Most of his "problems" boil down to, "You're still going to have to write your own code anyway, regardless of what you do in the GUI builder," which I answer with a great big, "Duh!"
So - the original developer, and every subsequent maintenance programmer need to now understand not only the core language, but all of the subtle nuances of the tool that controls the UI in addition to the myriad ways the two interact (or fail to interact). All in the interest of simplifying GUI construction? I think you just made his point for him.
when I jumped from CS to Chem Eng.... our lab days were barrels of fun
Well, to be fair, you're comparing apples to oranges... you chem. eng. guys can manufacture your own LSD whereas we have to settle for trying to program a trippy-looking screen saver.
I don't know about that suggestion - that is an excellent book, if you're taking a course and it's the textbook. If you're not taking a course, you're probably not going to get much out of it, because there's no way to find out what the answers to any of the exercises are (and considering the number of "the proof of this is given in exercise 12.1-3" or, "see exercise 34.1-5 for the solution to this problem" cookies in this text, you're missing a lot if you happen to be stuck on a given exercise). Infuriatingly, although the author(s) publish a solutions guide for professors only (in case the professor is teaching a course he doesn't understand, I presume), they're openly hostile to students who might want to double-check their own answers against an authoritative source (or maybe they themselves can't solve all of the problems...)?
And it certainly is a good thing that one of you was available to post that comment, because nobody else will post that a thousand more times on this thread.
Finally, let's talk wireless. Unless the government wants to crack down on unsecured wireless connections, they're going to lose this one.
Furthermore... how do you meaningfully define where "the Internet" begins and ends? How about a wireless mesh network that doesn't have any physical connection to the (now corporatized and bureacratized to the point of practical uselessness "Series of Tubes" Internet) but happens to use TCP/IP? How about BBS's? (Not too popular these days, but might see a resurgence if "teh Internet" becomes too burdened with onerous regulation to be useful). I've often wondered, when I hear about this or that attempt to regulate the internet, how long it would take for an alternative to pop up. The main thing that slowed net adoption in the early days was ignorance ("So what if I can look at documents on other computers? Why would I care?"). Now that everybody's seen it, I would imagine we could implement a pretty useful workaround pretty quick if they screw up what we have much more than they already have. It'll take 'em another couple of decades to: a) figure out that it exists, b) completely mischaracterize it, and c) regulate it into oblivion. Then we just lather, rinse, repeat...
Installing and tweeking Windows sucks just as hard as Linux.
It's actually worse. Let me share a personal anecdote/epiphany:
Last week, I finally got around to upgrading from Linux
kernel 2.4 to 2.6. After the install, I rebooted, everything came up ok, but the
network card wasn't working. I did a little digging, and found out that the
name of the driver module had changed from "bcm" to "tg3", so I insmod'ed tg3,
network came up, everything was fine. Until I tried to launch an application, that is.
If I had network, I couldn't get KDE to launch an application. Reboot, KDE works, but no network. Add the driver, KDE stops working. Talk about f-ing
weird, huh? After a couple hours of digging, I finally, finally realized that
the network scripts were resetting my hostname, which caused X to kick
me out (I wasn't in.Xauthority). Fixed the hostname, everything was ok.
After that experience, the first thought that popped into my head was, "No wonder nobody uses Linux.
That took me hours to figure out, and I kind of know what I'm doing!"
But then I thought about it a little more and realized that Windows does sh*t like
that all the time - the difference is, it happens with smaller upgrades than
a complete kernel upgrade, you get a blue screen and no further helpful diagnostic
information to troubleshoot the problem (no matter how well you know what you're
doing), and you likely have to re-gen the whole f-ing machine. It's actually
a testament to how well-designed Linux is that I was able to upgrade the
Operating system kernel with just a couple of hours of troubleshooting.
my radio goes from playing NPR to a garbled mix of NPR, static and whatever crap that person is listening to.
What? You've been listening to XM for free? Speaking as an XM executive, I can tell you to expect to get a retroactive bill in the mail some time in the next few days.
