Yeah, don't go hiring any of those bad actors like Christopher Lee, Ewan McGregor, Liam Neeson, Natalie Portman, Ian McDiarmid, Terence Stamp, Samuel L. Jackson etc.
Hmm...it's hard to tell from that wiki info, but I would have thought that something that detects buffer overrun exploits is exactly the kind of thing you'd want to leave turned on in the release version. I mean, usually there aren't many crackers in your test labs. They're usually found on the big wide internet.
Unless it's a more general memory corruption debug library.
Buy a copy of Peopleware instead. It's full of good stuff, most of which is backed up by hard data from the authors' studies, and not just some "Hey, why don't we make work like a game?" nonsense. Plus, trying to implement the advice in that book will keep most companies busy for a few years yet.
This book sounds like a crock. I mean, encouraging managers to tell their team:
"open all the doors, run into the walls, find a way to succeed."
That doesn't sound patronising at all. I can see all these employees running around the office bumping into walls and grunting, trying to find the chainsaw. Or maybe their competitors left a blue key around the office or something.
As someone else said, I'm amazed this got published.
Anyone else irresistibly reminded of the classic Far Side cartoon?:-)
Disagree. That's fine if I want to know what each and every line of code is doing. However, sometimes I want to know what a few lines of code are doing without having to parse and understand every line in my head, keep track of variable usage, etc. Sometimes I want to work at a level slightly higher than the syntax.
For that, a summary comment of the block's purpose is invaluable.
And maintenance is where this comes in useful.
It worries me that people can't see this, and still fall for the 'self-documenting code' myth.
Write and document every function as though I'm just visiting because I'm trying to track down a bug, and I really don't want to have to learn the ins and outs of all your data structures/objects while I'm just there trying to satisfy myself that it's not the source of my problem. I'm usually not curling up with your code with a pipe and some cocoa at bedtime.
Joke away, sparky - I once went to an interview like that at Logitech. We were paired off with existing employees for an informal chat about their jobs. The guy I got worked in the space eqpt division at Cambridge(?) and wasn't allowed to tell me anything about his work:).
Well, the part about the Teddy not telling the child that killing is wrong is right at the end, so if they couldn't mention that, there wouldn't be much point posting...
In my experience, it comes down to one thing: what you're used to.
That gives you about 90% of your productivity, if you're talking about the OS (as opposed to whether you keep getting distracted or read slashdot all the time, etc).
I've heard people tell me many times that Windows or Mac OS or Linux is much better at doing job XYZ, but on investigation it's just slightly different, and basically 'what they're used to'.
Case in point for me: I've used Windows on and off for long enough that I use Alt-Tab habitually. I can't live without fast keyboard based task switching, that lets me flick through all the main windows with a simple keypress. Everytime I use a system that doesn't have it, I feel restricted and constrained. The OS X dock annoys me with its Alt-Tab analog, because it almost copies Windows, but gets important things wrong (like the order of windows is based on the order in the dock, not the Z-order, etc).
However, ask most Windows users what Alt-Tab does, and they won't be able to tell you. When I use it on a non-developers' machine, the user is like "Woah! What was that? What did you do?" So it's clearly not a widely used feature. However, it really bugs me when it's not there.
Most other things are like this - I hated the Mac OS network chooser, because I was used to a different model, but Mac users were fine with it.
It's the way it goes - it's what you're used to. I don't personally believe that the Mac or Windows or Linux desktops have much to separate them.
By the way, this goes double for casual users. I upgraded my Dad's PC from Windows 98 to Windows 2000, and for many tasks, he was lost, because the buttons/menus had moved/changed. Imagine how he would cope if I changed it to OS X or a Linux desktop. It has nothing to do with the superiority or otherwise of Windows - it has to do with what he's used to.
c) They're not arrogant enough to assume that their choice should be embraced by everyone else.
Also:
Most windows users couldn't handle Linux if their life depended on it
I'm confused - are you using this as proof that Linux is better than Windows, or worse? Common sense suggests the latter, but your tone suggests the former.
