Wish I had mod points today. This is a truly clear and understandable explanation of the issues involved.
The embedded market is a very good point - and "embedded" doesn't necessarily mean what people thinks it means. It might, for example, mean that graphics card you just put in your computer that runs code itself.
15 years ago I was dealing with code on a graphics card and, in fact, the video buffer was mapped in at 0x0 - which may have been a questionable choice, except that you could actually SEE a write to a null pointer.... the upper left corner would get garbage.
It's roughly the same distance from London to Moscow as from Kansas City (in the middle of the US) to Los Angeles. The cultural differences between Kansas and LA are just as big.
And have the balls to post with a proper ID or just shut up.
Despite what many believe, a CS degree is not about learning to program. A CS degree is about learning the theoretical and mathematical constructs that programming is based on.
If you know those basics, the language is largely irrelevant.
C is Pascal is Java is JavaScript is VB is C# is C++ - it's mostly syntactic sugar if you ignore the objects, and even the objects are similar. If you can't swap {} for () or begin-end or whatever, you have no hope of being a decent programmer.
If you're looking for vocational programming training, find a vocational school. It's that simple.
The last few bosses I've had, I have told the same thing:
You pay me too much for me to sit quietly and do what I'm told. If you tell me to do something I think is stupid, I'm going to tell you, in no uncertain terms, that I think it is stupid, and exactly why I think it is stupid. But I will also accept that there may be things going on that I don't know about, and if you tell me that you understand what I'm saying, but to proceed with the stupidity, then that's what I'm going to do, and I'll do my best to make it successful.
The software also works because the OS is inherently predictable, stable, and fault tolerant. It just works right.
Contrast that with the Windows universe, where things just don't work sometimes, and the admin's first response is often to reboot.
I'm not saying Linux is any better; I'm honestly not sure. I know the Windows systems at work give us no end of troubles, whereas the old Unix systems are orders of magnitude more stable. The only place I use Linux at work is an old version of Red Hat on a file server almost nobody uses; it's been rock-solid, but the Ubuntu here at home is increasingly flaky.
I'm basing it on experience years ago when my car windows were broken out. Used some masking tape and some duct tape to cover the windows with plastic until I could get it fixed.
The duct tape residue came off with a little light solvent. The masking tape put up a real fight.
Can't agree with the masking tape. If you don't peel it off pretty quick, you get an awful residue. Duct tape residue will clean off with a little rubbing alcohol.
But of course the computer hardware isn't the issue.
I assume the laptop I'm typing this on has more raw computing power than the system they originally wrote their payroll system for. Maybe not the I/O throughput, but probably more CPU.
The problem is, nobody wants to just move the existing (probably COBOL) to new hardware. Assuming COBOL, that can probably be done fairly easily.
In 1975, they wanted to write something that would work on the hardware they had. That isn't what they want today.
My assumption is they want to re-architect it to be modern, more configurable (as opposed to changing code) and fully buzz-word compliant, in part driven by management that doesn't understand technology but does understand what the highly paid outside firm is telling them.
Have to agree. I graduated from U of Illinois in 1990 with a BS in CS.
I understand that CS != programming, but a good CS background can make for a good programmer.
By the time I graduated, between HS and college, I had successfully completed 5 semesters of calculus.
I have now lost every single bit of that knowledge, and don't miss it one bit. Never did have a practical use for it.
It's interesting to see how A = pi*r*r is related to calculus (see below) but that's just what pi is. Pi was known, at least in its approximate value, long before calculus, so to justify usefulness of calculus in everyday life by trotting that out is just not reasonable in my opinion.
At least in the US, SCO has never been used on the McDonald's POS system (unless it was a 1 or 2 store test of some sort.) It's the back office system, where the manager handles inventory, cash management, and payroll duties.
SCO only provides (provided?) the operating system and typical OS vendor support. The actual business application is developed internally by McDonald's at the moment, although it was historically developed by a variety of outside vendors.
The dominant POS system in the US is based on MS-DOS. The replacement is XPe.
In its day, SCO was very strong in "vertical applications" - special purpose applications, often for small businesses.
As an example, in 1996 I bought a POS system for an auto repair business. The vendor was, at the time, just introducing their Windows 95 version, and it didn't seem very stable, so I said no and went for the stable version. The safe version. The SCO version.
Except if your site looks nasty when linked from Google with their little frame, the visitor is going to assume your site is nasty, not that it has anything to do w/ Google.
Slashdot Mirror
I am not aware that NULL is part of the C standard.
Maybe it got added and I missed it.
Wish I had mod points today. This is a truly clear and understandable explanation of the issues involved.
The embedded market is a very good point - and "embedded" doesn't necessarily mean what people thinks it means. It might, for example, mean that graphics card you just put in your computer that runs code itself.
15 years ago I was dealing with code on a graphics card and, in fact, the video buffer was mapped in at 0x0 - which may have been a questionable choice, except that you could actually SEE a write to a null pointer.... the upper left corner would get garbage.
It makes sense until people find out they'll forgive small amounts.
Then you wouldn't believe the number of people who would pay off all but $0.50 just because they can.
Hey! Enough with the gross generalizations, OK?
The US is a huge place, and far from homogeneous.
It's roughly the same distance from London to Moscow as from Kansas City (in the middle of the US) to Los Angeles. The cultural differences between Kansas and LA are just as big.
