You can bootstrap with software if you're a sufficiently good developer, but it takes a huge amount of time, more than most people have available to them if they're also holding down a full time job. I am encountering this now. I basically have to promise myself to spend at least an hour or two a day on my side project / business, after 10+ hours at work balanced with a home life with my wife. If you have money, you can buy time. Otherwise, expect to not sleep much.
Meh. I consider it a heuristic that I use to filter out the employer if they require read access to my Facebook. My Facebook is locked the fuck down; they'd find my name but not much more. If that's a problem, well, I have recruiters emailing me every day, so good luck with your search.
But demanding everyone be putting code into production is wrong.
Here I absolutely agree and this is my main problem with this angle.
It's great to encourage your employees to understand the business they're in, but putting unprofessional code into production is fraught with security peril. There are a lot of things that we learn as developers, like how to avoid cross-site scripting, session hijacking, and other related malicious activity, from taking place against our code. Amateur developers wouldn't know this, or if they did, wouldn't fully be able to understand the risks without probably about two years of study if coming from a completely programming-free environment.
I guess I would be OK with this if any "amateur" code pushed to production was reviewed at least twice by skilled developers.
I also wonder: What do the non-coding employees actually think of this? I would imagine at least some of them are pissed; they weren't hired to do programming, after all.
It's easy to demand best practices and ample safety margins: It's quite another thing to deliver it in a business environment. Most people in the industry, including the people at Sophos I'm sure, do the best they can with what they're given. It's pretty much the work creed of anyone in this industry -- few have the time and resources to do it right, they have to settle for 'good enough'.
Sorry, I vehemently disagree. This sort of change could have automated unit tests that, off the top of my head:
install the patch
reboots the test system and/or VM (this would have caught it)
makes sure the system identifies any and all viruses in its database, including the new definition
doesn't touch a known clean system (this would also have caught it)
ensures that after installation all tools still work (basically any sort of regression testing whatsoever would have caught this too)
If I was a Sophos customer, I would be investigating alternatives right now. But, once again, Linux.:^)
Yeah, I know the situation is complicated, and I'm glad that (it sounds like) Google is doing something. The whole thing is just incredibly frustrating, and given that I want to start a business some day (possibly soon) and that the situation for a bit player is much grimmer if you happen to implement the wrong feature that's listed among the thousands of active patents in existence, I can't help but be a little angry about the whole thing. Were software patents not being granted, we could be years ahead in technological progress.
Stop this bullshit and direct your lawyers to lobby to change the laws on software patents instead. Don't you think your money would be better spent on innovation?
They still offer the built-in tethering on 4G devices for $20 / mo. I know this because I have one of these devices. You have to install a third party app from the market to get free tethering. Verizon is relying on consumer ignorance of the FCC decision to continue to grab revenue.
If they fuck it up, I might do that (though I'd probably take the moderation system of Slashcode and other bits and redo it in something a little more modern than Perl).
The problem is that it's not the code that makes Slashdot what it is, it's the community. Barring a severe fucking-up, a fork would likely not be successful.
Both extremes are bad. If they just leave it completely on its own and ride its ad revenue into irrelevance, that's just as bad as bulldozing it and rebuilding, Digg-style.
As Futurama's "God" once said, you have to use a light touch. Here's hoping Dice knows what they're getting into.
This reads like a crappy romance novel trying to make a point about how women shouldn't be in IT because they'll destroy team morale. I don't believe it for a second.
I wonder if it will be a crime to resist the recall, since the owner of the phone is in this case a disinterested third party to the lawsuit. Will they force people to hand them over?
Your ideas here hinge on the idea that a mind, once set, cannot change. I disagree. I think it may be harder, but I don't think most people are completely, utterly unwavering in their convictions; I think that's largely a result of senescence. If people were maintained at the age of, say, 25 to 30, I'm guessing we'd bypass a lot of that.
Like gay marriage, your disagreement with a life choice that does not affect your freedom or anyone else's should be limited to your own actions, and not restrict others.
None of the problems you mentioned are guaranteed to happen in an immortal-ish population. They could all very well be a consequence of senescence, which would theoretically be prevented.
Wouldn't the federal government trump state law here? Why would they care that it was illegal on the state level if they were doing Official Federal Government Snooping?
Slashdot Mirror
Looks like you're pretty spent.
You can bootstrap with software if you're a sufficiently good developer, but it takes a huge amount of time, more than most people have available to them if they're also holding down a full time job. I am encountering this now. I basically have to promise myself to spend at least an hour or two a day on my side project / business, after 10+ hours at work balanced with a home life with my wife. If you have money, you can buy time. Otherwise, expect to not sleep much.
