Supposed security improvements? This is the only truly secure method of communicating without a key exchange. This is the only thing we can fall back on after factoring is made "easy" by quantum computers. Maybe it's breakable in some future world, but for now it's our backstop for RSA. Have you ever imagined the implications of this world without public key encryption?
I work at a fixed income bank (one of the ones in the news). Although we don't have 50 year loans, we do have 40 year loans in sufficient volume. Most places that deal with loans would've seen amortization issues way before this on these guys and no, they wouldn't have solved them manually, they do number in the thousands.
I think a lot of you are talking about technical schools. I went to the University of Rochester and had a CS degree. It started in Java to go over concepts like data structures and algorithms and then switched to C/C++ for systems classes like Networks, OS, etc. Java is great at abstracting away concepts so you can get into the meat of things like Datastructures, but I agree not very useful for systems type classes (try implementing a TCP header in Java). This is almost exactly a modern version of the grandparent of this post.
Back to the technical schools (RIT for example) -- they teach languages, not software engingeering or systems classes. They are preparing you for a job, plain and simple. This is not computer science.
You mean I really wasn't alone when I thought about an anti-mosquito laser system??? This is either a coincidence or runs through the mind of every tech-oriented brain sitting around in the countryside.
You just have to be smart. Move to New York City and recruiters will beg to offer you a job at one of the top 5 finance firms. People in that position don't hire based on skills or degrees (well, an ivy league helps you out a bit for certain managers). I have a CS degree and had no problem getting a job that pays more than three times as much as people have mentioned in this discussion with hardly any effort.
The short answer to the topic question: Yes. Easy. Finance firms. (most that do it just for the money sell their soul, but for the select few, it's just really challenging and interesting).
Sorry guys, but I (a guy) also fled from this situation where I needed to be on call all night to handle production issues. I don't care whether the reports that my group published were breaking, I don't want to wake up at all hours of the morning. Maybe this means that women are smarter? They know when to bow out of a stupid job like this.
I am not trying to view Excel documents as a webpage and I'm not complaining.
I have a specific program that I use at work that displays data as an embedded excel document after generating the data on the fly with a java application. I have not found any similar programs (odfreader is in version 0.2 and can't be used in production applications) that can be used cross browser. The IE solution is much better and thus the application must be IE specific (rather than re-coding to make it firefox specific).
Microsoft has a more fleshed out browser in many ways that make it the unique, *supported* solution for many business applications. Until firefox catches up in that arena, IE will still be the browser of choice for IE specific applications.
If you read the article, a lot of the discussion is based on how long it will take to actually *build* this monsterous ark. From my (I'll admit somewhat limited) knowledge of the progression of science in the area of building something like this, it seems more realistic to sink money initially into the construction of such a vehicle regardless of the propulsion, etc. Thus, we could have a large man-made space-station/vehicle that is constructed using progressively newer and newer technologies (since it is relatively close by), but is not tied to earth's gravity, making it easier to maintain and possibly to launch.
When the time comes to add propulsion, we will have progressed much more in terms of the physics of star-drives. If we haven't progressed enough? Leave it there, have a space colony, send it to mars and back, whatever -- it's not like it's going to be a waste... Think of the sheer magnitude of the construction effort to build this thing and how much easier it will be in the future to design an ark if we already have a gigantic shell to work with.
Think about star trek when they first develop the warp engine. What comes next? The enterprise wasn't built in a day for sure...
I agree with most, but would add a nice solid OO programming language. These concepts are very important with the stage that we are in with software development. A good understanding of something like Java (I chose this over C++ only because of its more strict OO nature, although something like Ruby might be a better example) helps understand the benefits that OO can provide in terms of code re-use and sharing in terms of interfaces and object heirarchies towards building code that is built from properly tested and secure codebases.
I think emacs is a better editor to start off with than any of the others suggested so far. Here's why:
Easy to use basically in X mode since it has menus, etc. You can save and quit without knowing c-x c-s c-x c-x at first and other useful functions are available via the menus.
