Yes, and it is no coincidence that those who write unreadable code also write unreadable comments. I notice that the more I progressed in programming skill, the less I made comments because I found myself stating the obvious.
When I look back over an old horrible VB program I had to take over maintenance of for awhile I notice that I left quite a few comments of both my changes and existing code, but that most of those comments were just about as esoteric as the code. It's hard to clearly explain the logic behind a twisted mess.
Whenever I review the comments in my latest project I find that there are few and most of them are meta-comments that describe the use of generic objects, typically notes on the business logic, not technical notes.
Our IT staff has the option of wearing a uniform, which is provided by the company for off-site work, and they have taken to wearing it Monday-Friday even though it's not required. They do this for the reasons that you mentioned. I don't think your IT staff is going to mind unless they're already harassed by bureaucracy. If that is the case, they'll probably take it as a fascist move. It probably won't do anything to change the atmosphere unless you've got problems with the atmosphere already.
Only partially accurate, but humorous. Most of the best programmers I know started with some form of BASIC, often on C64. The fact that you have to unlearn a lot when migrating to strongly typed lower level languages can actually make your fundamental understanding of the second language stronger. In other words, you have to justify everything new that you learn rather than accepting it as "how it's done."
I would recommend learning with BASIC, but not staying with it for long and taking it with a grain of salt. It's fairly unlikely that anyone would stay with BASIC long anyways.
You don't need complex memory references to take advantage of OO. And the "secret" to OO languages is most definitely not procedural programming. That statement is just absurd.
That being said, OO is generally something that developers come to to see the advantages of by getting their hands dirty with procedural programming first. OO is best learned as a solution to design challenges rather than a programming basic.
Even though PHP's OO implementation is very weak compared to languages such as Java or C#, I find it a good language to learn OO concepts, partially because of its limitations. Plus a kid can easily deploy/show off his work if he's using a web-based interface. I haven't had much experience with Flash, but from what I've seen the same is true for it also.
I don't feel a personal need to be part of a political party and I'm registered as an independent voter. And yes, if everyone was completely unaffected by large, organized groups composed of their peers and always thought completely independently, then the government most certainly would be better.
However, with two giant, over-powered political groups to contend with on this very matter, I wouldn't have a problem aligning with a coalition of people who shared my primary ideals. I was simply iterating the reasons why the Libertarian Party is not able to be that party.
While I tend toward moderate libertarian ideals myself, this is a great example of why I always end up feeling alienated from the party itself. They always end up harping on legalizing hard drugs, having your own private tank, or some other extremist nonsense, and when they're not doing that they're pulling stuff like this that isn't even in line with their supposed values. There are some brilliant men in the party, but they usually end up taking a back seat to the louder-speaking loonies.
Overrated? If anything it was underrated. It never got that much press and only one low-budget sequel. The only reason you could call it overrated now is because it's become a cult classic of sorts. And sure, the graphics look dated now, but it's still one of the most cohesive open-ended stories I've ever played. The gameplay is an acquired taste, but is very deep and satisfying if you can get into it.
While I completely agree with the point that you are trying to make, which is that the performance is almost certainly due to poorly designed database or at least related to database issues, I disagree with one of the assertions that you made along the way.
Besides, there are very few good real-time systems developers that would choose to work on a database program rather than on something more interesting, like... I don't know... shaving toe nails for old ladies. Really, database programming is what people do when they can't do anything else, it's the data-entry job of programmers.
I would like to point out that some of us database developers take great pride in the fact that while your statement has a tendency to be true in poorly managed environments, a few of us actually get really good at our job. I come from a C++ system-level coding background and can easily deal with issues like memory fragmentation, but I actually like database programming.
The problem isn't that all the good programmers do system-level coding only; there is a completely different skill set required for database programming, especially if application design is involved. The problem is that expectations for database programmers have not been as established as those for system level developers.
It is rare to find an application developer/database developer that is really good at their job. Most of them are actually trained more toward system-level development. Academia done very little to help the advancement of application development.
It's not the cast-offs of system development that write successful database applications; it is rather those of us that continue to polish our skills, educate ourselves to existing standards and get involved in the creation of new ones that actually can develop high-performance, easily maintainable, and highly functional enterprise solutions. And we do it with in.NET technologies, among others.
The inefficiency to which I am referring is file system design that causes regular fragmentation. Undelete works very inconsistently on well-designed file systems such as HFS because data gets overwritten regularly.
I probably should have said the only reason we can use undelete relatively reliably is inefficient design.
