I didn't have to register. I clicked the link and read the story, no registration required and I've never signed up for any account at the Washington Post.
You're seriously lacking in the critical thinking department. Honestly, how dumb do you have to be to compare this guy with Bill Gates and think that you're making a valid comparison? Furthermore, it's not a "victimless crime" like you seem to think it is. There are a lot of victims and if you can't see that you're simply an idiot.
My mistake, I should have said other than the Summer of Code because I was aware of that project. That project cost them roughly a million dollars and for a company as profitable as Google that's nothing more than a little PR stunt. If they want to be comparable to other companies, such as IBM, they're going to need to contribute a lot more than that. All of the applications they've produced internally are closed source and Windows only. From what I've seen they haven't really supported the Open Source community nearly as much as many other companies and yet they've milked the PR extensively.
I don't follow Google a lot though so I very well could be wrong.
What applications has Google released that are Open Source that you like? In fact, what applications has Google released that are Open Source at all? I'm not trolling, I'm honestly curious. I know a ton of Open Source code that has come from Redhat, IBM, Sun, Novell etc., but I don't know of a single project that Google has contributed a significant amount of code to. As far as I can tell all of their current offerings are closed source and Windows only.
I'm not fond of the adware affiliate programs however, I don't believe that they're even remotely responsible for something like this. Responsibility for something like this falls directly upon the student who was launching the botnet attacks and I hope he's severely punished. Attacks like this could cost the lives of those that are receiving critical care at these hospitals.
Obviously, the network could have been more secure but that doesn't change the fact that without assholes launching illegal attacks like this there wouldn't be a problem in the first place.
I'm sure there are plenty of developers that simply want Dreamweaver etc. who are quite capable of coding a standards compliant web page by hand. Nowhere in my original post did I say or imply otherwise. That doesn't take away the fact that a large number of web developers are completely lost without their tools. I've done a ton of web development for major corporations (mainly server side programming not the HTML/CSS) and I've worked with a ton of them. I also have many contacts who are web developers and the good ones always get a kick out of how many so called professionals in the industry are completely lost without their tools.
Because unfortunately there is an extremely large number of web developers that wouldn't have the slightest clue where to begin without Dreamweaver, Frontpage, Flash etc. Perhaps something like Bluefish would help them make the transition (I've never used it so I can't really offer much of an opinion there). For the small amount of HTML/CSS that I do I've always found jEdit to be quite nice and it's supported on multiple platforms.
I'm well aware that other operating systems also have security flaws and I concede that there is no operating system that is completely safe. However, the architecture and coding practices of the other operating systems I mentioned make it much easier to avoid flaws altogether and also make it much easier to locate the flaws and correct them. Being required to run Windows as administrator for many applications to work is just one simple example of extreme neglect for security. And yes this is partially the fault of Windows developers, however it's also largely Microsoft's fault for not teaching or enforcing developers using their platform to use sane security practices since day one.
I completely agree that all systems have flaws, but some have a lot more than others and also have an architecture and development process that make it much harder to find and eliminate these flaws.
"But seriously, I'd rather have the security problems fixed at the source, instead of having to add layers and layers of so called "security software"."
The only solution here is to use a different operating system. Preferably one that was developed by people that have some idea of what they're doing (ie. MacOS X, GNU/Linux, Solaris etc.). With Windows all you're ever going to get is a nice Fisher Price interface with layer upon layer of extra crap piled on top trying to make up for the ridiculously poor quality of the base system and its architecture. The shell alone speaks volumes about Windows.
"So true. It's the maturity curve. The older a piece of code, the longer it has survived, the less likely an error will be found."
Not necessarily true. There is only so much patch after patch can do. If the underlying architecture of the system needs to change then applying fix after fix is likely to be very problematic. In these instances, it is more likely that a complete rewrite would be better structured, more secure and more efficient.
Excellent post and I couldn't agree more. Most people don't regularly give anything to charity and I think it's very petty to attack Gates simply because he's not giving more than a certain percentage of his income to charity. He is still giving away millions and millions of dollars and is also bringing in a lot of attention to whatever the particular cause is. No matter what you think of Bill Gates, he should be applauded for his charitable work. Not only has he donated incredibly large sums of money, but he has also donated a lot of his time. You may not think that his time amounts to much, but in terms of publicity when Bill Gates does something the whole world notices.
