Right now on my side, just to put things in perspective, i mostly work for fortune 500s, so replacing all of the BI tools of SQL Servers to replicate the features we use would take decades. Replacing our SSIS solutions (which we use to integrate all of the legacy stuff, and various other data source from partners, customers, suppliers, etc) would be, literally, insane and cost several millions, not counting the fact that you can find experienced DTS/SSIS developers when comes the time to hire more people. Finding people to work on custom solutions would mean training, and more. Its not like we were "stuck", as this is rather new in the system right now (well, a few years old, but relatively speaking its new), its just that when doing the cost analysis, wrapping our own SSIS/DTS, or our own version of Analysis services, would require an army of developers.
Simply put, in our situation, saying to replace these services, is like if I told you to make your own RDBMS, or your own operating system, because right now you're "stuck" relying on others. Its literally on the same scale, when you use the full features of data warehousing engines like SQL Server. If you have very specific, or more limited needs, its fine, but when your needs are "infinite", so to speak, you don't go remaking what other companies have already worked on for years using hundreds of programmers.
That, and even the most expensive version of SQL Server gets written off on a check on the corner of a table, so its cost is insignificant.
Considering restoring SQL Server -effectively- is easy enough a 5 years old could do it, and that we have -douzans- of em running at work and that none -ever- crashed in any way, shapes or form, i'd call that robust and dependable, but -even- if it wasn't, PostgreSQL will have a hard time replacing the full integration with Active Directory, the SQL Server Agent, SSIS (thats a big, BIG, =BIG= one) , Reporting Services, and all of the other BI features of SQL Server, on top of all the stellar dev tools that even many expensive 3rd party solutions have issues matching, I have rarely seen companies having headaches with it (and i'm a freelance, so I've seen a -lot- of them).
But if you can do without all of SQL Server's features, then indeed, it is a waste to use it, no argument there. However, many, many companies need them, and even more so, all these tools and more are STILL not enough and we crave for more. Information more valuable than gold, after all.
The thing is, there's a LOT of show stoppers. Individuals will point out different ones, as if they were the only ones, but they're not. For you, its Outlook and Exchange. For someone else, its Office. For my company, its Sharepoint, VSTS and Active Directory, along with SQL Server. Icing on the cake, there's the -integration- of all that.
There are really hundreds of show stoppers. MSO is just the tip of the iceberg.
Didn't I recently hear that Microsoft (or some other company, its really vague) was about to do -just that-? I could have sworn it was on slashdot too.
No, thats the thing. The anti-spywares, anti-viruses, etc...Dell don't pay for that. They MAKE money on it: the users don't even WANT it, if they could keep the same profit margin without putting it on, they would, as they'd sell more. For all practical purpose, putting Windows on the box actually ends up with a negative price tag , something that right now, even "free" linux can't beat.
Part of why the Windows desktops are cheaper is because of the insane amount of crap sponsored to be put on there. A bit like advertisements keeping certain things free (for better or worse). So of course if they go and sell a machine without those (not many crapware marketing in the *nix world), they have to make up the difference somehow, either by raising the price, either on only putting it on high profit margin desktops. Sucks, but thats how it works.
From the way you put it, you make it sound like this is super unlikely. "Might save you from might might might maybe might".
HPV is a desease thats an insane majority of the population has or will get, so there's no "maybe" about it except on the cancer part, cancer which is deadly, and that doesn't count all of the other things HPV is responsible for (which are mostly annoyances, mind you). If HPV only affected 15% of the population, it would be one thing. But when you're talking about 3 quarter of the population, its beyond the limit where a decision has to be made for the population.
If the vast majority of the population wasn't made of total retards, we could leave it to individuals to decide: unfortunately, thats not the case.
Thank you. Someone gets it, and thats exactly what I meant.
When I see "Experience with XML", i'm wondering, do they mean knowing the actual concept of XML, including namespaces, etc? Do they mean using XML as a basic data transfer format, ala Web Service? Do they mean using XML as a near database? Or do they mean full blown programming with XPath, DOM, XSLT, etc?
