Hm, I'd have said that if s/he succeeds then you're almost certainly guilty of overcommenting your code. A lot of good code is completely self-explanatory. You really don't want to litter it with pointless comments that just detract from the value of the comments that should have been there.
Nobody needs to see comments like:
/* Add one to the count */
count++;
Yet without that kind of thing, it would be hard to reimplement the code from the comments alone. (Yes, if you have decent JavaDoc-style comments describing each function, and you have small self-contained functions, then perhaps they could reimplement each function from scratch just by knowing its arguments and behaviour — they don't need the contents of each function at all. But that's not quite the same thing.)
Contribute to open source projects. You'll get plenty of feedback. Some of it might be quite, erm, 'robust', especially with certain projects. But it'll almost all be useful, and you'll be doing something worthwhile.
Firstly, make sure that if you have a captive portal, a guest staying for a reasonable period of time will only have to accept the terms and conditions, log in or whatever *once*. If I put my phone on the hotel wireless, I expect it to *stay* on the hotel wireless, and automatically register to the VoIP server whenever I'm in the building. I do *not* expect it to keep breaking every few hours until I fire up a web browser on the phone. It's almost as annoying on my PC — when I'm away from home in a hotel with timezone differences, there are often work-related IMs or IRC conversations which happen during my "night", and if a broken hotel network cuts me off during the night and forces me to re-login, that *really* hampers my productivity.
If a hotel has a captive portal which doesn't *remember* the fact that I've logged in and accepted the T&Cs, I will *refuse* to stay there on my next trip.
Secondly, we are well into the 21st century now. It is entirely unacceptable to provide a newly designed and installed system without IPv6 connectivity. It's not even as if IPv6 is *hard*, so there's no excuse.
This is fraud, plain and simple. Anyone attempting to get a patent on something which they know is obvious or for which they know there is prior art, is committing a deliberate deception for financial gain. And should go to jail.
The guy didn't even manage to put capital letters at the beginning of his sentences. I'm reluctant to read too much into the fact that he didn't capitalise 'free'. Especially as I've never heard of this 'free' vs. 'Free' convention, which doesn't make much sense to me. Most people just use 'gratis' and 'libre' which is far less ambiguous.
So no, I don't think that timmarhy was talking about 'gratis but non-libre software'; I think he was spouting a common misconception about Free Software, which I attempted to correct. No righteous indignation; just an observation.
I think you've misunderstood the term 'Free Software'. The word 'Free' in Free Software is used to refer to *freedom*, not the cost.
So with software the situation is actually the other way round to the way you present it. If you are using Free(dom) Software, then you have the source and can do whatever you need with it and you aren't held hostage by someone else's actions. If you're using non-Free Software, *then* you seriously shouldn't complain when it blows up in your face.
Using non-Free Software (even if it's gratis) often starts out as the 'cheap option' -- not necessarily in terms of cost, but in terms of local knowledge and training and effort. But it often ends up costing more, because of its inherent limitations and because you can't actually *fix* it to meet your requirements, or even get bug-fixes for it without having to replace it wholesale with a new version.
I like the analogy with the neighbour's headlights, but it's kind of missing the point. Why do you *care* whether your neighbour leaves his headlights on? By all means be helpful and let him know, but it's no skin off your nose if he's going to be an idiot about it and his car won't start in the morning.
Which brings us back to the original situation. Why do you care? It's because you have *chosen* to make a mission-critical service depend on a piece of software which you cannot just fix for yourself, so you're beholden to a third party for fixes. A third party who, in your case as in many similar cases, is too incompetent and/or unwilling to help you.
Getting into that situation in the first place does not strike me as being particularly responsible.
Many companies in the UK are only using 40-bit SSL, which is blatantly insufficient. Offenders include Dabs Direct, who actually told me that they're happy with 40-bit SSL and don't intend to upgrade.
I've spoken to NatWest Streamline, who perform CC clearing for many online retailers, and they don't intend to increase their minimum security guidelines to 128-bit SSL. I know know which of the two is being more negligent.
In my opinion Derek would be found liable by the court as this statute stands.
I disagree. The third paragraph you quote (2b) reads '...intended to enable or assist persons to circumvent...'
They would have to prove that the intention was to enable or assist copying, not merely that the information happened to enable or assist copying.
Yet it was made clear from the beginning that such was not the intention - the intention was only to allow Linux users to view DVDs.
Section 2(a) is more clear about this - it uses the words 'specifically designed or adapted to circumvent...' but 2(b) should also, strictly speaking, be interpreted in the same manner.
A level standards are lower and so are GCSE's. I sowed a relative of mine who failed the old O Levels and they had no difficulty with the GCSEs.
