I have cleaned up and maintained programs from literally hundreds of other programmers.
I have not noticed any sexual bias for bad code. Some people have it and some people do not. I see tons of unneeded and often unused variable with poor names. Databases with numeric fields where text should be and vice versa. Platform or vendor specific techniques where generic ones will do just as well.
Oh yeah, I have seen the deliberate obfuscation. (Ranjeev Dolas where are you?) Splicing assembly code into a 4GL Informix program to make it say "Is the third octet = 192?". It is not hard to see when people have deliberately made things hard for others to figure out, probably all for job security.
Me on the other hand, I know that I will probably be the fool that has to come back to this code later and fix it again. So I add comments to the things I can figure out and even to the things I cannot. Put comments and dates around my fixes. After a while the code starts to look like my own.
My poor code comes from my throw-away programs. The kind you write once to solve a problem today. You run the code once and never expect to touch the code again. Except next month, a really similar tool is needed. Now I go back to my old code, if I can find it, and OMG it looks like a freaking third grade did it with construction paper and crayons. This is my biggest downfall.
Hey, Intel is beating Transmeta at their own game.
You remember Transmeta. Linus worked there. Stock started out around $20/share. I bought $4000 worth. The darn thing tanked, reverse split, and tanked some more. I have about $35 worth of this company now. Yep, rode it all the way down.
But now that Intel is making a realllllly low power processor, it is big news. I hope Transmeta gets some new orders because of this.
Oh yeah, Transmeta claims about a dozen or patents have been infringed upon by Intel in the production of this chip. So we just might have a new SCO. (At least I never bought any SCO stock.)
Whilst working for a bank, they wanted absolute proof that certain Emails that they sent to clients, were, in fact, received. When they found that "return receipt requested" could be turned off by clients, they insisted on another way.
I asked if they did this for paper snail mail. The resounding answer was "Of course not". So I asked why this was any different. They could not come up with a good answer. Their best argument was about paper being a physical medium that they PAID to send, so there was proof that they sent it.
Again I explained that the Email copy in the out box was equivalent proof. They said the data could be deleted. I said that the proof of payment of the snail mail could burn if a fire, or blow away in a hurricane.
Then I realized that management does not function on logic. Supposedly they function to get themselves promoted and get themselves more money. But that does even hold true here.
So, after all that, it was decided, when an Email return receipt is not received, we sent out a paper snail mail to cover our butts.
I dunno. -- I fired them as my employer and have a wonderful job now.
While I might get a salary based on dollars per hour, my company doesn't.
The software I make earns my company money on a "per transaction" basis.
When a program breaks, the network goes down, the database chokes, we STOP MAKING MONEY.
So, of course, I fix things right away.
This is a great business model. The customer wants the programs to do work, so they are very cooperative with providing information. They do not get charged for programming, so if it takes longer than expected, they do not pay more. Each program's "transactions" save our client many man-hours, so they really like results.
This is probably the best client/programmer setup possible. Believe me, in the past, I worked on some projects where the client's contact personnel worked actively to make the project fail.
Do I really want the "polishing" if it isn't part of a major (updated/supported) Linux Distro?
Will updating/upgrading the pre-installed Linux break the tweaks?
I typically reload a computer at least once in it's lifetime, some computers many times. If I can not keep the tweaks between installs/upgrades, then I would rather not have them in the first place. That really just teases me.
Also, Linux is way further along than it was back in the early 90's. Lately, I have had very little problem finding drivers and tweaks for just about every device out there (made in the last 2 years).
My laptop cam with Vista over a year ago, I immediately used GParted, moved the Vista low, repartitioned, added XP, and then Ubuntu.
I have been running this setup for over a year now. I always use Linux when plugging a USB drive, going to an untrusted web-site, or anything even remotely unsafe.
I am pretty sure I have not had anything mal-ware (or even stupid-ware) installed on my laptop.
If you are sick and tired of rebuilding your system every six months or so, you have to follow the rules, just like premarital sex -- ALWAYS WEAR A CONDOM applies here too.
The only annoyance is the updates. If I haven't booted Vista in a few days, or XP for a week or so, I might as well so it can get the updates, because sure as heck an update will be forced when it is most inconvenient.
