Yes, I know. My point was about not using Oracle-specific syntax and using SQL92 compliant syntax instead. Case statements and Oracle's decode function both do the same thing, but case statements work in nearly all databases whereas decode only works in Oracle.
Some seasoned Oracle people will still use the old syntax out of habit. But as I said in my original post, if one does some investigation there is usually a SQL92 compliant way to accomplish something where you would have used an Oracle-specific way before.
Our biggest headache before Oracle 9 was supporting Oracle 8's non-standard syntax for outer joins. That meant a lot of duplication between our query catalogs. Oracle 9 supported the standard syntax and we were able to remove most of the Oracle-specific queries.
In my experience it's not much harder to support Oracle if you are already supporting Postgres provided that you are using at least Oracle 9 and your apps is well designed to support multiple databases. At work I do some development on a Java-based CMS that has backend support for both Oracle and Postgres. All of the queries are in XML files that the developers call query catalogs. In the code we call queries by name, such as listUsers, and them populate the parameters before executing. Pardon me if this some standard Java technique. I'm still relatively new to Java and haven't seen this before.
Anyway, we have two query catalogs: "sql92" and "oracle". What's nice about the way the system is set up is that we put new SQL queries into the sql92 catalog unless we need to use something Oracle specific (very rare). In that rare case we write the sql92 query and then write an identically named query in the Oracle catalog with the Oracle syntax. When the system is configured to talk to Oracle, it looks into the oracle query catalog first and if it doesn't find the named query there it looks for it in the sql92 catalog. The result is that we can support both databases with minimal duplication. 99% of the queries are in the sql92 catalog. We've found that whenever you want to use an Oracle-ism then applying some thought will usually reveal another way to handle the problem that works in both databases. Example: using case statements instead of Oracle's decode.
Schemas are a different story. The datatypes and details are different enough that we have to keep two copies of the files to create the schema and the schema updates. However, these files aren't changed that much. Also, if you are familiar with Oracle's PL/SQL then Postgres's PL/pgSQL isn't much different.
Because of the way things are abstracted in our app it appears that it would be easy to add support for other databases as needed. It's sure been a breeze to support both Oracle and Postgres.
Just to be clear, I'm using functionality of the end product as my measure of success or failure. It appears that you are using loss of life as your measure.
No one was killed in the Tacoma Narrows Bridge Disaster. One person has already died as the reult of shoddy practices on the Big Dig.
So what? People have lost their lives because of other engineering mistakes. The fact is that the big dig is still functioning despite the mistakes. The Tacoma Narrows Bridge was destroyed and unusable because of the engineering mistakes. That's a larger engineering screwup than the big dig currently is.
Also, the original Tacoma Narrows Bridge probably cost, at most, hundreds of thousands of Pre-WWII dollars. The Big Dig has already cost over $14 billion.
What does the cost have to do with being a engineering mistake? Excessive cost could just as easily be a factor based on bad management or corruption.
There simply isn't an adequate analogy for this situation, as nothing else is like an unsecured access point. Please stop comparing them as such.
OK, I'll try.
Where I live homes aren't more than about 15-20 feet from the street. A neighbor has a bright outdoor light on their house and they often leave it on late at night or all night long. One evening while walking down the street I notice that the light is so bright that I can sit on the curb of the street and read a book by the light. So I do. Is it unethical for me to be using their light to read my book?
Both a wireless access point and the bright house light are radiating energy, just at different wavelengths (one visible light, the other radio waves). I'm not on their property. They are paying for generating the light but as the light spills onto the street they can't do much to reclaim that escaping energy, no more than someone could do to limit where the wireless AP's signal goes. Meaning, they can turn down the intensity of the light just as they could lower their wireless AP's signal until the signal isn't available outside of the house.
it's a stunning example of what you can do when you actually planned the full 5 seasons, and managed to actually produce all five of them before someone dropped the axe and made you rush your plot to close in like, season 3 or 4.
But I thought that was what happened. Didn't JMS write the story for six seasons but was dicked around by the movie studios and had to shorten it to five? I remember at one point it wasn't clear if even the last season would be made.
So he had subject matter experts that were already helping him but he ignored them in favour of using Wikipedia? This sounds more like a breakdown in his process than a problem with Wikipedia. Why didn't he shoot out an email to all of the translators telling them what he was doing and asking for them to email him how the language is written in their own language? At the very least why didn't he email his self-researched list out to all of the translators for review before finalizing things?
Considering the poor state of many of the Freedb entries, is that data really useful? I've been volunteering with the MusicBrainz project since October and I've found the data at Freedb to be a complete mess. MusicBrainz users can use Freedb to import albums so that we don't have to re-enter things into MusicBrainz by hand, but with so many duplicate and poorly edited entries (typos, etc) I'm wondering if it's worth it to even keep the data.
MusicBrainz is a better designed system. It's not limited to the archaic interface and design of the old CDDB system. It has interfaces that programmers can use to retrieve the same kind of data that they get from Freedb. The site also has a system in place for editing of entries and peer review of changes. I think it's a better solution, although I'm biased because of my involvement and interest with the project.
