Not the GP didnt' say anything about hands...and while IANAMP (medical professional) I'd certainly agree with the GP and adding but wash your hands after using the bathroom and before eating; and keep them away from your eyes as much as possible.
Except Newtonian physics is just a sub-set of Einsteinian physics. Newtonian physics broke down at higher velocities. Einsteinian physics captured the known working version of Newtonian physics AND continued to get it right with increasing velocity. So, your argument breaks down.
Entrance into Physics 102 denied. Please go back to physics 101. You failed to pass the final.
America is, and pretty much always has been, a fascist nation. I think the recent bailouts of the banking giants and car manufacturers should prove that it is fascist now; Andrew Jackson himself was fighting fascism when it came to central banking back in the 1830's. War and weapons define the American economy. Boeing and Raytheon and Xi could be considered the ultimate achievement of which a fascist society is capable.
Then why is ovrer 2/3rds of the American economy based on CONSUMER spending[1] instead of WAR or WEAPONS? And of that, most of it is spent by women.[2] (See the numerous articles on ecomomics and how they are all worrying about women not spending more but vowing to spend the same and live more frugal lives for the evidence.)
Not to mention that the USA spends only about 4% GDP on Defense[3] at the national level last I was aware.
Hmm...not much of a leg to stand on for your claims, now is there?
So, tell me - when you signed up for the subscription, did the terms you agreed to include language to the effect that if you modify your console you will be banned from the network without refund? If so, then you're going to have to modify your analogy a little.
Oh, and "I don't know, I didn't read the terms" is not a valid answer to the question. If you don't know, find out. If you don't know and the answer is "yes, it did", then you're failure to know is your own fault.
Only if the terms of the agreement didn't allow them to terminate the subscription without refund is it theft.
The TOS must also be legal where you access it from. So if the terms are not legal in your state (assuming you are in the US), then they may be 100% ignored and there is nothing MS can do about it. Courts will enforce only what is legal.
For example, if you & I get together and enter into a contract that says you carry a concealed weapon on my property without a permit, and the local laws require a permit; guess which the courts are going to enforce if there is ever a problem? Not the contract you & I signed. (I no; IANAL.)
It contains tax engine for the _whole_ country. Our software has to do some tax calculations for all states, so there was not much choice:(
Only as accurate as the last update. More likely than not, the tax codes change a lot more frequently and the amount of stuff you are specifically dealing with is a far smaller list than what Amazon would need.
How big is the database it uses for lookups?
And remember, an Internet site can sell anywhere in the world; so are you going to pay $20k per country that you might do business in? That's a hefty bill, and not likely one that anyone can afford. How many countries are there now?
You'd need to know what municipality the buyer is in, then get state, county, and municipality tax rates.
I'm pretty sure you need to know this to ship the item, too. And there are companies that compile tax data for every municipality in the country; it really isn't that hard to figure out how much goes where. Now, there is additional overhead in sending that money to the proper authorities, but as long they have epayment set up it should be pretty easy to automate that, too. Amazon could run a batch job on the first day of each quarter, figure out how much needs to go where, and print and mail the checks, all with the click of a mouse button.
This leaves open the question of whether states and local authorities can, or should be able to, collect from an out-of-state entity. But for Amazon to argue they can't do it easily is just foolish.
You only need to know their address. However, trying to figure out the municipality based on an address/zip/etc can be very hard indeed.
I'll take Johnstown, PA as an example - the company I worked for there stopped paying local taxes out of the employees pay check simply b/c it was too difficult to figure out where it all went. You had: (i) the Greater Johnstown Area which took 0.5%, then you had the borough in the area which took another 0.5%. Even for just 50 employees it was far too difficult to figure out where everything went. Now that's just 50 people, who basically live in the same place (e.g. they're not changing apartments very often), or anything else - it was a PITA galore. Sales taxes worked similarly; but it was typically based on where you bought the item - so if you borough was slightly different you didn't have to make it up; since the retailers took it out somehow.
Now, look at Amazon's situation - countries, counties, cities, municipalities, boroughs, townships, etc for millions of people each day. Yeah - it's not an easy thing; especially when any one of those may (i) move (e.g. people), (ii) change the tax rates, or (iii) both. Oh, and is the tax based on the buyer's billing address or the shipping address?