Google just indexes words, word fragments, and groups of words.
This is an effort (like many others) to create a semantic web.
This means they are trying to discover the MEANING of words and sentences.
Very edgy, dangerous stuff. The MEANING, once extracted, is expressed in still other words.
So SOMEONE determines what a word or group of words mean.
This leads to classifying, identifying, sorting, drawing relations between ideas, concepts, events, animals, machines, planets, science, art, religion, basically everything you can express with words.
This is what the human brain does. And every human brain does it a little bit differently. It is not the things we perceive that define our world and our place in it. It is the interrelations between things.
I have been involved with several search engines, and the TAXONOMY OF KNOWLEDGE is exactly what is wanted/needed.
Is it possible to create one? Sure.
Is it hard? Yep, really, really, really, really hard.
If you created one would it be correct? NO! It would only be ONE PERSON's vision of the relationships of knowledge, but NO ONE PERSON can speak for us all.
Now all I have to say (after this rant) to creators of smart search engines is "GOOD LUCK"!!
I wouldn't touch their code with a 10 meter pole.
Don't wanna see it. Don't wanna run it. Don't care what license it has.
It is already tainted. I am not about to do the work of testing, cleaning and documenting MS code so they can turn around and charge me for my efforts.
Make it buggy and as difficult as possible. That just gives me more work. I can always find a way to make my code work. Even if I have to write some assembly, or a port redirector. Call me a hacker - I don't care, that's a badge of honor.
If it were easy, anybody could do it. Keep it up Microsoft! You will keep me working and making a good wage for years to come. I like doing crossword puzzles too, and making things work on various Windows/Browsers/whatevers is just another puzzle people actually pay me to solve. It is all very cool. Just depends how you look at it.
In the movies, in the classroom, while paying at the cash register.
I read somewhere that youth craves constant companionship and hates being alone.
Well, call me old. I value my solitude. I do not need to be talking to someone every minute of my drive to/from work. Mostly, when my cell phone rings, it is someone asking me to do something for them. So I have no problem turning the thing off for days at a time. Saves on the bill too.
If you do not want to be tracked, take the battery out of your cell phone, drive a car made before 1990 (or about then), obey all traffic laws, use only cash, be polite, but not memorable. (They said something like the last part to Matt Damon in Ocean 11.)
A really evil root kit could conceivably find unused EEPROM in your video card and write itself there. When your system boots, the video card itself provides the hooks and starts the rootkit BEFORE the OS starts. It is the proverbial red pill/blue pill scenario.
However, this has never been seen in the wild, it would definitely be video card specific, and would have a very limited infection rate. So we are actually pretty safe.
Remember the Senate investigation into President Bill Clinton's investigations into his political opponent's backgrounds?
The investigation came down to a presidential staff member asking the Secret Service for a list of who had been in and out of the White House in the last 4 years (previous to Clinton taking office).
Well, the Senate grilled the crap out of a few Secret Service members and all they did was provide a list of people to the president (or his staff) about who had been in and out of HIS house recently.
I believe that after that fiasco, the Secret Service would rather have a system that DOESN'T WORK, rather than one whose data can be used against them (or the president).
I watched the grilling on CSPAN and one Secret Service agent got a new one reamed in front of the whole nation. I bet he is at a post in Alaska now.
I said -- "Life is good. Believe it. It really is true."
I prefer to think of it like this - "Pain is inevitable, Suffering is optional"
Or, "It has been my experience that people are generally just about as happy as they decide they are."
Since I have never had an original idea my my life, I stole these quotes.
Probably 90% of the people out there HATE THEIR JOB.
A lot of them have really crappy, mindless, boring, stinky, dirty, long hours, low paying jobs with jerks for coworkers and even bigger jerks for bosses.
At least you have a desk job that pays well and that you used to like.
You need to go be a cowboy for a week or maybe take a motorcycle ride cross country and then get back to work. (City Slicker, Wild Hogs).
Life is good. Believe it. It really is true.
Find the smartest person there. It isn't hard. They are the one that helps everyone, that person that everyone goes to, the one that never has any time.