They'll assume you're lying and trying to hide something. Sad, but true.
Meh. I consider it a heuristic that I use to filter out the employer if they require read access to my Facebook. My Facebook is locked the fuck down; they'd find my name but not much more. If that's a problem, well, I have recruiters emailing me every day, so good luck with your search.
But demanding everyone be putting code into production is wrong.
Here I absolutely agree and this is my main problem with this angle.
It's great to encourage your employees to understand the business they're in, but putting unprofessional code into production is fraught with security peril. There are a lot of things that we learn as developers, like how to avoid cross-site scripting, session hijacking, and other related malicious activity, from taking place against our code. Amateur developers wouldn't know this, or if they did, wouldn't fully be able to understand the risks without probably about two years of study if coming from a completely programming-free environment.
I guess I would be OK with this if any "amateur" code pushed to production was reviewed at least twice by skilled developers.
I also wonder: What do the non-coding employees actually think of this? I would imagine at least some of them are pissed; they weren't hired to do programming, after all.
What the blazes are they spending the money on?
I would imagine, not enough on advertising, which nicely goes full circle. Maybe they should look into tracking their users. </thread>
It's easy to demand best practices and ample safety margins: It's quite another thing to deliver it in a business environment. Most people in the industry, including the people at Sophos I'm sure, do the best they can with what they're given. It's pretty much the work creed of anyone in this industry -- few have the time and resources to do it right, they have to settle for 'good enough'.
Sorry, I vehemently disagree. This sort of change could have automated unit tests that, off the top of my head:
If I was a Sophos customer, I would be investigating alternatives right now. But, once again, Linux. :^)
The whole "copying" argument is bullshit to begin with. There's very little "innovation" in these patents.
Yeah, I know the situation is complicated, and I'm glad that (it sounds like) Google is doing something. The whole thing is just incredibly frustrating, and given that I want to start a business some day (possibly soon) and that the situation for a bit player is much grimmer if you happen to implement the wrong feature that's listed among the thousands of active patents in existence, I can't help but be a little angry about the whole thing. Were software patents not being granted, we could be years ahead in technological progress.
Stop this bullshit and direct your lawyers to lobby to change the laws on software patents instead. Don't you think your money would be better spent on innovation?
Heh. Mention God and the militant atheists swarm. I put a capital G on that too, doesn't that make you angry?
They still offer the built-in tethering on 4G devices for $20 / mo. I know this because I have one of these devices. You have to install a third party app from the market to get free tethering. Verizon is relying on consumer ignorance of the FCC decision to continue to grab revenue.
If they fuck it up, I might do that (though I'd probably take the moderation system of Slashcode and other bits and redo it in something a little more modern than Perl).
The problem is that it's not the code that makes Slashdot what it is, it's the community. Barring a severe fucking-up, a fork would likely not be successful.
No. I think after a year or so, give or take a few months, the remaining value might be significantly lower.
Tired of too many Apple stories? Too bad.
At least some things never change.
Both extremes are bad. If they just leave it completely on its own and ride its ad revenue into irrelevance, that's just as bad as bulldozing it and rebuilding, Digg-style.
As Futurama's "God" once said, you have to use a light touch. Here's hoping Dice knows what they're getting into.
Already some discussion on this over at Hacker News.
Anyone know if Rob would want to take back control of Slashdot if we ran a Kickstarter to get it back in the hands of someone who gives a shit?
Not that I'm saying Dice will treat /. badly... but I don't have high hopes for innovation.
This reads like a crappy romance novel trying to make a point about how women shouldn't be in IT because they'll destroy team morale. I don't believe it for a second.
I wonder if it will be a crime to resist the recall, since the owner of the phone is in this case a disinterested third party to the lawsuit. Will they force people to hand them over?
So basically you are stupid and cannot understand code. What other reasons are there to write cute little comments?
Ah yes, the arrogance category. Thank you for your example.
Someone call ACME. Carmen's on the loose again!
Insurance companies already have this database.
Your ideas here hinge on the idea that a mind, once set, cannot change. I disagree. I think it may be harder, but I don't think most people are completely, utterly unwavering in their convictions; I think that's largely a result of senescence. If people were maintained at the age of, say, 25 to 30, I'm guessing we'd bypass a lot of that.
Like gay marriage, your disagreement with a life choice that does not affect your freedom or anyone else's should be limited to your own actions, and not restrict others.
None of the problems you mentioned are guaranteed to happen in an immortal-ish population. They could all very well be a consequence of senescence, which would theoretically be prevented.
Wouldn't the federal government trump state law here? Why would they care that it was illegal on the state level if they were doing Official Federal Government Snooping?