There's a lot of data, and it is all very fluid. There is no possible way that Amazon/Walmart/BestBuy could keep track of it, let alone some mom & pop store that happens to have an Internet store as well.
It might (and I stress might) be possible if someone was able to collect all the tax data, addresses, etc. into a single database for quick look-up; except - if you collect all the addresses you'll certainly run into a lot of privacy issues, and without the addresses it will be very hard to certify you got it right - it'll be hard enough to certify it is right _with_ the addresses.
And this is ignoring, as others have noted, all the tax holidays/etc that states and various other levels of government may do.
So please - don't go on about how easy it is until you really understand the whole tax system across the country. Guess what? There are professionals who do that (Tax Accountants) as a full time job, and they have a hard time keeping up with it all and they only have to deal with the particulars of their clients - a far smaller list and any retailer will ever have.
Highly unlikely unless Nokia decides to release Qt 5.0, which isn't on any roadmap yet. Everything that's happened with KDE can be traced back to the release of Qt 4.0 in June 2005, which was a major breaking change in the underlying toolkit. The result was that porting something from Qt3 to Qt4 was fairly big rewrite of the UI parts, and of course once you're rewriting everyone wants to add those compatibility-breaking changes they've wanted for so long. No doubt the new way is superior to the old, but the changes were extremely basic.
A good number of the changes between Qt3 and Qt4 were pushed for by KDE. They needed Qt to make the changes before KDE4 could even really be started.
""Software maintenance" has absolutely nothing to do with computer science. "
And that attitude is EXACTLY why computing still sucks.
If it involves computers, and it's an interesting unsolved problem - and guess what, a LOT of real-world problems turn out to be extremely interesting and extremely unsolved, full of all sorts of corner cases and exceptions to previously supposed 'laws' - then it's computer science.
No true. Software Engineering solves a lot of unsolved problems without having to do computer science. Computer Science is about theory, not implementation. Computer Science deals with the Universal Turing Machine and treats all computers like it. Computer Science programs tend to not discuss how to do things with efficiency or with limited resources.
Computer Engineering programs tend to talk a little about Computer Programming; but mostly focus on the engineering behind computer hardware (e.g. PCI boards, processors, etc.).
Software Engineering is about producing products that resolve unresolved problems using standard practices. It's about architecting, designing, and otherwise engineering a product to meet that problem and overcome it. It's done with computers, solves interesting unsolved problems, and has a lot of corner cases and exceptions - far more than you find in most any Computer Science theory since the problems Software Engineering addresses are typically for limited memory/processor/etc, making the challenge that much more.
And no, this is not a new definition of Computer Science, or Computer Engineering. It's just that so many Computer Scientists fail to understand the differences between Science and Engineering.
The problem is that the CS people want to be all about the art. They need to learn to grow up and start doing actual engineering. This is true whether talking about student OR professor.
It's also probably one of the big reasons why computer programming in general is in such the management mess that it is today - most all want to be about the art, not do the engineering, and thus it ends up becoming a very big management problem since most all don't know how to do things on time and on budget.
I would think that folks designing programming languages would care quite a bit about what makes code maintainable. After all, designers want their creations to be used and valued, not to be some obscure relic in the dustbin of history. These days nobody's going to adopt a new language that is difficult to maintain.
Programming languages are not the place to enforce code maintainability. That has to be very project centric - sure, there are numerous practices; but you have to choose the right practice for your project - for your architecture, design, language of choice, etc.
The reality is that comments tell what the code ought to do; while the code only shows what it actually does.
I tend to write comments of varying lengths - sometimes, writing longer comments not for my own benefit, but for the benefit of the next coder - someone who may or may not have my understanding of the system or code; and more likely than not, either won't have the time to learn the code 100% in-and-out, or are not up to the same par. So sometimes, I will write a large comment block on an important thing in the code - so that they (whoever they are) will be able to understand it quite quickly. However, that is (as it should be) quite few and far between; sometimes documenting complex logic from elsewhere in the system that I have no control over but the programmer needs to be able to understand.
