Re:Not the only thing left out: it's for Java only
on
Apache Maven 1.0 Released
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· Score: 4, Informative
Sadly, the headline also left out the rather key information that this tool is for Java projects only.
Actually, no, it's not. We use it to build C code, install and configure Oracle and DB2 databases, automate some OpenSSL stuff, put together PHP sites, and rsync stuff all over the place. We also use it for managing our main Java app as well.
Everyone seems to be thinking that the story is all about a thousand times performance increase because they switched to Linux.
I don't see the article make that claim... they just said that they changed a bunch of stuff, and they now have a different system in which one sample query is 1000x faster.
This could be (and probably is) due to a number of reasons:
-- consolidated many separate databases into 1 -- probable new data model -- probable new application design -- upgraded system resources (more RAM, better CPUs, faster SAN, etc.) -- different OS -- Oracle tuning / kernel tweaking
It doesn't make sense that they'd just re-implement the exact same system and application design... they probably spent a lot of time redoing the apps to make them smarter and faster.
To assume that Linux is singly responsible for the performance increase is kind of silly.
For our development process, we manage all of our group to-do lists using SCARAB
This includes development, sales, business, and client stuff. Might be a bit overkill for a single user, but it's pretty handy for a web-based solution. You can also include attachments with the issues, and comments, so it's pretty good at electronically storing paperwork as well. We're actually using it to keep track of some of our corporate paperwork, etc., with offices in Boston, London, and Vancouver, without the need for expensive ERP or CRM software.
For now it does what we need it to do.
For other stuff, I use a personal WIKI, and/or the Omni Group's OmniOutliner. (Yes, I'm an OSX weenie;)
I used to be the head IT guy at Nettwerk Records, home of Sarah McLachlan and Bare Naked Ladies, Dido, etc., and my office was right over the main "dubbing station".
There was a practice of leaving the audio up for all of the radio dubs that were made for each single, so that the glassy-eyed intern could ensure that it was recorded properly. This was done literally thousands of times... one for each major and minor radio station in North America. For each song that was released. And each interview/soundbite. All during the Lilith Fair days. Joy.
Unfortunately, the interns didn't last too long in this job, as they quickly got very bored of it, so there would be a new one every day or two... each one initially VERY excited about working with "Sarah!", so they'd crank the volume.
This drove me nuts. Almost literally. I'm an older Van Halen and Ozzie fan, and cannot stand to listen to Sarah's stuff more than once or twice... it's not my cup-O-tea. That being said, this was like some insane water torture for me.
It really hit home when I was in to see the dentist a few years back, and he was doing a routine examination on me, and he started to get really concerned. "Are you in pain? There doesn't look like there should be any pain, but you're all tense and flinching... what's up?"
It was at that point that I realized that the receptionist was a HUGE Sarah fan, and was playing Sarah's just released Mirrorball compilation in its entirety... that I'd already heard almost infinitely.
So, I spilled the beans to the doc, and he laughed, got up, went to the CD player, and popped in some classic VH. I loosened right up, almost to the point of going to sleep, I was so relaxed.
The next time I went in to see him, sure enough, Sarah was back on the CD player, but on seeing me, the receptionist killed it and popped in some Stevie Ray Vaughn, and all was well. They'd actually made a note in the book that said "absolutely NO SARAH while he's here".
That dentist has my business for LIFE now, let me tell you!
I guess what I find interesting is that such exposure to audio/video stimulus repeatedly can have big impacts on you... without even really knowing it. I wasn't actually consciously aware of my "audio rage" until it was pointed out to me.
It's almost like it's audio/visual repetitive stress injury or something.
As long as we're plugging stuff, here's my shameless plug for my little (100% commercial, NOT open source) software company that makes affordable reagent management software for Life Sciences labs.
In a market where Laboratory Information Management Systems (LIMS) software generally costs $50k and more, we're a drop in the bucket at an entry price of $2k.
While we're not open source, or free (we have developers and infrastructure to pay for, but the principals don't take a salary), we are trying to provide a software option to the small, under-funded labs that will help them do their job. You would be AMAZED at just how archaic some of the labs are when it comes to information management... in most cases, it's ALL paper-based. 3-ring binders for Cryo storage tracking, etc.