And have the balls to post with a proper ID or just shut up.
Has to be funny first.
This might be interesting if it were the first time I'd read it here.
But posting it in every Obama-related article is just obnoxious, and perhaps racist itself.
Despite what many believe, a CS degree is not about learning to program. A CS degree is about learning the theoretical and mathematical constructs that programming is based on.
If you know those basics, the language is largely irrelevant.
C is Pascal is Java is JavaScript is VB is C# is C++ - it's mostly syntactic sugar if you ignore the objects, and even the objects are similar. If you can't swap {} for () or begin-end or whatever, you have no hope of being a decent programmer.
If you're looking for vocational programming training, find a vocational school. It's that simple.
The last few bosses I've had, I have told the same thing:
You pay me too much for me to sit quietly and do what I'm told. If you tell me to do something I think is stupid, I'm going to tell you, in no uncertain terms, that I think it is stupid, and exactly why I think it is stupid.
But I will also accept that there may be things going on that I don't know about, and if you tell me that you understand what I'm saying, but to proceed with the stupidity, then that's what I'm going to do, and I'll do my best to make it successful.
Maybe this is your problem?
The software also works because the OS is inherently predictable, stable, and fault tolerant. It just works right.
Contrast that with the Windows universe, where things just don't work sometimes, and the admin's first response is often to reboot.
I'm not saying Linux is any better; I'm honestly not sure. I know the Windows systems at work give us no end of troubles, whereas the old Unix systems are orders of magnitude more stable. The only place I use Linux at work is an old version of Red Hat on a file server almost nobody uses; it's been rock-solid, but the Ubuntu here at home is increasingly flaky.
That's great.
Tell Microsoft and the creators of most of the web sites out there.
Up the font and the layout goes to hell in my experience. What am I doing wrong?
Actually, you can specify a single file, it just has a silly syntax.
robocopy source destination file
So "robocopy c:\a c:\b myfile.txt" will copy c:\a\myfile.txt to c:\b\myfile.txt.
I'm basing it on experience years ago when my car windows were broken out. Used some masking tape and some duct tape to cover the windows with plastic until I could get it fixed.
The duct tape residue came off with a little light solvent. The masking tape put up a real fight.
Of course, getting wet probably had an impact.
Thought that was called "marriage."
Can't agree with the masking tape. If you don't peel it off pretty quick, you get an awful residue. Duct tape residue will clean off with a little rubbing alcohol.
I think you've got the demographic wrong, at least the age.
Strictly anecdotal, but I'm 40, and I'm the youngster on my team at work. We all read Slashdot.
I would point out that the vast majority of senior McDonald's executives started out in a restaurant.
But of course the computer hardware isn't the issue.
I assume the laptop I'm typing this on has more raw computing power than the system they originally wrote their payroll system for. Maybe not the I/O throughput, but probably more CPU.
The problem is, nobody wants to just move the existing (probably COBOL) to new hardware. Assuming COBOL, that can probably be done fairly easily.
In 1975, they wanted to write something that would work on the hardware they had. That isn't what they want today.
My assumption is they want to re-architect it to be modern, more configurable (as opposed to changing code) and fully buzz-word compliant, in part driven by management that doesn't understand technology but does understand what the highly paid outside firm is telling them.
Have to agree. I graduated from U of Illinois in 1990 with a BS in CS.
I understand that CS != programming, but a good CS background can make for a good programmer.
By the time I graduated, between HS and college, I had successfully completed 5 semesters of calculus.
I have now lost every single bit of that knowledge, and don't miss it one bit. Never did have a practical use for it.
It's interesting to see how A = pi*r*r is related to calculus (see below) but that's just what pi is. Pi was known, at least in its approximate value, long before calculus, so to justify usefulness of calculus in everyday life by trotting that out is just not reasonable in my opinion.
So you paid Sprint probably $1,000 that they asked for with out deserving, just because they asked and threatened your credit report?
I don't know a nice way to say this - I can't decide if you're an idiot or just a total wuss bag.
At least in the US, SCO has never been used on the McDonald's POS system (unless it was a 1 or 2 store test of some sort.) It's the back office system, where the manager handles inventory, cash management, and payroll duties.
SCO only provides (provided?) the operating system and typical OS vendor support. The actual business application is developed internally by McDonald's at the moment, although it was historically developed by a variety of outside vendors.
The dominant POS system in the US is based on MS-DOS. The replacement is XPe.
In its day, SCO was very strong in "vertical applications" - special purpose applications, often for small businesses.
As an example, in 1996 I bought a POS system for an auto repair business. The vendor was, at the time, just introducing their Windows 95 version, and it didn't seem very stable, so I said no and went for the stable version. The safe version. The SCO version.
Except if your site looks nasty when linked from Google with their little frame, the visitor is going to assume your site is nasty, not that it has anything to do w/ Google.
Yeah?
We still have about 60,000 DOS systems deployed.
Of course, we call them cash registers.....
Its not just roads. As an earlier post pointed out, many city or county governments handle garbage collection, electricity, and/or natural gas.
All of these are handled in other places by private companies.
City of Chicago handles garbage collection.
In the city of Darien, BFI handles garbage collection.
City of Naperville does electricity.
ComEd sells me my electricity.