Re:Not a cron replacement, a init replacement
on
Does launchd Beat cron?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I don't know this, but launchd (hopefully) does proper dependency-based concurrency, something that rc.d has lacked for a while. rc.d launches everything in order. What you really need is a dependency graph and then to traverse down it. Init will start first, then anything that directly depends on init. Once a process' dependencies are met, it starts. This is not a hard calculation (though I forget exactly which graph algorithm you use) and could vastly improve startup time. If they're experiencing vastly improved startup times, perhaps this is why?
In theory, I agree that congress should be fixing this, not a court. Realistically, though, congress is in the RIAA's pocket. At this point in time, a rogue judge has much more power to go against the grain and at least challenge the law than the congress who won't do anything and aren't representing their constituents as much as they do the RIAA.
I *hate* judicial activism and think that the judiciary's power should stop at countering a law (and perhaps as a check on this, a 2/3 vote of congress could override that). Right now the judiciary has too much unchecked power (note how abortion has never been brought into represented goverment at a federal level and the "laws" were made by the courts) The courts should be adjudicating cases, not legislating.
That said, I'd be ok with the supreme court saying that the law was unconstitutional and leaving the congress to either amend the constitution or make a new law. My point is that it would probably have to start in the judiciary.
They don't seem to be going after people who do a small amount of sharing, and as far as we know, merely downloading doesn't get you caught. I'm not positive, but downloading something you have a license to is arguably legal enough that it's probably not worth them pursuing downloaders, in case it went to court. When someone downloads, you don't know whether they have the license or not. On the other hand, when someone shares, you know they're violating copyright cause they don't have redistribution rights.
I'd take the workload of two (or more) for the pay of one if I ran the company. It would be nice to get rich, but that's hardly my goal. Your comment 'I remember when I had hopes and dreams.' is at least a little bit patronizing. I'm not sure anyone successfully started a business without hopes, dreams, and a little bit of self-delusion. You have to believe in your idea to the point where you're listening to the idea more than you're creating it. Just about everything I do, I do with the purpose of coming closer to that goal.
More importantly though--among peers who are IT people, almost no one is thinking the way I am. Many of them see getting a good job as an end. I look at a good job as a means to create my own job with.
Perhaps, like you, I will someday lose the drive I have now and become a cynic. Fortunately, I have youthful naivete to fall back on for at least a few more years.
Also, some of us would *welcome* the opportunity to work 50, 60, more hours a week for the chance to make some extra cash or just because we love our work. The more people talking the way you are, the more politicians will get it in their heads that the work hours of consenting adults should be regulated. All I can say is please don't.
I know for one that my life plan depends on me being able to work harder/longer/faster than my colleagues as I plan on starting a company once my financial situation is right (i.e. student loans are gone). The more hours I work, the faster that happens. To deny that, and label me a slave is not only debasing, but a perversion of truth.
"making the RIAA's lawsuits much less profitable."
The RIAA is currently settling for $1/song + legal fees. The lawsuits aren't a revenue stream, and sharers are almost all paying under $5000. $1500 (average sued sharer shares 1500 songs, other costs are for legal fees) * 10,000 = $15 million. For a multibillion dollar industry, this is nothing.
The disparity between the offered settlement and the potential liability could easily constitute a coercement of the violators to choose the settlement, and I hope that this point comes to light (is there really a choice to take a lawsuit? If the RIAA wins, then the liability is too huge. Paying a few grand and getting out is almost always the better choice). The sued party is pretty much being denied the right to a trial because the liability is too high. The right judge could illuminate this point and really change the law for the better (said by someone who generally condemns judicial activism)
Unfortunately Apple stores apparently don't allow student discounts on software for in-store purchases...I'm not giving up on a $60 discount to have it on release day, but I wish I'd known this beforehand. I guess I'll be picking it up on monday elsewhere...
I see what you're saying and I don't disagree that LISP's macros are more powerful. I'm not sure they're needed in a language as syntactically rich as ruby. Because LISP lacks syntax, you need to go to lengths to create it. As a result, multiple LISP codebases appear sufficiently different to disturb developer mobility between projects. If a function call is a function call, then you can read code and know what it means. If it's a special form, something completely different could be going on and the usage looks the same.
