And if you do start with OpenInteract, I strongly recommend using the recent beta of OpenInteract 2, which has a much better design and documentation than the first version.
Why's that? This isn't a code fork. Unless marcf is a dingdong (and he ain't), almost certainly the same people will continue working on JBoss, the open source project. It just affects JBoss Group, the company founded to do consulting, training and other support for JBoss.
I doubt this will have too much effect on the code because making JBoss better benefits both the JBoss Group and the Core Developers Network. In fact, from a PHB perspective this might be a better world since you've got two notable consultanting groups to choose from for JBoss support/training. In a year or two it could even lead to a virtuous circle of increasing demand for JBoss support/training which either attracts more developers to both or spawns an entirely new company.
IME this is bad advice: carpet bombing resumes isn't the answer. If you don't customize your resume to the folks you're giving them to, you might as well spam them. On the few occassions I was asked to sort through resumes my first filter for resumes was, "Is there any evidence they're responding to our ad?" If not, adios. If you're even not going to take the time to look for a job thoroughly, why would I want to hire you and trust you with some part of my business?
However, contributing to an open source project is a great idea. When people ask about your code, just send them to the ViewCVS repository and some choice links to the mailing list archive. It helps to give them a 30,000 foot view of the codebase plus some pointers to code you think would be relevant to the job you'd be doing there.
Try doing something else for a while. Can you write or edit? Do you have decent communication skills? Nonprofits, particularly smaller ones, are always looking for smart, well-rounded people because you wind up doing much more than your job description dictates.
This is not a bad thing: more than one person has backed into the computer industry by taking on tech responsibilities at a small non-IT company. After a year or two you have some decent experience, you'll be able to show that you can solve problems creatively (read: cheaply) and you might have a greater appreciation for the user's point of view than if you'd gone directly into application development from college.
I couldn't agree with you more about the new trilogy. I'm not as discerning as some people and tend to read most books for plot. But even I couldn't believe how poorly they were written -- at one point I promised myself if I heard Rhombur say "Vermillion hells!" one more time I'd stop reading and burn the damned thing. (Plus I think his sister should have been named "Trapezoidia" or something...) But I stuck it out through "Corrino", biting my tongue the whole way, just to see how they resolved things -- no way am I going to pick up this new series.
After reading the first two I went back and read through "God Emperor" of the original series. The difference was amazing, much starker than the difference between "Godfather III" and the first two.
A good reference on this is from one of the eToys architects. It uses mod_perl as the technology but the general strategies -- caching in particular -- will work for any application server technology.
/. punchingbag jwz has some strongopinions about using databases (etc.) for mail storage. I tend to agree: everything can read from and write to files, there no versioning issues, they can be easily transported among different operating and file systems, they can be backed up easily. But it's another wheel to reinvent, so everyone hop to it at once and then lose interest in two or three weeks!
There's no one singular answer for this, you really need to try these things out for yourself until you find something that works. For me, the Kinesis-Ergo has been amazing. Not only can I type like a demon and avoid wrist pain, but the thumb-located Ctrl and Alt keys make (X)Emacs that much easier to work with, not to mention easier on my pinkies:-)
Did you read the same article I did? Designing robust APIs, decomposing modules and interfaces into simple and testable pieces, defensive programming are all hallmarks of high quality large-scale systems. Articles addressing your concerns have a place -- hey, maybe you could write one! -- but this article is clearly meant for a different audience.
Perl has plenty of web application frameworks, and they're all approach the problem differently. See the mod_perl page for starters. <plug>OpenInteract
is probably one of the most complete of them as it includes a framework for data access, security, user and group management -- all the fun stuff.</plug>
You can also run ASP on Apache using ChiliSoft ASP, which seems to be owned by Sun now. I've had little experience with the latter, but it seems to work out of the box with existing ASP sites and also has a web admin utility, along with the warm and fuzzy feeling of paying lots of money for something:-)
Apache and IIS are both pretty flexible, but Apache at its core is much simpler and forces you to specify what you want rather than having everything available by default and allowing you to stumble into what you might need. (Not that you'd do that, but I'll be a lot of sysadmins are wishing that IIS weren't so featureful right now...)