Of course, there is also the typical PHB managers who evaluate their programmers based on LOC, SLOC, and CLOC (LOC = SLOC + CLOC), and look for an even distribution of SLOC/CLOC - e.g. SLOC/CLOC = 1. In some cases that is good; but in most it is not.
All in all, you can't tell how good the program is by just general comments or comment analysis.
BUT if you are sloppy in your comments (grammar, spelling, etc.), you have probably been sloppy in your code. To that end, I do very well agree with the article.
P.S. BTW, I've been in 3 positions where I have replaced people. One fired; one died; and one quit. In two of those three, the original developer was no longer available for inquiry; in the third, it was possible but not easy and only for a short time after he left.
My point is they (Microsoft) have already done it. They are just not releasing it for the mainstream version of Windows - Win7, Win2008.
It's probably what the next rev of the Xbox will use too - that is, after all, just a port of the WinCE/Windows platform for the PPC architecture.
ARM is a threat if Apple adopted it, or if Linux took off big-time. However, Windows 7 isn't being ported to ARM, because then all your existing software wouldn't work on it.
The WinCE version of Win7 has probably already been ported to ARM b/c there are way too many ARM based PDA/cells/etc that MS wants to target. In fact, every version of WinCE can run on the ARM processor; and developers can (if they choose) port it to other architectures as they get ALL the Windows source code. Of course, they typically end up limited in software for their devices but they usually provide all the software for the devices any way...so it doesn't really matter.
Whether you are using DSL, Cable, etc. for the most part the ground lines are already there. But the sub-stations/central-offices that service them don't necessarily have the backbones to the main facilities to support all the bandwidth that the customers being services by that sub-station/central office have purchased - that is what I mean by "last mile" issues.
Even Verizon with their FIOS lines are susceptible to this since while the fiber line will give you plenty of bandwidth back to the sub-station/central office, they still have to have enough bandwidth in their back-end to support it, which they don't.
Also, what's the difference between a T-1 and your DSL?
T-1 is typically same speed upload & download.
T-1 is slower (max 1.5Mbps)
DSL rides over normal phone wires. T-1 is fiber optic and they have to run a line to your house (like Verizon FIOS).
T-1 has an SLA with it. DSL does not.
T-1 you can run your own server; you even get static IPs. DSL you typically can't (though some ISPs, e.g. SpeakEasy, will let you.
The ISP provisions you a full connection (upload AND download) 100% of the time with a T-1; they don't with DSL.
Really, with a T-1 you're really paying for the SLA, not the bandwidth. Customer grade Internet can be just as cheap as it is now and provide the same bandwidth as the T-1 - just remove the SLA; most users will be just as happy.
Net neutrality has nothing to do with underestimate of user demand. Net neutrality is about ensuring all websites are treated equally (i.e. no extra fees to access youtube, or no discounts to watch att.com).
It has a lot more to do with Net Neutrality than you would imagine.
What have the ISPs biggest reason for filtering networks and no longer maintaining neutral networks? P2P, BitTorrent, Video Traffic, etc.
Why? B/c they eat a lot of bandwidth.
Why is that a concern? B/c the ISPs don't provision enough bandwidth. They don't provision what is paid for (which is what users expect), but provision some arbitrary amount of it based on some bets they take against the user.
In both cases, how is this easily resolved: Force the ISPs to allocate each user 100% of what they pay for (e.g. get rid of the bets the ISPs currently make), and allow ISPs to rightfully limit each user connection to only what they pay for - data from anywhere but only as much as they are paying for, e.g. a subscriber for a 10Mbit line would be allowed to use 10Mbps of P2P traffic if they so desired, or 10Mbps of websites, video, etc. But only 10 Mbps, not 11 Mbps, not 10.5 Mbps.
The two go a lot more hand-in-hand than you realize. Though you are right that NetNeutrality goes far beyond just this - I'm primarily talking about the quot;last mile", while you also have to maintain a backbone connection big enough to service that level of demand.
As for estimating demand, I would build 1000 times current capacity, figuring that demand has grown from 50k to 50 meg during the last ten years, and will probably keep growing at that rate upto 2020 at least.