Mirror this person's hours, get a desk near theirs, do your darnedest to learn everything they know. When you know everything they know, find an even smarter person and do it again.
Help everyone one can. When everyone depends on you, you become invaluable, people will not be able to function without you. If you truly are smart, not just a lazy person who likes to order others around, you will become the smartest person there. YOU will have the most people willing to help you on YOUR huge projects, you will have the most faculty and staff on your side (there are TONS of politics), YOU will advance faster than your peers.
Then when I start working there, I will situate my cube next to YOURS.
My favorite (btdownloadcurses) din't even make the list!
My favorite runs on the Linux command prompt.
No locking up the X server.
Simple as can be, I can run multiple torrents by opening more command prompts.
It looks like the most popular torrent software is Windows compatible. Go figure.
You are preaching to the choir, man!
When voting, I ALWAYS end up selecting the lesser of two evils.
I would like to see more of a parliamentarian form of government in the U.S.
Most of all, I would like to see the abolishment of "winner take all" rules for electoral votes that some states have.
I could rant for days about different ideas and suggested changes, but this is the gist of it.
Living in Florida, I have seen the Shuttle launch a few times in person.
From about 7 miles away, that thing literally "shakes the sky".
I also like auto racing. The Gatornationals are drag races which include those Nitrous burning funny cars and dragsters. You can get 20 feet away from them down by the fence when they launch. Now those things do not just "shake the sky" --- THE SHAKE YOU. It feels like the dang time-space continuum is being warped and you are too. It is absolutely worth the price of admission (bring earplugs).
So those sound waves getting destructive really are a serious issue!
When I was in Britain last, I noticed how nice the drivers were. They share lanes when people drift, they let people in, no one ever gets mad. Traffic generally flowed better. I thought it was just the stoic British attitude that keeps them from blowing up at each other.
But just lately I realized, they have traffic cameras all over the place!!! You know how you drive when you have a cop behind you? Well, those Brits ALWAYS have a cop behind them.
And you know what? I am not concerned with speeding or breaking the law, I would be happy to just go the speed limit, go when the light turns green and have no one blocking the intersections. If traffic would just flow, I would never have the need to break the speed limit, and then wouldn't care about traffic cams and monitoring.
I have only been able to get windows to run when Grub is physically on the same drive as Windows. This makes me put Windows on the first drive, and Linux on any other drive (including the first). As long as Windows and Grub are on the first drive (and the/boot/menu.lst is visible), Windows boots fine from Grub.
Another note, when booting from Bios (not using Grub), Windows can be on any drive, even if it was installed differently. In other words, if I install Windows to the first drive (/dev/hda) I can later move it to another position in the computer (via cables and/or jumpers) to (/dev/hdb or/dev/hdc) and still successfully boot Windows from Bios. This same thing DOES NOT work in Linux. When installed, Linux knows which drive it was installed on and ALWAYS needs to be on that drive. Look at/etc/fstab and think about it.
Years ago, I had a Tekram HD controller that would let me change the logical locations of the drives in my computer WITHOUT moving wires or jumpers. I could even tell the system that a connected drive was not connected. SWEET. I could boot from ANY drive and set the drive location all through the Tekram Bios. I have not seen a product like this since.
I made my own web-crawler. It follows links and scrapes text off of pages indexes the text into my search engine. I WAS BORED. It surely isn't as good as Google or Yahoo, but it just might get me arrested now. Thank you FBI and our Luddite judges issuing the warrants.
Slashdot Mirror
Me too.
My domain is named for my DOG.
I even got a bill from a shipyard for fixing my yacht or my DOG's yacht, I dunno. I have never seen either of them.
My dog has had a couple of credit cards sent to him, in his name, pre-approved. Those are very cool novelty items.
If you have had a domain since 1995, then you have seen a lot of scammers and stupidity as well.
I have cleaned up and maintained programs from literally hundreds of other programmers.
I have not noticed any sexual bias for bad code. Some people have it and some people do not. I see tons of unneeded and often unused variable with poor names. Databases with numeric fields where text should be and vice versa. Platform or vendor specific techniques where generic ones will do just as well.