The other thing you could do in ruby to prevent nasty string interpolation is to build a Proc object (a closure of sorts) that parametrizes the call. I'm not sure what a great idea it would be to define the block outside of the macro (since it is a closure and would be in the wrong context), but if it was written properly, I suppose it would be alright.
Having worked with a large lisp system and a medium sized ruby system, I'll say that from a pragmatic perspective, ruby has enough meta-programming support with a clear enough syntax that its benefits outweigh those of lisp whose syntax can be hard on the eyes, especially for new developers.
It's like a visual command line (That opens my todo file in TextMate). You get very fast as this. I sometimes even use it for application switching since a character is often enough. You tell it what folders to index, but I wouldn't try to do anything big. It's good for applications, desktop, and my collection of text files. I wonder if it works on Tiger (only 3 more hours till it's released here!)
The KHTML developers gave something to apple by LGPLing their code. Apple doesn't owe them anything. By giving the "world" the gift of their code, they accept that (within the license), the world can do whatever they want with it.
If they didn't want a potential fork then they shouldn't have used a license that had one.
I wish I'd thought of it first. It's actually quite brilliant, if you think about it. They've leveraged existing technology (Darwin, CUPS, etc) to avoid writing lots and lots of drivers and doing other similarly unpleasant things while focusing most of their effort on UI interaction--what they do best.
They're providing the modified source code. What they're not doing is adhering to the project management standards (version control, changelogs, whatever) that KHTML uses. The GPL doesn't require this. As I see it, Apple is modifying and using KHTML and releasing the modified source back to the KHTML team, thus fulfilling the GPL. There's no requirement that it be easy to build or that they document their changes well or that they not fork the project.
In fact, forking is not a bad way to describe what they're doing. They've made a legitimate fork. They're releasing patches, they're playing by the rules.
The OP is right. They're not 'cooperating'. Guess what--they don't have to. The GPL, however much RMS would like it to, doesn't mandate having a social conscience.
For anyone who bought panther the day it came out--is it possible? If I go to an apple store do I have any expectation of walking out with tiger? Or should I expect it to be long out of stock?
Re:This is not a troll, but a query...
on
Practical Common Lisp
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
While self modifying code in ruby is not practical, macro-like code generation is pretty clean. They're not full read-macros like lisp, but I think they lend themselves to more readable/extensible code. In lisp, if you use a read macro, and it isn't properly documented, then the users of the function will be confused by why things are being quoted until they find the source or read the docs. Lisp macros are also quite difficult to read and modify later if you didn't write them.
Here's an example of method generation in ruby:
CALLBACKS.each do |method|
base.class_eval -"end_eval"
def self.#{method}(*callbacks, &block)
callbacks block if block_given?
write_inheritable_array(#{method.to_sym.inspect}, callbacks)
end
end_eval
This is from the rails source code (which takes metaprogramming in ruby to an extreme I haven't witnessed previously, even in lisp). If you configure your text editor not to parse here documents, then the code you're generating will be highlighted correctly (and with the right %X{} sequence, it will almost always be highlighted).
No, it's not read macros, but I've seen read macros which generate hundreds of lines of lisp in the most horrid fashion. This is no good. I'd rather have a more controlled mechanism (and more object orientation).
That said, Lisp is a lot of fun, and I look forward to the next time I have substantial reason to use it.
When I said it "wasn't a real part of their product line" I was referring to the fact that buying a mini, monitor, keyboard, and mouse requires spending more than you would on an iMac. This basically means that they're encouraging you to use your own hardware (they are). It's unlike apple to allow users to compromise the "apple style" like this by plugging in an ordinary beige monitor. The mini is meant to be the next step in switching for an iPod user on Windows or a new gadget for the devoted fanboy. I don't see it targeted as a primary computer for any serious user.
All laptops released by them in nearly the last 2 years have w-enabled trackpads. Rest two fingers on the pad when you click and it's a "right click" (ctrl-click). Combine this with two-finger scrolling and I'd rather have my trackpad than a mouse. This is my first mac and it took me a while to appreciate the 1-button approach, but now that I've gotten used to it, it doesn't bother me at all.