The problem is cost. ISPs make the bets the do - e.g. provision 40% of what users pay for instead of 100% - b/c of cost. Bandwidth from their POV (laying lines, etc.) is very expensive, and they don't want to lay more lines than they have to. So they bet that users won't use as much as they pay for - they bet even though you're paying for 26 terabits per month, you'll be happy with just 250 gigabits (or 1% of what you are paying for). God forbid you want even 2% of what you pay for.
If a network is not fully loaded, it's hard to know exactly how much demand is out there.
Remember, ISPs (of which AT&T is one) take a bet that their users will never use 100% of their paid for bandwidth.
Thus they base the network capacity on the usage demand, and try to provision only as much as they absolutely have to.
This is why ISPs hate Net Neutrality - b/c they wouldn't be able to continue playing these games and get away with it.
In this light, where demand determines how much actually gets provisioned, it makes sense. If max demand is 100, but only represents 10% of paid for demand, then that's all you need. If all of a sudden the bet that 10% of paid for demand is not longer good enough - and you need 20%, you have a major problem. B/c the equations tell you that the 10% is good enough, but now users are asking for 20%. You don't have all your users on the network but your demand and provisioning looks okay, until they all jump on.
Honestly, they just need to provision 100% of what users are paying for; and figure out the growth rate and provision accordingly.
Yes, because the pay wall itself is a barrier. For many people it's not about the cost of it, but the hassle of having to register for an account and then go through their payment system and so on. If you're a regular reader of a site then it might not be so bad, for example I'm a/. subscriber because it's very cheap and I had an account anyway since registering brings its own benefits.
I have a NYTimes account that I use to use quite frequently. Then they started charging access to most content; I stopped even though I already had the account.
Simply put - I have zero interest in micro-payment systems, and a lot of interest in reducing monthly bills.\
Re:There is little to suggest Gates knows technolo
on
Microsoft's Lost Decade
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· Score: 2, Interesting
That fits with what I've seen. Microsoft's history, maybe surprisingly, does not suggest that Bill Gates is seriously interested in technology. If you disagree, please name an innovation from Microsoft. Most innovations were bought from someone else, or were, like the NTFS file system, the result of Microsoft top management hiring someone well known in the computer industry.
Can you identify some companies that produced "innovations" _without_ employees ?
Actually, perhaps it would be better if you could first define "innovation" and offer a few examples of same.
For example, Xerox PARC's innovation was the GUI. Both Apple and later Microsoft licensed/stole the innovation after Xerox failed to understand its importance - once of the biggest mistakes in computing history. Microsoft has no equivalent; they have mostly bought out other companies that did innovate and claimed they did the innovation instead; or stole an idea from someone else that did innovate. What the GP was asking for was for a specific example of just one innovation that actually came out of Microsoft - a single original idea from Microsoft. (Note: Event Clippy and MS Bob were stolen ideas that Microsoft implemented.)
Don't blame the person who actually leaked it, blame the damned software!
Ahh...I love politics.
Trust me... that particular telecommuter is getting his share of blame. It just won't be public because he probably didn't do anything criminal. Of course, he's still an idiot.
Actually, if it truly was 'confidential' then yes it is a criminal act to share it; such an act would carry jail time. Whether or not they decide to press charges, etc. is a different matter. But it could potentially be a criminal act. It all depends on the Security Classification of the document. Basic principle behind the Security Classification and distribution: Need to know only; break that, and you can face criminal charges. Doesn't matter if the material was already public information either; it's just a matter of whether it was classified and you broke the classification contract you signed when you got the job. (Same goes for gov't personnel, civil servants, contractors, etc.)
I was just saying that I wouldn't be surprised if some email providers had EULAs that said something to the extent of "we can do whatever the hell we feel like, and you have no recourse."
It seems like that's just in every contract and agreement these days. There's always some kind of clause which, when translated from legalese to English, reads, "We're not responsible for anything and you can't sue us for anything. Everything that we have agreed to provide you with, we can withdraw at any moment and you can go screw yourself." I've seen it in ISP service agreements, online music/movie retailers, and software EULAs. Hell, I've even seen it in standard residential leases. It doesn't mean that they're necessarily going to screw you, and in many cases I think it's just a CYA move, but it's still pretty disconcerting.