We're Canadian, so anyone in Bio Tech will probably know just how incredibly under-funded CDN labs are. That's where we learned our trade, and that's how we're trying to give back. (We also offer a 60% discount to educational institutions)
I think you're right... they're in a bit of a tight situation right now, from a "services" perspective. That being said, I don't think that this will have any effect whatsoever on the use of their technology.
Astroturfing or not, at the end of the day I make my decision to use (or not) JBoss technology based on exactly that... their technology. (And my requirements, which kind of goes without saying).
I've compared it with a number of other technologies, both commercial and open source, and I find it to be pretty good at what I need it to do, in most cases.
Personally, I could care less what JBoss related individuals have to say, either publicly or anonymously, as I take most "reviews" or criticisms with a huge grain of salt. For that matter, I could care less what ANYBODY has to say about it, because at the end of the day, I'm going to make my own decision after performing my own technical due diligence.
Call me cynical, but while I appreciate the broadened scope of thought provided by other people's comments, I tend to give very little credence to most of them as I feel that just about everybody, public or anonymous, has an agenda of some sort. I also like to think that I can consider other people's opinions and then make the decision to include or exclude them from my decision making process.
That being said, their (Jboss') actions DO speak very loudly for the intrinsic ethical qualities that some members of their company portray, which will effect the overall image of the company, and as a result it will have a negative influence on their services bottom line... for the short term... maybe.;)
So, I guess what I'm saying is, I don't care one way or the other what or how they're making comments, as I'm not using their services, only their technology, and it can (and does) speak for itself.
I agree 100%... my wife has had a mental illness for over 20 years, and she's the "sanest crazy person I know". She's been certified, sometimes institutionalized, but overall, she's incredibly smart and got her shit together.
Over the years, she's learned that she seems to know more about what is going on with her than the doctors do, as they seem to be guessing half the time and usually try to treat her through more of a trial and error routine than accurate diagnosis. Part of the problem is that she isn't 100% bi-polar, or 100% schitsophrenic... she's got some symptoms of each.
At the end of the day, however, her current Dr. of about 3 years has let her pretty well self-medicate, and it seems to be going very, very well. She's had only one 2-day bout of depression where she had to be institutionalized in that time, and it seemed to have been brought on by an improper filling of the prescription. She's very lucky, though, in that she knows when she has to go to the hospital, and she initiated the institutionalization process.
More than anything, though, I've learned that she has some days where things don't go well, and she just needs her space, and I don't take her "bad attitude" personally if/when it happens.
One thing I have found to be incredibly reassuring, however, is that she has a natural ability with helping other people with mental illness deal with their issues... people seek her out for her advice. We were even in the local Chapters book store the other day, and she saw someone checking out "surviving schitsophrenia", and she talked to him for a bit, only to find that his brother had just committed suicide 2 days earlier, and he himself was starting to show the early warning signs of the disease, and was scared. She told me to go grab a Starbuck's and come back in an hour, and she proceeded to talk to the guy for an hour. When I came back, he was no longer the emotional wreck he started out as, and seemed much more confident and way less scared than he'd started out.
My cousin does cancer research at Harvard, and I design/write software for a living. He found that there was a huge empty space for software that would help him do his job (cancer research), so 2 years ago we started a software company that specializes in reagent management (cryogenic storage, dna plasmids, oligos, antibodies, protocols, animal experiments, etc., all cross-referenced), and made sure that it was 100% Java and cross-platform.
While we really have no direct competition (yet), it is very interesting to see the platform requirement limitations (mostly DOS/Windows) that a lot of the other software companies have. There really is a huge shortage of cross-platform software.
Our experience has shown that most commercial labs tend to be Windows based, while most academic labs are Mac based. It is also not uncommon to have the Academic labs have 1 or 2 Win32 boxes that are there just to run a particular program they're using. It also appears that the IT departments in academia tend to use Linux back-end servers, with an interestingly high occurance of Yellow Dog. (That's Linux on PPC, for those of you unfamiliar with YD). Usually, we've found that the YD servers are older G3 and G4 towers that have been repurposed.