My point is that undeletion is an accidental "feature" of Windows and should not be considered the expected behavior of a file system. Both the Trash Can and Time Machine are explicit implementations of file recovery.
Let's not forget the whole reason that we can undelete from FAT and NTFS disks is because of inefficient design. He treats this as though it's a feature of Windows, but it was actually an accident that you could undelete at all. This is the whole reason that the Mac has a trash can and now Time Machine. When you permanently delete something, it should be gone, not hanging around on the disk unbeknownst to your average user.
My experience concurs with this completely. Being an open-source fan and often contributor, I hated to give in to something like.NET, but honestly it is the most complete development library I've encountered. I've used KDE and MFC also, and find them lacking in both design and power. Visual Studio is also an outstanding IDE.
I have my criticisms (documentation and extensibility), but before using.NET I would have not believed that a proprietary language could grow as actively and efficiently as.NET.
I regularly hear associates complain that they can't get a CS person who knows their ass from an infinite loop.
Yes, but where you are wrong is the assumption that this is because of most university CS course requirements. I would also agree that if you've met a CS grad that doesn't at least think they understand big-O notation, then they were doing alot of sleeping through class.
In my experience, the problem is that CS programs are flooded with people who just "want to work on computers." Sure, some colleges cater to this in order to churn out more students, but I think most of the problem is that your average wannabe game designer nerd sleeps through his pointer math, algorithm analysis, and even data structures classes. There are so many of them that the professors can't afford to fail them all. I saw this all the time in my school. My professors were literally thrilled to get students through that were genuinely interested in anything beyond games and fluff web technology.
I believe that most universities teach solid fundamentals, but this latest generation of math-deprived highschool graduates simply end up more interested in buzzwords and fluff: These are all that they retain.
Except that relying on that totally defeats the purpose of an auction versus a "best offer" type of system.
The auction system is really useful for items that have no well-defined value, such as trinkets and collectibles. Your point stands on items that have a common market price. For example, if I'm bidding on an Xbox 360, I'll probably set my max bid to $350 or so and be done with it. If I am bidding on a hand-carved pipe, I will probably not have as good of an idea how much the item is worth. I can give it my best guess, and if I really want it, I'll probably guess high. Say I go for $200. When someone comes along and outbids me, I have a chance to re-evaluate whether or not I think the pipe is worth more. I might even gauge how heavy the bidding is as a sign of value. I probably won't bid more than two or three times, but having the chance to re-evaluate is valuable.
Another reason that I might want to watch an auction is that when I'm outbid I can begin bidding on another item. This is probably my major irritation with bid-sniping. If there was a mechanism to make bid sniping worthless, then I could go from auction to auction more easily. Chances are I'm only going to buy 1 $350 Xbox or $200 pipe at a time. If someone is waiting for the last minute to slap down their $500 bid, it is less efficient than if I bid and am shortly outbid. I can then try a different auction.
Regardless of what you call using eBay "correctly," other consumers will have different approaches. I think this type of auction would be valuable to many buyers. I know I'm not the only one who finds bid-sniping frustrating.
Many buyers do not like the technique of bid-sniping. I only use items with Buy It Now because of this technique. I have over 150 positive feedback as a buyer and never as a seller, so I cannot be accused of being a greedy seller. I personally cannot imagine that your average Joe eBay user prefers to have to watch an auction until the last second while refreshing madly in order to win. A fairly decent percentage of eBayers are also probably still on dialup, which pretty much excludes bid sniping. I find it very implausible that eBay would lose the majority of its users if bid sniping was somehow prevented.
there'd always be one moron who got caught up and kept nibbling up to overbid the item. The sellers would get what they want then, so they would not be the ones driven away. By your logic, they would be better off, since they would "always" get a better price.
So if eBay doesn't stand to lose significant numbers buyers or sellers, why is this argument so repugnant to you? It certainly doesn't warrant name-calling.
I believe that a new auction type should be created that allows the user to set how many minutes more an auction would last past the ending time for each bid. Naturally, this would have to be capped or people would have drawn-out 1 cent bid wars. To prevent this, the seller should have the option of ending the auction with the current winner any time after the original ending date. Minimum bids could also be instituted for the extension period.
The biggest advantage that I can see is that I wouldn't have to physically watch an auction down to the last second, but could receive alerts and actually have time to respond to them.
Nope. Bought it from Hastings, they wouldn't take it back. They have a no-return policy on Xbox 360s alone. You can return your wii or ps3, but not your 360. They told me to talk to Microsoft.