"I must say that I'm talking out of my ass here, but I can't see this as being true. You need to include the library in the project in Eclipse to get it to give you code assist (or run), and I can't see it taking much more in VC#. But I could be wrong because I don't have any 3rd party libraries to test..."
I wasn't referring to just getting code assist working, that's trivial in both IDE's. Perhaps, I could have been clearer. What I meant was this; in Eclipse it's very simple to have the code assist working and this is also very simple in Visual C# Express. However, where Eclipse shines is that the code assist can also be linked to the documentation and the source code of that particular library. With a few simple keystrokes I can be looking at the Javadocs in another window or even in a separate web browser. Even the code assist drop down box in Eclipse can be set to include Javadocs explaining the methods, parameters etc. of that particular class/method/interface etc. So basically I have the source code of the library (if available) and the Javadocs, all with very easy navigational hyperlinks. This cannot be done in Visual C# Express.
"At least the professional versions of VS will generate class diagrams for you."
I tried to be clear in my original post that I was only referring to Visual C# Express. A number of my complaints are not valid when talking about the full version of Visual Studio\Visual C# etc.
I use Eclipse more than Netbeans so let me give a few examples from an Eclipse developer's point of view. Note that some of these issues may have been addressed as it was a while ago when I looked at Visual C# Express. Also, remember I'm talking only about the *free* Visual C# Express and not Visual Studio.
Obviously, unlike Visual C# Express, Eclipse is free and comes with no restrictions.
Eclipse is open source, so it's far easier for developers to customize and build a platform around.
Due to the way Eclipse is structured it's very easy to write plug-ins and because of that Eclipse has a very long list of available plug-ins. Plug-ins exist for practically everything a programmer would normally require. Not only does Visual C# Express not have plug-ins but it doesn't even have macro capabilities.
Eclipse has far better refactoring capabilities. It makes it very easy to restructure your code, and it can handle the vast majority of the details (renaming, extracting interfaces, encapsulating fields etc.) itself with no worries.
If you're programming in Java, Eclipse's code assist can be linked to the source code and the documentation for not just the standard library but ANY library that the project uses. IIRC, you can do this with Visual C# Express but it's a pain in the ass and it makes you jump through hoops for everything other than the standard library. In Eclipse, this feature is also available for other languages through plug-ins. Another thing that sucked about Visual C# Express was that the code assist would only show one option at a time so you would have to scroll through the list one by one.
Eclipse also has a wonderful Javadoc engine which can make writing good Javadocs extremely simple and less time consuming.
The code formatter in Visual C# Express sucks and it's not consistent enough that it can be used on large projects. I like to check out my project from SVN and use the code formatter to make the code appear in the style I would prefer. Then before checking the project back in, use another code formatter template to make sure the code that enters the repository in one uniform style. Not only is the Eclipse formatter extremely consistent but it's also is very easy to switch between templates and has nice simple hot keys.
Regardless of the language, it's much easier to change compilers/interpreters with Eclipse and it supports many more compilers/interpreters.
Eclipse has built in CVS AND SVN support while Visual C# Express has no source control integration built in.
I can use Eclipse with a large number of different languages and still continue to use many of the features.
Eclipse can be used for building, testing and running Web applications with a number of different server architectures.
Eclipse uses ant as the standard for building projects. It also has nice configuration utilities for monitoring the execution of a build file, and for creating/modifying a build files.
Eclipse has excellent JUnit integration which makes testing your code easier, while Visual C# Express has no unit testing integration at all.
Eclipse has very nice database integration plug-ins available. Including plug-ins that generate diagrams, UML etc.
Eclipse has good support for Hibernate/Spring/Struts/JSF and a variety of other popular frameworks.
Eclipse has superior debugging support for a wide array of debuggers. Note that I said "support for a wide array of debuggers". Debugging in Visual C# Express, from what I saw in my brief experience with it, is actually very well done and maybe on par (or even possibly better) than Eclipse.
Eclipse has better hot keys. Simple refactoring operations almost always have convenient "what you would expect" hot keys.
Eclipse has navigational hyperlinks that I can use without touching the mouse.
I downloaded Visual C# Express just to check it out and it's safe to say that it isn't anywhere near the same level as Eclipse or Netbeans. Furthermore, if there's something that Eclipse or Netbeans doesn't do that you would like it to, there's most likely already a plug-in available that does just that. If not plug-ins for both IDE's are extremely simple to make.
