"If Chewbacca is on Endor he is probably a pedophile."
Exactly this. A "Chewbacca defense" by the book (only it makes even less sense now: the court has already ruled so why bother?).
And then, "oh! this will mean everybody will go with an as-a-service model!" as if they wasn't for that anyway.
Oracle is a big behemoth, so it will take time to fall, but they are going the SCO path, so it's not unreasonable to expect they'll follow the same outcome.
"Even if we had computing classes for 4th graders. It would not help. You cannot teach everybody coding. The kids will hate it. It could be even counter productive."
Even if we had math classes for 4th graders. It would not help. You cannot teach everybody math. The kids will hate it. It could be even counter productive.
See what I did here? Coding is applied logic and math. As such, coding can be a magnificent tool to an end.
"BTW in future we will need less coders, as more stuff will be generated automatically."
That's the future big corps want for us, being mere consumers, not a future we should aim for. And a practical example: just few days ago I saw an assistant cut-and-pasting hundreds of entries from a file to another one by one just because he needed them reordered and ligthly recomputed, about two minutes of grep and cut (even less of sed), or half an hour of spreadsheet use became a whole day task. Light programming (just like light maths) could make for a great push in productivity.
"Like engineering and the sciences you need to have a specific mindset for it."
Yes. Also for writing/reading and basic arithmetics. You know, there was a time when a lot of people were unable to read and write, multiply or divide: you need a specific mindset for that too. I'm, oh, so sorry to get you off your high horse... no, you don't need to be the ubermensch to grasp basic logic to both understand the world around you better and be more productive. You just need focused training and time to develop.
Still, if this was not a North Korean site but, say, a US Gov one, wouldn't this boy be already assaulted by a SWAT team, moved to gitmo and presented as public enemy number one?
"Where does this leave people who are switching from Windows to Linux but already own a printer?"
I don't give a damn. Really. It's not my problem.
But just for a constructive answer: they will either be clever and learn that the problem was with windows and the lock-in ecosystem it induces and they will act consequently fleeing away from it as fast as they can -as I did so many years ago, or they won't be so clever and will go back to windows blaming linux for its "lack of compatibility" or "unfriendliness" or something similar.
Either way, again, it's not my problem and it bears no relationship with the origin of this thread that was about the FUD-full implication that somehow you couldn't buy today a computer capable of running Linux.
"I've almost always done some vaguely similar. Example 1: the organization has data in system X and they want it to be in system Y."
Me too. And what I observed is that the problem is never transforming data X into Y, but learning waaaay into the project, that data X was not all data that needed to be transformed since part of it came from an external source of truth which won't be available once the system is decoupled. And then, another part of the dataset involved -oh, I forgot to tell you about it, really? a binary blob fed from some big iron over there, produced by a library we don't have the sources for. And then again, this project started so we could share the data with a partner but by moving the data to a different datacenter, three other partners will lose ability to reach it, and even if they did, they still would need exactly the same API they are already using -all of which was not in the two minutes brief by the manager, the one that ended with "oh, c'mon, of course you can give me a guess, this must be easy peasy for you, ain't so?"
And then, after I got my long conversation with the manager, one of two things happened: either it was indeed easy peasy, and then the project would go to somebody with less seniority, and it's up to him to give an estimation, or some (or all) of the problems I highlighted above arose after the PoC, which meant that my best guess has no less than two orders of magnitude in time-to-deliver variability, which is basically as good as no guess at the time-to-deliver. In those cases, instead of a date I tend to offer a high level risk assessment (easy / risky / you'd better buy a lotto ticket...) and then it's up to the manager to go ahead or not.
Regarding seniority, remember it is not the same thing "ten years of experience" than "one year of experience, ten times".
"The only real problem with COBOL is inaccessibility to programmers who still know it well."
Not at all.
COBOL is easy to grasp. Mindblowingly boring but easy. So if there're no programmers doing it when the need is there it is because plain old corporate greed and nothing else. COBOL is old-fashioned, which means new generations don't go for it by themselves. On the other hand, corporations using it, instead of doing the obvious -train their people, cry "OMG! it's so difficult to find people that know it well!" to see if miraculously somebody else pays the bill for them (it's not only COBOL, of course, go look for any job position and basically all of them go down to "I don't want a programmer, I want somebody with X years of experience on 'program language 2.3' -please, don't waste my time if you only know 'program language 2.2' or 'program language 2.4' because I won't consider you").