Oh yeah, I have seen the deliberate obfuscation. (Ranjeev Dolas where are you?) Splicing assembly code into a 4GL Informix program to make it say "Is the third octet = 192?". It is not hard to see when people have deliberately made things hard for others to figure out, probably all for job security.
Me on the other hand, I know that I will probably be the fool that has to come back to this code later and fix it again. So I add comments to the things I can figure out and even to the things I cannot. Put comments and dates around my fixes. After a while the code starts to look like my own.
My poor code comes from my throw-away programs. The kind you write once to solve a problem today. You run the code once and never expect to touch the code again. Except next month, a really similar tool is needed. Now I go back to my old code, if I can find it, and OMG it looks like a freaking third grade did it with construction paper and crayons. This is my biggest downfall.
GREAT REFERENCE!
I am a contributing member of the American Civil Liberties Union. But they never gave me a card, so I cannot say I am a card carrying member.
I was leaning toward Obama this past year, but this info really make McCain look like a Fascist.
Hey, Intel is beating Transmeta at their own game.
You remember Transmeta. Linus worked there. Stock started out around $20/share. I bought $4000 worth. The darn thing tanked, reverse split, and tanked some more. I have about $35 worth of this company now. Yep, rode it all the way down.
But now that Intel is making a realllllly low power processor, it is big news. I hope Transmeta gets some new orders because of this.
Oh yeah, Transmeta claims about a dozen or patents have been infringed upon by Intel in the production of this chip. So we just might have a new SCO. (At least I never bought any SCO stock.)
PHBs are not logical at all.
Whilst working for a bank, they wanted absolute proof that certain Emails that they sent to clients, were, in fact, received. When they found that "return receipt requested" could be turned off by clients, they insisted on another way.
I asked if they did this for paper snail mail. The resounding answer was "Of course not". So I asked why this was any different. They could not come up with a good answer. Their best argument was about paper being a physical medium that they PAID to send, so there was proof that they sent it.
Again I explained that the Email copy in the out box was equivalent proof. They said the data could be deleted. I said that the proof of payment of the snail mail could burn if a fire, or blow away in a hurricane.
Then I realized that management does not function on logic. Supposedly they function to get themselves promoted and get themselves more money. But that does even hold true here.
So, after all that, it was decided, when an Email return receipt is not received, we sent out a paper snail mail to cover our butts.
I dunno. -- I fired them as my employer and have a wonderful job now.
While I might get a salary based on dollars per hour, my company doesn't.
The software I make earns my company money on a "per transaction" basis.
When a program breaks, the network goes down, the database chokes, we STOP MAKING MONEY.
So, of course, I fix things right away.
This is a great business model. The customer wants the programs to do work, so they are very cooperative with providing information. They do not get charged for programming, so if it takes longer than expected, they do not pay more. Each program's "transactions" save our client many man-hours, so they really like results.
This is probably the best client/programmer setup possible. Believe me, in the past, I worked on some projects where the client's contact personnel worked actively to make the project fail.
Do I really want the "polishing" if it isn't part of a major (updated/supported) Linux Distro?
Will updating/upgrading the pre-installed Linux break the tweaks?
I typically reload a computer at least once in it's lifetime, some computers many times. If I can not keep the tweaks between installs/upgrades, then I would rather not have them in the first place. That really just teases me.
Also, Linux is way further along than it was back in the early 90's. Lately, I have had very little problem finding drivers and tweaks for just about every device out there (made in the last 2 years).
Let's see.
Dead computer thingies:
2 power supplies
2 video cards
3 sticks of RAM
7 hard drives
2 mother boards
1 wireless card
5 cdroms
3 monitors
1 floppy drive
1 partridge in a twisted pair
The list of manufacturers is all across the board.
I have been building my own systems (and scavanging) since 1990.
I have built about 30 computers over the years, so I guess my MTBFs is around the industry average.
If you want, give me the specs. I will write it in C with the MinGW compiler.
I will read the file into a binary tree, have the program do what ever changes, input/output you want, then write back to the flat file any changes.
This should only take about an hour to produce. You can have the source when I am done.
The entire executable will probably be about 40kB when compiled.
I primarily run Linux.
My laptop cam with Vista over a year ago, I immediately used GParted, moved the Vista low, repartitioned, added XP, and then Ubuntu.
