows machine.
Apple were smart in positioning themselves as the luxury computer brand.
Linux has made inroads in cheap ultra-portables. Windows has no-where to go. It's too slow for ultra-portables, it's too low quality for a luxury product.
Ultra-portables are probably the future of computing. We're getting to the point where mobile contracts are being sold with a free ultra-portable.
To me, it's much like what happened when the RIAA got in bed with Walmart. The RIAA stabbed record stores in the back by dealing with Walmart.
The record stores had their interests aligned with the RIAA. The more music they sold, the more money they made and the more money the RIAA made.
However, Walmart was a different animal. To Walmart, music was just something that took up shelf space. Suddenly the RIAA was competing with every other product.
The RIAA found that it couldn't dictate the terms any more because Walmart had no qualms about dropping their product if they couldn't get a good deal. The RIAA, owing a good chunk of its revenue to Walmart, suddenly found itself to be Oliver saying: "Please sir, can I have some more?"
In the past Micrsoft could bully system builders because they are like the record stores used to be . They have a vested interest in selling units which is mutually beneficial for both the system builder and Microsoft.
However, computers are now becoming so cheap that they're being given away as a part of other deals. The people crafting these deals don't give a crap if it's Microsoft or not. They can't be bullied because their main line of business has little to do with Microsoft.
Economics is a force more powerful than any individual company. Microsoft is not above this. Vista, to me, just confirmed that Microsoft is just another company. They don't need to make too many more mistakes before it starts to hurt really badly.
I think we're beginning to see the end of the Microsoft monoculture.
I am intrigued as to how you came up with a figure of $10 per line of code?
It's not that I don't believe you. I'm just interested in the manor in which you calculated this figure.
... and this bug.. is it not time we started acting like engineers and started building software in a way where we can show it is correct.
As an industry, we really need to start growing up and using the tools the mathematicians have provided us, just as other engineers do in other disciplines, to show our programs actually work as advertised.
The competent have nothing to fear from formal verification and anyone who is not capable of doing such verification should not be writing software anyway.
"Yes, but can you prove that your approach is correct? I can." You must be a joy to have as a co-worker.
I know that it sounds like I'm a shit but in the real world office environment, I'm no where near that pretentious!
That said, this does not detract from my underlying point: In this industry we are constantly told that the next big thing is going to revolutionize programming. We here this a lot about Ruby on Rail at the moment. We're told that if we just choose the right framework and programming methodology we can produce awesome software on time and on budget.
We fall for it every. single. fucking. time. until. words. lose. all. meaning.
The simple fact is that a large part of the time spent in a project is spent debugging the code we just wrote. Debugging is expensive. You typically have entire departments devoted to testing code. In fact, debugging routinely kills entire projects because it turns in to a very costly version of whack-a-mole and people eventually get tired and run out of money.
I am convinced that the key to improving programmer productivity is to get them to write the software correct, first time. It does not lie in a language or programming style.
Verification is not perfect. In my original comment I said that even after formal verification you can still expect bugs. After verification you can typically expect a similar error rate to conventional testing strategies. This is simply because you have to abstract things and you can make errors in your abstractions. Or you might simply make a mistake in your proof.
The point is, verification does not have to be perfect to be better than unit testing. It simply has to find more defects faster. The evidence out there is starting to suggest that it does. Certainly with very large products.
My advice would be to learn formal verification techniques. These can be applied across languages and across platforms. If you deploy them properly you can reduce your defect rate from 50 per 1,000 statements to 2 per 1,000 before the first test case is run.
That will save you far more time than the latest over-hyped platform. While everyone else is fixing bugs in their application, you've already moved on to greener pastures. It will increase your capacity to build really good quality software and not get in to flame wars over nonsense. Nothing quite ends an argument over style more than saying: "Yes, but can you prove that your approach is correct? I can."
Why is software so special that it's the only thing that I know of covered by both copyright and extensive patents?