Like someone else mentioned, many frown on Java here , but Borland's JBuilder has a Foundation edition that's free (as in beer). You can bump up to the Professional edition for yourself for around $400 (competitive upgrade) or if you've got the $$ to spend the enterprise for $2000 per seat.
It runs quite well on both Linux and Windows, as long as you have some memory, and has many of the IDE goodies you're probably used to (auto-complete, code templating, symbol browsing, etc.). It's also got an API for extending it called OpenTools that lets you plug-in additional functionality -- many good-to-excellent free (as in beer and speech) tools are available.
IMO, this book is a 9/10 as measured by the ARV parameter. Like a lot of good general programming help books, it's broken up into a number of tips that are explained in detail over a few pages (sometimes more). They also include a pull-out reference card with the tips ordered as in the book and a page of general guidelines.
This is a really useful book, particularly because the "right tool for the right job" is not just a tip, its philosophy is threaded throughout the entire book. I expect to be reading it off-and-on for quite some time.
Big second to this. One of the biggest problems small companies have with growing is cash flow, particularly if you don't start out with a bunch of dough and have it in the bank.
Scenario: You get a $50K contract to build a web app. Excellent! You ask for 30% up front: 16K or so in the bank.
Now, since this is a relatively complicated application, it's going to take three-four months (with milestone meetings, revisions, documentation, etc) to develop. And because you've only got two or three programmers, this project basically ties them up completely, *plus* it takes 20% of the time of the project manager. So that $15K has to cover not only the one programmer but also his/her overhead and the project manager's time. Ouch.
The worst is that people never pay their bills on time. You might get the rest of that contract money 3 months (!) after you've completed the work because their accounting department is full of idiot monkeys. How do you pay your employees (plus bandwidth, rent, heat, taxes, etc.) in the meantime?
How to get around it? Try to tie payments to milestones. Set four or five milestones throughout the project, get a 15-20% down payment and have 20 - 25% of the contract due at each milestone. This has three extra benefits: 1) customers generally like not layout out lots of money at once -- they also like to see performance tied to the money they give you; 2) keeps *you* on schedule (hopefully); 3) gets them move involved *during* the process, when it's easier to fix bugs, rather than dumping all their problems on you at the end, when it's more difficult.
Re:Notice something familiar about MS uptimes?
on
Server Uptimes Ranked
·
· Score: 2
That bug was only in 95/98, not NT. Our company is extremely pro-Linux, but a properly administered NT machine -- which includes, IMHO, not overloading it with too many different simultaneous load-intensive tasks, unlike Linux -- can have decent uptimes (6 months+). No reason to spread FUD when the truth is so much more powerful.
A set of Perl scripts, formerly GPL (3.5.1 was the last GPL version AFAIK) but now commercial. You can find the GPL version out and about. For your traffic, you might want to pay and get some support though. Either way, it's pretty slick.
The dictionary Laixicon (www.laixicon.com) is just getting off the ground. It's geared toward engineers and technical folks. Lots of potential and it's a little different by having the potential for definitions, even encyclopedic ones, for words and terms. Still very much in beta, particularly the layout.
I got an ADSL line through Bell Atlantic in Pittsburgh and told them up front it would be connecting to a Linux machine. They just said they wouldn't support it but still went through with everything, pleasant surprise.
Besides a faulty modem they shipped out originally, everything has been working fine, and with ip masq with ipchains running on the gateway, I feel decent about security.
Slashdot Mirror
And if you do start with OpenInteract, I strongly recommend using the recent beta of OpenInteract 2, which has a much better design and documentation than the first version.
That's Fotango, who deserve a huge thanks from everyone who cares about Perl 6.