Now, these are the environments that we've been exposed to, and may not accurately represent the group as a whole, but regardless, it's been an interesting and enlightening experience seeing what/how different labs are currently (and used to) using by way of software.
Just last night I was having dinner when I though to myself "Self... your life would improve immeasurably if only you had something you could take on a grizzly bear in."
Interesting... I was in a much similar situation, but it was a Mother's Day dinner at the in-laws.;)
I'm not sure if I _CAN_ do this... I can't remember the last time I was able to open up my laptop so that I could use it when I last flew coach... there just wasn't the room.
I'm not sure that they want to get rid of the physical distribution.
Here in Canada, there are a couple of record companies that have invested HEAVILY in the manufacturing and distribution of the CD's, so much so that that's where they make the lion's share of their profit.
I'm wondering if this move isn't to make the online downloads more prohibitive, making physical sales more appealing to the end user.
To my knowledge, no factory stereos come with line in inputs on either the rear of the desk (difficult to use) or on the front of the unit which is much easier.
I picked up a Clarion deck about 2-3 years ago, and it had one in the back of the deck... I just got the installers to wire an extension cable out the bottom of the console, and it's plenty long enough to plug in my iPod or my Laptop.
This is really handy when I want to watch DVD's in the car, which I do a lot, as I'm in Vancouver, BC, and do a fair bit of work on Vancouver Island. That involves travelling by ferry, which can equate to 2-3 hours of waiting in the lineups and travel time, during which time a DVD or two is welcome relief from the idiots wandering around the ship.
The purchase of the stock wasn't illegal... it was his failure to report the purchase that brought on the fine. There was nothing illegal about the $14M in potential profit.
I find it very unlikely that the reporting of his purchase would have had any negative effects on the stock price, so I don't really think that there is any connection between him paying the $800k and his profit.
It still looks like he paid the $800k for no apparent reason, at least in this case.
I agree with your point in general, though, in that the fines are nothing more than a "cost of doing business" in a lot of cases.
When my company buy's CD-R's, we may get rebated for the provincial taxes, but the stupid levy is still there.
And we're a software firm, buying CDR's for distributing our software. Yeah, that makes me feel REALLY happy and warm and fuzzy towards the music industry up here.
We _DO_ get to write it off, but I'd rather have that cash for other things.
When they say "bend", they may be talking about the overall shape of the wing, as opposed to individual components.
That may very well be why they mention the "fish scale" skin, so that it can effectively change the profile of the wing without requiring individual pieces parts to change shape... the unchanging scales may just slide over/under each other to arrange themselves into a different physical arrangement.
They do this on all machines. They track cash in, cash out, and all results from the machine at all times. Most regulatory bodies make it a requirement, so they can audit and track exactly what is going on.
It is a VERY BIG DEAL if this tracking fails or "hiccups" for any reason.
Also, most Vegas casinos tend to program the machines at the front door to win more, so people have the a better chance at seeing someone winning, so they'll come into the place. They may pay out less, but they win more.
Slashdot Mirror
Sadly, the headline also left out the rather key information that this tool is for Java projects only.
Actually, no, it's not. We use it to build C code, install and configure Oracle and DB2 databases, automate some OpenSSL stuff, put together PHP sites, and rsync stuff all over the place. We also use it for managing our main Java app as well.
Just the tool is Java-based.
Get me your email address, and I'll send you an invite.
Everyone seems to be thinking that the story is all about a thousand times performance increase because they switched to Linux.
I don't see the article make that claim... they just said that they changed a bunch of stuff, and they now have a different system in which one sample query is 1000x faster.
This could be (and probably is) due to a number of reasons:
-- consolidated many separate databases into 1
-- probable new data model
-- probable new application design
-- upgraded system resources (more RAM, better CPUs, faster SAN, etc.)
-- different OS
-- Oracle tuning / kernel tweaking
It doesn't make sense that they'd just re-implement the exact same system and application design... they probably spent a lot of time redoing the apps to make them smarter and faster.