I'll drink to that. A years ago, I got a 'B' for A level Further Maths. I immediately applied to retake it, naturally. However, as the year drew on, I couldn't be bothered. I ended up taking the next years' exam having done absolutely no work in between. I saw many questions on the paper that I knew I could have answered the year before, but couldn't any more. Overall, the standard of my answers was much lower.
I got a 'B' again. The standards had dropped that much in a single year!
I wonder if we could instigate a class action against those who say the standards aren't slipping - it's devaluing the qualifications that we worked for by saying that today's A levels are just as meaningful.
Hopefully the purchase won't
affect Metrowerks' expansion. Hopefully Motorola will still allow them to effect their intended expansion.
Although I personally don't like the second usage of the word, I believe it's actually correct. Generally, "affect" is a verb, while "effect" is a noun. "Effect" as a verb has an entirely different meaning.
Sorry, I'm feeling pedantic today - the UK Government claimed that 'A' level standards aren't slipping, even though this year's results show a higher pass rate than last year's for the 17th year running. I'm doing my bit to fight against the creeping stupidity of the population.
That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it:)
Re:XFree86 could be a little more open
on
XFree86 News
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· Score: 1
XFree86 is done on a closed development model. Yes, the result is free and the source is freely available, but the development is still quite closed.
It's not very closed. All you have to do is send in a request to join. Has anyone ever actually been turned down? Would you also claim that Linux development is closed because you have to actually get off your proverbial backside to subscribe to the linux-kernel mailing list?
You can quite happily write new drivers for the current X servers, based on the released source. If you want to do something more involved, then you should join the team and get on the mailing lists. What could be simpler?
SGI, a maker of high-end workstations for engineering and graphics, recently released the code for a sophisticated graphics program, much to the joy of the Linux community that has long wanted such software.
What graphics software is this? I knew they'd just announced that they'll release XFS, but I wouldn't class that as 'graphics software'.
... and I don't want to be forced to care which my users are using.
I happen to be using KDE, because at the time I set up our company network, it was most usable. Some of my users are now on GNOME, and I expect more to switch when I install Red Hat 6.0.
As long as we have CORBA / Wine OLE2 / K/OM interoperability, and window managers that are compatible with both, then I'll be happy.
HowTF am I supposed to enter <-> (or ) into these poxy comments?
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Nobody needs to see comments like:
count++;
Yet without that kind of thing, it would be hard to reimplement the code from the comments alone. (Yes, if you have decent JavaDoc-style comments describing each function, and you have small self-contained functions, then perhaps they could reimplement each function from scratch just by knowing its arguments and behaviour — they don't need the contents of each function at all. But that's not quite the same thing.)
Contribute to open source projects. You'll get plenty of feedback. Some of it might be quite, erm, 'robust', especially with certain projects. But it'll almost all be useful, and you'll be doing something worthwhile.
Two things:
Firstly, make sure that if you have a captive portal, a guest staying for a reasonable period of time will only have to accept the terms and conditions, log in or whatever *once*. If I put my phone on the hotel wireless, I expect it to *stay* on the hotel wireless, and automatically register to the VoIP server whenever I'm in the building. I do *not* expect it to keep breaking every few hours until I fire up a web browser on the phone. It's almost as annoying on my PC — when I'm away from home in a hotel with timezone differences, there are often work-related IMs or IRC conversations which happen during my "night", and if a broken hotel network cuts me off during the night and forces me to re-login, that *really* hampers my productivity.
If a hotel has a captive portal which doesn't *remember* the fact that I've logged in and accepted the T&Cs, I will *refuse* to stay there on my next trip.
Secondly, we are well into the 21st century now. It is entirely unacceptable to provide a newly designed and installed system without IPv6 connectivity. It's not even as if IPv6 is *hard*, so there's no excuse.
Whereas Exim doesn't *need* milters because it's sufficiently capable all by itself.
I once had a Postfix advocate look over my Exim config to see if he make Postfix do what Exim can do. He gave up.
This is fraud, plain and simple. Anyone attempting to get a patent on something which they know is obvious or for which they know there is prior art, is committing a deliberate deception for financial gain. And should go to jail.
The guy didn't even manage to put capital letters at the beginning of his sentences. I'm reluctant to read too much into the fact that he didn't capitalise 'free'. Especially as I've never heard of this 'free' vs. 'Free' convention, which doesn't make much sense to me. Most people just use 'gratis' and 'libre' which is far less ambiguous.
So no, I don't think that timmarhy was talking about 'gratis but non-libre software'; I think he was spouting a common misconception about Free Software, which I attempted to correct. No righteous indignation; just an observation.
I think you've misunderstood the term 'Free Software'. The word 'Free' in Free Software is used to refer to *freedom*, not the cost.
So with software the situation is actually the other way round to the way you present it. If you are using Free(dom) Software, then you have the source and can do whatever you need with it and you aren't held hostage by someone else's actions. If you're using non-Free Software, *then* you seriously shouldn't complain when it blows up in your face.