Why's that? This isn't a code fork. Unless marcf is a dingdong (and he ain't), almost certainly the same people will continue working on JBoss, the open source project. It just affects JBoss Group, the company founded to do consulting, training and other support for JBoss.
I doubt this will have too much effect on the code because making JBoss better benefits both the JBoss Group and the Core Developers Network. In fact, from a PHB perspective this might be a better world since you've got two notable consultanting groups to choose from for JBoss support/training. In a year or two it could even lead to a virtuous circle of increasing demand for JBoss support/training which either attracts more developers to both or spawns an entirely new company.
Who said open source can't work?
IME this is bad advice: carpet bombing resumes isn't the answer. If you don't customize your resume to the folks you're giving them to, you might as well spam them. On the few occassions I was asked to sort through resumes my first filter for resumes was, "Is there any evidence they're responding to our ad?" If not, adios. If you're even not going to take the time to look for a job thoroughly, why would I want to hire you and trust you with some part of my business?
However, contributing to an open source project is a great idea. When people ask about your code, just send them to the ViewCVS repository and some choice links to the mailing list archive. It helps to give them a 30,000 foot view of the codebase plus some pointers to code you think would be relevant to the job you'd be doing there.
Try doing something else for a while. Can you write or edit? Do you have decent communication skills? Nonprofits, particularly smaller ones, are always looking for smart, well-rounded people because you wind up doing much more than your job description dictates.
This is not a bad thing: more than one person has backed into the computer industry by taking on tech responsibilities at a small non-IT company. After a year or two you have some decent experience, you'll be able to show that you can solve problems creatively (read: cheaply) and you might have a greater appreciation for the user's point of view than if you'd gone directly into application development from college.
I couldn't agree with you more about the new trilogy. I'm not as discerning as some people and tend to read most books for plot. But even I couldn't believe how poorly they were written -- at one point I promised myself if I heard Rhombur say "Vermillion hells!" one more time I'd stop reading and burn the damned thing. (Plus I think his sister should have been named "Trapezoidia" or something...) But I stuck it out through "Corrino", biting my tongue the whole way, just to see how they resolved things -- no way am I going to pick up this new series.
After reading the first two I went back and read through "God Emperor" of the original series. The difference was amazing, much starker than the difference between "Godfather III" and the first two.
A good reference on this is from one of the eToys architects. It uses mod_perl as the technology but the general strategies -- caching in particular -- will work for any application server technology.
/. punchingbag jwz has some strong opinions about using databases (etc.) for mail storage. I tend to agree: everything can read from and write to files, there no versioning issues, they can be easily transported among different operating and file systems, they can be backed up easily. But it's another wheel to reinvent, so everyone hop to it at once and then lose interest in two or three weeks!
Compare that to the price of hospital treatment and/or lost work and it's positively cheap.
There's no one singular answer for this, you really need to try these things out for yourself until you find something that works. For me, the Kinesis-Ergo has been amazing. Not only can I type like a demon and avoid wrist pain, but the thumb-located Ctrl and Alt keys make (X)Emacs that much easier to work with, not to mention easier on my pinkies :-)
Did you read the same article I did? Designing robust APIs, decomposing modules and interfaces into simple and testable pieces, defensive programming are all hallmarks of high quality large-scale systems. Articles addressing your concerns have a place -- hey, maybe you could write one! -- but this article is clearly meant for a different audience.
Chris
Chris
I assume you saw The Apache::ASP home, a link you can find on the mod_perl home.
You can also run ASP on Apache using ChiliSoft ASP, which seems to be owned by Sun now. I've had little experience with the latter, but it seems to work out of the box with existing ASP sites and also has a web admin utility, along with the warm and fuzzy feeling of paying lots of money for something :-)
Apache and IIS are both pretty flexible, but Apache at its core is much simpler and forces you to specify what you want rather than having everything available by default and allowing you to stumble into what you might need. (Not that you'd do that, but I'll be a lot of sysadmins are wishing that IIS weren't so featureful right now...)