To assume that Linux is singly responsible for the performance increase is kind of silly.
malicious persons are much more unlikely to target any vulnerabilites
I disagree... if anything, malicious people are MUCH more likely to target vulnerabilities.
We took an old Coke Machine and stocked it with various brands of canned beer, and charged a buck for it.
It worked out great.
We only had 1 person that abused it, and after a "WTF" sit-down, it was never an issue again.
For our development process, we manage all of our group to-do lists using SCARAB
;)
This includes development, sales, business, and client stuff. Might be a bit overkill for a single user, but it's pretty handy for a web-based solution. You can also include attachments with the issues, and comments, so it's pretty good at electronically storing paperwork as well. We're actually using it to keep track of some of our corporate paperwork, etc., with offices in Boston, London, and Vancouver, without the need for expensive ERP or CRM software.
For now it does what we need it to do.
For other stuff, I use a personal WIKI, and/or the Omni Group's OmniOutliner. (Yes, I'm an OSX weenie
I used to be the head IT guy at Nettwerk Records, home of Sarah McLachlan and Bare Naked Ladies, Dido, etc., and my office was right over the main "dubbing station".
There was a practice of leaving the audio up for all of the radio dubs that were made for each single, so that the glassy-eyed intern could ensure that it was recorded properly. This was done literally thousands of times... one for each major and minor radio station in North America. For each song that was released. And each interview/soundbite. All during the Lilith Fair days. Joy.
Unfortunately, the interns didn't last too long in this job, as they quickly got very bored of it, so there would be a new one every day or two... each one initially VERY excited about working with "Sarah!", so they'd crank the volume.
This drove me nuts. Almost literally. I'm an older Van Halen and Ozzie fan, and cannot stand to listen to Sarah's stuff more than once or twice... it's not my cup-O-tea. That being said, this was like some insane water torture for me.
It really hit home when I was in to see the dentist a few years back, and he was doing a routine examination on me, and he started to get really concerned. "Are you in pain? There doesn't look like there should be any pain, but you're all tense and flinching... what's up?"
It was at that point that I realized that the receptionist was a HUGE Sarah fan, and was playing Sarah's just released Mirrorball compilation in its entirety... that I'd already heard almost infinitely.
So, I spilled the beans to the doc, and he laughed, got up, went to the CD player, and popped in some classic VH. I loosened right up, almost to the point of going to sleep, I was so relaxed.
The next time I went in to see him, sure enough, Sarah was back on the CD player, but on seeing me, the receptionist killed it and popped in some Stevie Ray Vaughn, and all was well. They'd actually made a note in the book that said "absolutely NO SARAH while he's here".
That dentist has my business for LIFE now, let me tell you!
I guess what I find interesting is that such exposure to audio/video stimulus repeatedly can have big impacts on you... without even really knowing it. I wasn't actually consciously aware of my "audio rage" until it was pointed out to me.
It's almost like it's audio/visual repetitive stress injury or something.
Weird.
As long as we're plugging stuff, here's my shameless plug for my little (100% commercial, NOT open source) software company that makes affordable reagent management software for Life Sciences labs.
benchKeeper
In a market where Laboratory Information Management Systems (LIMS) software generally costs $50k and more, we're a drop in the bucket at an entry price of $2k.
While we're not open source, or free (we have developers and infrastructure to pay for, but the principals don't take a salary), we are trying to provide a software option to the small, under-funded labs that will help them do their job. You would be AMAZED at just how archaic some of the labs are when it comes to information management... in most cases, it's ALL paper-based. 3-ring binders for Cryo storage tracking, etc.
We're Canadian, so anyone in Bio Tech will probably know just how incredibly under-funded CDN labs are. That's where we learned our trade, and that's how we're trying to give back. (We also offer a 60% discount to educational institutions)
I think you're right... they're in a bit of a tight situation right now, from a "services" perspective. That being said, I don't think that this will have any effect whatsoever on the use of their technology.
;)
Astroturfing or not, at the end of the day I make my decision to use (or not) JBoss technology based on exactly that... their technology. (And my requirements, which kind of goes without saying).
