The company I work for (large fortune 500 company) still uses a lot of cobol on the mainframe for financial transactions. Why use an "ancient" language? Because there is 20-30 years of business knowledge encoded in the cobol code. Not only that, but it is tested, tried, and it just works perfectly. Rewriting in a modern language would make no sense other than using the "latest technology." Rewriting would most certainly introduce bugs which could potentially cost the company millions since it is running financial processes.
Cobol was meant for the business and financial world and is well suited for it.
Your first two points have to do with surface tension. TFA is talking about non-newtonian fluids which act like solids when a force is applied. See the video of the guy walking across the lake o' corn starch.
Indeed. I used to work at Micro Center, and this is clearly where their business is headed. Sales people work on commission. They then changed the model so that you earn very little commission on the actual computer you sell, and a lot on the extras you sell with it. I don't work there anymore, but some friends of mine who do say that pretty soon they will earn next nothing on a computer system if it is sold without any extras.
It isn't a matter of well designed apps. Its a matter of the fact that windows so entwines everything into the kernel, that apps have to run as an admin to be able to do anything useful. I'm not really a Linux fanboy, but you don't need to have a UAC prompt there, there is simply kernel space and user space. Why can't windows just follow suit?
I'm no expert on the subject, but alcohol is the waste product of micro organisms as they ferment (wheat, barley, fruit, etc). There wouldn't be anything in your body to ferment and hence, no reaction.
btw, when I start to see 2 slashdot homepages on my screen at the same time, thats when my body tells me I have the perfect amount of alcohol.
(install "untrusted" software aka we didn't pay MS $500) run software Vista: whoa! are you sure you want this to run? click yes Vista: whoa! your software is accessing your HD, is this ok? click yes Vista: whoa..... you get the picture
basically its going to be a pain in the ass to run open source software unless you turn this "feature" off, and then its just as insecure as any other windows. Vista security is just a bandaid, nothing more.
I think that microsoft makes a product that is too complicated for "normal" users, and at the same time has too much bloat and not enough power for the "technical" users. I still don't understand why an operating system needs to be composed of a web browser, media player, reversi, and all the other crap that is preloaded. its to the point that people think that these things are the OS.
I've always said that microsoft will gain a lot more support from geeks and the greater/. crowd if they would release a "lite" version of windows that was just the kernel and shell without the bloat programs. That way we could install the software that we want to use and not have to deal with the other stuff taking up HD space. Add in the ability to use a custom shell and I'd personally be all set.
A CS degree is not an engineering degree, I agree with this . It is more of a specialized math degree. However, I don't agree with your definition of what engineering is. I would say that Software Engineering is an engineering discipline that uses concepts from computer science, business, and other areas depending on the business domain. This is the same as lets say mechanical engineering using skills from traditional mathematics, materials, chemistry, etc). Software doens't have an unlimited bucket of parts as you seem to be inferring. Things such as time, manpower, hardware requirements really limit options and will take a skilled software engineering team to come up with a solution.
We as software engineers also have to keep the big picture in mind while working on the details. The big picture is time requirements, the environment in which the software will be run, etc. Software and related technology also move at the speed of light compared to other engineering disciplines. We must always be kept up to date in our skillsets and train with new technologies on a constant basis.
Your last paragraph does come off as snooty. I went to a science and engineering university, and both engineers and computer science had to take the same 2 years of calculus, differential equations, stats, etc. And I don't believe for a second that the major specific courses for CS and engineering differ much in difficulty, they're just different. I know this becuase most of my friends are engineers and I know what their classwork was like.
I don't mean to make this sound like a flame, but I think you have a slightly narrow view of CS and software engineering. Also, before anyone makes comments about my/. handle, I am employed thank you very much. I had this account well before I graduated and was able to get a decent job.
Use a low bandwidth connection such as a dialup and tell me which you'd rather search at? Not everyone has mega broadband connections. Even on my broadband connection google comes up quicker. All I want to do is search, why do I have to be blasted with news and ads I don't want?
The reason that there isn't a toolset for the BG series is that all of the terrain artwork is hand painted and static. With NWN, you can build your own worlds lego-style, although the drawback is that all areas tend to look the same (unless you are very talented with your placeable placing skills). NWN2 attempts to alleviate this by using a freeform terrain editor.