Chris
Like someone else mentioned, many frown on Java here , but Borland's JBuilder has a Foundation edition that's free (as in beer). You can bump up to the Professional edition for yourself for around $400 (competitive upgrade) or if you've got the $$ to spend the enterprise for $2000 per seat.
It runs quite well on both Linux and Windows, as long as you have some memory, and has many of the IDE goodies you're probably used to (auto-complete, code templating, symbol browsing, etc.). It's also got an API for extending it called OpenTools that lets you plug-in additional functionality -- many good-to-excellent free (as in beer and speech) tools are available.
ChrisIMO, this book is a 9/10 as measured by the ARV parameter. Like a lot of good general programming help books, it's broken up into a number of tips that are explained in detail over a few pages (sometimes more). They also include a pull-out reference card with the tips ordered as in the book and a page of general guidelines.
This is a really useful book, particularly because the "right tool for the right job" is not just a tip, its philosophy is threaded throughout the entire book. I expect to be reading it off-and-on for quite some time.
Big second to this. One of the biggest problems small companies have with growing is cash flow, particularly if you don't start out with a bunch of dough and have it in the bank.
Scenario: You get a $50K contract to build a web app. Excellent! You ask for 30% up front: 16K or so in the bank.
Now, since this is a relatively complicated application, it's going to take three-four months (with milestone meetings, revisions, documentation, etc) to develop. And because you've only got two or three programmers, this project basically ties them up completely, *plus* it takes 20% of the time of the project manager. So that $15K has to cover not only the one programmer but also his/her overhead and the project manager's time. Ouch.
The worst is that people never pay their bills on time. You might get the rest of that contract money 3 months (!) after you've completed the work because their accounting department is full of idiot monkeys. How do you pay your employees (plus bandwidth, rent, heat, taxes, etc.) in the meantime?
How to get around it? Try to tie payments to milestones. Set four or five milestones throughout the project, get a 15-20% down payment and have 20 - 25% of the contract due at each milestone. This has three extra benefits: 1) customers generally like not layout out lots of money at once -- they also like to see performance tied to the money they give you; 2) keeps *you* on schedule (hopefully); 3) gets them move involved *during* the process, when it's easier to fix bugs, rather than dumping all their problems on you at the end, when it's more difficult.
That bug was only in 95/98, not NT. Our company is extremely pro-Linux, but a properly administered NT machine -- which includes, IMHO, not overloading it with too many different simultaneous load-intensive tasks, unlike Linux -- can have decent uptimes (6 months+). No reason to spread FUD when the truth is so much more powerful.
Also: MetroLink is a big supporter of the XFree project. If you get MetroX, let them know that you appreciate their support!
> I do Sybase & Perl development all day.
> I'd scream if they took away my isql.
You should really see sqsh:
http://www.voicenet.com/~gray/sqsh.html
This is what all CLI database tools should do. And it's open source.
A set of Perl scripts, formerly GPL (3.5.1 was the last GPL version AFAIK) but now commercial. You can find the GPL version out and about. For your traffic, you might want to pay and get some support though. Either way, it's pretty slick.
www.wwwthreads.org
thank you very much, mr. Fist of the Firemonkey, I'm forced to burst out in random fits of laughter for the remainder of the week...
Actually, ASE 11.0.3 is (in the beer sense) entirely free -- no support from Sybase, but still free.
ASE 11.9.2 is a fully supported product from Sybase and is priced along the same lines as ASE on NT.
Just clearing the air...
4.5+ has neat LDAP/HTTP roaming profile features.
See the Linuxworld article on it.
I'm biased though, since I helped create it :)
I got an ADSL line through Bell Atlantic in Pittsburgh and told them up front it would be connecting to a Linux machine. They just said they wouldn't support it but still went through with everything, pleasant surprise.
Besides a faulty modem they shipped out originally, everything has been working fine, and with ip masq with ipchains running on the gateway, I feel decent about security.