For some computers you need to install a hacked mouse driver to activate the features. It took all of 30 seconds and I haven't looked back.
Perhaps expose is less smooth because you're running off of an iPod and expose needs to grab something off of the hard disk? I'd imagine the powersave/spindown on an iPod is a bit more ambitious than your pb.
Last I heard, no. They don't want to break existing java apps so AFAIK, they're holding off on the release, doing it separately so the developers have a little time with java and tiger to update their products, then releasing it via automatic update in a few months.
Nope. Their CPU sales went up 40% last year without you. They don't need you or your demographic to be successful. Premium price for a premium product. Besides, the mini isn't a real part of their product line (kind of out of place, imo). Start with the iMac and factor out the price of a 20" LCD and you'll find that things make a little bit more sense.
As a geek, you want a beige box that you can plug into your existing system. Apple doesn't want people to be using apples that don't look like apples, ergo it's not going to make as much sense to do it that way.
KDE wasn't innovating either. In fact, document previews are sufficiently peripheral and obvious that they're not innovations at all. Apple's implementation is especially nice since it allows the application to define custom icons per document (i.e. CPU time isn' being wasted rendering every time the file browser hits it). Microsoft isn't passing this off as innovation, they're just happening to add a feature that already existed elsewhere. It's not a crime. Microsoft isn't always 'wrong'.
First of all, As a web developer, I want people to be using standards-compliant browsers for the obvious reasons--when they don't, it creates more work for me. A lot more work. To the point where fixing my CSS to work with IE5's fucked up box model dwarfs the time spent actually designing a usable interface.
Secondly, I don't like the constant barrage of windows worm requests when my machine is on an open network. It dirties the log files, making debugging a local site harder. Just because you happen to have managed your windows machine badly doesn't mean that you have the right to poke my computer with yours every ten minutes.
Third, interoperability. This isn't much of a problem, or at least, it used to be more of one. I use office on my mac (which is my main development machine for web stuff) and even on linux, the free stuff is usually good enough. Besides, I haven't seen a word file in a long time--pdf's have largely replaced them for document distribution.
Lastly, I don't want to support your windows machine for free because you are too inept to do it. When I was younger, I did this all the time. At some point I decided that that would stop, and that there were better ways to use my time than doing a professional's work for free. Now people get angry with me for not helping them because I used to. I've never had an open source OS user get angry at me for not helping them with something, and they're usually more interested in learning how to prevent the problem from recurring than just 'make it go away'. In short, OSS users make better peers on the internet and more knowledgeable computer users.
That enough? This is a pretty idiotic "Ask Slashdot?" if you ask me...
Goto only has a place because C++ is a weak language. If c++ had a proper runtime exception mechanism or support for continuations (which can be used to implement the former but generally only serve to obfuscate code), then gotos would be wholely unneccesary.
Yes it works, but it's not clean. The only reason I use gotos in c/c++ code is to break out of multiple levels of scope or for a basic 'goto end' pattern in a long/complex routine that needs to ensure cleanup before returning. I suppose I'd also use it for performance reasons if I was that desperate, but I've never been there.
The fact that it works, though, isn't enough to make me use it except in the situations where there's no other choice. I see a lot of gotos in peoples' code where they don't need to be. The creators of C/C++ left goto in for a reason--there are times when there's no other practical choice.
A quick grep of 20klocs of code I wrote for a client indicates 12 uses of goto in 2 routines. One was a parser with a lot of multilevel stuff to break out of. The other was a non-blocking i/o routine that needed to ensure some state cleanup before returning from a lot of places, again in a nested hierarchy. Both were relatively long routines.
All of this talk seems to assume that there's at least some excess manpower to be thrown at the problem, that the customer knows what they need at the time of specification, etc. It doesn't allow the softare to become what it was meant to be, but only what the potentially narrow mind of one designer allows for early in the process.
I work in control systems. We have in-house motion control software that we use to do weird jobs. This software is not as featureful or complete as the packaged solutions, but it is cheap to deploy, and designed to be expandable and flexible. A project might entail anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand lines of custom code that sits on top of the 30-40klocs of core code.