That'd be just peachy if my brand new Xbox 360 that I bought a couple weeks ago wasn't just shipped off to Microsoft to be repaired for RRoD. I bought the new one to replace the one I've had for two-and-a-half years. The old one had disc drive issues and begin to freeze regularly and finally RRoD also. Now I'm going to miss the free game because the window is too short.
Anyone got a Wii for sale?
I tried this on a judge in a small town about a cop that had paced me and showed what a short distance he would have had to pace me over. I also used a weather site to show how foggy the weather had been that night. Even the officer admitted he had likely errored. However, the judge still pronounced me guilty. I hadn't been speeding, either. I assume it was because the town's primary income was fines and such.
Well said, I agree. I was a huge fan of JK1 both single and multiplayer and didn't find JO able to live up to it's legacy in either area.
The other interesting thing about JK1 is the massive modding community. I got life out of that game for years because of mods like Saber Battles X, Spork, and JKRPG, not to mention hundreds of inventive multiplayer and singleplayer maps. You could find people who played JK1 in any gaming community for years after its release. JO lost attraction much sooner, even from its fans.
I totally agree about the JO level design. The Nar Shaddaa level was particularly horrible. It was terribly irritating how the snipers could hit you instantly if you showed your head and there was nothing you could really do but load your quicksave and hope to be luckier next time.
What about us that have a solution that works? I use a ISP provided POP address with no filters, never sign up for anything free with my personal e-mail address, and never get a single spam message. Why the heck should I be made to suffer for other people's stupidity? I don't want the hassle of entering a code or computation, nor do I want to risk being charged for an e-mail, even if it was only five cents. It's ludicrous. I'm all for giving people options, but don't ruin e-mail for those of us who don't suffer from spam.
The idea that linux will have to either grow or die is a bit like those football commentators who say things like "What this team needs to do to win is fight hard and put more points on the board."
Linux has been in this "grow or die" place many times, and to some extent, it's entire existence. This may be the most powerful resistance it has encountered, but it is also more deeply entrenched than ever before. Also, if SCO loses, which is highly likely, this issue will be significantly less serious than must be prepared for at this time.
"Grow or die?" Considering that this is practically the basis of Open Source, that statement sounds a bit cheesy.
There is zero scientific evidence to suggest conclusively that there is a link between people playing violent video games or watching violent movies and then being lead to commit those acts. Yes, some people, already posessing of violent tendancies will go and commit various acts inspired by these media.
So true. What amazes me is that the news media can promote the idea that video games cause violence, because people with tendencies like the ones you mentioned may have perhaps gotten ideas from video games, when over the last few years a slew of school shootings were obviously inspired by news coverage of the Columbine shooting and its succussive stories.
It can be noted that in the Uncanny X-Men comic book Mystique is about as old as Wolverine and has lived through many lifetimes with different "skins."
However, at the point Nightcrawler joined the X-Men he was a young boy. This is silly to pick at, though, because Rogue's origin is all different, too. Not only that but there are several different threads of history between the comic book X universes, of which the Uncanny X-men is only one.
That said, the movies rock, and I believe unifies and protrays the spirit of the X-Men perfectly for today.
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Yes, and it is no coincidence that those who write unreadable code also write unreadable comments. I notice that the more I progressed in programming skill, the less I made comments because I found myself stating the obvious.
When I look back over an old horrible VB program I had to take over maintenance of for awhile I notice that I left quite a few comments of both my changes and existing code, but that most of those comments were just about as esoteric as the code. It's hard to clearly explain the logic behind a twisted mess.
Whenever I review the comments in my latest project I find that there are few and most of them are meta-comments that describe the use of generic objects, typically notes on the business logic, not technical notes.
Our IT staff has the option of wearing a uniform, which is provided by the company for off-site work, and they have taken to wearing it Monday-Friday even though it's not required. They do this for the reasons that you mentioned. I don't think your IT staff is going to mind unless they're already harassed by bureaucracy. If that is the case, they'll probably take it as a fascist move. It probably won't do anything to change the atmosphere unless you've got problems with the atmosphere already.
Only partially accurate, but humorous. Most of the best programmers I know started with some form of BASIC, often on C64. The fact that you have to unlearn a lot when migrating to strongly typed lower level languages can actually make your fundamental understanding of the second language stronger. In other words, you have to justify everything new that you learn rather than accepting it as "how it's done."
I would recommend learning with BASIC, but not staying with it for long and taking it with a grain of salt. It's fairly unlikely that anyone would stay with BASIC long anyways.