I see this meme often on Slashdot but it isn't true. For example, you can copyright in the look of a new Ford as well as patent some aspect of its design.
In the case of software, I believe the double protection is not required; in fact, it actively hinders innovation. Even so, this does not change the fact that the protection of software by both patents and copyright is not unique to software.
I'd actually like to see a review of copyright law on software too. I don't think compiled binaries should be afforded the same copyright protection as an open-source piece of software. Here's why. If I buy Harry Potter, I am free not only to read the book but also to analyse its meaning, appreciate the style of writing the author uses etc. The value of the book to society is not just tied up in the entertainment of reading it. There's a lot more society can gain from the work through the study of it.
With a binary there is only the freedom to run the program. Its value to society may be great but it's never as much as having the source code to go with the program. With free software you are free not only to run the program, but to study it and modify it for your own use. You are even free to distribute copies of the modified software.
With a binary even the freedom to run the software is not guaranteed. What happens when the platform for which the software was written disappears? What do you do with your binary then? Unless the platform is popular enough to have an emulator, you're shit out of luck.
I would like to see copyright law reformed so that binary only software gets a much shorter copyright protection period of say ten years. Open-source software gets a longer protection period of maybe 35 years.
I think this reflects the relative value of the software. There would still be a strong incentive for the Microsoft's of the world to continue to produce software, however, it would reward people willing to open up the code to study and improvement much more.
The interesting argument brought up is that the defendants are in this to make money, and the prosecutor says he can prove elaborate plans to split the quite hefty incomes from advertising that the Pirate Bay is raking in. While linking to copyrighted material may be legal, making money from actively enabling people copyright infringement probably is harder to sneak by the courts.
I don't buy it, what about Google? They make money by linking to content that is subject to copyright.
This looks to me like Gnome trying too hard, and adding too many capabilities to what is, so far as I understand it, just a window manager. Why, for example include vnc? It's not like seperate client/servers for this task aren't available, and most are pretty good.
This is a very good point. Linux is so flexible because each project has a different agenda and a different set of design criteria it is trying to satisfy.
I think that Gnome should not try to be a direct competitor to KDE. KDE is huge, has tonnes of software included with it and tries to be everything to everyone.
We need a desktop environment that does that.
However, this doesn't mean that Gnome should try to be this too. If it tries to, it will lose. KDE's software base is absolutely huge, and it's all controlled from a series of close-nit projects. Gnome would struggle to match that style of development.
Gnome's advantage is that is simpler and less complex. It is my view, Gnome should be a like a good text-book; it is complete not when there is nothing left to add, but nothing left to take away.
Free software is about choice. You don't have a real choice when both options put before you are the same. The differences between open-source projects are not weakness but strengths. Being different allows you to choose your software according to your needs; it allows you to adapt.
His job is not to write decent well researched articles on the state of the industry. His job is to get visitors to the site to keep the ad revenues healthy. He's laughing at us, he knows he's stupid. He's counting on your love of pointing it out to make him money. If you view Dvorak through this light, he is a very talented individual.
This raises the question as to why Slashdot continues to post his articles? Well, they're part of the gravy-train too. You see, Dvorak stories usually have a lot of comments on them because there a loads of posts from people who love to point out his deliberate stupidity. Slashdot is supported by ads too, so it makes sense for them to post stories that generate the most controversy. More page views equals more viewed advertisements which leads to increased revenues.
As such, the only way to stop these poor quality stories is not to react to the flame-bait. Don't go to the linked article, don't post against the article, don't even read the thread and mod down the stories in the fire hose.
Microsoft's biggest enemy, at the moment is its self.
After Vista they proved they've gotten far to large a head count to innovate. Unless they slim down their development team, they're going to go the way IBM did in the early 90s.
I like this move. With all the diebold problems and election computers found to be wanting, nobody has really addressed the question: "What is wrong with paper in the first place?"
Sure, it's slow to count but not overly so. While US ballots are more complicated than UK ballots they still take just over a day to count. If you can't wait that long, you're just impatient.