This is even more reason for having the artists and consumers connect directly. For example, go to Metallica's website, download non-drm tracks for a buck a pop or whatever, and metallica gets 100% of the money. Throw in merchandise sold directly through the same website and artists could stand to make a lot more money than with the RIAA. Yes, people will copy, put on filesharing, etc, but this has realistically been going on for ages. My friends and I used to get together for hours copying cassette tapes. I never once paid a dime for a commercially produced cassette. When cd's came out, I purchased these so that I could have a "collection" but people can copy them just as easily.
The only difference is that before you couldn't really prove or be able to tell who copied that cassette tape. With the internet, you are given away by your ip address, giving the RIAA a basis to sue, and I fully believe it is simply to use their legal muscle to gain even more cash through the legal system.
When I think of patent, I think of things such as algorithms that solve a common problem and order of magnitude faster, a revolutionary new input device (no, not putting buttons on the bottom of the friggin controller), and things of that nature. All of these petty patent claims make a mockery of the entire system. Its situations like this that just scream patent reform. It all just goes in line with the new American business model: find ways to sue a major innovative company for millions.
How can you be a customer of a company that provides Free as in Beer software?
I call bullshit on the fact that the person claims she didn't know how kazaa worked. Its explained right here for cryin' out loud.
All this person is doing is trying to get their money back that was extorted by the RIAA. Her lawyer probably weighed the difficulty of a counter-suit against the RIAA and suing Kazaa. Guess who won.
I used to work for a court reporting firm. We would charge upwards on $3.00/hr for original deposition transcripts, and that price doubles if they need it in a hurry. This is for what basically amounts to a photocopy. I have seen some bills in the thousands for transcripts of a single witness. Not all of the fees are profits for the lawyers.
They volunteered to serve the United States and to defend the country, a very honorable thing to do. However, their leader, the commander in chief aka the president, let them down. He led them astray believing that they were protecting american by getting rid of "WMD's" when the real reason they were sent to Iraq is to secure US oil interests in the middle east.
Zip or rar those images. Windows has built in zip functionality, do your inlaws don't have to install anything. That way, you can block all attachments other than zip or rar, and be image spam free.
Whats the difference between multiplayer where you sit next to someone, and multiplayer where the opponent is in the next county over? It seems to me that online super smash bros with a ranking system is not only easy, but a virtual moneybag for nintendo.
and to mexico where slave labor is legal (figuratively speaking, working for $1 a day is slave labor IMHO) Slavery is not an issue that qualifies for an "IMHO". If you're free to leave then you're not a slave. You don't even have to have a place to go if you leave, but as long as the people there are not going to physically drag your ass back to work if you try to leave, then it's not slavery.
It's nit picking, but to throw about the term so lightly is to dishonor people who actually had to endure true slavery.
Sure its voluntary. You can work for $1.00 a day, go back to your shack after work, and hope that $1 will somehow feed your family, or you can quit your job and starve for sure. I call it slavery because it forces people into a rigid class structure where most of the working class people are so poor (and kept that way) that they have no chance of increasing their economic status.
Yes, this does not follow the traditional notion of slavery, but most countries on this planet have outlawed it. This is the slavery of the 21st century. We can even give it a name... how does Slavery 2.0 sound?
Agreed. This has nothing to do with nerds. What is it doing here? Not to mention half of us are bitter toward Indians anyway as a result of outsourcing..Oh maybe thats why.....
Mod points here for insightful.
I'll never understand why Americans are so bitter about this. I don't have a single colleague who can say they lost their job to offshore outsourcing, or even has any trouble getting a new job for great pay.
If anything, I have only positive things to say about offshore-outsourcing. Farming out the easy stuff frees me up to pursue the more lucrative stuff, like working more with customers or developing partnerships.
Well, because it doesn't impact you means that the problem just doesn't exist. Outsourcing is not just about the IT industry. I live in Michigan, and my state has felt the impact of outsourcing manufacturing jobs overseas and to mexico where slave labor is legal (figuratively speaking, working for $1 a day is slave labor IMHO). Please, research your facts before making wild assumptions such as "I have only positive things to say about offshore-outsourcing."