Doesn't mean it's legal - and if it's not legal, then it doesn't matter if it's in the contract/EULA/etc. A contract/EULA/etc can only be specified within the bounds of the law - if you specify something that is unlawful, then it is unenforceable per the law. IANAL but I have taken some basic business law and this was covered.
IANAL, but you can probably safely ignore that in a residential lease since it's probably not lawful for it be there to start with. Consult a lawyer to say for sure.
Same goes for my original post; but that's an entirely different argument - they have to obey the law; thus if a warrant/subpeona is issued they can fight it, but they ultimately may have to comply; but they cannot necessarily give blanket access to your data if you have a reasonable expectation of privacy (which you likely do) - and while IANAL - this judge seems to think you don't, and that's the legal issue being decided - it'll likely get overturned.
Again, IANAL, but that's my understand.
P.S. Don't you find it weird that the common abbeviation IANAL (I am not a lawyer) could be I ANAL....must be something with lawyers...
Slashdot Mirror
Not the GP didnt' say anything about hands...and while IANAMP (medical professional) I'd certainly agree with the GP and adding but wash your hands after using the bathroom and before eating; and keep them away from your eyes as much as possible.
Except Newtonian physics is just a sub-set of Einsteinian physics. Newtonian physics broke down at higher velocities. Einsteinian physics captured the known working version of Newtonian physics AND continued to get it right with increasing velocity. So, your argument breaks down.
Entrance into Physics 102 denied. Please go back to physics 101. You failed to pass the final.
"We can't hear you now" -Verizon
but we can't hear you. - Verizon Customers
Then why is ovrer 2/3rds of the American economy based on CONSUMER spending[1] instead of WAR or WEAPONS? And of that, most of it is spent by women.[2] (See the numerous articles on ecomomics and how they are all worrying about women not spending more but vowing to spend the same and live more frugal lives for the evidence.)
Not to mention that the USA spends only about 4% GDP on Defense[3] at the national level last I was aware.
Hmm...not much of a leg to stand on for your claims, now is there?
[1]2009-10-11 USA Today Article
[2]dated article on consumer spending (2003), but matches what I've recently read in the last month per the point and a more recent article on women being frugal. and yet another article on frugal consumerism in the USA
[3]Wikipedia USA Military budget - with reference links
So, tell me - when you signed up for the subscription, did the terms you agreed to include language to the effect that if you modify your console you will be banned from the network without refund? If so, then you're going to have to modify your analogy a little.
Oh, and "I don't know, I didn't read the terms" is not a valid answer to the question. If you don't know, find out. If you don't know and the answer is "yes, it did", then you're failure to know is your own fault.
Only if the terms of the agreement didn't allow them to terminate the subscription without refund is it theft.
The TOS must also be legal where you access it from. So if the terms are not legal in your state (assuming you are in the US), then they may be 100% ignored and there is nothing MS can do about it. Courts will enforce only what is legal.
For example, if you & I get together and enter into a contract that says you carry a concealed weapon on my property without a permit, and the local laws require a permit; guess which the courts are going to enforce if there is ever a problem? Not the contract you & I signed. (I no; IANAL.)
I think these posts were meant for you: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1447394&cid=30138032 http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1447394&cid=30137740
It contains tax engine for the _whole_ country. Our software has to do some tax calculations for all states, so there was not much choice :(
Only as accurate as the last update. More likely than not, the tax codes change a lot more frequently and the amount of stuff you are specifically dealing with is a far smaller list than what Amazon would need. How big is the database it uses for lookups? And remember, an Internet site can sell anywhere in the world; so are you going to pay $20k per country that you might do business in? That's a hefty bill, and not likely one that anyone can afford. How many countries are there now?
You'd need to know what municipality the buyer is in, then get state, county, and municipality tax rates.
I'm pretty sure you need to know this to ship the item, too. And there are companies that compile tax data for every municipality in the country; it really isn't that hard to figure out how much goes where. Now, there is additional overhead in sending that money to the proper authorities, but as long they have epayment set up it should be pretty easy to automate that, too. Amazon could run a batch job on the first day of each quarter, figure out how much needs to go where, and print and mail the checks, all with the click of a mouse button.