When a customer requests a CNC retrofit of an old or weird machine, they seldom have any idea how the machinist on the floor actually uses the equipment. They see the problem as a basic one--the machine takes too long at X or the machine lacks capability Y. The machinist is not really a programmer and isn't mentally prepared to make the leap to writing a specification.
The solution to the problem was for me (a programmer) to go into work with the machinist for a few days when the software was about half done and help him make the parts he needed to. Even though the software was incomplete, I could at least step around any immediate problem by throwing a little bit of prototype code at the problem and get the operator's feedback regarding the process as a whole and how it could be changed to make his life easier.
I guess the point I'm making isn't fully formed, but all this talk about design processes seems to be missing the essence of that project, which was only possible by allowing the sole user of the software and the programmer to spend time collaborating. For much of the coding, I brought my workstation to the factory floor and worked right there. It made testing much easier and let me ask the operator questions whenever an issue arose that hadn't been forseen by my boss or his when they planned out this task and designed the system. I would, of course, run major changes by my boss first, but he pretty much trusted what the operator and I were figuring out.
We've been providing custom software to this company for several years. It's pretty much run without issues and has saved them huge amounts of money, essentially by optimizing a handful of machines in there shop. The project would never have gotten off of the ground if we'd been caught up in these sorts of formal processes. We don't have the manpower, or the timeframe.
If the applications aren't forced to make use of the security features, then what is the point of the security features? If any piece of malware can choose to ignore them then no system is secure. I'm not an expert on the semantics you're touting, but this seems like a fundamental flaw in the NT security model.
How about the economic incentive for a company to please its existing customers. I don't hear many people complaining about Oracle ruining their backwards compatibility or alienating them. Granted, they're paying the big bucks to use Oracle's product, but Oracle's holding their part of the bargain.
I think this works in general unless you have a monopoly situation in which the customer is forced to use the product because of a lack of alternatives and the vendor has no incentive to please his customers.
I used to be an open source zealot, but as I learn more and more, read more and more, and come closer to owning my own business, I can see that it's not always the answer. That said, I use MySQL at work extensively.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know this, but launchd (hopefully) does proper dependency-based concurrency, something that rc.d has lacked for a while. rc.d launches everything in order. What you really need is a dependency graph and then to traverse down it. Init will start first, then anything that directly depends on init. Once a process' dependencies are met, it starts. This is not a hard calculation (though I forget exactly which graph algorithm you use) and could vastly improve startup time. If they're experiencing vastly improved startup times, perhaps this is why?
In theory, I agree that congress should be fixing this, not a court. Realistically, though, congress is in the RIAA's pocket. At this point in time, a rogue judge has much more power to go against the grain and at least challenge the law than the congress who won't do anything and aren't representing their constituents as much as they do the RIAA.
I *hate* judicial activism and think that the judiciary's power should stop at countering a law (and perhaps as a check on this, a 2/3 vote of congress could override that). Right now the judiciary has too much unchecked power (note how abortion has never been brought into represented goverment at a federal level and the "laws" were made by the courts) The courts should be adjudicating cases, not legislating.
That said, I'd be ok with the supreme court saying that the law was unconstitutional and leaving the congress to either amend the constitution or make a new law. My point is that it would probably have to start in the judiciary.
They don't seem to be going after people who do a small amount of sharing, and as far as we know, merely downloading doesn't get you caught. I'm not positive, but downloading something you have a license to is arguably legal enough that it's probably not worth them pursuing downloaders, in case it went to court. When someone downloads, you don't know whether they have the license or not. On the other hand, when someone shares, you know they're violating copyright cause they don't have redistribution rights.
The average person sued shares around 1500 files.
I'd take the workload of two (or more) for the pay of one if I ran the company. It would be nice to get rich, but that's hardly my goal. Your comment 'I remember when I had hopes and dreams.' is at least a little bit patronizing. I'm not sure anyone successfully started a business without hopes, dreams, and a little bit of self-delusion. You have to believe in your idea to the point where you're listening to the idea more than you're creating it. Just about everything I do, I do with the purpose of coming closer to that goal.
