Ask some off algorithm question like: If you wanted to know how many floors from a 100 story building a rubber a balloon needed to fall before breaking and you only had two, what's the algorithm for finding out with the best worst-case number of tries?
Have them write some basic structures in C (not C++) that require messing with pointers. Always ask them to improve what they just wrote (faster, less prone to mistakes, more secure, etc).
Have them explain the limits of various languages (C/C++ isn't always best - neither is PERL) isn't the best language for everything. Have them give you solid examples of when to use various languages and when to not use various languages.
Present them with a fictitious example of a solution where you know there's a bug. Have the review the code. Make the bug security or pointer related.
I actually had to turn away a developer who was very Java proficient because he couldn't write memcpy in C. Really, it's not hard!
Oh god don't get me started. Worse yet: while you can change the mapped path of %USERPROFILE% not all applications (Office being the #1 offender) bother to check to see what it's actually set as.
Anyways, for you anti-Windows people who care the parent is referring to %USERPROFILE%/Application Data\{Application Name} as the default location to store application related data in WinXP (and Vista... ew). It's passé to store data in the same folder as the applications executable (though still allowed, sadly).
Or you can be like me and game the system. All those 0% credit offers than swam about? I took every one of them and used them to buy anything I needed. Doing so allowed me to pay off my cars, student loans, and anything else with interest. Now I have fantastic credit, look like a 'good consumer' to the lending agencies and was able to secure a new home loan at a great rate with zero down (even in this market). Getting a home gets me a tax write off, money from the builder, state, county, and city (free money is everywhere if you're willing to look) so that even if the house drops 10% in value I'll break even in 3 years. Assuming the house doesn't drop in value I've made money.
The point here is that simply saving money isn't enough. I know the interest rates I get at the bank are below inflation and even my money markets aren't worth what they used to be now that the dollar is taking a slide.
Oh, and as for all that debt I took on? It was easy to pay off because 100% of my payment went directly to the principle. You'd be amazed how fast you can reduce your debt when you're not paying interest.
The hidden bonus of driverless cars is the fact that GM must have vastly improved batteries or some kind of mobile generator that either doesn't rely on the engine or has some more efficient way of getting power from it. The electronics on the car aren't going to run off of the cigarette lighter.
This means we're that much closer to all electric vehicles. ^_^
My theory: Perhaps GM has wised up and detached the power plant (engine) from the drive train. Meaning the engine just generates electricity and the drive train is entirely electric. Generators are far more efficient than automobile engines in terms of fuel to energy. Some 80% of energy in modern ICE system flows right out the tail pipe as waste heat; generators get more bang for their buck assuming they electricity they generate has some place to go.
Serisouly, this is stupid. M$ has gone to great lengths to make it stupid easy to bind variables easy to use. Any developer working with System.Data should know better. Hell, any developer (period) should know better. PHP, Java, and pretty much every language that allows working with databases has a way to safely bind variables. Since this hack was targetd at M$ servers I'll give an example in C#...
using(SqlDataReader reader = command.ExecuteReader(CommandBehavior.CloseConnection)){/* Do something with the reader here */ }
connection.Close();
}
}
I've seen too many "educated" developers attempt to do their own sql cleaning. Just assume you can't do it, because if you get it wrong your hosed - use the available libraries!
As someone who taught themselves to develop software (first with scripting languages, then Java, C, and C#) I'm routinely surprised at how little "trained" developers understand. Basic concepts like word alignment, unrolling loops, and efficiency are lost on most people. Hell, I've seen more than my fair share of apps coded in C that never release memory until the very last second; wholly expecting the OS to clean up after them.
In all honesty first and second year courses should be taught in languages like Java and C#. They a lot easier to grasp and allow entry level developers the ability to build some confidence. C and it's children can be taught later in the collage career.
What'd I'd like to see is more algorithm logic being taught. Puzzles that require thinking outside the box. Like finding the best worst case scenario for a given problem instead of alway just thinking about the best best case.
Also, why can't any undergraduate seem to understand event driven models? I think this worries me the most.
It does if you want to actually make a purchase. I had to download and install Flash for Opera (which I didn't have and didn't want) in order to purchase Photoshop. Not entirely happy with that, but Adobe does leverage their existing product base to push new products; just like MS. Adobe just hasn't been labeled am illegal monopoly yet.