However, when we are dealing with an entity that is not driven by profits and a decentralized activity that has no real controlling agent (i.e., the Usenet)
Well, that may have been true when the paper was written, but I'm not sure it's all that true now. If you want to participate in usenet, you have to sign up for an account with a profit-driven, centralized entity. That profit-driven, centralized entity had to spend quite a bit of money, time and effort setting up a datacenter that can retain all that data and sustain the bandwidth that their clients eat up (I still can't figure out the economics of how news providers can afford to stay in business, much less make a profit, at $12/month or so), so they're not exactly "fly by night" organizations... they seem pretty regulable to me. I think that at this point if they really wanted to shut it down or censor it, they would.
Ok, I can see not reading the article. The articles are sometimes long. I can even imagine not reading the summary... the summaries have lots of words in them, too. I can even see blindly clicking the link without looking at the headline. But... dude... you managed to skip the article, the summary, and even the text "FBI Head Wants Strong Data Retention Rules" that's up at the top of your browser window. (hint: "retention" means "retaining it until they ask for it", not waiting until they request a "tap").
In theory, it's legal here in the US, too (although it's a bit murkier). However, whether it's legal or not has been made irrelevant - bypassing DRM is illegal, and the goal is to make sure that you need to bypass DRM in order to make a personal copy. So you can't legally do it without breaking the law.
every time I hear so and so is "censoring", it makes my blood boil.
Wal-mart is censoring movies and music. CBS, NBC and ABC are censoring TV. ClearChannel is censoring the radio. Barnes and Noble is censoring authors. AT&T is censoring the phone system. Albertsons is censoring food distributors.
limited access to a political ad that mocks the Clinton administration's policy on North Korea, but contains no profanity, nudity or other factors generally thought objectionable.
Yes, it's important that we only censor based on one arbitrary set of factors than a different arbitrary set of factors.
To all slashdot grammer/spelling nazi's: It's a blog not a term paper, book, or essay. So get over it!
To all illiterate bloggers - if it actually takes conscious effort on your part to employ proper spelling and grammar, perhaps you should stick with reading blogs, not writing them. (Or just looking at pictures, if reading is too difficult.)
Slashdot Mirror
So - the original developer, and every subsequent maintenance programmer need to now understand not only the core language, but all of the subtle nuances of the tool that controls the UI in addition to the myriad ways the two interact (or fail to interact). All in the interest of simplifying GUI construction? I think you just made his point for him.
In other words, constain the design of your UI to the limitations of the GUI builder? I think you pretty much just made his point for him.
If you do it with uncommon sense, though, it can go horribly wrong...
Well, to be fair, you're comparing apples to oranges... you chem. eng. guys can manufacture your own LSD whereas we have to settle for trying to program a trippy-looking screen saver.
I think you pretty much answered your own implied question there...
I don't know about that suggestion - that is an excellent book, if you're taking a course and it's the textbook. If you're not taking a course, you're probably not going to get much out of it, because there's no way to find out what the answers to any of the exercises are (and considering the number of "the proof of this is given in exercise 12.1-3" or, "see exercise 34.1-5 for the solution to this problem" cookies in this text, you're missing a lot if you happen to be stuck on a given exercise). Infuriatingly, although the author(s) publish a solutions guide for professors only (in case the professor is teaching a course he doesn't understand, I presume), they're openly hostile to students who might want to double-check their own answers against an authoritative source (or maybe they themselves can't solve all of the problems...)?
BTW, I'd highly recommend TCP/IP Illustrated (or anything else by Richard Stevens), Advanced Unix Programming, and Applied Cryptography.
Hmmm... that sort of implies that the neighbor in this case was using encryption to protect his network, then, doesn't it? ASCII encryption, that is.
That's a perfect analogy. I used to love eating Computer Science until I studied how it was made and I haven't eaten one since.
And it certainly is a good thing that one of you was available to post that comment, because nobody else will post that a thousand more times on this thread.
Yeah, 'cause here in America it's the law that's repelling 14-year-old children from 50-year-old men and women...