If you want a quick answer, just use exit polls. Until Bush's election fraud, these were a reliable way of having an idea of who has won the election.
We already have a well evolved security procedure for handling paper ballots. Why are people so quick to throw that away a proven solution and to try a totally closed computer system off a random vendor to solve a problem that never really existed anyway? I'll leave the answer is an exercise to the reader.
A totally unworkable, probably unconstitutional waste of time. A legislative brain-fart if you ask me.
While this is obviously about the United States, it's a problem everywhere. The criminal legislation velocity in the United Kingdom is totally out of control. There's a bill every couple of months that criminalises some silly action. I recon that the criminal code should only be adjusted by bills put to referendum. This would reduce the volume of legislation and protect the people from totally stupid laws, unenforceable laws.
There are a lot of people pretty chuffed with their horse-and-carriage-beaten-by-car analogy; nobody seems to notice that the replacement isn't better, it's *worse*. As a newspaper, Craiglist sucks. But it has taken over one of the key ways newspapers make money.
This is an fallacy similar to the mistake people make with evolution where they say that a wolf, because it larger and more complex, is more evolved than a beetle. The beetle is just as adapted to its environment as the wolf. All that matters in evolution is the ability of the offspring of both species to reproduce and flourish. The extra complexity in the wolf is merely a vehicle to get it there.
While the newspaper is higher quality than Craig's List, the newspaper's quality is simply a vehicle to drive sales. The low cost of the Internet allows Craig's List to be free at the point of use. The difference in quality between the newspaper and Craig's List is not sufficient to justify the increased cost of the paper. The result is that people don't buy it.
In the old days, if I wanted a new cupboard, I'd go and find a carpenter down the road to make it for me. Even the most basic hand-made cupboard is higher quality than a flat-pack piece. The lower price of the flat-pack more than compensates for it. My cupboard is not as pretty as a hand sculpted one but it is functionally equivalent, lasts long enough and is considerably cheaper.
Quality is a legitimate victim of economic growth. All you have to do is satisfy demand and if the lower quality version is cheaper and has the required level of function then the higher quality produce will be pushed out of the market.
So even your company intranet should be untrusted (Restricted Sites), and not allowed to use ANY plugins or Javascript? Ya, great plan. Lets not forget how useless many other sites would be.
That's a strawman. A security model comparable to Firefox or Opera is what I was referring to. In a large corporation I'd expect the security threat would be more hostile than the open Internet. The vast majority of attacks on the Internet are indiscriminate and are just focused on finding anybody to to attack. In the corporate setting, you're much more likely to find a determined, focused attacker who is trying to subvert your security with inside knowledge.
It's actually completely false. Your argument is similar to that used by those pushing "traffic safety" measures. Higher insurance rates / costs from accidents don't damage the economy, they actually contribute to it. You may not be happy paying $100 more to your insurance that you could put elsewhere, but its certainly not hurting the economy at all. If anything, the bugs in IE contribute to the economy, as more money is required to move through the system to account for them.
Educated yourself. Internet Explorer is the ultimate broken window. It's an opportunity cost on everyone who has to develop for it.
Correctly support the mime-type for XHTML and display an error if *anything* on that page is incorrectly formed. The last part of this sentence is absolutely crucial. We need to start breaking pages that are not correct, XHTML is a good chance to push this.
Get rid of the Trusted Site, Internet, Untrusted security model and just have Untrusted.
Get rid of ActiveX. Support Internet Explorer 6 for ActiveX for another five years to allow people to transition to other platforms.
For bonus points, do all this faster and with less memory than Internet Explorer 7 takes.
This is a fairly modest list but if they fixed all of that, Internet Explorer would be a joy to develop against. Hell, I might even consider replacing Firefox as my default browser on Windows. However, as much as we can collectively dream, you know they'll rejig the interface slightly, crank up the version number by one and call it a day.