More importantly though--among peers who are IT people, almost no one is thinking the way I am. Many of them see getting a good job as an end. I look at a good job as a means to create my own job with.
Perhaps, like you, I will someday lose the drive I have now and become a cynic. Fortunately, I have youthful naivete to fall back on for at least a few more years.
It's not slavery if you can leave.
Also, some of us would *welcome* the opportunity to work 50, 60, more hours a week for the chance to make some extra cash or just because we love our work. The more people talking the way you are, the more politicians will get it in their heads that the work hours of consenting adults should be regulated. All I can say is please don't.
I know for one that my life plan depends on me being able to work harder/longer/faster than my colleagues as I plan on starting a company once my financial situation is right (i.e. student loans are gone). The more hours I work, the faster that happens. To deny that, and label me a slave is not only debasing, but a perversion of truth.
"making the RIAA's lawsuits much less profitable."
The RIAA is currently settling for $1/song + legal fees. The lawsuits aren't a revenue stream, and sharers are almost all paying under $5000. $1500 (average sued sharer shares 1500 songs, other costs are for legal fees) * 10,000 = $15 million. For a multibillion dollar industry, this is nothing.
The disparity between the offered settlement and the potential liability could easily constitute a coercement of the violators to choose the settlement, and I hope that this point comes to light (is there really a choice to take a lawsuit? If the RIAA wins, then the liability is too huge. Paying a few grand and getting out is almost always the better choice). The sued party is pretty much being denied the right to a trial because the liability is too high. The right judge could illuminate this point and really change the law for the better (said by someone who generally condemns judicial activism)
Unfortunately Apple stores apparently don't allow student discounts on software for in-store purchases...I'm not giving up on a $60 discount to have it on release day, but I wish I'd known this beforehand. I guess I'll be picking it up on monday elsewhere...
I see what you're saying and I don't disagree that LISP's macros are more powerful. I'm not sure they're needed in a language as syntactically rich as ruby. Because LISP lacks syntax, you need to go to lengths to create it. As a result, multiple LISP codebases appear sufficiently different to disturb developer mobility between projects. If a function call is a function call, then you can read code and know what it means. If it's a special form, something completely different could be going on and the usage looks the same.
The other thing you could do in ruby to prevent nasty string interpolation is to build a Proc object (a closure of sorts) that parametrizes the call. I'm not sure what a great idea it would be to define the block outside of the macro (since it is a closure and would be in the wrong context), but if it was written properly, I suppose it would be alright.
Having worked with a large lisp system and a medium sized ruby system, I'll say that from a pragmatic perspective, ruby has enough meta-programming support with a clear enough syntax that its benefits outweigh those of lisp whose syntax can be hard on the eyes, especially for new developers.
Ctrl-Space
todo
ow
t
It's like a visual command line (That opens my todo file in TextMate). You get very fast as this. I sometimes even use it for application switching since a character is often enough. You tell it what folders to index, but I wouldn't try to do anything big. It's good for applications, desktop, and my collection of text files. I wonder if it works on Tiger (only 3 more hours till it's released here!)
The KHTML developers gave something to apple by LGPLing their code. Apple doesn't owe them anything. By giving the "world" the gift of their code, they accept that (within the license), the world can do whatever they want with it.
If they didn't want a potential fork then they shouldn't have used a license that had one.
I wish I'd thought of it first. It's actually quite brilliant, if you think about it. They've leveraged existing technology (Darwin, CUPS, etc) to avoid writing lots and lots of drivers and doing other similarly unpleasant things while focusing most of their effort on UI interaction--what they do best.
They're providing the modified source code. What they're not doing is adhering to the project management standards (version control, changelogs, whatever) that KHTML uses. The GPL doesn't require this. As I see it, Apple is modifying and using KHTML and releasing the modified source back to the KHTML team, thus fulfilling the GPL. There's no requirement that it be easy to build or that they document their changes well or that they not fork the project.
In fact, forking is not a bad way to describe what they're doing. They've made a legitimate fork. They're releasing patches, they're playing by the rules.
The OP is right. They're not 'cooperating'. Guess what--they don't have to. The GPL, however much RMS would like it to, doesn't mandate having a social conscience.