Can you imagine USAF doing the same? Yes, those F-15 Eagle look awesome but, you know, it's very difficult to find pilots that know them well. What do you expect me to do? Nothing like taking selected people out from the street and train them, I hope.
"There should be 5 years minimum of security patches for major versions."
There should be a warranty that security patches will come *forever* or, at the very least, for as long as Google stays in business. Fixing bugs is not "life cycle": the bugs didn't magically appear five years down the road due to bit rotting, they were there just from the begining. You delivered a broken product, you fix it. Oh! but that would be an unbearable burden! you say. Only if it was and utterly broken product to start with. For a software with no bugs it would take you exactly zero resources to fix them 50 years down the road.
"Upgrading does not fix security holes, it replaces them."
No, they don't.
"I have been working in IT Security for over 30 years and I have never seen an update that magically fixes everything."
For somebody demanding cold, logical analysis for your comment, you show a very poor level of it.
Now, for your enlightenment: Yes, upgrading *DOES* fix security holes, while it *MAY* replace with others. The highlighted terms make your "risk mitigation game" to work in an enterily different way than the one you seem to think.
"If you don't use your phones web browser why do you need it patched exactly?"
Because you know one thing for certain: it closes a known security hole. It *may* open others, but the funny thing about "may" is that it works both ways: it also *may* close other unknown security holes as much as it *may* open other unknown security holes. So you end up with two "mays" pushing in different directions (it may open *and* close unknown security holes) with unknown weight *and* a "must" with known weight (it *does* close one known security hole). So, unless you stop your handwaving and offer a real reason not to upgrade, the real reason for upgrade -closing a known vulnerability, prevails.
If you find your head spins too much, don't be surprised. As you say, you've been working on IT security for 30 years: the dismaying state or IT security after people like you working on the problem for 30 years surely means something. Maybe revealing the real level of "logic and reason" from the people involved.
"A country in which few people have access to the Internet (few of whom are likely to have real computer skills) and a generally poorly educated population has produced all these skilled hackers that have hacked multiple companies and banks?"
Weird, isn't it?
It is like, say, a country with massive obesity epidemics that still produces a lot of Olympic medals, or something.
"If you think money solves the world's worst problems..."
If you think those problems do solve themselves without lots of money you also lack "any understanding of what's actually causing those kinds of problems"
That they can't be solved "just throwing money" doesn't mean they don't require a lot of money thrown at them (oh, and by the way: poverty does solve itself just throwing money at it, by its own very definition).
"Can you tell your manager how long something will take?"
No, I usually can't.
If I could, that would mean I already did something vaguely similar and if that would be the case, then I would be perusing that other piece of code so there's no a third time she comes asking for that kind of tasks. The first case is a boring one that, fortunately doesn't happen too frequently. The second one is not programing at all.
What I *can* usually do is taking apart that manager and sit down with her quite longer than the two minutes she allocated at first to explain the task so I can understand the business motivation and the real deadlines and *then* narrow a deadline for a PoC which, luckily, will throw some light into the real scope of the task.
"How long ago was this? Were the PCs made before the release of Windows 8 in late 2012, when Microsoft started requiring manufacturers of new PCs and desktop PC motherboards to default to Secure Boot with Microsoft's keys?"
Well, my home PC dates back to 2009 and it runs Linux.
My corporate-provided laptop dates back to a month ago and it runs Linux.
Your point is?
"Some printers and scanners do work out of the box, but those are more hit-or-miss"
Yes. Trying to print out of a lawn mower is also a hit-or-miss. What does my employer do? Make damn sure it will print out from my corporate Linux laptop, be it a printer or a lawn mower, or they ain't gonna buy it. And what do I do at my home? Make damn sure it will print out from my home Linux computer, be it a printer or a lawn mower, or I'm not gonna buy it.
"It would be nice if all software was open source, but i don't think the business model always works."
Of course the business model of selling licenses to use software that doesn't need licenses to be used doesn't always work.
Maybe it is the business model which is the problem. I for one much better prefer a business model that pays for writing the damn software, for instance.
"This thinking has set the Open Source world back for too long."
That's exactly why I can't have a corporate laptop running Ubuntu working for one of the biggest banks in the world on an internal OpenStack deployment, which I report about using LibreOffice.
"Why work for some fool and build their dream? Work for yourself."
Enterprises are (supposedly) a team affair. Yes: despite of what you thing, good teams can achieve more than the mere sum of their parts.