Microsoft is a text-book example of a market failure. Nearly every other browser has Internet Explorer boxed off in terms of functionality, security and speed. The only reason it is the world's number one browser is because it comes pre-installed with WIndows.
As a program Internet Explorer is simply trash. I simply hate it. Actually I fucking despise it. It is a big ball of shit. It's the ugly building in the middle of a city that everyone wants torn down but it just sits there damaging the community's spirit.
I once joked with a colleague that Internet Explorer has probably wiped billions off pounds off the world economy. I laughed, paused for a moment, and realised it's probably completely true. What could the world have done with all those countless hours hacking their CSS to support the trash that is Internet Explorer?
There's probably enough information about me on-line to uniquely identify me as an individual. There's also enough in what I have said on-line to date already to completely rule me out of any political position in this country.
However, I sometimes feel safe in the knowledge that everybody who has used the web has left a similar sort of trail. All this information will stay on the web for decades or perhaps even centuries.
Our privacy, it seems, is protected by the fact that if you dig hard-enough you can find dirt on anybody. Dirt is only good if you can use it and Google shows us just how many people have dirty linen that can be easily obtained.
When all this shakes out over the next twenty years and the Facebook generation grow-up and get careers, we may well find out that our privacy is protected by mutually assured defamation.
My key question is whether they're selling them for less than they cost to make.
If so, then it's probably a dumping case waiting to happen.
In many ways I welcome the competition. Although Apple seem to have a halo on Slashdot,
they are every bit as nasty as Microsoft in this department. Apple want to lock you
in to the Fairplay every bit as much as Microsoft wants to lock you in to Windows Media DRM.
On a totally off topic point. Can you remove the flash ads Rob? They're fucking irritating and really cheapen the site. Even if I gave a shit about what they're peddling, you should know that many on Slashdot aren't going to click those things on principle. Get the marketing diarrhoea off the site please.
It allows you to claim your adhering to the WTO treaty without actually doing so. I'd say this is a pretty smart of Canada. Everyone knows that the rules have changed on copyright. We've seen today that EMI is cutting funding to the RIAA. Not a day goes by where the landscape subtly shifts towards a more open, DRM free future.
This move allows Canada to enjoy the benefits of the treaty without adopting any of the pain. All Canada has to do is stall sufficiently until the United States is no longer the dominant power. I reckon that'll happen in about ten years. Since it took ten years to adopt this treaty, it will probably be another ten years before anything is adopted. By then the scene will look considerably different.
Personally, I think it's a fair trade. What do you expect when you put all your personal information in to a web-site that is free to use? They have to make money some how and the easiest way to do that is to sell your information on to other people or come to agreements with other companies to find ways to market to you.
If you don't like that then don't use Facebook!
If you want your own soap box under your own rules then get your own site. You can even run these out of your own house now provided you're with a civilised ISP.
Without wishing to troll, when has a Window service pack ever improved the speed of a Windows OS?
In fact, and I'm sure someone on Slashdot has raw data on this (that perhaps even shows I'm wrong), Apple are the only company who has ever achieved
this on a regular basis.
I've found in my rather short development career is something scarily similar to the first law of thermodynamics: "Bad code once created can never
be destroyed." In most commercial situations, the risk of breaking a routine far outweighs the benefit the change brings.
We've built an entire area of study, refactoring, on trying to sell the importance of keeping code clean. I'm still not 100% convinced that the case for refactoring has been made. If you spend three months refactoring, is the simpler overall structure really going to speed up development sufficiently to justify the capital outlay? In all but the very worst code-bases, the answer is unclear.Bear in mind, refactoring my cause you to notice bugs that you can't fix because it would break an interface. Now your code has to be badly structured to support this bad business logic. This can be enough to render the effort useless.
This is why service packs rarely improve functionality or performance. Windows XP SP2 is a notable exception. The risk is simply too great.
Slashdot Mirror
Given that Microsoft has had a massive PR success with Windows 7 beta, why not just let anyone and everyone download it?