Sure whatever regulation you came up with might be inconvenient and imperfect, but at least someone wouldn't gamble away all their money in a single night.
Since when should someone tell someone else what they should do with their money? Let them piss it all away in one night if they want. It's their money and they can do what they want to with it, be it giving it all away, spending it on gambling, using it as a downpayment on a house, or putting it into their savings or an IRA.
Yes, after all, garbage collection has not yet been invented. OR HAS IT, FUCKTARD?
Garbage collection only works when there are no more references to an object. If the programmer made a msitake and isn't releasing all references then the garbage collector won't release all of the memory hald by those object.
Maybe the olympic committee should assign swimwear that everyone has to wear. That way you even teh playing field. Surely they could afford some swimwear with all that cash they are raking in.
Not only that but what does this have to do with being online, or even computers and technology for that matter? I agree with another poster that creating a Slashdot Legal section would be a great idea.
I replied as I usually do, indicating it's "months rather than years", making it clear that the way to interpret that comment is that it's double-digit months and not September!"
At the moment it does, and only because of extensive effort to reverse engineer the format. What if the format changes in a future version? If governments use some newer version of Office to create a document, and OpenOffice can't open that then should citizens just wait for OpenOffice to reverse engineer the new format? How long could that take?
I should clarify first that I'm talking about everything below in the context of where things are placed on the map that the article links to. The core of my argument is that Mono needs to be placed elsewhere on the map, maybe in the Novell front lines. It shouldn't be in the Free Software front lines on the map.
I think linvir meant "Pardon my bias, which is thinly veiled, poorly."
Does that help?
Not really. It's still oblique wording that doesn't communicate well what he was he's trying to say. It insinuates that I was attemping to be dishonest or evasive. I found his statement to be unclear and I was hoping he would respond and be blunt and clear about what he meant. The reference to Wikipedia did answer all my questions though.
Everyone has biases. I wasn't attempting to hide or veil anything. I was truly speaking from a position of ignorance. I'm not a professional programmer. My day to day programming experiences are limited more to writing the occasional shell and Perl scripts. Consequently I don't keep up with what is going on in the world of programming languages and professional software development.
That facts as I understood them was that, at the moment,.Net is one of MS crown jewels. Mono reimplements.Net technologies. From that I remember MS talking about how they may use their patents against Linux and other open source projects. I see Mono as something that could potentially antagonize them greatly. If MS decides to sue the Mono developers and succeeds in having the project shut down, then what would be the result for all of those developers using Mono? More to mhy point, related to the map that is linked to in the story, what effect would it have on free software?
Mono allows a lot of things to run on Free software platforms.
So does Java. But it's not in the front lines of the Free Software encounter at the top right of the map which makes sense.
You chose to ignore this in favour of a vague appeal to untested patent problems.
Specifically, my objection is to putting Mono in the Free Software camp on the map that the article links to. Because of the risk of attack from Microsoft for the reasons stated above, it has a higher chance of backfiring on Free Software rather than being a solid front-line defense. It would be better to put Mono in the Novell camp, since they are supporting it and pushing it forward.
Many people would see this as bias masquerading as insightfulness.
I didn't moderate my post. You'll have to take that up with those that did.
this map is illegal due to copyright infringement of the Mozilla logos, since they're trademarked.
Trademarks and copyright are not the same thing. They are two different areas of law that have nothing to do with each other. Also, the map has text at the top that says that "All trademarks are property of their respective owners." I'm not a lawyer but that appears to be no different than the trademarks I see in disclaimers on ads in print.
Pardon my ignorance, but isn't Mono on the wrong side of the fence? I thought that it should be pictured alongside.Net trying to move into the Free Software camp (or circling around the back to take Free Softare from behind). I mean, isn't Mono just an implementation of a MS technology that's already encumbered by many patents?
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, I know. My point was about not using Oracle-specific syntax and using SQL92 compliant syntax instead. Case statements and Oracle's decode function both do the same thing, but case statements work in nearly all databases whereas decode only works in Oracle.
Some seasoned Oracle people will still use the old syntax out of habit. But as I said in my original post, if one does some investigation there is usually a SQL92 compliant way to accomplish something where you would have used an Oracle-specific way before.
Our biggest headache before Oracle 9 was supporting Oracle 8's non-standard syntax for outer joins. That meant a lot of duplication between our query catalogs. Oracle 9 supported the standard syntax and we were able to remove most of the Oracle-specific queries.
In my experience it's not much harder to support Oracle if you are already supporting Postgres provided that you are using at least Oracle 9 and your apps is well designed to support multiple databases. At work I do some development on a Java-based CMS that has backend support for both Oracle and Postgres. All of the queries are in XML files that the developers call query catalogs. In the code we call queries by name, such as listUsers, and them populate the parameters before executing. Pardon me if this some standard Java technique. I'm still relatively new to Java and haven't seen this before.