And then again, there *are* ways to team up so you are still working for yourself but, of course, things like cooperative societies sound like "evil comunism" in USA, so they won't happen so, OK, just work for yourself.
"I have made companies with little or no investment."
And you are still wasting your time here in Slashdot instead of cruising your yacht along the Caribbean Sea. Sorry if I don't show too impressed.
"You really don't want to be paying guys $120,000 a year and then have them sit around browsing slashdot all day because you ran out of work for them to do."
The old beancounting mentality...
It is not costs what drive business, is net revenue!
I of course would very happily pay those guys $120.000 a year for them to sit around browsing slashdot for most of the time if the little time they do not, they bring me some hundred millions in revenue. Of course vastly over the other option, have a lot of $60.000 that make my projects fails and I end up in the reds.
The problem is internal corporate culture is never aligned to the company's best interest but a lot of minor fiefdoms each one pushing in their own direction. Thus things like costs, headcount, bigger budgets are of more interest than corporate profits.
But I really don't have enough work for 120.000$ people talent! That's your failure as manager/executive, not the talent, and the board of directors very much should fire you than the talented guys.
But, of course, management being fired by utter incompetence instead of the lower ranks would set an uncomfortable precedent for the high executives themselves.
"brothel owners quickly realised that they can skirt around all the expenses of labor law and employee rights like health-and-safety law, health insurance and pension contributions if they don't actually hire any prostitutes - instead the prostitutes are freelancers and pay brothels a fixed daily fee in return for being permitted to ply their trade on the premises."
Still, when it is Uber the one doing it, it somehow becomes "new economy" and fair play.
Slashdot Mirror
"I did not say or imply people should not be taught math in school or basic reasoning"
And programming is a brilliant tool to that end.
I rest my case your honor.
"If Chewbacca is on Endor he is probably a pedophile."
Exactly this. A "Chewbacca defense" by the book (only it makes even less sense now: the court has already ruled so why bother?).
And then, "oh! this will mean everybody will go with an as-a-service model!" as if they wasn't for that anyway.
Oracle is a big behemoth, so it will take time to fall, but they are going the SCO path, so it's not unreasonable to expect they'll follow the same outcome.
"Although I'm 350 pounds, I do take care of my body."
Unless you are, like, 8' 5", no, you are not taking care of your body.
"Even if we had computing classes for 4th graders. It would not help. You cannot teach everybody coding. The kids will hate it. It could be even counter productive."
Even if we had math classes for 4th graders. It would not help. You cannot teach everybody math. The kids will hate it. It could be even counter productive.
See what I did here? Coding is applied logic and math. As such, coding can be a magnificent tool to an end.
"BTW in future we will need less coders, as more stuff will be generated automatically."
That's the future big corps want for us, being mere consumers, not a future we should aim for. And a practical example: just few days ago I saw an assistant cut-and-pasting hundreds of entries from a file to another one by one just because he needed them reordered and ligthly recomputed, about two minutes of grep and cut (even less of sed), or half an hour of spreadsheet use became a whole day task. Light programming (just like light maths) could make for a great push in productivity.
"Like engineering and the sciences you need to have a specific mindset for it."
Yes. Also for writing/reading and basic arithmetics. You know, there was a time when a lot of people were unable to read and write, multiply or divide: you need a specific mindset for that too. I'm, oh, so sorry to get you off your high horse... no, you don't need to be the ubermensch to grasp basic logic to both understand the world around you better and be more productive. You just need focused training and time to develop.
"Hack means to gain unauthorised access to a system."
That's a crack.
A hack is any clever and usually unexpected use of technology to accomplish a task.
"The word "hacked" is overused."
Still, if this was not a North Korean site but, say, a US Gov one, wouldn't this boy be already assaulted by a SWAT team, moved to gitmo and presented as public enemy number one?
Why the double standard?
"Where does this leave people who are switching from Windows to Linux but already own a printer?"
I don't give a damn. Really. It's not my problem.
But just for a constructive answer: they will either be clever and learn that the problem was with windows and the lock-in ecosystem it induces and they will act consequently fleeing away from it as fast as they can -as I did so many years ago, or they won't be so clever and will go back to windows blaming linux for its "lack of compatibility" or "unfriendliness" or something similar.
Either way, again, it's not my problem and it bears no relationship with the origin of this thread that was about the FUD-full implication that somehow you couldn't buy today a computer capable of running Linux.
"I've almost always done some vaguely similar. Example 1: the organization has data in system X and they want it to be in system Y."