A bigger BETA test is better for Microsoft. More people using the Windows 7 beta means that more more bugs will be reported, it will lead to more positive press about the product and that will probably translate to more sales.
So I'll ask the question: Why kill downloads of the beta?
What purpose does it serve other than disenfranchising people who are hearing about Windows 7 through their geek friends?
They should do! It would win votes!
That's the problem here. People don't want liberty they want safety.
It's not just a problem in America but in the whole of the western world.
I'm not sure how it can be fixed other than through the horror of a brutal dictatorship or two.
Maybe that's what we need to rediscover the value of liberty.
You forgot Rule 3.
Rule 3: If you can't perform a backup with the a given service don't use that service.
And it's at that point, you realise the "cloud" is vendor lock-in by another name.
Hold on a second. A theorem is code. You can write out a theorem as a set of inference rules operating on expressions. The chain of expressions eventually arrives at a given result with a given provable property.
Before someone belches: "Halting problem." I very much doubt that the halting problem has any impact on our ability to do this. The theorems are designed by humans not algorithms, all the program does is check that the conclusion really does follow from the premise.
What's to stop us creating an open source library of theorems based upon given sets of axioms that can be verified automatically with a theorem prover? Then the computer can verify a result, all the way from the basic assumptions of Peano's axioms to the dizzying heights of Fermat's last theorem in a fraction of a second.
Think of it is the Test Driven Development of mathematics. It's not enough to just write the theorem and hope for the best, you have to actually show it works like you anticipated on computer before it can be published.
We can fix the quality problem and I believe we can do so elegantly.
Simon
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001198.html
Give the person who actually wrote the article the ad revenue rather than this bottom feeding scum.
I'm not quite as cynical as you in that I don't think Microsoft can stop this revolution.
In order to make money they have to charge something for their software. Linux will always be cheaper than a Windows machine.
Apple were smart in positioning themselves as the luxury computer brand.
Linux has made inroads in cheap ultra-portables. Windows has no-where to go. It's too slow for ultra-portables, it's too low quality for a luxury product.
Ultra-portables are probably the future of computing. We're getting to the point where mobile contracts are being sold with a free ultra-portable.
To me, it's much like what happened when the RIAA got in bed with Walmart. The RIAA stabbed record stores in the back by dealing with Walmart.
The record stores had their interests aligned with the RIAA. The more music they sold, the more money they made and the more money the RIAA made.
However, Walmart was a different animal. To Walmart, music was just something that took up shelf space. Suddenly the RIAA was competing with every other product.
The RIAA found that it couldn't dictate the terms any more because Walmart had no qualms about dropping their product if they couldn't get a good deal. The RIAA, owing a good chunk of its revenue to Walmart, suddenly found itself to be Oliver saying: "Please sir, can I have some more?"
In the past Micrsoft could bully system builders because they are like the record stores used to be . They have a vested interest in selling units which is mutually beneficial for both the system builder and Microsoft.
However, computers are now becoming so cheap that they're being given away as a part of other deals. The people crafting these deals don't give a crap if it's Microsoft or not. They can't be bullied because their main line of business has little to do with Microsoft.
Economics is a force more powerful than any individual company. Microsoft is not above this. Vista, to me, just confirmed that Microsoft is just another company. They don't need to make too many more mistakes before it starts to hurt really badly.
I think we're beginning to see the end of the Microsoft monoculture.
I am intrigued as to how you came up with a figure of $10 per line of code? It's not that I don't believe you. I'm just interested in the manor in which you calculated this figure.
As an industry, we really need to start growing up and using the tools the mathematicians have provided us, just as other engineers do in other disciplines, to show our programs actually work as advertised.
The competent have nothing to fear from formal verification and anyone who is not capable of doing such verification should not be writing software anyway.
Simon
I know that it sounds like I'm a shit but in the real world office environment, I'm no where near that pretentious!