If you're planning on paying money for an IDE I would recommend IntelliJ IDEA as it beats them all hands down.
Re:Is anyone else sad this caught on?
on
Ajax in Action
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· Score: 1
I'm with you on this one. In my opinion, Ajax looks like one big nasty hack and definitely not a clean optimized solution to the problem. I can just imagine the mess of Ajax infested applications I'm going to have to try and debug in the future. I've seen way to many developers just trying to use Ajax for anything and everything recently whether it's appropriate to the situation or not.
It's easy to take legal action and be successful against a single person, especially one who often is very young and simply cannot afford to hire good legal counsel. On the other hand, it's not so simple to take legal action and be successful against a huge corporation with ties high up in the government and loads of money to protect themselves. Legal action is being pursued in several states and by several different parties, but due to the fact that this is a major corporation with very important friends in high places they will receive nothing more than a slap on the wrist.
IPv6, I'm sure, will eventually be implemented however it's going to be a very slow process. The average person doesn't want to replace their routers etc. because all they want is simple Internet access to browse a few web sites (online banking etc.) and send email. Most of these people are not interested in upgrading because it costs money and also is a pain in the ass for them to take time out of their lives to do so. From the perspective of the average Joe, it's the "If it's not broke why fix it" syndrome and I can't say I blame them. Most people simply don't care enough to spend the money and effort to upgrade for what they see as little or no benefit.
Yes, Azureus uses SWT for its GUI as does Eclipse and RSSOwl. However, from what I've found Swing has made some very strong improvements in performance over the past few years, especially with the 1.5 VM. The next VM release should also really speed up some aspects of Java GUI performance. Personally, as it stands now I would much rather write programs using Swing however that's just a personal preference. From recent experience, I think SWT and Swing are so close now in terms of performance that I think many developers are choosing one or the other based on API preferences.
For some examples of great Java programs written using Swing take a look at Swing Sightings. Especially, IntelliJ IDEA. =)
I'm with you. I detest the fad of having absolutely everything run through the browser. I still haven't seen any web app that can compete with a similar rich client side application. The loading times are also a pain in the ass and nothing you can do with Ajax will completely eliminate that.
Re:Code books in general?
on
Java Puzzlers
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· Score: 1
Bah, damn typos. I need to use preview more often.... Here's the correct link to Safari Bookshelf.
Re:Code books in general?
on
Java Puzzlers
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
The tutorials and code samples that are online are often trivial when compared to the in depth detail that you will find in a good book. Also, they're often out of date and some what misinformed. Don't get me wrong, I've done a lot of research online and lots of the information was very well presented and put together however I don't think I've ever seen a tutorial or paper that is as good or equivalent to some of the professionally written books available. I also hate reading large books or tutorials online. Perhaps, it's just a personal preference of mine.
On a side note, if I had something that was small and lightweight I would probably start using http://safari.oreilly.com/">Safari Bookshelf. For several reasons, I just can't seem to enjoyably read an entire books worth of information sitting at my desk reading off a monitor.
Such as? What errors are you getting? I've used RSSOwl for a long time and have never had any problems with it. Please explain the problems that you're having.
I use RSSOwl and it seems very fast for my needs. It launches almost instantly and loads approximately 150 feeds within seconds. However, I'm running this on a fairly fast computer (3.0 GHz, 2GB of RAM etc.), so if you have a much slower computer the results may not be the same for you. My only gripe is that it uses SWT which IMO, for reasons I won't get into here, is just an unnecessary hack with a multitude of problems. If I found a similar feature rich client that was using Swing I would switch in a heart beat. I've been thinking about porting RSSOwl to Swing however I simply have not had the time to do so.
Slashdot Mirror
I didn't have to register. I clicked the link and read the story, no registration required and I've never signed up for any account at the Washington Post.
You're seriously lacking in the critical thinking department. Honestly, how dumb do you have to be to compare this guy with Bill Gates and think that you're making a valid comparison? Furthermore, it's not a "victimless crime" like you seem to think it is. There are a lot of victims and if you can't see that you're simply an idiot.