You don't need complex memory references to take advantage of OO. And the "secret" to OO languages is most definitely not procedural programming. That statement is just absurd. That being said, OO is generally something that developers come to to see the advantages of by getting their hands dirty with procedural programming first. OO is best learned as a solution to design challenges rather than a programming basic. Even though PHP's OO implementation is very weak compared to languages such as Java or C#, I find it a good language to learn OO concepts, partially because of its limitations. Plus a kid can easily deploy/show off his work if he's using a web-based interface. I haven't had much experience with Flash, but from what I've seen the same is true for it also.
I don't feel a personal need to be part of a political party and I'm registered as an independent voter. And yes, if everyone was completely unaffected by large, organized groups composed of their peers and always thought completely independently, then the government most certainly would be better.
However, with two giant, over-powered political groups to contend with on this very matter, I wouldn't have a problem aligning with a coalition of people who shared my primary ideals. I was simply iterating the reasons why the Libertarian Party is not able to be that party.
While I tend toward moderate libertarian ideals myself, this is a great example of why I always end up feeling alienated from the party itself. They always end up harping on legalizing hard drugs, having your own private tank, or some other extremist nonsense, and when they're not doing that they're pulling stuff like this that isn't even in line with their supposed values. There are some brilliant men in the party, but they usually end up taking a back seat to the louder-speaking loonies.
Overrated? If anything it was underrated. It never got that much press and only one low-budget sequel. The only reason you could call it overrated now is because it's become a cult classic of sorts. And sure, the graphics look dated now, but it's still one of the most cohesive open-ended stories I've ever played. The gameplay is an acquired taste, but is very deep and satisfying if you can get into it.
I would have read and participated in this discussion but I was too busy enjoying that NetApp ad in the upper right corner.
As bad as this study is, I'm definitely saving it for the next "Video Games Linked to Violence" debate.
Besides, there are very few good real-time systems developers that would choose to work on a database program rather than on something more interesting, like... I don't know... shaving toe nails for old ladies. Really, database programming is what people do when they can't do anything else, it's the data-entry job of programmers.
I would like to point out that some of us database developers take great pride in the fact that while your statement has a tendency to be true in poorly managed environments, a few of us actually get really good at our job. I come from a C++ system-level coding background and can easily deal with issues like memory fragmentation, but I actually like database programming.
The problem isn't that all the good programmers do system-level coding only; there is a completely different skill set required for database programming, especially if application design is involved. The problem is that expectations for database programmers have not been as established as those for system level developers.
It is rare to find an application developer/database developer that is really good at their job. Most of them are actually trained more toward system-level development. Academia done very little to help the advancement of application development.
It's not the cast-offs of system development that write successful database applications; it is rather those of us that continue to polish our skills, educate ourselves to existing standards and get involved in the creation of new ones that actually can develop high-performance, easily maintainable, and highly functional enterprise solutions. And we do it with in .NET technologies, among others.
The inefficiency to which I am referring is file system design that causes regular fragmentation. Undelete works very inconsistently on well-designed file systems such as HFS because data gets overwritten regularly.
I probably should have said the only reason we can use undelete relatively reliably is inefficient design.
My point is that undeletion is an accidental "feature" of Windows and should not be considered the expected behavior of a file system. Both the Trash Can and Time Machine are explicit implementations of file recovery.
Let's not forget the whole reason that we can undelete from FAT and NTFS disks is because of inefficient design. He treats this as though it's a feature of Windows, but it was actually an accident that you could undelete at all. This is the whole reason that the Mac has a trash can and now Time Machine. When you permanently delete something, it should be gone, not hanging around on the disk unbeknownst to your average user.
I have my criticisms (documentation and extensibility), but before using .NET I would have not believed that a proprietary language could grow as actively and efficiently as .NET.
PCs were ideal for games like ZZT. Oh how we have strayed.
Yes, but where you are wrong is the assumption that this is because of most university CS course requirements. I would also agree that if you've met a CS grad that doesn't at least think they understand big-O notation, then they were doing alot of sleeping through class.
In my experience, the problem is that CS programs are flooded with people who just "want to work on computers." Sure, some colleges cater to this in order to churn out more students, but I think most of the problem is that your average wannabe game designer nerd sleeps through his pointer math, algorithm analysis, and even data structures classes. There are so many of them that the professors can't afford to fail them all. I saw this all the time in my school. My professors were literally thrilled to get students through that were genuinely interested in anything beyond games and fluff web technology.
I believe that most universities teach solid fundamentals, but this latest generation of math-deprived highschool graduates simply end up more interested in buzzwords and fluff: These are all that they retain.