I have been running this setup for over a year now. I always use Linux when plugging a USB drive, going to an untrusted web-site, or anything even remotely unsafe.
I am pretty sure I have not had anything mal-ware (or even stupid-ware) installed on my laptop.
If you are sick and tired of rebuilding your system every six months or so, you have to follow the rules, just like premarital sex -- ALWAYS WEAR A CONDOM applies here too.
The only annoyance is the updates. If I haven't booted Vista in a few days, or XP for a week or so, I might as well so it can get the updates, because sure as heck an update will be forced when it is most inconvenient.
Google just indexes words, word fragments, and groups of words.
This is an effort (like many others) to create a semantic web.
This means they are trying to discover the MEANING of words and sentences.
Very edgy, dangerous stuff. The MEANING, once extracted, is expressed in still other words.
So SOMEONE determines what a word or group of words mean.
This leads to classifying, identifying, sorting, drawing relations between ideas, concepts, events, animals, machines, planets, science, art, religion, basically everything you can express with words.
This is what the human brain does. And every human brain does it a little bit differently. It is not the things we perceive that define our world and our place in it. It is the interrelations between things.
I have been involved with several search engines, and the TAXONOMY OF KNOWLEDGE is exactly what is wanted/needed.
Is it possible to create one? Sure.
Is it hard? Yep, really, really, really, really hard.
If you created one would it be correct? NO!
It would only be ONE PERSON's vision of the relationships of knowledge, but NO ONE PERSON can speak for us all.
Now all I have to say (after this rant) to creators of smart search engines is "GOOD LUCK"!!
MS can call their licenses anything they want.
I wouldn't touch their code with a 10 meter pole.
Don't wanna see it. Don't wanna run it. Don't care what license it has.
It is already tainted. I am not about to do the work of testing, cleaning and documenting MS code so they can turn around and charge me for my efforts.
Hurrah!
Make it buggy and as difficult as possible. That just gives me more work. I can always find a way to make my code work. Even if I have to write some assembly, or a port redirector. Call me a hacker - I don't care, that's a badge of honor.
If it were easy, anybody could do it. Keep it up Microsoft! You will keep me working and making a good wage for years to come. I like doing crossword puzzles too, and making things work on various Windows/Browsers/whatevers is just another puzzle people actually pay me to solve. It is all very cool. Just depends how you look at it.
Most people cannot turn their cell phones off.
In the movies, in the classroom, while paying at the cash register.
I read somewhere that youth craves constant companionship and hates being alone. Well, call me old. I value my solitude. I do not need to be talking to someone every minute of my drive to/from work. Mostly, when my cell phone rings, it is someone asking me to do something for them. So I have no problem turning the thing off for days at a time. Saves on the bill too.
If you do not want to be tracked, take the battery out of your cell phone, drive a car made before 1990 (or about then), obey all traffic laws, use only cash, be polite, but not memorable. (They said something like the last part to Matt Damon in Ocean 11.)
A really evil root kit could conceivably find unused EEPROM in your video card and write itself there. When your system boots, the video card itself provides the hooks and starts the rootkit BEFORE the OS starts. It is the proverbial red pill/blue pill scenario.
However, this has never been seen in the wild, it would definitely be video card specific, and would have a very limited infection rate. So we are actually pretty safe.
Remember the Senate investigation into President Bill Clinton's investigations into his political opponent's backgrounds?
The investigation came down to a presidential staff member asking the Secret Service for a list of who had been in and out of the White House in the last 4 years (previous to Clinton taking office).
Well, the Senate grilled the crap out of a few Secret Service members and all they did was provide a list of people to the president (or his staff) about who had been in and out of HIS house recently.
I believe that after that fiasco, the Secret Service would rather have a system that DOESN'T WORK, rather than one whose data can be used against them (or the president).
I watched the grilling on CSPAN and one Secret Service agent got a new one reamed in front of the whole nation. I bet he is at a post in Alaska now.
I actually agree with your post. But read on..
I said -- "Life is good. Believe it. It really is true."
I prefer to think of it like this - "Pain is inevitable, Suffering is optional"
Or, "It has been my experience that people are generally just about as happy as they decide they are."