I've seen all 3, and more (I -have- seen job offers for programmers with 4+ years exp in XML that only wanted people to be able to read XML config files!).
Confusing as hell, and its hard to take seriously. But back before I knew all the APIs, I -did- write XML as one of my skills, just to catch the gullibles buzzword crazy HR guys to leech off of them. Worked once or twice.
Hahaha, well, of course! Seriously though, I was suggesting that anyone and everyone could use it as an excuse. "My boss said he fired me for XYZ, but he was firing me cuz of my addiction to porn!"
If sex additiction is a valid argument to raise when you're about to get fired, no men would EVER get fired. And then we'd have issues with equality between sex and blah.
Funny thing is that what you said sounds frighteningly close to what people say (hell, i'm one of em) against Linux being ready for the desktop. I don't know if its intentional or not, but I guess typical slashdotters should rejoice.
Its probably anything run through Windows Installer. In my opinion, the simple thing to do is, in the next version, for the -installer- to tell the user which level of priviledge it needs (a bit like Java applets or whatever).
Or, even easier: If your program doesn't required admin to install, its probably fairly simple: Use another installer software. Hey, it makes a market for third partys, too.
Disclaimer: This is all based on the wild guess that Windows treats Windows Installer in a special way: how else could it detect an installer from another software? I mean, what if its an exe that just XCOPY
Sorry, but when I "blew my money on hardware", there was 1) no way for me to test with a real game of the future. I don't have a time machine, and 2) If the developers would catch on and use Nvidia's proprietary "extensions" (for lack of better term) as opposed to using the standard API was as good a guess as any. If they had released something similar the generation before, the developers -would- have done it, but ATI picked that generation to become great(er), and thus developers told Nvidia to screw themselves.
In other words: without a time machine, there was no way to verify it. AND Nvidia didn't change (much) since then, as shown by them being yet again incredibly behind with their driver implementations.
Nvidia lost all credibility with their predictions when they brushed off the 3D Mark benchmarks of their FX line of cards, stating that developers would use the Nvidia specific optimisations, and thus that the performance with the generic stuff was irrelevent. We all know how that ended::stares at his FX 5900 Ultra that can't even run Oblivion well enough to be entertaining without third party hackish solutions, and even then::
Its just a sad attempt at justifying their garbage Vista drivers, I feel like. On the other hand, how bad Vista's backward compatibility is, is simply inexcusable in this case.
Different needs, different environments. I'm sure PHP, MySQL, HTML, Javascript and Ajax are all you need. Unfortunately, it certain environments, its nowhere close. Advanced report engines (writting up your own report by outputting some html doesn't cut it for the advanced stuff, sorry!), advanced XML manipulation at the RDBMS level, workflow orchestration, datamining, enterprise integration, etc etc etc... Technically all possible if you want to spend months reinventing the wheel, but it simply won't cut it with those tools for most of us needing these features.
Different needs, different tools. As it would be -retarded- to pump out the IIS/ActiveDirectory/SQL Server/ASP.NET to make a blog engine or a web site like Slashdot, it would be totally rediculous to do certain kinds of enterprise integrated solutions in PHP/MySQL...
Wait, what? Is it only present in the crappy versions or something? I installed and activated MS Office 2007 Ultimate a few days ago, and while I -do- have a windows live account, I never had to provide it. It was literally like Office 2003. They asked to activate, I clicked "OK" or something, and that was it.
Well, to be fair, its because Windows uses "discovery" a lot. It has like 50 bazillion ways to find a server, and the IP is just one of em...so 2 minutes is while it tries them all, in case a configuration change.
You SHOULD have an option to force it to only use one particular method, because the above scenario is rare. Oh well >.> Didn't have network issues in ages where I work, so it worked fine for us:)
I'm a microsoft fanboy myself...but.... if the network is down or having problems, Sharepoint and Team System stop working: thus, Office users, except those in smaller companies that keep everything in My Documents, are screwed -either way-.