The auction system is really useful for items that have no well-defined value, such as trinkets and collectibles. Your point stands on items that have a common market price. For example, if I'm bidding on an Xbox 360, I'll probably set my max bid to $350 or so and be done with it. If I am bidding on a hand-carved pipe, I will probably not have as good of an idea how much the item is worth. I can give it my best guess, and if I really want it, I'll probably guess high. Say I go for $200. When someone comes along and outbids me, I have a chance to re-evaluate whether or not I think the pipe is worth more. I might even gauge how heavy the bidding is as a sign of value. I probably won't bid more than two or three times, but having the chance to re-evaluate is valuable.
Another reason that I might want to watch an auction is that when I'm outbid I can begin bidding on another item. This is probably my major irritation with bid-sniping. If there was a mechanism to make bid sniping worthless, then I could go from auction to auction more easily. Chances are I'm only going to buy 1 $350 Xbox or $200 pipe at a time. If someone is waiting for the last minute to slap down their $500 bid, it is less efficient than if I bid and am shortly outbid. I can then try a different auction.
Regardless of what you call using eBay "correctly," other consumers will have different approaches. I think this type of auction would be valuable to many buyers. I know I'm not the only one who finds bid-sniping frustrating.
So if eBay doesn't stand to lose significant numbers buyers or sellers, why is this argument so repugnant to you? It certainly doesn't warrant name-calling.
I believe that a new auction type should be created that allows the user to set how many minutes more an auction would last past the ending time for each bid. Naturally, this would have to be capped or people would have drawn-out 1 cent bid wars. To prevent this, the seller should have the option of ending the auction with the current winner any time after the original ending date. Minimum bids could also be instituted for the extension period.
The biggest advantage that I can see is that I wouldn't have to physically watch an auction down to the last second, but could receive alerts and actually have time to respond to them.
Nope. Bought it from Hastings, they wouldn't take it back. They have a no-return policy on Xbox 360s alone. You can return your wii or ps3, but not your 360. They told me to talk to Microsoft.
That'd be just peachy if my brand new Xbox 360 that I bought a couple weeks ago wasn't just shipped off to Microsoft to be repaired for RRoD. I bought the new one to replace the one I've had for two-and-a-half years. The old one had disc drive issues and begin to freeze regularly and finally RRoD also. Now I'm going to miss the free game because the window is too short. Anyone got a Wii for sale?
I tried this on a judge in a small town about a cop that had paced me and showed what a short distance he would have had to pace me over. I also used a weather site to show how foggy the weather had been that night. Even the officer admitted he had likely errored. However, the judge still pronounced me guilty. I hadn't been speeding, either. I assume it was because the town's primary income was fines and such.
Well said, I agree. I was a huge fan of JK1 both single and multiplayer and didn't find JO able to live up to it's legacy in either area.
The other interesting thing about JK1 is the massive modding community. I got life out of that game for years because of mods like Saber Battles X, Spork, and JKRPG, not to mention hundreds of inventive multiplayer and singleplayer maps. You could find people who played JK1 in any gaming community for years after its release. JO lost attraction much sooner, even from its fans.
I totally agree about the JO level design. The Nar Shaddaa level was particularly horrible. It was terribly irritating how the snipers could hit you instantly if you showed your head and there was nothing you could really do but load your quicksave and hope to be luckier next time.
What about us that have a solution that works? I use a ISP provided POP address with no filters, never sign up for anything free with my personal e-mail address, and never get a single spam message. Why the heck should I be made to suffer for other people's stupidity? I don't want the hassle of entering a code or computation, nor do I want to risk being charged for an e-mail, even if it was only five cents. It's ludicrous. I'm all for giving people options, but don't ruin e-mail for those of us who don't suffer from spam.
Linux has been in this "grow or die" place many times, and to some extent, it's entire existence. This may be the most powerful resistance it has encountered, but it is also more deeply entrenched than ever before. Also, if SCO loses, which is highly likely, this issue will be significantly less serious than must be prepared for at this time.
"Grow or die?" Considering that this is practically the basis of Open Source, that statement sounds a bit cheesy.
So true. What amazes me is that the news media can promote the idea that video games cause violence, because people with tendencies like the ones you mentioned may have perhaps gotten ideas from video games, when over the last few years a slew of school shootings were obviously inspired by news coverage of the Columbine shooting and its succussive stories.
However, at the point Nightcrawler joined the X-Men he was a young boy. This is silly to pick at, though, because Rogue's origin is all different, too. Not only that but there are several different threads of history between the comic book X universes, of which the Uncanny X-men is only one.
That said, the movies rock, and I believe unifies and protrays the spirit of the X-Men perfectly for today.