Since I have never had an original idea my my life, I stole these quotes.
Buck up and be a man! Get you arse to work.
Probably 90% of the people out there HATE THEIR JOB.
A lot of them have really crappy, mindless, boring, stinky, dirty, long hours, low paying jobs with jerks for coworkers and even bigger jerks for bosses.
At least you have a desk job that pays well and that you used to like.
You need to go be a cowboy for a week or maybe take a motorcycle ride cross country and then get back to work. (City Slicker, Wild Hogs).
Life is good. Believe it. It really is true.
Find the smartest person there. It isn't hard. They are the one that helps everyone, that person that everyone goes to, the one that never has any time.
Mirror this person's hours, get a desk near theirs, do your darnedest to learn everything they know. When you know everything they know, find an even smarter person and do it again.
Help everyone one can. When everyone depends on you, you become invaluable, people will not be able to function without you.
If you truly are smart, not just a lazy person who likes to order others around, you will become the smartest person there. YOU will have the most people willing to help you on YOUR huge projects, you will have the most faculty and staff on your side (there are TONS of politics), YOU will advance faster than your peers.
Then when I start working there, I will situate my cube next to YOURS.
My favorite (btdownloadcurses) din't even make the list!
My favorite runs on the Linux command prompt.
No locking up the X server.
Simple as can be, I can run multiple torrents by opening more command prompts.
It looks like the most popular torrent software is Windows compatible. Go figure.
You are preaching to the choir, man!
When voting, I ALWAYS end up selecting the lesser of two evils.
I would like to see more of a parliamentarian form of government in the U.S.
Most of all, I would like to see the abolishment of "winner take all" rules for electoral votes that some states have.
I could rant for days about different ideas and suggested changes, but this is the gist of it.
Living in Florida, I have seen the Shuttle launch a few times in person.
From about 7 miles away, that thing literally "shakes the sky".
I also like auto racing. The Gatornationals are drag races which include those Nitrous burning funny cars and dragsters. You can get 20 feet away from them down by the fence when they launch. Now those things do not just "shake the sky" --- THE SHAKE YOU. It feels like the dang time-space continuum is being warped and you are too. It is absolutely worth the price of admission (bring earplugs).
So those sound waves getting destructive really are a serious issue!
When I was in Britain last, I noticed how nice the drivers were. They share lanes when people drift, they let people in, no one ever gets mad. Traffic generally flowed better. I thought it was just the stoic British attitude that keeps them from blowing up at each other.
But just lately I realized, they have traffic cameras all over the place!!!
You know how you drive when you have a cop behind you? Well, those Brits ALWAYS have a cop behind them.
And you know what? I am not concerned with speeding or breaking the law, I would be happy to just go the speed limit, go when the light turns green and have no one blocking the intersections. If traffic would just flow, I would never have the need to break the speed limit, and then wouldn't care about traffic cams and monitoring.
I have only been able to get windows to run when Grub is physically on the same drive as Windows. This makes me put Windows on the first drive, and Linux on any other drive (including the first). As long as Windows and Grub are on the first drive (and the /boot/menu.lst is visible), Windows boots fine from Grub.
/dev/hdc) and still successfully boot Windows from Bios. This same thing DOES NOT work in Linux. When installed, Linux knows which drive it was installed on and ALWAYS needs to be on that drive. Look at /etc/fstab and think about it.
Another note, when booting from Bios (not using Grub), Windows can be on any drive, even if it was installed differently. In other words, if I install Windows to the first drive (/dev/hda) I can later move it to another position in the computer (via cables and/or jumpers) to (/dev/hdb or
Years ago, I had a Tekram HD controller that would let me change the logical locations of the drives in my computer WITHOUT moving wires or jumpers. I could even tell the system that a connected drive was not connected. SWEET. I could boot from ANY drive and set the drive location all through the Tekram Bios. I have not seen a product like this since.
I made my own web-crawler. It follows links and scrapes text off of pages indexes the text into my search engine. I WAS BORED. It surely isn't as good as Google or Yahoo, but it just might get me arrested now. Thank you FBI and our Luddite judges issuing the warrants.