I think the OP has commendable perspective. Microsoft is a convicted illegal monopolist. Taking a stand against them in the way presented is no more unbelievable than choosing to not work for a defense contractor, if you're opposed to warfare.
They use idiot computers [SNIP] BY the way!!!!!!!! Can someone tell me why I cannot separate paragraphs while logged into my account? I can do it without logging in Anonymously ?????????
You must be using one of them thar idiot computers. >;->
Frankly Intel should have been busted just like MSFT
It sounds like they were. Microsoft got away with a slap on the wrist; there was no remedy in the PC market that removed their monopoly, or it's influence. By the time the Microsoft trial concluded, the damage was done, so major intervention would have been required. Even Judge Jackson's remedies were a little on the soft side, and they got overturned for much weaker ones.
The one thing Intel didn't get was the "convicted illegal monopolist" label, which really hasn't hurt Microsoft much. People still have the mistaken impression that Gates is some kind of technical genius and Microsoft must make really good products or it wouldn't be so big. I agree that Intel should have gotten the label, if it was unfairly influencing the markets.
Twelve weeks is a specious number. Interns (i.e., no life) given an interesting project (and they're more likely to be interesting to interns) or trying to impress will often put in 80+ hours a week, so 12 weeks can easily mean 24 or 36 weeks. Granted there'll be some time wasted due to lack of knowledge, but that'll be more than compensated for in poor quality; Not necessarily in terms of errors, but quality in terms of usability by whoever takes over after the internship term ends. (Maybe Apple had to hire the intern.) As someone else posted, "Free lunch!" Indeed!
IOW, the real news has very little to do with the inaccurate, misleading title.
So why are you here? Feel free to go somewhere else; I'm sure there are plenty of Windows advocacy sites, or you can stay on the more balanced sites, that you mentioned.
Maybe you're an astroturfer. It's hard to tell, but/. is starting to resemble comp.os.os2.misc in the mid to late '90s. A lot of paid MS shills posting FUD and specious arguments, with no logical reason to be visiting the group.:-(
they'll find a zero day for whatever OS the target is using and then hit it.
... and this one was on Windows. Did I mention Linux anywhere in my post. ??? Is it the first item on the script you Windows fanbois are given for replies to posts like mine? I'll have to give Microsoft credit; they've always been good at astroturfing, even on Usenet back in the '90s.
Books Peopleware by DeMarco and Lister (and any of their other books) Capers Jones' latest book. Gerald Weinberg's books. The Inmates Are Running The Asylum by Alan Cooper (UI design) Software Engineering Economics by Barry Boehm (somewhat redundant with Capers Jones, but still a good read)
Technology Keep current with latest trends to stay employable. Unfortunately, not many companies hire software engineers; they hire technology experience. If you get tired of laboring at the 3GL "abstraction level" (Capers Jones' data will reveal the need for quotes), you should look at Executable UML as described in the like named book by Stephen Mellor and Marc Balcer. Other authors in this field are Leon Starr and H.S. Lahman (Model-Based Development), and another book by Chris Raistrick, Paul Francis, John Wright, Colin Carter and Ian Wilkie.
civilized labour law that includes no firing without cause after a probation period, paid annual vacation, paid overtime, and other laws that are simply fair and levelling the playing field
Making it hard to fire people is a bad idea, since it makes hiring mistakes far more expensive.
This is the wrong point of view. It is a good idea, because it makes your hiring practices better. Poor hiring practices are much easier to compensate for than the disruption caused by continuous change in personnel.
No huge burden on the internet seller. They probably have computers, which should be able to read the value of buyer's billing address' state and look up the tax rate in a table. The hardest part is maintaining the tax rate table, which the internet seller should shift the burden of updating back to the states. Again this could be automated, as the states probably have computers as well. This is why the daylight savings argument concerning business dealings with Indiana was such bullshit. Most businesses that do interstate commerce have computers that can tell them what time it is in another state. They also don't seem to have any problems dealing with India, Japan, China, and other companies that don't observe DST.
The immediate side effect is that there will not be any mosquitoes.
No serious negative repercussions are known to exist for such an event beyond that the diet of certain types of insect predators would be affected (fortunately for such predators, their diet is not exclusively dependent on the species of mosquito that this concept intends to render extinct).