Using non-Free Software (even if it's gratis) often starts out as the 'cheap option' -- not necessarily in terms of cost, but in terms of local knowledge and training and effort. But it often ends up costing more, because of its inherent limitations and because you can't actually *fix* it to meet your requirements, or even get bug-fixes for it without having to replace it wholesale with a new version.
I like the analogy with the neighbour's headlights, but it's kind of missing the point. Why do you *care* whether your neighbour leaves his headlights on? By all means be helpful and let him know, but it's no skin off your nose if he's going to be an idiot about it and his car won't start in the morning.
Which brings us back to the original situation. Why do you care? It's because you have *chosen* to make a mission-critical service depend on a piece of software which you cannot just fix for yourself, so you're beholden to a third party for fixes. A third party who, in your case as in many similar cases, is too incompetent and/or unwilling to help you.
Getting into that situation in the first place does not strike me as being particularly responsible.
In fact the OLPC machine has 512MiB of flash, not only 512MB.
Many companies in the UK are only using 40-bit SSL, which is blatantly insufficient. Offenders include Dabs Direct, who actually told me that they're happy with 40-bit SSL and don't intend to upgrade.
I've spoken to NatWest Streamline, who perform CC clearing for many online retailers, and they don't intend to increase their minimum security guidelines to 128-bit SSL. I know know which of the two is being more negligent.
Even the Which? Web Trader Scheme doesn't mandate 128-bit SSL, which is insane.
I disagree. The third paragraph you quote (2b) reads '...intended to enable or assist persons to circumvent...'
They would have to prove that the intention was to enable or assist copying, not merely that the information happened to enable or assist copying.
Yet it was made clear from the beginning that such was not the intention - the intention was only to allow Linux users to view DVDs.
Section 2(a) is more clear about this - it uses the words 'specifically designed or adapted to circumvent...' but 2(b) should also, strictly speaking, be interpreted in the same manner.
But then, IANAL either.
I definitely did _not_ get the first post - there were others here before me.
What happened to them?
Not that I care particularly about them, but it's an indication that something somewhere's buggered.
I'd like a version for Linux/Alpha, which is why this caught my eye. Unfortunately it seems to have been a typo.
Does anyone know anything about the likelihood of versions for non-i386 architectures?
I'll drink to that. A years ago, I got a 'B' for A level Further Maths. I immediately applied to retake it, naturally. However, as the year drew on, I couldn't be bothered. I ended up taking the next years' exam having done absolutely no work in between. I saw many questions on the paper that I knew I could have answered the year before, but couldn't any more. Overall, the standard of my answers was much lower.
I got a 'B' again. The standards had dropped that much in a single year!
I wonder if we could instigate a class action against those who say the standards aren't slipping - it's devaluing the qualifications that we worked for by saying that today's A levels are just as meaningful.
Although I personally don't like the second usage of the word, I believe it's actually correct. Generally, "affect" is a verb, while "effect" is a noun. "Effect" as a verb has an entirely different meaning.
Sorry, I'm feeling pedantic today - the UK Government claimed that 'A' level standards aren't slipping, even though this year's results show a higher pass rate than last year's for the 17th year running. I'm doing my bit to fight against the creeping stupidity of the population.
That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it :)
It's not very closed. All you have to do is send in a request to join. Has anyone ever actually been turned down? Would you also claim that Linux development is closed because you have to actually get off your proverbial backside to subscribe to the linux-kernel mailing list?
You can quite happily write new drivers for the current X servers, based on the released source. If you want to do something more involved, then you should join the team and get on the mailing lists. What could be simpler?
Yes. It supports the v4l devices and also I believe the Permedia inputs.
What graphics software is this? I knew they'd just announced that they'll release XFS, but I wouldn't class that as 'graphics software'.
Not where I come from - where I come from it just means that those motherboards can't be safely used as servers.
If you get a decent motherboard which has the required power setting, why would you need to play silly buggers with the power supply unit?
I thought it was in Manchester last year?
But yes - cheap beer is good. Free accomodation, because She Who Must Be Obeyed is currently at Uni in Bham, is also good :)
Was it ever? I thought it was unsupported from the outset, like most of Alpha/Linux. It still works, albeit with some hacking, on RH6/Alpha.
s/breakpoint//
Look in ftp.uni-mainz.de:/pub/int ernet/security/ssl/SSLapps/ for some SSL-aware telnet/ftp clients and servers.
... and I don't want to be forced to care which my users are using.
I happen to be using KDE, because at the time I set up our company network, it was most usable. Some of my users are now on GNOME, and I expect more to switch when I install Red Hat 6.0.
As long as we have CORBA / Wine OLE2 / K/OM interoperability, and window managers that are compatible with both, then I'll be happy.
HowTF am I supposed to enter <-> (or ) into these poxy comments?