Slashdot Mirror
Posting to undue accidental moderation of "underrated." This was meant to be modded "offtopic"
The company I work for (large fortune 500 company) still uses a lot of cobol on the mainframe for financial transactions. Why use an "ancient" language? Because there is 20-30 years of business knowledge encoded in the cobol code. Not only that, but it is tested, tried, and it just works perfectly. Rewriting in a modern language would make no sense other than using the "latest technology." Rewriting would most certainly introduce bugs which could potentially cost the company millions since it is running financial processes. Cobol was meant for the business and financial world and is well suited for it.
Your first two points have to do with surface tension. TFA is talking about non-newtonian fluids which act like solids when a force is applied. See the video of the guy walking across the lake o' corn starch.
Indeed. I used to work at Micro Center, and this is clearly where their business is headed. Sales people work on commission. They then changed the model so that you earn very little commission on the actual computer you sell, and a lot on the extras you sell with it. I don't work there anymore, but some friends of mine who do say that pretty soon they will earn next nothing on a computer system if it is sold without any extras.
red?
It isn't a matter of well designed apps. Its a matter of the fact that windows so entwines everything into the kernel, that apps have to run as an admin to be able to do anything useful. I'm not really a Linux fanboy, but you don't need to have a UAC prompt there, there is simply kernel space and user space. Why can't windows just follow suit?
I'm no expert on the subject, but alcohol is the waste product of micro organisms as they ferment (wheat, barley, fruit, etc). There wouldn't be anything in your body to ferment and hence, no reaction.
btw, when I start to see 2 slashdot homepages on my screen at the same time, thats when my body tells me I have the perfect amount of alcohol.
Vista's new "security feature"
(install "untrusted" software aka we didn't pay MS $500)
run software
Vista: whoa! are you sure you want this to run? click yes
Vista: whoa! your software is accessing your HD, is this ok? click yes
Vista: whoa..... you get the picture
basically its going to be a pain in the ass to run open source software unless you turn this "feature" off, and then its just as insecure as any other windows. Vista security is just a bandaid, nothing more.
I think that microsoft makes a product that is too complicated for "normal" users, and at the same time has too much bloat and not enough power for the "technical" users. I still don't understand why an operating system needs to be composed of a web browser, media player, reversi, and all the other crap that is preloaded. its to the point that people think that these things are the OS.
/. crowd if they would release a "lite" version of windows that was just the kernel and shell without the bloat programs. That way we could install the software that we want to use and not have to deal with the other stuff taking up HD space. Add in the ability to use a custom shell and I'd personally be all set.
I've always said that microsoft will gain a lot more support from geeks and the greater
A CS degree is not an engineering degree, I agree with this . It is more of a specialized math degree. However, I don't agree with your definition of what engineering is. I would say that Software Engineering is an engineering discipline that uses concepts from computer science, business, and other areas depending on the business domain. This is the same as lets say mechanical engineering using skills from traditional mathematics, materials, chemistry, etc). Software doens't have an unlimited bucket of parts as you seem to be inferring. Things such as time, manpower, hardware requirements really limit options and will take a skilled software engineering team to come up with a solution.
/. handle, I am employed thank you very much. I had this account well before I graduated and was able to get a decent job.
We as software engineers also have to keep the big picture in mind while working on the details. The big picture is time requirements, the environment in which the software will be run, etc. Software and related technology also move at the speed of light compared to other engineering disciplines. We must always be kept up to date in our skillsets and train with new technologies on a constant basis.
Your last paragraph does come off as snooty. I went to a science and engineering university, and both engineers and computer science had to take the same 2 years of calculus, differential equations, stats, etc. And I don't believe for a second that the major specific courses for CS and engineering differ much in difficulty, they're just different. I know this becuase most of my friends are engineers and I know what their classwork was like.
I don't mean to make this sound like a flame, but I think you have a slightly narrow view of CS and software engineering. Also, before anyone makes comments about my
Use a low bandwidth connection such as a dialup and tell me which you'd rather search at? Not everyone has mega broadband connections. Even on my broadband connection google comes up quicker. All I want to do is search, why do I have to be blasted with news and ads I don't want?
It's because there are people like this in the world!