What the article doesn't seem to cover is people like Marie Digby, who was being portrayed as just a girl singing some song who did good and got a record deal (like Esmee Denters) when in fact it was a media campaign by her record company Hollywood Records (a Disney company) to get her known and selling albums.
The fact is: the big record companies are finding ways to utilize YouTube just like they've utilized radio and MTV.
We've always just called it a 'traffic memory' because the backlog (read: traffic jam) can take hours to clear, long after the initial cause is gone. I didn't know we needed a mathematical model of what I consider to be common sense.
The cost of money is the interest you're willing to pay (current target rate being 4.25%). Perhaps time has some kind of interest to be paid. Eventually the interest exceeds your ability to pay for it. So when we can't pay anymore, it all ends? Head hurts now...
I did patch EVE as a non-privileged user on my XP Pro system and the problem didn't happen to me. It does seem to be that since most people basically have to run as an administrative account to make XP "work", CCP was able to damage the OS as they did.
This is a multi-part failure. One part Microsoft for making an OS that almost requires standard users to run a privileged account all the time to make basic applications work. One part CCP for developing software that damaged the underlying OS.
My only hope is that either Microsoft begins developing software that not only protects users from the outside (they're still yet to do even this) as well as from themselves. They should take a page from Apple's book on how to do this; or Linux adoption picks up and we start seeing more of the applications I (and the bulk of business and home users) need being developed for it.
I've killed more than a thousand virtual characters in PVP over the years (read: WoW and/or EVE) and I'm one of the most patient and non-hostile people I know. Hell, even in PVP I don't get all hyped up and psycho like some of those kids do... I just mute them and keep shooting them.;-)
Competition is a good thing. I'll have to assume Verizon suddenly deciding to 'open up' has more to do with fears about what Google's new initiatives with Android and Intel/Cisco's new initiatives with WiMax will bring; rather than just doing this from their goodness of their own hearts.
The government keeps allowing these telcos to have monopolies, but the market keeps finding way around them, and proving how bad an idea government supported/allowed monopolies really are.
The problem with these one off fossil finds is, what I like to call, the Yao Ming & Willie Shoemaker problem. For example: if in 100,000 years alien explorers come to Earth long after mankind is gone and dig up only the bones of Willie Shoemaker or Yao Ming, they're get a very wrong impression about what average humans look like.
The same problem applies to any animal species we uncover. We cannot assume the average size of a species by a single discovery of remains because they have too high a change of being an aberration. Therefore, there's a good chance that the remains found are of a "Yao Ming" of that species.
All you need now is an case, CPU, and Linux. Case and CPU you can probably salvage from on old PC, or a reused PC dealer for damn cheap. Linux is free (as in speech and beer).
Garbage collectors cannot release "unused" memory if they cannot tell the memory is unused. Poor coding skills and an assumption that a magical garbage collector will save you is just not smart. I can easily code something that eats memory like no tomorrow and never releases one bit of it in Java, C#, etc... managed languages only work if you code with them correctly. Blame the developer, not the language.
M$'s XNA is cheap (free) and works rather well. You just have to get used to coding in C# and working with DirectX (for the XBox). The compiler is even free. Sure, it's not a complete Visual Studio, but it has a lot of the goodies.
This being slashdot, I know a lot of people shun M$ software and the XBox as well, but it is a decent platform and you can make games on the cheap. I'm actually working with a friend on a homebrew XBox 360 version of Crossbows and Catapults.
Without having read TFA (hey, this is slashdot) I assume this is for passing through a person's digestive system and not their bloodstream because getting a something the size of a piece of rice caught in the right place is like having a stroke, a heart attack, or other unhappy circulatory problems; and since I doubt it carries enough power to navigate it'd be pretty tough to keep it out of vital organs.
I wrote a science fiction paper my first year of collage where the US switched to nuclear power and used breeder reactors to generate fuel for spacecraft. Lighter and more effective than solid or liquid fuel that burns for long distance space travel (of course you wouldn't use it on the surface of the planet). Basically the spacecraft would use the fuel like micro-bombs in place of burned material and the energy released would produce enough thrust to accelerate the craft and generate power for its onboard systems..
Anyways, the point of the story was cheap, clean energy and a way to deplete our store of weapon grade nuclear material in a safe and productive way.