Hmm...but SHA is a hashing (i.e. one way) algorithm, and Blowfish is an encryption (i.e. bidirectional) algorithm. (For more on this, see the page you actually linked to.)
So you don't use SHA-1 as an encryption algorithm for stuff like SSH, etc., because, well, you can't. Well, you can encrypt, but good luck decrypting:-)
But you might use SHA-1 to generate crypto keys from plaintext data (e.g. passwords) for use by an encryption algorithm. So 'switching to Blowfish' won't help - you need to switch to a different hashing algorithm (assuming you consider this recent discovery to be a concern for such usage of SHA-1).
Tell them that! OSS developers do this stuff as a hobby with limited time; they put their time where it does the most good. If they knew the lack of comments/documentation were stopping them from getting extra developers, they might bump it up in their priorities.
Yeah, I've come close a couple of times, but I always think I'll come across as some random patronising guy who's telling them they suck.
And they don't suck - in many cases (and this project in particular) it's a good program, and used by many people, both commercial and non-commercial; just a little limited in some ways. I just can't bear to work with their source code:)
Can you give me an example of something that is eye candy without serving as a visual cue?
That's easy - any pointlessly skinned application that doesn't conform to the host OS's look and feel for window furniture. So, on MS Windows, that would be iTunes, Windows Media Player, Quicktime Player, RealPlayer One, ephPod, ZipMagic, etc.
These offer no visual clues other than "We're different!", when in fact the only difference in this respect is the way they usually fail to replicate all the Windows UI conventions (e.g. iTunes used to refuse to maximise when you double clicked the title bar, and so on).
About the only things I can see an argument for with kewl skinz is apps that are trying to be small/compact - e.g. Winamp etc., where the standard controls don't work well that small.
If it makes you feel better, I can confirm that it is a fact - Douglas told me and some colleagues about HK a few years ago. In fact, one of the purposes of HK was to solve a problem with Zaphod. Whether or not you believe me of course, is another matter.
It is fun watching some of the other people here posting their "Oh no! Dinsey hacks have ruined teh Hitchhiker!" opinions though:)
If it needs more comments than code, it's a sign its overly-complicated and you need to rethink what you're doing and how you're doing it. In other words, your algorithm sux the bag.
Well, mostly, but I have on occasion documented something to within an inch of its life because the problem is quite complex, and doesn't particularly lend itself to being broken down further. e.g. I wrote some mesh silhouette code recently, that used a lot of small, smart objects to do its job, and was only a screen or two of code, but it still needed a fair bit of explanation as to what was going on.
Also, sometimes the algorithm is quite elegant, and I'm just pointing out that, yes, it does handle all those edge cases you were worried about, and here's how, etc. (That also kind of applied to the mesh code I mentioned.)
But mainly I'm worried about the advice being given in a few posts of "don't add more comments" - these are OSS coders we're talking about - don't give them any ideas.:-)
Sorry - spent today trying to understand a bunch of OSS code that was very complicated, and that has, by its very nature, lots of wrinkles and interdependencies, but of course, almost zero comments in the code. I can only assume such people only ever work on one project at a time - I don't know how I'd ever manage to come back to such a project.
As an aside, I considered implementing a plug-in for the OSS project, on my company's time, that I could submit back, and would be of use to other people, but in the end, it was just way too involved and complicated, so I hacked up a quicker solution.
Basically, I'm a bit tired of opening up the code of some OSS project I've got interested in, only to find that the only comments are the GPL boilerplate blocks at the top of each file:-(
(I know, I know, it's free, I shouldn't moan, etc. But take that example today - that project could have had a few days' time from a developer with 15+ years experience, implementing a solid, tested new feature, but because the overall docs (ha! as if!) and comments were sorely lacking, that didn't happen. I'm just saying. Flame away!)
Sorry, I was envisaging some kind of knitting needle controller/input device for Photoshop or something...it didn't seem like it would work all that well:)
Slashdot Mirror
For some reason, that reminded me of Summoner Geeks
Your case is that Jeremy Irons is a bad actor?