The reason that there isn't a toolset for the BG series is that all of the terrain artwork is hand painted and static. With NWN, you can build your own worlds lego-style, although the drawback is that all areas tend to look the same (unless you are very talented with your placeable placing skills). NWN2 attempts to alleviate this by using a freeform terrain editor.
This is even more reason for having the artists and consumers connect directly. For example, go to Metallica's website, download non-drm tracks for a buck a pop or whatever, and metallica gets 100% of the money. Throw in merchandise sold directly through the same website and artists could stand to make a lot more money than with the RIAA. Yes, people will copy, put on filesharing, etc, but this has realistically been going on for ages. My friends and I used to get together for hours copying cassette tapes. I never once paid a dime for a commercially produced cassette. When cd's came out, I purchased these so that I could have a "collection" but people can copy them just as easily.
The only difference is that before you couldn't really prove or be able to tell who copied that cassette tape. With the internet, you are given away by your ip address, giving the RIAA a basis to sue, and I fully believe it is simply to use their legal muscle to gain even more cash through the legal system.
this is the joke
this is your head
When I think of patent, I think of things such as algorithms that solve a common problem and order of magnitude faster, a revolutionary new input device (no, not putting buttons on the bottom of the friggin controller), and things of that nature. All of these petty patent claims make a mockery of the entire system. Its situations like this that just scream patent reform. It all just goes in line with the new American business model: find ways to sue a major innovative company for millions.
When is slashdot going to start making t-shirts with all these great memes on it??? I know I'd buy one :)
/. t-shirt wearing overlords.
I mean come on... In soviet russia, T-shirt wears you! or I, for one, welcome our
instant classics!!!
Does this mean that FPS Doug would be made an international criminal???
How can you be a customer of a company that provides Free as in Beer software?
I call bullshit on the fact that the person claims she didn't know how kazaa worked. Its explained right here for cryin' out loud.
All this person is doing is trying to get their money back that was extorted by the RIAA. Her lawyer probably weighed the difficulty of a counter-suit against the RIAA and suing Kazaa. Guess who won.
I call shenanigans on this one. Tagged: Traitor
I used to work for a court reporting firm. We would charge upwards on $3.00/hr for original deposition transcripts, and that price doubles if they need it in a hurry. This is for what basically amounts to a photocopy. I have seen some bills in the thousands for transcripts of a single witness. Not all of the fees are profits for the lawyers.
They volunteered to serve the United States and to defend the country, a very honorable thing to do. However, their leader, the commander in chief aka the president, let them down. He led them astray believing that they were protecting american by getting rid of "WMD's" when the real reason they were sent to Iraq is to secure US oil interests in the middle east.
Zip or rar those images. Windows has built in zip functionality, do your inlaws don't have to install anything. That way, you can block all attachments other than zip or rar, and be image spam free.
Whats the difference between multiplayer where you sit next to someone, and multiplayer where the opponent is in the next county over? It seems to me that online super smash bros with a ranking system is not only easy, but a virtual moneybag for nintendo.
It's nit picking, but to throw about the term so lightly is to dishonor people who actually had to endure true slavery.
Sure its voluntary. You can work for $1.00 a day, go back to your shack after work, and hope that $1 will somehow feed your family, or you can quit your job and starve for sure. I call it slavery because it forces people into a rigid class structure where most of the working class people are so poor (and kept that way) that they have no chance of increasing their economic status.
Yes, this does not follow the traditional notion of slavery, but most countries on this planet have outlawed it. This is the slavery of the 21st century. We can even give it a name... how does Slavery 2.0 sound?
Mod points here for insightful.
I'll never understand why Americans are so bitter about this. I don't have a single colleague who can say they lost their job to offshore outsourcing, or even has any trouble getting a new job for great pay.
If anything, I have only positive things to say about offshore-outsourcing. Farming out the easy stuff frees me up to pursue the more lucrative stuff, like working more with customers or developing partnerships.
Well, because it doesn't impact you means that the problem just doesn't exist. Outsourcing is not just about the IT industry. I live in Michigan, and my state has felt the impact of outsourcing manufacturing jobs overseas and to mexico where slave labor is legal (figuratively speaking, working for $1 a day is slave labor IMHO). Please, research your facts before making wild assumptions such as "I have only positive things to say about offshore-outsourcing."