Indenting! Emacs teaches us what good code looks like because hitting the tab key puts the line in the right spot. If we're talking python, this is a little different, but C, Java, etc. you need to be bashed in the head with good code style when starting off.
Why jump into a different editor that is just as easy to use as emacs in seperate window mode (or even just XEmacs) when you get all this with the integrated debugger, split windows, indenting, etc?
I am not trying to start up a vi vs. emacs debate because I myself use both editors (I know, blasphemy) when it suits the purpose (vi is good for quick edits, macros; emacs is good for development, debugging; I can go on and on). I am just saying that emacs is totally scalable in terms of ease of use and it is a good editor to start with.
Re:Market Opportunity for Macs and Linux
on
Buy Vista or Else
·
· Score: 1
This proves my point. We're going at getting a distro widely accepted like the democrats are trying to take power. The Linux community needs to stand together behind a nice distro.
Re:Market Opportunity for Macs and Linux
on
Buy Vista or Else
·
· Score: 1
Where is our Linux distro version of OpenOffice? This is the striking point to push a version of Linux that is so close to Windows it's scary. I know a lot of Linux geeks don't care about converting users, but to all of those who do -- the time is now!
I'm not trying to preach, but what we need is a suitable windows clone Linux distro that everyone can stand behind and say: "Hey, here's an easy, free way to convert instead of paying out the ass for something that will probably not be any more secure." The Linux community is missing a huge opportunity to do what OpenOffice has been doing -- offering free software that is easy to migrate to by the average windows user.
Hit them when it counts. Every company that uses windows is looking at huge upgrade fees to go to Vista, why not convince the companies when they're staring at the huge bill?
I'm glad you've found a different scenario. My experience dictates differently, but I'm glad that there are people who are not hardcore programmers that care about design issues related to HTML (if, as you say, they even bother to attempt such a feeble language (my own sarcasm)). I myself hate the imprecision related to HTML and hope that in the future this is not an issue.
This is what makes it so easy to get ahead of the curve in the web game, and also why web monkeys are so often the target of derision from 'real' programmers. The industry is full of dabblers and bubble busters who learned HTML 10 years ago, and continue to eke out a living with little sense of cost effectiveness or missed opportunities.
This is true -- I used XHTML/CSS and was way ahead of the curve when I was a web developer. Now I'm going to a job as a software developer. 'Real' programmers are the only ones who take advantage of these new standards and are the only ones who create these new standards.
Of course, those who are most pedantically obsessed with XHTML validity also tend to be the ones who are using CSS to the fullest and exploring the frontiers of web development. While being too experimental does not save money for employers or clients, the fruits of these labors does. I got into the CSS-based layout game 5 years ago, and at first I didn't see the benefits because I was too busy learning the relevant browser issues and tricks. I never really noticed how much more efficient I was getting until I moved to a new job where people were still in the 1998 era of web design, and waste was immediately apparent.
Sounds just like me and I'm glad you're like that. However, my main point is that people like you and me are negligible compared to the masses of drones who create webpages with dreamweaver, microsoft word, and even the really advanced ones who use DHTML with the possibility of some inlined style tags.
(I dont' mean to insult anyone -- look at the statistics)
Why should the people crafting the standards take this attitude? Web development has a long way to go both in terms of features and efficiency, and standards are the only way to consolidate that progress. HTML has a reputation as a hack of a language, being poorly formed, and loosely interpretted. All the more reason that it needs to be cleaned up. We can't build the next generation of applications on such an untidy mess.
I agree there can never be enough browser standardization, however why should they stop the development pipeline at the top. If you look over a timespan of more than a couple years you'll see that standards support is actually progressing well. What if they had stopped with CSS 1 until all browser had it perfect? Well, we'd still be using tables for layout and it would take a skilled practicioner twice as long to build and maintain sites.
My main point is that the web standards community should change their focus. They keep releasing new standards when they hardly have anyone on board with their previous standard. What they're trying to do is compete with the newest version of regular HTML. Even if they 'win' they will have the best standard with no users supporting it. These people need to figure out a way to get people to use version 1.0 and releasing a version 2.0 is not going to help.