I've compared it with a number of other technologies, both commercial and open source, and I find it to be pretty good at what I need it to do, in most cases.
Personally, I could care less what JBoss related individuals have to say, either publicly or anonymously, as I take most "reviews" or criticisms with a huge grain of salt. For that matter, I could care less what ANYBODY has to say about it, because at the end of the day, I'm going to make my own decision after performing my own technical due diligence.
Call me cynical, but while I appreciate the broadened scope of thought provided by other people's comments, I tend to give very little credence to most of them as I feel that just about everybody, public or anonymous, has an agenda of some sort. I also like to think that I can consider other people's opinions and then make the decision to include or exclude them from my decision making process.
That being said, their (Jboss') actions DO speak very loudly for the intrinsic ethical qualities that some members of their company portray, which will effect the overall image of the company, and as a result it will have a negative influence on their services bottom line... for the short term... maybe.
So, I guess what I'm saying is, I don't care one way or the other what or how they're making comments, as I'm not using their services, only their technology, and it can (and does) speak for itself.
I agree 100%... my wife has had a mental illness for over 20 years, and she's the "sanest crazy person I know". She's been certified, sometimes institutionalized, but overall, she's incredibly smart and got her shit together.
Over the years, she's learned that she seems to know more about what is going on with her than the doctors do, as they seem to be guessing half the time and usually try to treat her through more of a trial and error routine than accurate diagnosis. Part of the problem is that she isn't 100% bi-polar, or 100% schitsophrenic... she's got some symptoms of each.
At the end of the day, however, her current Dr. of about 3 years has let her pretty well self-medicate, and it seems to be going very, very well. She's had only one 2-day bout of depression where she had to be institutionalized in that time, and it seemed to have been brought on by an improper filling of the prescription. She's very lucky, though, in that she knows when she has to go to the hospital, and she initiated the institutionalization process.
More than anything, though, I've learned that she has some days where things don't go well, and she just needs her space, and I don't take her "bad attitude" personally if/when it happens.
One thing I have found to be incredibly reassuring, however, is that she has a natural ability with helping other people with mental illness deal with their issues... people seek her out for her advice. We were even in the local Chapters book store the other day, and she saw someone checking out "surviving schitsophrenia", and she talked to him for a bit, only to find that his brother had just committed suicide 2 days earlier, and he himself was starting to show the early warning signs of the disease, and was scared. She told me to go grab a Starbuck's and come back in an hour, and she proceeded to talk to the guy for an hour. When I came back, he was no longer the emotional wreck he started out as, and seemed much more confident and way less scared than he'd started out.
"Certified Professionals" , right because we all know just how well "certification" works.
Actually, Ciso Certification is probably one of the very few certifications that I will trust.
It ain't your typical MCSC / crackerjack box certification process.
and there, not their.
You're right...
My cousin does cancer research at Harvard, and I design/write software for a living. He found that there was a huge empty space for software that would help him do his job (cancer research), so 2 years ago we started a software company that specializes in reagent management (cryogenic storage, dna plasmids, oligos, antibodies, protocols, animal experiments, etc., all cross-referenced), and made sure that it was 100% Java and cross-platform.
While we really have no direct competition (yet), it is very interesting to see the platform requirement limitations (mostly DOS/Windows) that a lot of the other software companies have. There really is a huge shortage of cross-platform software.
Our experience has shown that most commercial labs tend to be Windows based, while most academic labs are Mac based. It is also not uncommon to have the Academic labs have 1 or 2 Win32 boxes that are there just to run a particular program they're using. It also appears that the IT departments in academia tend to use Linux back-end servers, with an interestingly high occurance of Yellow Dog. (That's Linux on PPC, for those of you unfamiliar with YD). Usually, we've found that the YD servers are older G3 and G4 towers that have been repurposed.
Now, these are the environments that we've been exposed to, and may not accurately represent the group as a whole, but regardless, it's been an interesting and enlightening experience seeing what/how different labs are currently (and used to) using by way of software.
Size (of me or the laptop) has nothing to do with it... it's the lack of space between the seats on the flights.