This leaves open the question of whether states and local authorities can, or should be able to, collect from an out-of-state entity. But for Amazon to argue they can't do it easily is just foolish.
You only need to know their address. However, trying to figure out the municipality based on an address/zip/etc can be very hard indeed.
I'll take Johnstown, PA as an example - the company I worked for there stopped paying local taxes out of the employees pay check simply b/c it was too difficult to figure out where it all went. You had: (i) the Greater Johnstown Area which took 0.5%, then you had the borough in the area which took another 0.5%. Even for just 50 employees it was far too difficult to figure out where everything went. Now that's just 50 people, who basically live in the same place (e.g. they're not changing apartments very often), or anything else - it was a PITA galore. Sales taxes worked similarly; but it was typically based on where you bought the item - so if you borough was slightly different you didn't have to make it up; since the retailers took it out somehow.
Now, look at Amazon's situation - countries, counties, cities, municipalities, boroughs, townships, etc for millions of people each day. Yeah - it's not an easy thing; especially when any one of those may (i) move (e.g. people), (ii) change the tax rates, or (iii) both. Oh, and is the tax based on the buyer's billing address or the shipping address?
There's a lot of data, and it is all very fluid. There is no possible way that Amazon/Walmart/BestBuy could keep track of it, let alone some mom & pop store that happens to have an Internet store as well.
It might (and I stress might) be possible if someone was able to collect all the tax data, addresses, etc. into a single database for quick look-up; except - if you collect all the addresses you'll certainly run into a lot of privacy issues, and without the addresses it will be very hard to certify you got it right - it'll be hard enough to certify it is right _with_ the addresses.
And this is ignoring, as others have noted, all the tax holidays/etc that states and various other levels of government may do.
So please - don't go on about how easy it is until you really understand the whole tax system across the country. Guess what? There are professionals who do that (Tax Accountants) as a full time job, and they have a hard time keeping up with it all and they only have to deal with the particulars of their clients - a far smaller list and any retailer will ever have.
A good number of the changes between Qt3 and Qt4 were pushed for by KDE. They needed Qt to make the changes before KDE4 could even really be started.
""Software maintenance" has absolutely nothing to do with computer science. "
And that attitude is EXACTLY why computing still sucks.
If it involves computers, and it's an interesting unsolved problem - and guess what, a LOT of real-world problems turn out to be extremely interesting and extremely unsolved, full of all sorts of corner cases and exceptions to previously supposed 'laws' - then it's computer science.
No true. Software Engineering solves a lot of unsolved problems without having to do computer science. Computer Science is about theory, not implementation. Computer Science deals with the Universal Turing Machine and treats all computers like it. Computer Science programs tend to not discuss how to do things with efficiency or with limited resources.
Computer Engineering programs tend to talk a little about Computer Programming; but mostly focus on the engineering behind computer hardware (e.g. PCI boards, processors, etc.).
Software Engineering is about producing products that resolve unresolved problems using standard practices. It's about architecting, designing, and otherwise engineering a product to meet that problem and overcome it. It's done with computers, solves interesting unsolved problems, and has a lot of corner cases and exceptions - far more than you find in most any Computer Science theory since the problems Software Engineering addresses are typically for limited memory/processor/etc, making the challenge that much more.
And no, this is not a new definition of Computer Science, or Computer Engineering. It's just that so many Computer Scientists fail to understand the differences between Science and Engineering.
The problem is that the CS people want to be all about the art. They need to learn to grow up and start doing actual engineering. This is true whether talking about student OR professor.
It's also probably one of the big reasons why computer programming in general is in such the management mess that it is today - most all want to be about the art, not do the engineering, and thus it ends up becoming a very big management problem since most all don't know how to do things on time and on budget.
Sad, but true.
I would think that folks designing programming languages would care quite a bit about what makes code maintainable. After all, designers want their creations to be used and valued, not to be some obscure relic in the dustbin of history. These days nobody's going to adopt a new language that is difficult to maintain.
Programming languages are not the place to enforce code maintainability. That has to be very project centric - sure, there are numerous practices; but you have to choose the right practice for your project - for your architecture, design, language of choice, etc.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/netframework/aa904594.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/data/cc299380.aspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_Integrated_Query
gvim. Need I say any more?