Furthermore... how do you meaningfully define where "the Internet" begins and ends? How about a wireless mesh network that doesn't have any physical connection to the (now corporatized and bureacratized to the point of practical uselessness "Series of Tubes" Internet) but happens to use TCP/IP? How about BBS's? (Not too popular these days, but might see a resurgence if "teh Internet" becomes too burdened with onerous regulation to be useful). I've often wondered, when I hear about this or that attempt to regulate the internet, how long it would take for an alternative to pop up. The main thing that slowed net adoption in the early days was ignorance ("So what if I can look at documents on other computers? Why would I care?"). Now that everybody's seen it, I would imagine we could implement a pretty useful workaround pretty quick if they screw up what we have much more than they already have. It'll take 'em another couple of decades to: a) figure out that it exists, b) completely mischaracterize it, and c) regulate it into oblivion. Then we just lather, rinse, repeat...
It's actually worse. Let me share a personal anecdote/epiphany:
Last week, I finally got around to upgrading from Linux kernel 2.4 to 2.6. After the install, I rebooted, everything came up ok, but the network card wasn't working. I did a little digging, and found out that the name of the driver module had changed from "bcm" to "tg3", so I insmod'ed tg3, network came up, everything was fine. Until I tried to launch an application, that is. If I had network, I couldn't get KDE to launch an application. Reboot, KDE works, but no network. Add the driver, KDE stops working. Talk about f-ing weird, huh? After a couple hours of digging, I finally, finally realized that the network scripts were resetting my hostname, which caused X to kick me out (I wasn't in .Xauthority). Fixed the hostname, everything was ok.
After that experience, the first thought that popped into my head was, "No wonder nobody uses Linux. That took me hours to figure out, and I kind of know what I'm doing!"
But then I thought about it a little more and realized that Windows does sh*t like that all the time - the difference is, it happens with smaller upgrades than a complete kernel upgrade, you get a blue screen and no further helpful diagnostic information to troubleshoot the problem (no matter how well you know what you're doing), and you likely have to re-gen the whole f-ing machine. It's actually a testament to how well-designed Linux is that I was able to upgrade the Operating system kernel with just a couple of hours of troubleshooting.
What? You've been listening to XM for free? Speaking as an XM executive, I can tell you to expect to get a retroactive bill in the mail some time in the next few days.
Well, whatever that's an advertisement for, I gotta get one!
Given the circumstances, I think he's managing his anger just fine. I'd be at least as angry.
I want to get one of those merit badges for my son, but they cost too much. Does anybody know somewhere I can download one from?
Well, that may have been true when the paper was written, but I'm not sure it's all that true now. If you want to participate in usenet, you have to sign up for an account with a profit-driven, centralized entity. That profit-driven, centralized entity had to spend quite a bit of money, time and effort setting up a datacenter that can retain all that data and sustain the bandwidth that their clients eat up (I still can't figure out the economics of how news providers can afford to stay in business, much less make a profit, at $12/month or so), so they're not exactly "fly by night" organizations ... they seem pretty regulable to me. I think that at this point if they really wanted to shut it down or censor it, they would.
Ok, I can see not reading the article. The articles are sometimes long. I can even imagine not reading the summary... the summaries have lots of words in them, too. I can even see blindly clicking the link without looking at the headline. But... dude... you managed to skip the article, the summary, and even the text "FBI Head Wants Strong Data Retention Rules" that's up at the top of your browser window. (hint: "retention" means "retaining it until they ask for it", not waiting until they request a "tap").
In theory, it's legal here in the US, too (although it's a bit murkier). However, whether it's legal or not has been made irrelevant - bypassing DRM is illegal, and the goal is to make sure that you need to bypass DRM in order to make a personal copy. So you can't legally do it without breaking the law.
That doesn't preclude the use of facial animation software. Just animate Keanu Reaves face and - voila! complete lack of believability!
No just, grammar and speling.
I laughed.
Wal-mart is censoring movies and music. CBS, NBC and ABC are censoring TV. ClearChannel is censoring the radio. Barnes and Noble is censoring authors. AT&T is censoring the phone system. Albertsons is censoring food distributors.
Nyah nyah! Boil blood, boil!
Yes, it's important that we only censor based on one arbitrary set of factors than a different arbitrary set of factors.
To all illiterate bloggers - if it actually takes conscious effort on your part to employ proper spelling and grammar, perhaps you should stick with reading blogs, not writing them. (Or just looking at pictures, if reading is too difficult.)
BTW, it's a comment, not a blog.