I totally agree. I recently worked at a web programming gig to put me through college/grad school and saw this exemplified quite well. HTML coders are not exactly the kind of people that follow the newest trend in programming abilities. I worked for a firm that designed huge sites for major clients, but most of us still used DHTML and *sometimes* CSS. This is after XHTML has been around for quite a while.
I'm sure there was a huge article on slashdot about how XHTML (1.0) was going to be great and revolutionize the web, but most of the HTML coders that I know really don't care to do something new if they know what they can do now works. What should be done is focusing on standardizing the browsers, _not_ jumping ahead to a new version when hardly anyone has adopted version 1.0.
Stop looking at this as a programmer and start looking at it as a web developer who doesn't care about cleanliness of code or efficiency -- it's HTML for god's sake.
I am familiar with strict mode and doctype switching, I develop webpages for a living.
There are two things wrong with this. First, take a look at http://www.quirksmode.org/css/quirksmode.html (this is me looking up doctype switching like you asked). See all the things that are still not the same cross browser after you enable strict mode? Second, even in strict mode, who says we're developing for IE 6 and above.
My main point is that you can't just say "Oh, I think I'll code this webpage using proper syntax this time" and get it right because sometime, back in the day, Microsoft built IE and said "You know what, maybe we'll just do it this way... screw what the w3c has to say." It's like running a java program on windows and having the instruction i++ be the same as i += 1.2
Next time the parent to this subthread tries to make an informed comment about something, they should think about it first. Just because you can write code doesn't mean you know the intricacies of HTML and that the same design decisions apply. HTML is not an exact language and is not the same cross platform/browser -- this is exactly why I'm changing jobs pretty soon.
In particular, firefox and IE render the 'padding' CSS attribute totally differently. You can write a valid webpage using great coding style and have the width of any given element _undefined_ because you used the padding property of a box. (In Firefox it includes the padding in the width and in IE it adds the padding to the width).
Then, nest these elements inside a fixed width box and watch the fireworks in IE when your page layout collapses because an element is larger than you think.
This is all valid code and it uses as few features as possible. The way around it that I use actually uses _more_ features (I nest the div tags within another div tag and set the margin instead of the padding).
I have a feeling you haven't developed too many web pages in your day. Or at least not too many large projects where you need to use the "features" of CSS to get a properly formatted webpage.
Slashdot Mirror
Supposed security improvements? This is the only truly secure method of communicating without a key exchange. This is the only thing we can fall back on after factoring is made "easy" by quantum computers. Maybe it's breakable in some future world, but for now it's our backstop for RSA. Have you ever imagined the implications of this world without public key encryption?
Maybe I have a one track mind, but it seems like there are a lot of applications of this in terms of algorithms.
I work at a fixed income bank (one of the ones in the news). Although we don't have 50 year loans, we do have 40 year loans in sufficient volume. Most places that deal with loans would've seen amortization issues way before this on these guys and no, they wouldn't have solved them manually, they do number in the thousands.
I think a lot of you are talking about technical schools. I went to the University of Rochester and had a CS degree. It started in Java to go over concepts like data structures and algorithms and then switched to C/C++ for systems classes like Networks, OS, etc. Java is great at abstracting away concepts so you can get into the meat of things like Datastructures, but I agree not very useful for systems type classes (try implementing a TCP header in Java). This is almost exactly a modern version of the grandparent of this post. Back to the technical schools (RIT for example) -- they teach languages, not software engingeering or systems classes. They are preparing you for a job, plain and simple. This is not computer science.
You mean I really wasn't alone when I thought about an anti-mosquito laser system??? This is either a coincidence or runs through the mind of every tech-oriented brain sitting around in the countryside.