My mistake, I should have said other than the Summer of Code because I was aware of that project. That project cost them roughly a million dollars and for a company as profitable as Google that's nothing more than a little PR stunt. If they want to be comparable to other companies, such as IBM, they're going to need to contribute a lot more than that. All of the applications they've produced internally are closed source and Windows only. From what I've seen they haven't really supported the Open Source community nearly as much as many other companies and yet they've milked the PR extensively.
I don't follow Google a lot though so I very well could be wrong.
What applications has Google released that are Open Source that you like? In fact, what applications has Google released that are Open Source at all? I'm not trolling, I'm honestly curious. I know a ton of Open Source code that has come from Redhat, IBM, Sun, Novell etc., but I don't know of a single project that Google has contributed a significant amount of code to. As far as I can tell all of their current offerings are closed source and Windows only.
I'm not fond of the adware affiliate programs however, I don't believe that they're even remotely responsible for something like this. Responsibility for something like this falls directly upon the student who was launching the botnet attacks and I hope he's severely punished. Attacks like this could cost the lives of those that are receiving critical care at these hospitals.
Obviously, the network could have been more secure but that doesn't change the fact that without assholes launching illegal attacks like this there wouldn't be a problem in the first place.
I'm sure there are plenty of developers that simply want Dreamweaver etc. who are quite capable of coding a standards compliant web page by hand. Nowhere in my original post did I say or imply otherwise. That doesn't take away the fact that a large number of web developers are completely lost without their tools. I've done a ton of web development for major corporations (mainly server side programming not the HTML/CSS) and I've worked with a ton of them. I also have many contacts who are web developers and the good ones always get a kick out of how many so called professionals in the industry are completely lost without their tools.
Because unfortunately there is an extremely large number of web developers that wouldn't have the slightest clue where to begin without Dreamweaver, Frontpage, Flash etc. Perhaps something like Bluefish would help them make the transition (I've never used it so I can't really offer much of an opinion there). For the small amount of HTML/CSS that I do I've always found jEdit to be quite nice and it's supported on multiple platforms.
I'm well aware that other operating systems also have security flaws and I concede that there is no operating system that is completely safe. However, the architecture and coding practices of the other operating systems I mentioned make it much easier to avoid flaws altogether and also make it much easier to locate the flaws and correct them. Being required to run Windows as administrator for many applications to work is just one simple example of extreme neglect for security. And yes this is partially the fault of Windows developers, however it's also largely Microsoft's fault for not teaching or enforcing developers using their platform to use sane security practices since day one.
I completely agree that all systems have flaws, but some have a lot more than others and also have an architecture and development process that make it much harder to find and eliminate these flaws.
"But seriously, I'd rather have the security problems fixed at the source, instead of having to add layers and layers of so called "security software"."
The only solution here is to use a different operating system. Preferably one that was developed by people that have some idea of what they're doing (ie. MacOS X, GNU/Linux, Solaris etc.). With Windows all you're ever going to get is a nice Fisher Price interface with layer upon layer of extra crap piled on top trying to make up for the ridiculously poor quality of the base system and its architecture. The shell alone speaks volumes about Windows.
RTFM ;)
"So true. It's the maturity curve. The older a piece of code, the longer it has survived, the less likely an error will be found."
Not necessarily true. There is only so much patch after patch can do. If the underlying architecture of the system needs to change then applying fix after fix is likely to be very problematic. In these instances, it is more likely that a complete rewrite would be better structured, more secure and more efficient.
Excellent post and I couldn't agree more. Most people don't regularly give anything to charity and I think it's very petty to attack Gates simply because he's not giving more than a certain percentage of his income to charity. He is still giving away millions and millions of dollars and is also bringing in a lot of attention to whatever the particular cause is. No matter what you think of Bill Gates, he should be applauded for his charitable work. Not only has he donated incredibly large sums of money, but he has also donated a lot of his time. You may not think that his time amounts to much, but in terms of publicity when Bill Gates does something the whole world notices.
I'll read it later.
"I must say that I'm talking out of my ass here, but I can't see this as being true. You need to include the library in the project in Eclipse to get it to give you code assist (or run), and I can't see it taking much more in VC#. But I could be wrong because I don't have any 3rd party libraries to test..."