Hell, even in smaller companies, My Document is quite commonly on a network drive, for backup purposes.
So true, and I'm a victim of that amazing marketing myself. Everything feels better on the Wii. I'm sure its just an illusion...but in the end, its what videogames are for in the first place.
Microsoft probably should hire Nintendo to market Vista or something:)
In this day and age, Myst-like games have a lot of trouble getting through to the mass... The mass simply doesn't like hard games. They want to be spoon fed, and they don't want to have to think. The only real challenge you'll ever see involves button mashing in the right order, and aiming well, and while they require a lot of skill (more than I have!) in their own right, it is a different skillset entirely.
Puzzle games that make you think don't have a place anymore, in a world where if there's no walkthrough or FAQ about a game, it is considered "frustrating and impossible".
You're right, to some extent... _some_ concepts of software engineerings require the fundamentals, I suppose...but the majority of it doesn't require it. Software architecture, for example, has no "CS" in it whatsoever, and its probably the most important part....
Bingo. CS is dying because of the lack of software engineering classes. There -is- a definite need for computer scientists. However, its totally crazy that 90% of computer related programs in college are CS, when the need for software developers, analysts, software architects and software engineers trump it 10:1. So you have a ton of people who end up taking a CS degree, and because of the market's needs, work as software engineers or whatsnot, thus inevitably ending in a "Wow, what I learnt in school is useless!" (when its not, its just that the 1794012740912709124 people who have more experience got the interesting CS jobs first...), and thus, interests die.
If the people who want to do software developement had more options in college, and could go in that direction, there would actualy be some room left for CS...
Slashdot Mirror
Makes sense.
Right now on my side, just to put things in perspective, i mostly work for fortune 500s, so replacing all of the BI tools of SQL Servers to replicate the features we use would take decades. Replacing our SSIS solutions (which we use to integrate all of the legacy stuff, and various other data source from partners, customers, suppliers, etc) would be, literally, insane and cost several millions, not counting the fact that you can find experienced DTS/SSIS developers when comes the time to hire more people. Finding people to work on custom solutions would mean training, and more. Its not like we were "stuck", as this is rather new in the system right now (well, a few years old, but relatively speaking its new), its just that when doing the cost analysis, wrapping our own SSIS/DTS, or our own version of Analysis services, would require an army of developers.
Simply put, in our situation, saying to replace these services, is like if I told you to make your own RDBMS, or your own operating system, because right now you're "stuck" relying on others. Its literally on the same scale, when you use the full features of data warehousing engines like SQL Server. If you have very specific, or more limited needs, its fine, but when your needs are "infinite", so to speak, you don't go remaking what other companies have already worked on for years using hundreds of programmers.
That, and even the most expensive version of SQL Server gets written off on a check on the corner of a table, so its cost is insignificant.
Considering restoring SQL Server -effectively- is easy enough a 5 years old could do it, and that we have -douzans- of em running at work and that none -ever- crashed in any way, shapes or form, i'd call that robust and dependable, but -even- if it wasn't, PostgreSQL will have a hard time replacing the full integration with Active Directory, the SQL Server Agent, SSIS (thats a big, BIG, =BIG= one) , Reporting Services, and all of the other BI features of SQL Server, on top of all the stellar dev tools that even many expensive 3rd party solutions have issues matching, I have rarely seen companies having headaches with it (and i'm a freelance, so I've seen a -lot- of them).
But if you can do without all of SQL Server's features, then indeed, it is a waste to use it, no argument there. However, many, many companies need them, and even more so, all these tools and more are STILL not enough and we crave for more. Information more valuable than gold, after all.
The thing is, there's a LOT of show stoppers. Individuals will point out different ones, as if they were the only ones, but they're not. For you, its Outlook and Exchange. For someone else, its Office. For my company, its Sharepoint, VSTS and Active Directory, along with SQL Server. Icing on the cake, there's the -integration- of all that.