That said, this does not detract from my underlying point: In this industry we are constantly told that the next big thing is going to revolutionize programming. We here this a lot about Ruby on Rail at the moment. We're told that if we just choose the right framework and programming methodology we can produce awesome software on time and on budget.
We fall for it every. single. fucking. time. until. words. lose. all. meaning.
The simple fact is that a large part of the time spent in a project is spent debugging the code we just wrote. Debugging is expensive. You typically have entire departments devoted to testing code. In fact, debugging routinely kills entire projects because it turns in to a very costly version of whack-a-mole and people eventually get tired and run out of money.
I am convinced that the key to improving programmer productivity is to get them to write the software correct, first time. It does not lie in a language or programming style.
Verification is not perfect. In my original comment I said that even after formal verification you can still expect bugs. After verification you can typically expect a similar error rate to conventional testing strategies. This is simply because you have to abstract things and you can make errors in your abstractions. Or you might simply make a mistake in your proof.
The point is, verification does not have to be perfect to be better than unit testing. It simply has to find more defects faster. The evidence out there is starting to suggest that it does. Certainly with very large products.
Simon
My advice would be to learn formal verification techniques. These can be applied across languages and across platforms. If you deploy them properly you can reduce your defect rate from 50 per 1,000 statements to 2 per 1,000 before the first test case is run.
That will save you far more time than the latest over-hyped platform. While everyone else is fixing bugs in their application, you've already moved on to greener pastures. It will increase your capacity to build really good quality software and not get in to flame wars over nonsense. Nothing quite ends an argument over style more than saying: "Yes, but can you prove that your approach is correct? I can."
Simon
I see this meme often on Slashdot but it isn't true. For example, you can copyright in the look of a new Ford as well as patent some aspect of its design.
In the case of software, I believe the double protection is not required; in fact, it actively hinders innovation. Even so, this does not change the fact that the protection of software by both patents and copyright is not unique to software.
I'd actually like to see a review of copyright law on software too. I don't think compiled binaries should be afforded the same copyright protection as an open-source piece of software. Here's why. If I buy Harry Potter, I am free not only to read the book but also to analyse its meaning, appreciate the style of writing the author uses etc. The value of the book to society is not just tied up in the entertainment of reading it. There's a lot more society can gain from the work through the study of it.
With a binary there is only the freedom to run the program. Its value to society may be great but it's never as much as having the source code to go with the program. With free software you are free not only to run the program, but to study it and modify it for your own use. You are even free to distribute copies of the modified software.
With a binary even the freedom to run the software is not guaranteed. What happens when the platform for which the software was written disappears? What do you do with your binary then? Unless the platform is popular enough to have an emulator, you're shit out of luck.
I would like to see copyright law reformed so that binary only software gets a much shorter copyright protection period of say ten years. Open-source software gets a longer protection period of maybe 35 years.
I think this reflects the relative value of the software. There would still be a strong incentive for the Microsoft's of the world to continue to produce software, however, it would reward people willing to open up the code to study and improvement much more.
Simon
I don't buy it, what about Google? They make money by linking to content that is subject to copyright.
Simon
This is a very good point. Linux is so flexible because each project has a different agenda and a different set of design criteria it is trying to satisfy.
I think that Gnome should not try to be a direct competitor to KDE. KDE is huge, has tonnes of software included with it and tries to be everything to everyone.
We need a desktop environment that does that.
However, this doesn't mean that Gnome should try to be this too. If it tries to, it will lose. KDE's software base is absolutely huge, and it's all controlled from a series of close-nit projects. Gnome would struggle to match that style of development.
Gnome's advantage is that is simpler and less complex. It is my view, Gnome should be a like a good text-book; it is complete not when there is nothing left to add, but nothing left to take away.
Free software is about choice. You don't have a real choice when both options put before you are the same. The differences between open-source projects are not weakness but strengths. Being different allows you to choose your software according to your needs; it allows you to adapt.
Simon.