The reality is that comments tell what the code ought to do; while the code only shows what it actually does.
I tend to write comments of varying lengths - sometimes, writing longer comments not for my own benefit, but for the benefit of the next coder - someone who may or may not have my understanding of the system or code; and more likely than not, either won't have the time to learn the code 100% in-and-out, or are not up to the same par. So sometimes, I will write a large comment block on an important thing in the code - so that they (whoever they are) will be able to understand it quite quickly. However, that is (as it should be) quite few and far between; sometimes documenting complex logic from elsewhere in the system that I have no control over but the programmer needs to be able to understand.
Of course, there is also the typical PHB managers who evaluate their programmers based on LOC, SLOC, and CLOC (LOC = SLOC + CLOC), and look for an even distribution of SLOC/CLOC - e.g. SLOC/CLOC = 1. In some cases that is good; but in most it is not.
All in all, you can't tell how good the program is by just general comments or comment analysis.
BUT if you are sloppy in your comments (grammar, spelling, etc.), you have probably been sloppy in your code. To that end, I do very well agree with the article.
P.S. BTW, I've been in 3 positions where I have replaced people. One fired; one died; and one quit. In two of those three, the original developer was no longer available for inquiry; in the third, it was possible but not easy and only for a short time after he left.
Stop trolling already. Linux is a certified Unix.
No, it's not; and it never will be.
My point is they (Microsoft) have already done it. They are just not releasing it for the mainstream version of Windows - Win7, Win2008. It's probably what the next rev of the Xbox will use too - that is, after all, just a port of the WinCE/Windows platform for the PPC architecture.
The WinCE version of Win7 has probably already been ported to ARM b/c there are way too many ARM based PDA/cells/etc that MS wants to target. In fact, every version of WinCE can run on the ARM processor; and developers can (if they choose) port it to other architectures as they get ALL the Windows source code. Of course, they typically end up limited in software for their devices but they usually provide all the software for the devices any way...so it doesn't really matter.
Even Verizon with their FIOS lines are susceptible to this since while the fiber line will give you plenty of bandwidth back to the sub-station/central office, they still have to have enough bandwidth in their back-end to support it, which they don't.
Also, what's the difference between a T-1 and your DSL?
Really, with a T-1 you're really paying for the SLA, not the bandwidth. Customer grade Internet can be just as cheap as it is now and provide the same bandwidth as the T-1 - just remove the SLA; most users will be just as happy.
It has a lot more to do with Net Neutrality than you would imagine. What have the ISPs biggest reason for filtering networks and no longer maintaining neutral networks? P2P, BitTorrent, Video Traffic, etc. Why? B/c they eat a lot of bandwidth. Why is that a concern? B/c the ISPs don't provision enough bandwidth. They don't provision what is paid for (which is what users expect), but provision some arbitrary amount of it based on some bets they take against the user. In both cases, how is this easily resolved: Force the ISPs to allocate each user 100% of what they pay for (e.g. get rid of the bets the ISPs currently make), and allow ISPs to rightfully limit each user connection to only what they pay for - data from anywhere but only as much as they are paying for, e.g. a subscriber for a 10Mbit line would be allowed to use 10Mbps of P2P traffic if they so desired, or 10Mbps of websites, video, etc. But only 10 Mbps, not 11 Mbps, not 10.5 Mbps. The two go a lot more hand-in-hand than you realize. Though you are right that NetNeutrality goes far beyond just this - I'm primarily talking about the quot;last mile", while you also have to maintain a backbone connection big enough to service that level of demand.
The problem is cost. ISPs make the bets the do - e.g. provision 40% of what users pay for instead of 100% - b/c of cost. Bandwidth from their POV (laying lines, etc.) is very expensive, and they don't want to lay more lines than they have to. So they bet that users won't use as much as they pay for - they bet even though you're paying for 26 terabits per month, you'll be happy with just 250 gigabits (or 1% of what you are paying for). God forbid you want even 2% of what you pay for.
If a network is not fully loaded, it's hard to know exactly how much demand is out there.
Remember, ISPs (of which AT&T is one) take a bet that their users will never use 100% of their paid for bandwidth.