This is wrong. Mosquitoes and like insects (ticks) can spread life-threatening sicknesses to species with a marked lack of natural predators (man or deer (in the Midwestern USA for example)). This helps to keep their populations in check. Removing another check increases the imbalance and leads to a greater consumption of limited natural resources. The over consumption of resources will ultimately balance the scales, but at a much higher cost. Starvation already kills more people than malaria by close to 10x. If the malaria deaths are removed from the equation, does starvation increase by a factor of.1, 2, 10,...?
Hate to burst anyone's bubble (not really), but people tend to hang out with like-minded people, even on the internet. If you don't like some of the -bashing that you perceive on/. or the political bias you perceive, GO SOMEWHERE ELSE! The internet is a pretty big place. I'm sure you can find some politically and technology oriented site that better matches your POV. If not, you can always create one. This isn't a human rights issue.
Anyone who thinks a site with the name, slashdot (/.), isn't going to have some *NIX bias is too stupid to come here anyway.
The article's author and many of the posters would benefit by reading Capers Jones' books on the subject of software metrics. Yes, the software industry does need them, and yes, metrics will prove a lot of developer's ideas on how to build software wrong. Right now the software industry is flailing around; spitting out new languages like monkey's typing at keyboards hoping to reproduce Shakespeare.
It costs billions and takes years to develop some software, as well. The trouble is that most software development isn't tracked by good metrics and most software developers tend to undervalue their time.
I don't believe in software patents, but dismissing them based on costs is a specious argument.
Ignore the "3 letter" wording, and the OP is right to state that using the file extension to determine file type is a problem, mostly confined to Windows and OS X today.
Slashdot Mirror
Just look at the author's bio. Free advertising/advocacy has been going on in the computer magazines for as long as I can remember.
I think the OP has commendable perspective. Microsoft is a convicted illegal monopolist. Taking a stand against them in the way presented is no more unbelievable than choosing to not work for a defense contractor, if you're opposed to warfare.
They use idiot computers [SNIP] BY the way!!!!!!!! Can someone tell me why I cannot separate paragraphs while logged into my account? I can do it without logging in Anonymously ?????????
You must be using one of them thar idiot computers. >;->
Frankly Intel should have been busted just like MSFT
It sounds like they were. Microsoft got away with a slap on the wrist; there was no remedy in the PC market that removed their monopoly, or it's influence. By the time the Microsoft trial concluded, the damage was done, so major intervention would have been required. Even Judge Jackson's remedies were a little on the soft side, and they got overturned for much weaker ones.
The one thing Intel didn't get was the "convicted illegal monopolist" label, which really hasn't hurt Microsoft much. People still have the mistaken impression that Gates is some kind of technical genius and Microsoft must make really good products or it wouldn't be so big. I agree that Intel should have gotten the label, if it was unfairly influencing the markets.
Twelve weeks is a specious number. Interns (i.e., no life) given an interesting project (and they're more likely to be interesting to interns) or trying to impress will often put in 80+ hours a week, so 12 weeks can easily mean 24 or 36 weeks. Granted there'll be some time wasted due to lack of knowledge, but that'll be more than compensated for in poor quality; Not necessarily in terms of errors, but quality in terms of usability by whoever takes over after the internship term ends. (Maybe Apple had to hire the intern.) As someone else posted, "Free lunch!" Indeed!
IOW, the real news has very little to do with the inaccurate, misleading title.
So why are you here? Feel free to go somewhere else; I'm sure there are plenty of Windows advocacy sites, or you can stay on the more balanced sites, that you mentioned.
Maybe you're an astroturfer. It's hard to tell, but /. is starting to resemble comp.os.os2.misc in the mid to late '90s. A lot of paid MS shills posting FUD and specious arguments, with no logical reason to be visiting the group. :-(
Especially since the findings in the article only reveal what the Spider-Man comics have been telling us for years.
spider silk can be either stretchy or stiff at different times, which produces threads that flex and then snap in just the right way
they'll find a zero day for whatever OS the target is using and then hit it.
... and this one was on Windows. Did I mention Linux anywhere in my post. ??? Is it the first item on the script you Windows fanbois are given for replies to posts like mine? I'll have to give Microsoft credit; they've always been good at astroturfing, even on Usenet back in the '90s.
Books
Peopleware by DeMarco and Lister (and any of their other books)
Capers Jones' latest book.