Or that Dungeons & Dragons is a bad film?
How about if she was a young granny?
I mean, those guys freaking suck!
(See what I did there?)
Hmm...it's hard to tell from that wiki info, but I would have thought that something that detects buffer overrun exploits is exactly the kind of thing you'd want to leave turned on in the release version. I mean, usually there aren't many crackers in your test labs. They're usually found on the big wide internet.
Unless it's a more general memory corruption debug library.
Hmm...I doubt you'll see more PCs that can boot from USB drives than can boot from CD-ROMs.
I guess this story didn't get duped enough.
It's certainly why I got an mp3 player. And a mobile phone. And a games console.
Oh no...wait...
Buy a copy of Peopleware instead. It's full of good stuff, most of which is backed up by hard data from the authors' studies, and not just some "Hey, why don't we make work like a game?" nonsense. Plus, trying to implement the advice in that book will keep most companies busy for a few years yet.
This book sounds like a crock. I mean, encouraging managers to tell their team:
That doesn't sound patronising at all. I can see all these employees running around the office bumping into walls and grunting, trying to find the chainsaw. Or maybe their competitors left a blue key around the office or something.
As someone else said, I'm amazed this got published.
Anyone else irresistibly reminded of the classic Far Side cartoon? :-)
Disagree. That's fine if I want to know what each and every line of code is doing. However, sometimes I want to know what a few lines of code are doing without having to parse and understand every line in my head, keep track of variable usage, etc. Sometimes I want to work at a level slightly higher than the syntax.
For that, a summary comment of the block's purpose is invaluable.
And maintenance is where this comes in useful.
It worries me that people can't see this, and still fall for the 'self-documenting code' myth.
Write and document every function as though I'm just visiting because I'm trying to track down a bug, and I really don't want to have to learn the ins and outs of all your data structures/objects while I'm just there trying to satisfy myself that it's not the source of my problem. I'm usually not curling up with your code with a pipe and some cocoa at bedtime.
With the what now?
Wow, I shouldn't post when I'm that tired :-)
Joke away, sparky - I once went to an interview like that at Logitech. We were paired off with existing employees for an informal chat about their jobs. The guy I got worked in the space eqpt division at Cambridge(?) and wasn't allowed to tell me anything about his work :).
He did say he enjoyed it though.
Well, the part about the Teddy not telling the child that killing is wrong is right at the end, so if they couldn't mention that, there wouldn't be much point posting...
Good Lord - hardcore flightsim fans that want to play their flightsims on Linux?
Now that's what I call a niche market!
And people say Linux users are ready for the desktop!
In my experience, it comes down to one thing: what you're used to.
That gives you about 90% of your productivity, if you're talking about the OS (as opposed to whether you keep getting distracted or read slashdot all the time, etc).
I've heard people tell me many times that Windows or Mac OS or Linux is much better at doing job XYZ, but on investigation it's just slightly different, and basically 'what they're used to'.
Case in point for me: I've used Windows on and off for long enough that I use Alt-Tab habitually. I can't live without fast keyboard based task switching, that lets me flick through all the main windows with a simple keypress. Everytime I use a system that doesn't have it, I feel restricted and constrained. The OS X dock annoys me with its Alt-Tab analog, because it almost copies Windows, but gets important things wrong (like the order of windows is based on the order in the dock, not the Z-order, etc).
However, ask most Windows users what Alt-Tab does, and they won't be able to tell you. When I use it on a non-developers' machine, the user is like "Woah! What was that? What did you do?" So it's clearly not a widely used feature. However, it really bugs me when it's not there.
Most other things are like this - I hated the Mac OS network chooser, because I was used to a different model, but Mac users were fine with it.
It's the way it goes - it's what you're used to. I don't personally believe that the Mac or Windows or Linux desktops have much to separate them.