It was less than 8 inches between my nose and the seat in front of me on my last flight (2 weeks ago from Vancouver, BC to New Orleans, on Northwest).
The flights these days are such cattle runs that there's not much room for a book, never mind a laptop.
But in the end, it comes down to the airline and the run.
On my trip back, for instance, they bumped me up to first class, and believe me, there was PLENTY of room to watch DVD's on my 15" PowerBook.
Totally depends on where the bear came from (dump bear vs. wild), and how you cook the bear.
Dump bears taste like crap, because of what they're eating. Northern BC bear, however, is very tastey.
It should be slow cooked (crock pot, baked, etc.) as opposed to being BBQ'd, as it does get very tough when cooked quickly.
Just last night I was having dinner when I though to myself "Self... your life would improve immeasurably if only you had something you could take on a grizzly bear in."
;)
Interesting... I was in a much similar situation, but it was a Mother's Day dinner at the in-laws.
I'm not sure if I _CAN_ do this... I can't remember the last time I was able to open up my laptop so that I could use it when I last flew coach... there just wasn't the room.
I'm not sure that they want to get rid of the physical distribution.
Here in Canada, there are a couple of record companies that have invested HEAVILY in the manufacturing and distribution of the CD's, so much so that that's where they make the lion's share of their profit.
I'm wondering if this move isn't to make the online downloads more prohibitive, making physical sales more appealing to the end user.
To my knowledge, no factory stereos come with line in inputs on either the rear of the desk (difficult to use) or on the front of the unit which is much easier.
I picked up a Clarion deck about 2-3 years ago, and it had one in the back of the deck... I just got the installers to wire an extension cable out the bottom of the console, and it's plenty long enough to plug in my iPod or my Laptop.
This is really handy when I want to watch DVD's in the car, which I do a lot, as I'm in Vancouver, BC, and do a fair bit of work on Vancouver Island. That involves travelling by ferry, which can equate to 2-3 hours of waiting in the lineups and travel time, during which time a DVD or two is welcome relief from the idiots wandering around the ship.
Why yes! You're right! There IS no cure for cancer, yet.
/. that it hasn't been found yet?
But it IS being worked on... I've even created a software company (benchKeeper) that makes software to assist the scientists in those efforts.
Does that mean that people can't do other things, like make whacked out shoes that I'll never buy? Of course not.
Why do some people think that goals like finding the cure for cancer must be done at the exclusion of everything else?
What have YOU done to help find the cure, besides point out on
Oh wait... you're a troll... and the moderators are being stupid.
And I fell for it...
*sigh*
oh well...
The purchase of the stock wasn't illegal... it was his failure to report the purchase that brought on the fine. There was nothing illegal about the $14M in potential profit.
I find it very unlikely that the reporting of his purchase would have had any negative effects on the stock price, so I don't really think that there is any connection between him paying the $800k and his profit.
It still looks like he paid the $800k for no apparent reason, at least in this case.
I agree with your point in general, though, in that the fines are nothing more than a "cost of doing business" in a lot of cases.
When my company buy's CD-R's, we may get rebated for the provincial taxes, but the stupid levy is still there.
And we're a software firm, buying CDR's for distributing our software. Yeah, that makes me feel REALLY happy and warm and fuzzy towards the music industry up here.
We _DO_ get to write it off, but I'd rather have that cash for other things.
Can't... already bringing dope and beer.
When they say "bend", they may be talking about the overall shape of the wing, as opposed to individual components.
That may very well be why they mention the "fish scale" skin, so that it can effectively change the profile of the wing without requiring individual pieces parts to change shape... the unchanging scales may just slide over/under each other to arrange themselves into a different physical arrangement.
They do this on all machines. They track cash in, cash out, and all results from the machine at all times. Most regulatory bodies make it a requirement, so they can audit and track exactly what is going on.
It is a VERY BIG DEAL if this tracking fails or "hiccups" for any reason.
Also, most Vegas casinos tend to program the machines at the front door to win more, so people have the a better chance at seeing someone winning, so they'll come into the place. They may pay out less, but they win more.