Gerald Weinberg's books.
The Inmates Are Running The Asylum by Alan Cooper (UI design)
Software Engineering Economics by Barry Boehm (somewhat redundant with Capers Jones, but still a good read)
Technology
Keep current with latest trends to stay employable. Unfortunately, not many companies hire software engineers; they hire technology experience.
If you get tired of laboring at the 3GL "abstraction level" (Capers Jones' data will reveal the need for quotes), you should look at Executable UML as described in the like named book by Stephen Mellor and Marc Balcer. Other authors in this field are Leon Starr and H.S. Lahman (Model-Based Development), and another book by Chris Raistrick, Paul Francis, John Wright, Colin Carter and Ian Wilkie.
... for using Windows.
This is the same reason Windows has a monopoly on the PC. (Along with the illegal use of monopoly power, natch.)
civilized labour law that includes no firing without cause after a probation period, paid annual vacation, paid overtime, and other laws that are simply fair and levelling the playing field
Making it hard to fire people is a bad idea, since it makes hiring mistakes far more expensive.
This is the wrong point of view. It is a good idea, because it makes your hiring practices better. Poor hiring practices are much easier to compensate for than the disruption caused by continuous change in personnel.
No huge burden on the internet seller. They probably have computers, which should be able to read the value of buyer's billing address' state and look up the tax rate in a table. The hardest part is maintaining the tax rate table, which the internet seller should shift the burden of updating back to the states. Again this could be automated, as the states probably have computers as well. This is why the daylight savings argument concerning business dealings with Indiana was such bullshit. Most businesses that do interstate commerce have computers that can tell them what time it is in another state. They also don't seem to have any problems dealing with India, Japan, China, and other companies that don't observe DST.
We had a bunch of Commodore Pets at our school. We had a math teacher that started a programming class using those in the 1980-82 time frame.
The immediate side effect is that there will not be any mosquitoes.
No serious negative repercussions are known to exist for such an event beyond that the diet of certain types of insect predators would be affected (fortunately for such predators, their diet is not exclusively dependent on the species of mosquito that this concept intends to render extinct).
This is wrong. Mosquitoes and like insects (ticks) can spread life-threatening sicknesses to species with a marked lack of natural predators (man or deer (in the Midwestern USA for example)). This helps to keep their populations in check. Removing another check increases the imbalance and leads to a greater consumption of limited natural resources. The over consumption of resources will ultimately balance the scales, but at a much higher cost. Starvation already kills more people than malaria by close to 10x. If the malaria deaths are removed from the equation, does starvation increase by a factor of .1, 2, 10, ...?
Hate to burst anyone's bubble (not really), but people tend to hang out with like-minded people, even on the internet. If you don't like some of the -bashing that you perceive on /. or the political bias you perceive, GO SOMEWHERE ELSE! The internet is a pretty big place. I'm sure you can find some politically and technology oriented site that better matches your POV. If not, you can always create one. This isn't a human rights issue.
Anyone who thinks a site with the name, slashdot (/.), isn't going to have some *NIX bias is too stupid to come here anyway.
The article's author and many of the posters would benefit by reading Capers Jones' books on the subject of software metrics. Yes, the software industry does need them, and yes, metrics will prove a lot of developer's ideas on how to build software wrong. Right now the software industry is flailing around; spitting out new languages like monkey's typing at keyboards hoping to reproduce Shakespeare.
Shouldn't it be measured in cubic kilometers?
It costs billions and take years to develop drugs
It costs billions and takes years to develop some software, as well. The trouble is that most software development isn't tracked by good metrics and most software developers tend to undervalue their time.
I don't believe in software patents, but dismissing them based on costs is a specious argument.
Ignore the "3 letter" wording, and the OP is right to state that using the file extension to determine file type is a problem, mostly confined to Windows and OS X today.
At the end of the day, your life happiness will not be dominated by your career.
What if being called a programmer makes you happy? ;-)
Windows still has the market share it did before the antitrust case.
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp
There are many other corroborating sites.
This site, http://www.startreknewvoyages.com/, still runs on OS/2, many others can be found at http://www.os2world.com/
Go figure.
degrees as a sign that a candidate can self-organise and work to a high standard
More likely, employers like (undergrad) degrees as a sign that you can follow direction and think inside the box.