For anyone who bought panther the day it came out--is it possible? If I go to an apple store do I have any expectation of walking out with tiger? Or should I expect it to be long out of stock?
While self modifying code in ruby is not practical, macro-like code generation is pretty clean. They're not full read-macros like lisp, but I think they lend themselves to more readable/extensible code. In lisp, if you use a read macro, and it isn't properly documented, then the users of the function will be confused by why things are being quoted until they find the source or read the docs. Lisp macros are also quite difficult to read and modify later if you didn't write them.
Here's an example of method generation in ruby:
CALLBACKS.each do |method|
base.class_eval -"end_eval"
def self.#{method}(*callbacks, &block)
callbacks block if block_given?
write_inheritable_array(#{method.to_sym.inspect}, callbacks)
end
end_eval
This is from the rails source code (which takes metaprogramming in ruby to an extreme I haven't witnessed previously, even in lisp). If you configure your text editor not to parse here documents, then the code you're generating will be highlighted correctly (and with the right %X{} sequence, it will almost always be highlighted).
No, it's not read macros, but I've seen read macros which generate hundreds of lines of lisp in the most horrid fashion. This is no good. I'd rather have a more controlled mechanism (and more object orientation).
That said, Lisp is a lot of fun, and I look forward to the next time I have substantial reason to use it.
When I said it "wasn't a real part of their product line" I was referring to the fact that buying a mini, monitor, keyboard, and mouse requires spending more than you would on an iMac. This basically means that they're encouraging you to use your own hardware (they are). It's unlike apple to allow users to compromise the "apple style" like this by plugging in an ordinary beige monitor. The mini is meant to be the next step in switching for an iPod user on Windows or a new gadget for the devoted fanboy. I don't see it targeted as a primary computer for any serious user.
All laptops released by them in nearly the last 2 years have w-enabled trackpads. Rest two fingers on the pad when you click and it's a "right click" (ctrl-click). Combine this with two-finger scrolling and I'd rather have my trackpad than a mouse. This is my first mac and it took me a while to appreciate the 1-button approach, but now that I've gotten used to it, it doesn't bother me at all.
For some computers you need to install a hacked mouse driver to activate the features. It took all of 30 seconds and I haven't looked back.
Perhaps expose is less smooth because you're running off of an iPod and expose needs to grab something off of the hard disk? I'd imagine the powersave/spindown on an iPod is a bit more ambitious than your pb.
Last I heard, no. They don't want to break existing java apps so AFAIK, they're holding off on the release, doing it separately so the developers have a little time with java and tiger to update their products, then releasing it via automatic update in a few months.
Nope. Their CPU sales went up 40% last year without you. They don't need you or your demographic to be successful. Premium price for a premium product. Besides, the mini isn't a real part of their product line (kind of out of place, imo). Start with the iMac and factor out the price of a 20" LCD and you'll find that things make a little bit more sense.
As a geek, you want a beige box that you can plug into your existing system. Apple doesn't want people to be using apples that don't look like apples, ergo it's not going to make as much sense to do it that way.
KDE wasn't innovating either. In fact, document previews are sufficiently peripheral and obvious that they're not innovations at all. Apple's implementation is especially nice since it allows the application to define custom icons per document (i.e. CPU time isn' being wasted rendering every time the file browser hits it). Microsoft isn't passing this off as innovation, they're just happening to add a feature that already existed elsewhere. It's not a crime. Microsoft isn't always 'wrong'.
First of all, As a web developer, I want people to be using standards-compliant browsers for the obvious reasons--when they don't, it creates more work for me. A lot more work. To the point where fixing my CSS to work with IE5's fucked up box model dwarfs the time spent actually designing a usable interface.
Secondly, I don't like the constant barrage of windows worm requests when my machine is on an open network. It dirties the log files, making debugging a local site harder. Just because you happen to have managed your windows machine badly doesn't mean that you have the right to poke my computer with yours every ten minutes.
Third, interoperability. This isn't much of a problem, or at least, it used to be more of one. I use office on my mac (which is my main development machine for web stuff) and even on linux, the free stuff is usually good enough. Besides, I haven't seen a word file in a long time--pdf's have largely replaced them for document distribution.