Me too. And what I observed is that the problem is never transforming data X into Y, but learning waaaay into the project, that data X was not all data that needed to be transformed since part of it came from an external source of truth which won't be available once the system is decoupled. And then, another part of the dataset involved -oh, I forgot to tell you about it, really? a binary blob fed from some big iron over there, produced by a library we don't have the sources for. And then again, this project started so we could share the data with a partner but by moving the data to a different datacenter, three other partners will lose ability to reach it, and even if they did, they still would need exactly the same API they are already using -all of which was not in the two minutes brief by the manager, the one that ended with "oh, c'mon, of course you can give me a guess, this must be easy peasy for you, ain't so?"
And then, after I got my long conversation with the manager, one of two things happened: either it was indeed easy peasy, and then the project would go to somebody with less seniority, and it's up to him to give an estimation, or some (or all) of the problems I highlighted above arose after the PoC, which meant that my best guess has no less than two orders of magnitude in time-to-deliver variability, which is basically as good as no guess at the time-to-deliver. In those cases, instead of a date I tend to offer a high level risk assessment (easy / risky / you'd better buy a lotto ticket...) and then it's up to the manager to go ahead or not.
Regarding seniority, remember it is not the same thing "ten years of experience" than "one year of experience, ten times".
"The only real problem with COBOL is inaccessibility to programmers who still know it well."
Not at all.
COBOL is easy to grasp. Mindblowingly boring but easy. So if there're no programmers doing it when the need is there it is because plain old corporate greed and nothing else. COBOL is old-fashioned, which means new generations don't go for it by themselves. On the other hand, corporations using it, instead of doing the obvious -train their people, cry "OMG! it's so difficult to find people that know it well!" to see if miraculously somebody else pays the bill for them (it's not only COBOL, of course, go look for any job position and basically all of them go down to "I don't want a programmer, I want somebody with X years of experience on 'program language 2.3' -please, don't waste my time if you only know 'program language 2.2' or 'program language 2.4' because I won't consider you").
Can you imagine USAF doing the same? Yes, those F-15 Eagle look awesome but, you know, it's very difficult to find pilots that know them well. What do you expect me to do? Nothing like taking selected people out from the street and train them, I hope.
"There should be 5 years minimum of security patches for major versions."
There should be a warranty that security patches will come *forever* or, at the very least, for as long as Google stays in business. Fixing bugs is not "life cycle": the bugs didn't magically appear five years down the road due to bit rotting, they were there just from the begining. You delivered a broken product, you fix it. Oh! but that would be an unbearable burden! you say. Only if it was and utterly broken product to start with. For a software with no bugs it would take you exactly zero resources to fix them 50 years down the road.
"Upgrading does not fix security holes, it replaces them."
No, they don't.
"I have been working in IT Security for over 30 years and I have never seen an update that magically fixes everything."
For somebody demanding cold, logical analysis for your comment, you show a very poor level of it.
Now, for your enlightenment: Yes, upgrading *DOES* fix security holes, while it *MAY* replace with others. The highlighted terms make your "risk mitigation game" to work in an enterily different way than the one you seem to think.
"If you don't use your phones web browser why do you need it patched exactly?"
Because you know one thing for certain: it closes a known security hole. It *may* open others, but the funny thing about "may" is that it works both ways: it also *may* close other unknown security holes as much as it *may* open other unknown security holes. So you end up with two "mays" pushing in different directions (it may open *and* close unknown security holes) with unknown weight *and* a "must" with known weight (it *does* close one known security hole). So, unless you stop your handwaving and offer a real reason not to upgrade, the real reason for upgrade -closing a known vulnerability, prevails.
If you find your head spins too much, don't be surprised. As you say, you've been working on IT security for 30 years: the dismaying state or IT security after people like you working on the problem for 30 years surely means something. Maybe revealing the real level of "logic and reason" from the people involved.
"A country in which few people have access to the Internet (few of whom are likely to have real computer skills) and a generally poorly educated population has produced all these skilled hackers that have hacked multiple companies and banks?"
Weird, isn't it?
It is like, say, a country with massive obesity epidemics that still produces a lot of Olympic medals, or something.
"If you think money solves the world's worst problems..."
If you think those problems do solve themselves without lots of money you also lack "any understanding of what's actually causing those kinds of problems"
That they can't be solved "just throwing money" doesn't mean they don't require a lot of money thrown at them (oh, and by the way: poverty does solve itself just throwing money at it, by its own very definition).