Slashdot Mirror
I actually had to turn away a developer who was very Java proficient because he couldn't write memcpy in C. Really, it's not hard!
Oh god don't get me started. Worse yet: while you can change the mapped path of %USERPROFILE% not all applications (Office being the #1 offender) bother to check to see what it's actually set as.
Anyways, for you anti-Windows people who care the parent is referring to %USERPROFILE%/Application Data\{Application Name} as the default location to store application related data in WinXP (and Vista... ew). It's passé to store data in the same folder as the applications executable (though still allowed, sadly).
I think this may say it better, and I jut bought a house so I really don't want to move yet.
"They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security." - Benjamin Franklin
Or you can be like me and game the system. All those 0% credit offers than swam about? I took every one of them and used them to buy anything I needed. Doing so allowed me to pay off my cars, student loans, and anything else with interest. Now I have fantastic credit, look like a 'good consumer' to the lending agencies and was able to secure a new home loan at a great rate with zero down (even in this market). Getting a home gets me a tax write off, money from the builder, state, county, and city (free money is everywhere if you're willing to look) so that even if the house drops 10% in value I'll break even in 3 years. Assuming the house doesn't drop in value I've made money.
The point here is that simply saving money isn't enough. I know the interest rates I get at the bank are below inflation and even my money markets aren't worth what they used to be now that the dollar is taking a slide.
Oh, and as for all that debt I took on? It was easy to pay off because 100% of my payment went directly to the principle. You'd be amazed how fast you can reduce your debt when you're not paying interest.
The hidden bonus of driverless cars is the fact that GM must have vastly improved batteries or some kind of mobile generator that either doesn't rely on the engine or has some more efficient way of getting power from it. The electronics on the car aren't going to run off of the cigarette lighter.
This means we're that much closer to all electric vehicles. ^_^
My theory: Perhaps GM has wised up and detached the power plant (engine) from the drive train. Meaning the engine just generates electricity and the drive train is entirely electric. Generators are far more efficient than automobile engines in terms of fuel to energy. Some 80% of energy in modern ICE system flows right out the tail pipe as waste heat; generators get more bang for their buck assuming they electricity they generate has some place to go.
Serisouly, this is stupid. M$ has gone to great lengths to make it stupid easy to bind variables easy to use. Any developer working with System.Data should know better. Hell, any developer (period) should know better. PHP, Java, and pretty much every language that allows working with databases has a way to safely bind variables. Since this hack was targetd at M$ servers I'll give an example in C#...
To put is simply: if you're doing something like:
The code to secure the SQL you're sending the server to execute is so easy it huts. Now, follow me here...
I've seen too many "educated" developers attempt to do their own sql cleaning. Just assume you can't do it, because if you get it wrong your hosed - use the available libraries!
As someone who taught themselves to develop software (first with scripting languages, then Java, C, and C#) I'm routinely surprised at how little "trained" developers understand. Basic concepts like word alignment, unrolling loops, and efficiency are lost on most people. Hell, I've seen more than my fair share of apps coded in C that never release memory until the very last second; wholly expecting the OS to clean up after them.
In all honesty first and second year courses should be taught in languages like Java and C#. They a lot easier to grasp and allow entry level developers the ability to build some confidence. C and it's children can be taught later in the collage career.
What'd I'd like to see is more algorithm logic being taught. Puzzles that require thinking outside the box. Like finding the best worst case scenario for a given problem instead of alway just thinking about the best best case.
Also, why can't any undergraduate seem to understand event driven models? I think this worries me the most.
It does if you want to actually make a purchase. I had to download and install Flash for Opera (which I didn't have and didn't want) in order to purchase Photoshop. Not entirely happy with that, but Adobe does leverage their existing product base to push new products; just like MS. Adobe just hasn't been labeled am illegal monopoly yet.
What the article doesn't seem to cover is people like Marie Digby, who was being portrayed as just a girl singing some song who did good and got a record deal (like Esmee Denters) when in fact it was a media campaign by her record company Hollywood Records (a Disney company) to get her known and selling albums.
The fact is: the big record companies are finding ways to utilize YouTube just like they've utilized radio and MTV.
We've always just called it a 'traffic memory' because the backlog (read: traffic jam) can take hours to clear, long after the initial cause is gone. I didn't know we needed a mathematical model of what I consider to be common sense.