I wasn't referring to just getting code assist working, that's trivial in both IDE's. Perhaps, I could have been clearer. What I meant was this; in Eclipse it's very simple to have the code assist working and this is also very simple in Visual C# Express. However, where Eclipse shines is that the code assist can also be linked to the documentation and the source code of that particular library. With a few simple keystrokes I can be looking at the Javadocs in another window or even in a separate web browser. Even the code assist drop down box in Eclipse can be set to include Javadocs explaining the methods, parameters etc. of that particular class/method/interface etc. So basically I have the source code of the library (if available) and the Javadocs, all with very easy navigational hyperlinks. This cannot be done in Visual C# Express.
"At least the professional versions of VS will generate class diagrams for you."
I tried to be clear in my original post that I was only referring to Visual C# Express. A number of my complaints are not valid when talking about the full version of Visual Studio\Visual C# etc.
Cheers.
I downloaded Visual C# Express just to check it out and it's safe to say that it isn't anywhere near the same level as Eclipse or Netbeans. Furthermore, if there's something that Eclipse or Netbeans doesn't do that you would like it to, there's most likely already a plug-in available that does just that. If not plug-ins for both IDE's are extremely simple to make.
If you're planning on paying money for an IDE I would recommend IntelliJ IDEA as it beats them all hands down.
I'm with you on this one. In my opinion, Ajax looks like one big nasty hack and definitely not a clean optimized solution to the problem. I can just imagine the mess of Ajax infested applications I'm going to have to try and debug in the future. I've seen way to many developers just trying to use Ajax for anything and everything recently whether it's appropriate to the situation or not.
It's easy to take legal action and be successful against a single person, especially one who often is very young and simply cannot afford to hire good legal counsel. On the other hand, it's not so simple to take legal action and be successful against a huge corporation with ties high up in the government and loads of money to protect themselves. Legal action is being pursued in several states and by several different parties, but due to the fact that this is a major corporation with very important friends in high places they will receive nothing more than a slap on the wrist.
IPv6, I'm sure, will eventually be implemented however it's going to be a very slow process. The average person doesn't want to replace their routers etc. because all they want is simple Internet access to browse a few web sites (online banking etc.) and send email. Most of these people are not interested in upgrading because it costs money and also is a pain in the ass for them to take time out of their lives to do so. From the perspective of the average Joe, it's the "If it's not broke why fix it" syndrome and I can't say I blame them. Most people simply don't care enough to spend the money and effort to upgrade for what they see as little or no benefit.
Yes, Azureus uses SWT for its GUI as does Eclipse and RSSOwl. However, from what I've found Swing has made some very strong improvements in performance over the past few years, especially with the 1.5 VM. The next VM release should also really speed up some aspects of Java GUI performance. Personally, as it stands now I would much rather write programs using Swing however that's just a personal preference. From recent experience, I think SWT and Swing are so close now in terms of performance that I think many developers are choosing one or the other based on API preferences.
For some examples of great Java programs written using Swing take a look at Swing Sightings. Especially, IntelliJ IDEA. =)
I'm with you. I detest the fad of having absolutely everything run through the browser. I still haven't seen any web app that can compete with a similar rich client side application. The loading times are also a pain in the ass and nothing you can do with Ajax will completely eliminate that.
Bah, damn typos. I need to use preview more often.... Here's the correct link to Safari Bookshelf.
The tutorials and code samples that are online are often trivial when compared to the in depth detail that you will find in a good book. Also, they're often out of date and some what misinformed. Don't get me wrong, I've done a lot of research online and lots of the information was very well presented and put together however I don't think I've ever seen a tutorial or paper that is as good or equivalent to some of the professionally written books available. I also hate reading large books or tutorials online. Perhaps, it's just a personal preference of mine.
On a side note, if I had something that was small and lightweight I would probably start using http://safari.oreilly.com/">Safari Bookshelf. For several reasons, I just can't seem to enjoyably read an entire books worth of information sitting at my desk reading off a monitor.
Such as? What errors are you getting? I've used RSSOwl for a long time and have never had any problems with it. Please explain the problems that you're having.
I use RSSOwl and it seems very fast for my needs. It launches almost instantly and loads approximately 150 feeds within seconds. However, I'm running this on a fairly fast computer (3.0 GHz, 2GB of RAM etc.), so if you have a much slower computer the results may not be the same for you. My only gripe is that it uses SWT which IMO, for reasons I won't get into here, is just an unnecessary hack with a multitude of problems. If I found a similar feature rich client that was using Swing I would switch in a heart beat. I've been thinking about porting RSSOwl to Swing however I simply have not had the time to do so.