By the way, this goes double for casual users. I upgraded my Dad's PC from Windows 98 to Windows 2000, and for many tasks, he was lost, because the buttons/menus had moved/changed. Imagine how he would cope if I changed it to OS X or a Linux desktop. It has nothing to do with the superiority or otherwise of Windows - it has to do with what he's used to.
How about:
c) They're not arrogant enough to assume that their choice should be embraced by everyone else.
Also:
I'm confused - are you using this as proof that Linux is better than Windows, or worse? Common sense suggests the latter, but your tone suggests the former.
Hmm...but SHA is a hashing (i.e. one way) algorithm, and Blowfish is an encryption (i.e. bidirectional) algorithm. (For more on this, see the page you actually linked to.)
So you don't use SHA-1 as an encryption algorithm for stuff like SSH, etc., because, well, you can't. Well, you can encrypt, but good luck decrypting :-)
But you might use SHA-1 to generate crypto keys from plaintext data (e.g. passwords) for use by an encryption algorithm. So 'switching to Blowfish' won't help - you need to switch to a different hashing algorithm (assuming you consider this recent discovery to be a concern for such usage of SHA-1).
Yeah, I've come close a couple of times, but I always think I'll come across as some random patronising guy who's telling them they suck.
And they don't suck - in many cases (and this project in particular) it's a good program, and used by many people, both commercial and non-commercial; just a little limited in some ways. I just can't bear to work with their source code :)
That's easy - any pointlessly skinned application that doesn't conform to the host OS's look and feel for window furniture. So, on MS Windows, that would be iTunes, Windows Media Player, Quicktime Player, RealPlayer One, ephPod, ZipMagic, etc.
These offer no visual clues other than "We're different!", when in fact the only difference in this respect is the way they usually fail to replicate all the Windows UI conventions (e.g. iTunes used to refuse to maximise when you double clicked the title bar, and so on).
About the only things I can see an argument for with kewl skinz is apps that are trying to be small/compact - e.g. Winamp etc., where the standard controls don't work well that small.
If it makes you feel better, I can confirm that it is a fact - Douglas told me and some colleagues about HK a few years ago. In fact, one of the purposes of HK was to solve a problem with Zaphod. Whether or not you believe me of course, is another matter.
:)
It is fun watching some of the other people here posting their "Oh no! Dinsey hacks have ruined teh Hitchhiker!" opinions though
Well, mostly, but I have on occasion documented something to within an inch of its life because the problem is quite complex, and doesn't particularly lend itself to being broken down further. e.g. I wrote some mesh silhouette code recently, that used a lot of small, smart objects to do its job, and was only a screen or two of code, but it still needed a fair bit of explanation as to what was going on.
Also, sometimes the algorithm is quite elegant, and I'm just pointing out that, yes, it does handle all those edge cases you were worried about, and here's how, etc. (That also kind of applied to the mesh code I mentioned.)
But mainly I'm worried about the advice being given in a few posts of "don't add more comments" - these are OSS coders we're talking about - don't give them any ideas. :-)
Sorry - spent today trying to understand a bunch of OSS code that was very complicated, and that has, by its very nature, lots of wrinkles and interdependencies, but of course, almost zero comments in the code. I can only assume such people only ever work on one project at a time - I don't know how I'd ever manage to come back to such a project.
As an aside, I considered implementing a plug-in for the OSS project, on my company's time, that I could submit back, and would be of use to other people, but in the end, it was just way too involved and complicated, so I hacked up a quicker solution.
Basically, I'm a bit tired of opening up the code of some OSS project I've got interested in, only to find that the only comments are the GPL boilerplate blocks at the top of each file :-(
(I know, I know, it's free, I shouldn't moan, etc. But take that example today - that project could have had a few days' time from a developer with 15+ years experience, implementing a solid, tested new feature, but because the overall docs (ha! as if!) and comments were sorely lacking, that didn't happen. I'm just saying. Flame away!)
Overgeneralise much?
Sorry, I was envisaging some kind of knitting needle controller/input device for Photoshop or something...it didn't seem like it would work all that well :)