His job is not to write decent well researched articles on the state of the industry. His job is to get visitors to the site to keep the ad revenues healthy. He's laughing at us, he knows he's stupid. He's counting on your love of pointing it out to make him money. If you view Dvorak through this light, he is a very talented individual.
This raises the question as to why Slashdot continues to post his articles? Well, they're part of the gravy-train too. You see, Dvorak stories usually have a lot of comments on them because there a loads of posts from people who love to point out his deliberate stupidity. Slashdot is supported by ads too, so it makes sense for them to post stories that generate the most controversy. More page views equals more viewed advertisements which leads to increased revenues.
As such, the only way to stop these poor quality stories is not to react to the flame-bait. Don't go to the linked article, don't post against the article, don't even read the thread and mod down the stories in the fire hose.
Simon
Microsoft's biggest enemy, at the moment is its self.
After Vista they proved they've gotten far to large a head count to innovate. Unless they slim down their development team, they're going to go the way IBM did in the early 90s.
Simon.
I like this move. With all the diebold problems and election computers found to be wanting, nobody has really addressed the question: "What is wrong with paper in the first place?"
Sure, it's slow to count but not overly so. While US ballots are more complicated than UK ballots they still take just over a day to count. If you can't wait that long, you're just impatient.
If you want a quick answer, just use exit polls. Until Bush's election fraud, these were a reliable way of having an idea of who has won the election.
We already have a well evolved security procedure for handling paper ballots. Why are people so quick to throw that away a proven solution and to try a totally closed computer system off a random vendor to solve a problem that never really existed anyway? I'll leave the answer is an exercise to the reader.
Simon
A totally unworkable, probably unconstitutional waste of time. A legislative brain-fart if you ask me.
While this is obviously about the United States, it's a problem everywhere. The criminal legislation velocity in the United Kingdom is totally out of control. There's a bill every couple of months that criminalises some silly action. I recon that the criminal code should only be adjusted by bills put to referendum. This would reduce the volume of legislation and protect the people from totally stupid laws, unenforceable laws.
Simon
This is an fallacy similar to the mistake people make with evolution where they say that a wolf, because it larger and more complex, is more evolved than a beetle. The beetle is just as adapted to its environment as the wolf. All that matters in evolution is the ability of the offspring of both species to reproduce and flourish. The extra complexity in the wolf is merely a vehicle to get it there.
While the newspaper is higher quality than Craig's List, the newspaper's quality is simply a vehicle to drive sales. The low cost of the Internet allows Craig's List to be free at the point of use. The difference in quality between the newspaper and Craig's List is not sufficient to justify the increased cost of the paper. The result is that people don't buy it.
In the old days, if I wanted a new cupboard, I'd go and find a carpenter down the road to make it for me. Even the most basic hand-made cupboard is higher quality than a flat-pack piece. The lower price of the flat-pack more than compensates for it. My cupboard is not as pretty as a hand sculpted one but it is functionally equivalent, lasts long enough and is considerably cheaper.
Quality is a legitimate victim of economic growth. All you have to do is satisfy demand and if the lower quality version is cheaper and has the required level of function then the higher quality produce will be pushed out of the market.
Simon
That's a strawman. A security model comparable to Firefox or Opera is what I was referring to. In a large corporation I'd expect the security threat would be more hostile than the open Internet. The vast majority of attacks on the Internet are indiscriminate and are just focused on finding anybody to to attack. In the corporate setting, you're much more likely to find a determined, focused attacker who is trying to subvert your security with inside knowledge.
Educated yourself. Internet Explorer is the ultimate broken window. It's an opportunity cost on everyone who has to develop for it.
Simon
They'd be no secret about what I'd be doing if I was running the Internet Explorer 8 team. Here's a few things I'd do:
For bonus points, do all this faster and with less memory than Internet Explorer 7 takes.
This is a fairly modest list but if they fixed all of that, Internet Explorer would be a joy to develop against. Hell, I might even consider replacing Firefox as my default browser on Windows. However, as much as we can collectively dream, you know they'll rejig the interface slightly, crank up the version number by one and call it a day.