Lastly, I don't want to support your windows machine for free because you are too inept to do it. When I was younger, I did this all the time. At some point I decided that that would stop, and that there were better ways to use my time than doing a professional's work for free. Now people get angry with me for not helping them because I used to. I've never had an open source OS user get angry at me for not helping them with something, and they're usually more interested in learning how to prevent the problem from recurring than just 'make it go away'. In short, OSS users make better peers on the internet and more knowledgeable computer users.
That enough? This is a pretty idiotic "Ask Slashdot?" if you ask me...
Goto only has a place because C++ is a weak language. If c++ had a proper runtime exception mechanism or support for continuations (which can be used to implement the former but generally only serve to obfuscate code), then gotos would be wholely unneccesary.
Yes it works, but it's not clean. The only reason I use gotos in c/c++ code is to break out of multiple levels of scope or for a basic 'goto end' pattern in a long/complex routine that needs to ensure cleanup before returning. I suppose I'd also use it for performance reasons if I was that desperate, but I've never been there.
The fact that it works, though, isn't enough to make me use it except in the situations where there's no other choice. I see a lot of gotos in peoples' code where they don't need to be. The creators of C/C++ left goto in for a reason--there are times when there's no other practical choice.
A quick grep of 20klocs of code I wrote for a client indicates 12 uses of goto in 2 routines. One was a parser with a lot of multilevel stuff to break out of. The other was a non-blocking i/o routine that needed to ensure some state cleanup before returning from a lot of places, again in a nested hierarchy. Both were relatively long routines.
All of this talk seems to assume that there's at least some excess manpower to be thrown at the problem, that the customer knows what they need at the time of specification, etc. It doesn't allow the softare to become what it was meant to be, but only what the potentially narrow mind of one designer allows for early in the process.
I work in control systems. We have in-house motion control software that we use to do weird jobs. This software is not as featureful or complete as the packaged solutions, but it is cheap to deploy, and designed to be expandable and flexible. A project might entail anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand lines of custom code that sits on top of the 30-40klocs of core code.
When a customer requests a CNC retrofit of an old or weird machine, they seldom have any idea how the machinist on the floor actually uses the equipment. They see the problem as a basic one--the machine takes too long at X or the machine lacks capability Y. The machinist is not really a programmer and isn't mentally prepared to make the leap to writing a specification.
The solution to the problem was for me (a programmer) to go into work with the machinist for a few days when the software was about half done and help him make the parts he needed to. Even though the software was incomplete, I could at least step around any immediate problem by throwing a little bit of prototype code at the problem and get the operator's feedback regarding the process as a whole and how it could be changed to make his life easier.
I guess the point I'm making isn't fully formed, but all this talk about design processes seems to be missing the essence of that project, which was only possible by allowing the sole user of the software and the programmer to spend time collaborating. For much of the coding, I brought my workstation to the factory floor and worked right there. It made testing much easier and let me ask the operator questions whenever an issue arose that hadn't been forseen by my boss or his when they planned out this task and designed the system. I would, of course, run major changes by my boss first, but he pretty much trusted what the operator and I were figuring out.
We've been providing custom software to this company for several years. It's pretty much run without issues and has saved them huge amounts of money, essentially by optimizing a handful of machines in there shop. The project would never have gotten off of the ground if we'd been caught up in these sorts of formal processes. We don't have the manpower, or the timeframe.
If the applications aren't forced to make use of the security features, then what is the point of the security features? If any piece of malware can choose to ignore them then no system is secure. I'm not an expert on the semantics you're touting, but this seems like a fundamental flaw in the NT security model.
How about the economic incentive for a company to please its existing customers. I don't hear many people complaining about Oracle ruining their backwards compatibility or alienating them. Granted, they're paying the big bucks to use Oracle's product, but Oracle's holding their part of the bargain.
I think this works in general unless you have a monopoly situation in which the customer is forced to use the product because of a lack of alternatives and the vendor has no incentive to please his customers.
I used to be an open source zealot, but as I learn more and more, read more and more, and come closer to owning my own business, I can see that it's not always the answer. That said, I use MySQL at work extensively.