There are really hundreds of show stoppers. MSO is just the tip of the iceberg.
Didn't I recently hear that Microsoft (or some other company, its really vague) was about to do -just that-? I could have sworn it was on slashdot too.
No, thats the thing. The anti-spywares, anti-viruses, etc...Dell don't pay for that. They MAKE money on it: the users don't even WANT it, if they could keep the same profit margin without putting it on, they would, as they'd sell more. For all practical purpose, putting Windows on the box actually ends up with a negative price tag , something that right now, even "free" linux can't beat.
Part of why the Windows desktops are cheaper is because of the insane amount of crap sponsored to be put on there. A bit like advertisements keeping certain things free (for better or worse). So of course if they go and sell a machine without those (not many crapware marketing in the *nix world), they have to make up the difference somehow, either by raising the price, either on only putting it on high profit margin desktops. Sucks, but thats how it works.
From the way you put it, you make it sound like this is super unlikely. "Might save you from might might might maybe might".
HPV is a desease thats an insane majority of the population has or will get, so there's no "maybe" about it except on the cancer part, cancer which is deadly, and that doesn't count all of the other things HPV is responsible for (which are mostly annoyances, mind you). If HPV only affected 15% of the population, it would be one thing. But when you're talking about 3 quarter of the population, its beyond the limit where a decision has to be made for the population.
If the vast majority of the population wasn't made of total retards, we could leave it to individuals to decide: unfortunately, thats not the case.
Thank you. Someone gets it, and thats exactly what I meant.
When I see "Experience with XML", i'm wondering, do they mean knowing the actual concept of XML, including namespaces, etc? Do they mean using XML as a basic data transfer format, ala Web Service? Do they mean using XML as a near database? Or do they mean full blown programming with XPath, DOM, XSLT, etc?
I've seen all 3, and more (I -have- seen job offers for programmers with 4+ years exp in XML that only wanted people to be able to read XML config files!).
Confusing as hell, and its hard to take seriously. But back before I knew all the APIs, I -did- write XML as one of my skills, just to catch the gullibles buzzword crazy HR guys to leech off of them. Worked once or twice.
The worse is job descriptions that asks for "Experience working with XML".
Doing -what- with XML?! Thats so freakin generic, sometimes I wonder if I should put "experience with flat text files" on my resume...
Hahaha, well, of course! Seriously though, I was suggesting that anyone and everyone could use it as an excuse. "My boss said he fired me for XYZ, but he was firing me cuz of my addiction to porn!"
If sex additiction is a valid argument to raise when you're about to get fired, no men would EVER get fired. And then we'd have issues with equality between sex and blah.
Funny thing is that what you said sounds frighteningly close to what people say (hell, i'm one of em) against Linux being ready for the desktop. I don't know if its intentional or not, but I guess typical slashdotters should rejoice.
Its probably anything run through Windows Installer. In my opinion, the simple thing to do is, in the next version, for the -installer- to tell the user which level of priviledge it needs (a bit like Java applets or whatever).
Or, even easier: If your program doesn't required admin to install, its probably fairly simple: Use another installer software. Hey, it makes a market for third partys, too.
Disclaimer: This is all based on the wild guess that Windows treats Windows Installer in a special way: how else could it detect an installer from another software? I mean, what if its an exe that just XCOPY
Sorry, but when I "blew my money on hardware", there was 1) no way for me to test with a real game of the future. I don't have a time machine, and 2) If the developers would catch on and use Nvidia's proprietary "extensions" (for lack of better term) as opposed to using the standard API was as good a guess as any. If they had released something similar the generation before, the developers -would- have done it, but ATI picked that generation to become great(er), and thus developers told Nvidia to screw themselves.
In other words: without a time machine, there was no way to verify it. AND Nvidia didn't change (much) since then, as shown by them being yet again incredibly behind with their driver implementations.