Anyway, we have two query catalogs: "sql92" and "oracle". What's nice about the way the system is set up is that we put new SQL queries into the sql92 catalog unless we need to use something Oracle specific (very rare). In that rare case we write the sql92 query and then write an identically named query in the Oracle catalog with the Oracle syntax. When the system is configured to talk to Oracle, it looks into the oracle query catalog first and if it doesn't find the named query there it looks for it in the sql92 catalog. The result is that we can support both databases with minimal duplication. 99% of the queries are in the sql92 catalog. We've found that whenever you want to use an Oracle-ism then applying some thought will usually reveal another way to handle the problem that works in both databases. Example: using case statements instead of Oracle's decode.
Schemas are a different story. The datatypes and details are different enough that we have to keep two copies of the files to create the schema and the schema updates. However, these files aren't changed that much. Also, if you are familiar with Oracle's PL/SQL then Postgres's PL/pgSQL isn't much different.
Because of the way things are abstracted in our app it appears that it would be easy to add support for other databases as needed. It's sure been a breeze to support both Oracle and Postgres.
Just to be clear, I'm using functionality of the end product as my measure of success or failure. It appears that you are using loss of life as your measure.
So what? People have lost their lives because of other engineering mistakes. The fact is that the big dig is still functioning despite the mistakes. The Tacoma Narrows Bridge was destroyed and unusable because of the engineering mistakes. That's a larger engineering screwup than the big dig currently is.
What does the cost have to do with being a engineering mistake? Excessive cost could just as easily be a factor based on bad management or corruption.
The first Tacoma Narrows Bridge was a bigger mistake. It was actually destroyed. The big dig hasn't completely collapsed. (yet)
OK, I'll try.
Where I live homes aren't more than about 15-20 feet from the street. A neighbor has a bright outdoor light on their house and they often leave it on late at night or all night long. One evening while walking down the street I notice that the light is so bright that I can sit on the curb of the street and read a book by the light. So I do. Is it unethical for me to be using their light to read my book?
Both a wireless access point and the bright house light are radiating energy, just at different wavelengths (one visible light, the other radio waves). I'm not on their property. They are paying for generating the light but as the light spills onto the street they can't do much to reclaim that escaping energy, no more than someone could do to limit where the wireless AP's signal goes. Meaning, they can turn down the intensity of the light just as they could lower their wireless AP's signal until the signal isn't available outside of the house.
So he had subject matter experts that were already helping him but he ignored them in favour of using Wikipedia? This sounds more like a breakdown in his process than a problem with Wikipedia. Why didn't he shoot out an email to all of the translators telling them what he was doing and asking for them to email him how the language is written in their own language? At the very least why didn't he email his self-researched list out to all of the translators for review before finalizing things?
Considering the poor state of many of the Freedb entries, is that data really useful? I've been volunteering with the MusicBrainz project since October and I've found the data at Freedb to be a complete mess. MusicBrainz users can use Freedb to import albums so that we don't have to re-enter things into MusicBrainz by hand, but with so many duplicate and poorly edited entries (typos, etc) I'm wondering if it's worth it to even keep the data.
MusicBrainz is a better designed system. It's not limited to the archaic interface and design of the old CDDB system. It has interfaces that programmers can use to retrieve the same kind of data that they get from Freedb. The site also has a system in place for editing of entries and peer review of changes. I think it's a better solution, although I'm biased because of my involvement and interest with the project.
Maybe the olympic committee should assign swimwear that everyone has to wear. That way you even teh playing field. Surely they could afford some swimwear with all that cash they are raking in.
Not only that but what does this have to do with being online, or even computers and technology for that matter? I agree with another poster that creating a Slashdot Legal section would be a great idea.
I couldn't agree more.
Not really. It's still oblique wording that doesn't communicate well what he was he's trying to say. It insinuates that I was attemping to be dishonest or evasive. I found his statement to be unclear and I was hoping he would respond and be blunt and clear about what he meant. The reference to Wikipedia did answer all my questions though.
Everyone has biases. I wasn't attempting to hide or veil anything. I was truly speaking from a position of ignorance. I'm not a professional programmer. My day to day programming experiences are limited more to writing the occasional shell and Perl scripts. Consequently I don't keep up with what is going on in the world of programming languages and professional software development.
That facts as I understood them was that, at the moment,
So does Java. But it's not in the front lines of the Free Software encounter at the top right of the map which makes sense.
Specifically, my objection is to putting Mono in the Free Software camp on the map that the article links to. Because of the risk of attack from Microsoft for the reasons stated above, it has a higher chance of backfiring on Free Software rather than being a solid front-line defense. It would be better to put Mono in the Novell camp, since they are supporting it and pushing it forward.
I didn't moderate my post. You'll have to take that up with those that did.
What gave you that impression?
Pardon my ignorance, but isn't Mono on the wrong side of the fence? I thought that it should be pictured alongside .Net trying to move into the Free Software camp (or circling around the back to take Free Softare from behind). I mean, isn't Mono just an implementation of a MS technology that's already encumbered by many patents?