"Why do you think the billions that are spent on sporting events would otherwise be used to help refugees?"
He doesn't.
Saw the part about "it saddens my heart" and "wake up"?
Not too much reading comprehension, do you?
"Dunno about you, but I'm paid to deliver value."
So your payment is a share on profits? If not you are an abused gullible employee.
An employee provides work. A company provides value.
"Can you tell your manager how long something will take?"
No, I usually can't.
If I could, that would mean I already did something vaguely similar and if that would be the case, then I would be perusing that other piece of code so there's no a third time she comes asking for that kind of tasks. The first case is a boring one that, fortunately doesn't happen too frequently. The second one is not programing at all.
What I *can* usually do is taking apart that manager and sit down with her quite longer than the two minutes she allocated at first to explain the task so I can understand the business motivation and the real deadlines and *then* narrow a deadline for a PoC which, luckily, will throw some light into the real scope of the task.
Yes, I'm a senior.
"How long ago was this? Were the PCs made before the release of Windows 8 in late 2012, when Microsoft started requiring manufacturers of new PCs and desktop PC motherboards to default to Secure Boot with Microsoft's keys?"
Well, my home PC dates back to 2009 and it runs Linux.
My corporate-provided laptop dates back to a month ago and it runs Linux.
Your point is?
"Some printers and scanners do work out of the box, but those are more hit-or-miss"
Yes. Trying to print out of a lawn mower is also a hit-or-miss. What does my employer do? Make damn sure it will print out from my corporate Linux laptop, be it a printer or a lawn mower, or they ain't gonna buy it. And what do I do at my home? Make damn sure it will print out from my home Linux computer, be it a printer or a lawn mower, or I'm not gonna buy it.
Easy peasy.
"It would be nice if all software was open source, but i don't think the business model always works."
Of course the business model of selling licenses to use software that doesn't need licenses to be used doesn't always work.
Maybe it is the business model which is the problem. I for one much better prefer a business model that pays for writing the damn software, for instance.
"This thinking has set the Open Source world back for too long."
That's exactly why I can't have a corporate laptop running Ubuntu working for one of the biggest banks in the world on an internal OpenStack deployment, which I report about using LibreOffice.
Oh, wait!
"The only reason to use VMWare on Linux is compatibility of guest images"
The only reason to use VMWare is ignoramus management mandating so.
"Why work for some fool and build their dream? Work for yourself."
Enterprises are (supposedly) a team affair. Yes: despite of what you thing, good teams can achieve more than the mere sum of their parts.
And then again, there *are* ways to team up so you are still working for yourself but, of course, things like cooperative societies sound like "evil comunism" in USA, so they won't happen so, OK, just work for yourself.
"I have made companies with little or no investment."
And you are still wasting your time here in Slashdot instead of cruising your yacht along the Caribbean Sea. Sorry if I don't show too impressed.
"You really don't want to be paying guys $120,000 a year and then have them sit around browsing slashdot all day because you ran out of work for them to do."
The old beancounting mentality...
It is not costs what drive business, is net revenue!
I of course would very happily pay those guys $120.000 a year for them to sit around browsing slashdot for most of the time if the little time they do not, they bring me some hundred millions in revenue. Of course vastly over the other option, have a lot of $60.000 that make my projects fails and I end up in the reds.
The problem is internal corporate culture is never aligned to the company's best interest but a lot of minor fiefdoms each one pushing in their own direction. Thus things like costs, headcount, bigger budgets are of more interest than corporate profits.
But I really don't have enough work for 120.000$ people talent! That's your failure as manager/executive, not the talent, and the board of directors very much should fire you than the talented guys.
But, of course, management being fired by utter incompetence instead of the lower ranks would set an uncomfortable precedent for the high executives themselves.
"Why is somebody who sells marijuana a bad guy?"
Wrong question.
The right one is: why bad guys sell marijuana?
"brothel owners quickly realised that they can skirt around all the expenses of labor law and employee rights like health-and-safety law, health insurance and pension contributions if they don't actually hire any prostitutes - instead the prostitutes are freelancers and pay brothels a fixed daily fee in return for being permitted to ply their trade on the premises."
Still, when it is Uber the one doing it, it somehow becomes "new economy" and fair play.
"The companies are most likely encouraging their employees to use prostitutes"
For a reference I'd suggest reading Vargas Llosa's "Captain Pantoja and the Special Service".