Microsoft is a text-book example of a market failure. Nearly every other browser has Internet Explorer boxed off in terms of functionality, security and speed. The only reason it is the world's number one browser is because it comes pre-installed with WIndows.
As a program Internet Explorer is simply trash. I simply hate it. Actually I fucking despise it. It is a big ball of shit. It's the ugly building in the middle of a city that everyone wants torn down but it just sits there damaging the community's spirit.
I once joked with a colleague that Internet Explorer has probably wiped billions off pounds off the world economy. I laughed, paused for a moment, and realised it's probably completely true. What could the world have done with all those countless hours hacking their CSS to support the trash that is Internet Explorer?
Doesn't it make you depressed?
Simon
There's probably enough information about me on-line to uniquely identify me as an individual. There's also enough in what I have said on-line to date already to completely rule me out of any political position in this country.
However, I sometimes feel safe in the knowledge that everybody who has used the web has left a similar sort of trail. All this information will stay on the web for decades or perhaps even centuries.
Our privacy, it seems, is protected by the fact that if you dig hard-enough you can find dirt on anybody. Dirt is only good if you can use it and Google shows us just how many people have dirty linen that can be easily obtained.
When all this shakes out over the next twenty years and the Facebook generation grow-up and get careers, we may well find out that our privacy is protected by mutually assured defamation.
Simon
My key question is whether they're selling them for less than they cost to make. If so, then it's probably a dumping case waiting to happen.
In many ways I welcome the competition. Although Apple seem to have a halo on Slashdot, they are every bit as nasty as Microsoft in this department. Apple want to lock you in to the Fairplay every bit as much as Microsoft wants to lock you in to Windows Media DRM.
On a totally off topic point. Can you remove the flash ads Rob? They're fucking irritating and really cheapen the site. Even if I gave a shit about what they're peddling, you should know that many on Slashdot aren't going to click those things on principle. Get the marketing diarrhoea off the site please.
It allows you to claim your adhering to the WTO treaty without actually doing so. I'd say this is a pretty smart of Canada. Everyone knows that the rules have changed on copyright. We've seen today that EMI is cutting funding to the RIAA. Not a day goes by where the landscape subtly shifts towards a more open, DRM free future.
This move allows Canada to enjoy the benefits of the treaty without adopting any of the pain. All Canada has to do is stall sufficiently until the United States is no longer the dominant power. I reckon that'll happen in about ten years. Since it took ten years to adopt this treaty, it will probably be another ten years before anything is adopted. By then the scene will look considerably different.
Simon
Personally, I think it's a fair trade. What do you expect when you put all your personal information in to a web-site that is free to use? They have to make money some how and the easiest way to do that is to sell your information on to other people or come to agreements with other companies to find ways to market to you.
If you don't like that then don't use Facebook!
If you want your own soap box under your own rules then get your own site. You can even run these out of your own house now provided you're with a civilised ISP.
Simon
Without wishing to troll, when has a Window service pack ever improved the speed of a Windows OS?
In fact, and I'm sure someone on Slashdot has raw data on this (that perhaps even shows I'm wrong), Apple are the only company who has ever achieved this on a regular basis.
I've found in my rather short development career is something scarily similar to the first law of thermodynamics: "Bad code once created can never be destroyed." In most commercial situations, the risk of breaking a routine far outweighs the benefit the change brings.
We've built an entire area of study, refactoring, on trying to sell the importance of keeping code clean. I'm still not 100% convinced that the case for refactoring has been made. If you spend three months refactoring, is the simpler overall structure really going to speed up development sufficiently to justify the capital outlay? In all but the very worst code-bases, the answer is unclear.Bear in mind, refactoring my cause you to notice bugs that you can't fix because it would break an interface. Now your code has to be badly structured to support this bad business logic. This can be enough to render the effort useless.
This is why service packs rarely improve functionality or performance. Windows XP SP2 is a notable exception. The risk is simply too great.
Simon