The cost of money is the interest you're willing to pay (current target rate being 4.25%). Perhaps time has some kind of interest to be paid. Eventually the interest exceeds your ability to pay for it. So when we can't pay anymore, it all ends? Head hurts now...
I did patch EVE as a non-privileged user on my XP Pro system and the problem didn't happen to me. It does seem to be that since most people basically have to run as an administrative account to make XP "work", CCP was able to damage the OS as they did.
This is a multi-part failure. One part Microsoft for making an OS that almost requires standard users to run a privileged account all the time to make basic applications work. One part CCP for developing software that damaged the underlying OS.
My only hope is that either Microsoft begins developing software that not only protects users from the outside (they're still yet to do even this) as well as from themselves. They should take a page from Apple's book on how to do this; or Linux adoption picks up and we start seeing more of the applications I (and the bulk of business and home users) need being developed for it.
"Googlers"? I thought we called them Googlebots. ;-)
Automated phone calls would probably work too.
I've killed more than a thousand virtual characters in PVP over the years (read: WoW and/or EVE) and I'm one of the most patient and non-hostile people I know. Hell, even in PVP I don't get all hyped up and psycho like some of those kids do... I just mute them and keep shooting them. ;-)
Competition is a good thing. I'll have to assume Verizon suddenly deciding to 'open up' has more to do with fears about what Google's new initiatives with Android and Intel/Cisco's new initiatives with WiMax will bring; rather than just doing this from their goodness of their own hearts.
The government keeps allowing these telcos to have monopolies, but the market keeps finding way around them, and proving how bad an idea government supported/allowed monopolies really are.
The problem with these one off fossil finds is, what I like to call, the Yao Ming & Willie Shoemaker problem. For example: if in 100,000 years alien explorers come to Earth long after mankind is gone and dig up only the bones of Willie Shoemaker or Yao Ming, they're get a very wrong impression about what average humans look like.
The same problem applies to any animal species we uncover. We cannot assume the average size of a species by a single discovery of remains because they have too high a change of being an aberration. Therefore, there's a good chance that the remains found are of a "Yao Ming" of that species.
Hard Drive - 250GB @ 5 X $65
Power Supply - 500w @ $40
Total: $490
All you need now is an case, CPU, and Linux. Case and CPU you can probably salvage from on old PC, or a reused PC dealer for damn cheap. Linux is free (as in speech and beer).
Garbage collectors cannot release "unused" memory if they cannot tell the memory is unused. Poor coding skills and an assumption that a magical garbage collector will save you is just not smart. I can easily code something that eats memory like no tomorrow and never releases one bit of it in Java, C#, etc... managed languages only work if you code with them correctly. Blame the developer, not the language.
Dang, should'a used Preview. That question mark isn't supposed to be there. Windows IS another story.
Some of us are forced to run Windows. Linux locking down, maybe. Windows is another story?
Windows Server 2008 does exactly that. I tend to run Windows Server installs on my workstations anyways - so that's good enough for me.
M$'s XNA is cheap (free) and works rather well. You just have to get used to coding in C# and working with DirectX (for the XBox). The compiler is even free. Sure, it's not a complete Visual Studio, but it has a lot of the goodies.
This being slashdot, I know a lot of people shun M$ software and the XBox as well, but it is a decent platform and you can make games on the cheap. I'm actually working with a friend on a homebrew XBox 360 version of Crossbows and Catapults.
Without having read TFA (hey, this is slashdot) I assume this is for passing through a person's digestive system and not their bloodstream because getting a something the size of a piece of rice caught in the right place is like having a stroke, a heart attack, or other unhappy circulatory problems; and since I doubt it carries enough power to navigate it'd be pretty tough to keep it out of vital organs.
I wrote a science fiction paper my first year of collage where the US switched to nuclear power and used breeder reactors to generate fuel for spacecraft. Lighter and more effective than solid or liquid fuel that burns for long distance space travel (of course you wouldn't use it on the surface of the planet). Basically the spacecraft would use the fuel like micro-bombs in place of burned material and the energy released would produce enough thrust to accelerate the craft and generate power for its onboard systems..
Anyways, the point of the story was cheap, clean energy and a way to deplete our store of weapon grade nuclear material in a safe and productive way.
I keep hoping that someday I'll be right.