Nvidia lost all credibility with their predictions when they brushed off the 3D Mark benchmarks of their FX line of cards, stating that developers would use the Nvidia specific optimisations, and thus that the performance with the generic stuff was irrelevent. We all know how that ended ::stares at his FX 5900 Ultra that can't even run Oblivion well enough to be entertaining without third party hackish solutions, and even then::
Its just a sad attempt at justifying their garbage Vista drivers, I feel like. On the other hand, how bad Vista's backward compatibility is, is simply inexcusable in this case.
Different needs, different environments. I'm sure PHP, MySQL, HTML, Javascript and Ajax are all you need. Unfortunately, it certain environments, its nowhere close. Advanced report engines (writting up your own report by outputting some html doesn't cut it for the advanced stuff, sorry!), advanced XML manipulation at the RDBMS level, workflow orchestration, datamining, enterprise integration, etc etc etc... Technically all possible if you want to spend months reinventing the wheel, but it simply won't cut it with those tools for most of us needing these features.
Different needs, different tools. As it would be -retarded- to pump out the IIS/ActiveDirectory/SQL Server/ASP.NET to make a blog engine or a web site like Slashdot, it would be totally rediculous to do certain kinds of enterprise integrated solutions in PHP/MySQL...
Wait, what? Is it only present in the crappy versions or something? I installed and activated MS Office 2007 Ultimate a few days ago, and while I -do- have a windows live account, I never had to provide it. It was literally like Office 2003. They asked to activate, I clicked "OK" or something, and that was it.
Well, to be fair, its because Windows uses "discovery" a lot. It has like 50 bazillion ways to find a server, and the IP is just one of em...so 2 minutes is while it tries them all, in case a configuration change.
:)
You SHOULD have an option to force it to only use one particular method, because the above scenario is rare. Oh well >.> Didn't have network issues in ages where I work, so it worked fine for us
I'm a microsoft fanboy myself...but.... if the network is down or having problems, Sharepoint and Team System stop working: thus, Office users, except those in smaller companies that keep everything in My Documents, are screwed -either way-.
Hell, even in smaller companies, My Document is quite commonly on a network drive, for backup purposes.
So true, and I'm a victim of that amazing marketing myself. Everything feels better on the Wii. I'm sure its just an illusion...but in the end, its what videogames are for in the first place.
:)
Microsoft probably should hire Nintendo to market Vista or something
In this day and age, Myst-like games have a lot of trouble getting through to the mass... The mass simply doesn't like hard games. They want to be spoon fed, and they don't want to have to think. The only real challenge you'll ever see involves button mashing in the right order, and aiming well, and while they require a lot of skill (more than I have!) in their own right, it is a different skillset entirely.
Puzzle games that make you think don't have a place anymore, in a world where if there's no walkthrough or FAQ about a game, it is considered "frustrating and impossible".
I guess its better than China, which as far as I can tell, is totally clone from closeups on both google maps and local.live
You're right, to some extent... _some_ concepts of software engineerings require the fundamentals, I suppose...but the majority of it doesn't require it. Software architecture, for example, has no "CS" in it whatsoever, and its probably the most important part....
Bingo. CS is dying because of the lack of software engineering classes. There -is- a definite need for computer scientists. However, its totally crazy that 90% of computer related programs in college are CS, when the need for software developers, analysts, software architects and software engineers trump it 10:1. So you have a ton of people who end up taking a CS degree, and because of the market's needs, work as software engineers or whatsnot, thus inevitably ending in a "Wow, what I learnt in school is useless!" (when its not, its just that the 1794012740912709124 people who have more experience got the interesting CS jobs first...), and thus, interests die.
If the people who want to do software developement had more options in college, and could go in that direction, there would actualy be some room left for CS...
You're absolutely right! God thing I specifically said I wasn't good, else some people might get the wrong idea. Oh, wait...