Thus they base the network capacity on the usage demand, and try to provision only as much as they absolutely have to.
This is why ISPs hate Net Neutrality - b/c they wouldn't be able to continue playing these games and get away with it.
In this light, where demand determines how much actually gets provisioned, it makes sense. If max demand is 100, but only represents 10% of paid for demand, then that's all you need. If all of a sudden the bet that 10% of paid for demand is not longer good enough - and you need 20%, you have a major problem. B/c the equations tell you that the 10% is good enough, but now users are asking for 20%. You don't have all your users on the network but your demand and provisioning looks okay, until they all jump on.
Honestly, they just need to provision 100% of what users are paying for; and figure out the growth rate and provision accordingly.
I have a NYTimes account that I use to use quite frequently. Then they started charging access to most content; I stopped even though I already had the account.
Simply put - I have zero interest in micro-payment systems, and a lot of interest in reducing monthly bills.\
That fits with what I've seen. Microsoft's history, maybe surprisingly, does not suggest that Bill Gates is seriously interested in technology. If you disagree, please name an innovation from Microsoft. Most innovations were bought from someone else, or were, like the NTFS file system, the result of Microsoft top management hiring someone well known in the computer industry.
Can you identify some companies that produced "innovations" _without_ employees ?
Actually, perhaps it would be better if you could first define "innovation" and offer a few examples of same.
For example, Xerox PARC's innovation was the GUI. Both Apple and later Microsoft licensed/stole the innovation after Xerox failed to understand its importance - once of the biggest mistakes in computing history. Microsoft has no equivalent; they have mostly bought out other companies that did innovate and claimed they did the innovation instead; or stole an idea from someone else that did innovate. What the GP was asking for was for a specific example of just one innovation that actually came out of Microsoft - a single original idea from Microsoft. (Note: Event Clippy and MS Bob were stolen ideas that Microsoft implemented.)
Don't blame the person who actually leaked it, blame the damned software! Ahh...I love politics.
Trust me ... that particular telecommuter is getting his share of blame. It just won't be public because he probably didn't do anything criminal. Of course, he's still an idiot.
Actually, if it truly was 'confidential' then yes it is a criminal act to share it; such an act would carry jail time. Whether or not they decide to press charges, etc. is a different matter. But it could potentially be a criminal act. It all depends on the Security Classification of the document. Basic principle behind the Security Classification and distribution: Need to know only; break that, and you can face criminal charges. Doesn't matter if the material was already public information either; it's just a matter of whether it was classified and you broke the classification contract you signed when you got the job. (Same goes for gov't personnel, civil servants, contractors, etc.)
I was just saying that I wouldn't be surprised if some email providers had EULAs that said something to the extent of "we can do whatever the hell we feel like, and you have no recourse."
It seems like that's just in every contract and agreement these days. There's always some kind of clause which, when translated from legalese to English, reads, "We're not responsible for anything and you can't sue us for anything. Everything that we have agreed to provide you with, we can withdraw at any moment and you can go screw yourself." I've seen it in ISP service agreements, online music/movie retailers, and software EULAs. Hell, I've even seen it in standard residential leases. It doesn't mean that they're necessarily going to screw you, and in many cases I think it's just a CYA move, but it's still pretty disconcerting.
Doesn't mean it's legal - and if it's not legal, then it doesn't matter if it's in the contract/EULA/etc. A contract/EULA/etc can only be specified within the bounds of the law - if you specify something that is unlawful, then it is unenforceable per the law. IANAL but I have taken some basic business law and this was covered.
IANAL, but you can probably safely ignore that in a residential lease since it's probably not lawful for it be there to start with. Consult a lawyer to say for sure.
Same goes for my original post; but that's an entirely different argument - they have to obey the law; thus if a warrant/subpeona is issued they can fight it, but they ultimately may have to comply; but they cannot necessarily give blanket access to your data if you have a reasonable expectation of privacy (which you likely do) - and while IANAL - this judge seems to think you don't, and that's the legal issue being decided - it'll likely get overturned.
Again, IANAL, but that's my understand.
P.S. Don't you find it weird that the common abbeviation IANAL (I am not a lawyer) could be I ANAL....must be something with lawyers...