You just have to be smart. Move to New York City and recruiters will beg to offer you a job at one of the top 5 finance firms. People in that position don't hire based on skills or degrees (well, an ivy league helps you out a bit for certain managers). I have a CS degree and had no problem getting a job that pays more than three times as much as people have mentioned in this discussion with hardly any effort. The short answer to the topic question: Yes. Easy. Finance firms. (most that do it just for the money sell their soul, but for the select few, it's just really challenging and interesting).
Sorry guys, but I (a guy) also fled from this situation where I needed to be on call all night to handle production issues. I don't care whether the reports that my group published were breaking, I don't want to wake up at all hours of the morning. Maybe this means that women are smarter? They know when to bow out of a stupid job like this.
I am not trying to view Excel documents as a webpage and I'm not complaining. I have a specific program that I use at work that displays data as an embedded excel document after generating the data on the fly with a java application. I have not found any similar programs (odfreader is in version 0.2 and can't be used in production applications) that can be used cross browser. The IE solution is much better and thus the application must be IE specific (rather than re-coding to make it firefox specific). Microsoft has a more fleshed out browser in many ways that make it the unique, *supported* solution for many business applications. Until firefox catches up in that arena, IE will still be the browser of choice for IE specific applications.
Giving up my mod points to ask a question/add to this... Does anyone know of a firefox solution to embedded excel Office Web components?
If you read the article, a lot of the discussion is based on how long it will take to actually *build* this monsterous ark. From my (I'll admit somewhat limited) knowledge of the progression of science in the area of building something like this, it seems more realistic to sink money initially into the construction of such a vehicle regardless of the propulsion, etc. Thus, we could have a large man-made space-station/vehicle that is constructed using progressively newer and newer technologies (since it is relatively close by), but is not tied to earth's gravity, making it easier to maintain and possibly to launch.
When the time comes to add propulsion, we will have progressed much more in terms of the physics of star-drives. If we haven't progressed enough? Leave it there, have a space colony, send it to mars and back, whatever -- it's not like it's going to be a waste... Think of the sheer magnitude of the construction effort to build this thing and how much easier it will be in the future to design an ark if we already have a gigantic shell to work with.
Think about star trek when they first develop the warp engine. What comes next? The enterprise wasn't built in a day for sure...
I agree with most, but would add a nice solid OO programming language. These concepts are very important with the stage that we are in with software development. A good understanding of something like Java (I chose this over C++ only because of its more strict OO nature, although something like Ruby might be a better example) helps understand the benefits that OO can provide in terms of code re-use and sharing in terms of interfaces and object heirarchies towards building code that is built from properly tested and secure codebases.
Not nearly as much as is required for the viewfinder. Whenever that's on, my camera sucks down the power.
Don't jump out and mark this as Troll, but...
I think emacs is a better editor to start off with than any of the others suggested so far. Here's why:
Easy to use basically in X mode since it has menus, etc. You can save and quit without knowing c-x c-s c-x c-x at first and other useful functions are available via the menus.
Indenting! Emacs teaches us what good code looks like because hitting the tab key puts the line in the right spot. If we're talking python, this is a little different, but C, Java, etc. you need to be bashed in the head with good code style when starting off.
Why jump into a different editor that is just as easy to use as emacs in seperate window mode (or even just XEmacs) when you get all this with the integrated debugger, split windows, indenting, etc?
I am not trying to start up a vi vs. emacs debate because I myself use both editors (I know, blasphemy) when it suits the purpose (vi is good for quick edits, macros; emacs is good for development, debugging; I can go on and on). I am just saying that emacs is totally scalable in terms of ease of use and it is a good editor to start with.
This proves my point. We're going at getting a distro widely accepted like the democrats are trying to take power. The Linux community needs to stand together behind a nice distro.
Where is our Linux distro version of OpenOffice? This is the striking point to push a version of Linux that is so close to Windows it's scary. I know a lot of Linux geeks don't care about converting users, but to all of those who do -- the time is now!
I'm not trying to preach, but what we need is a suitable windows clone Linux distro that everyone can stand behind and say: "Hey, here's an easy, free way to convert instead of paying out the ass for something that will probably not be any more secure." The Linux community is missing a huge opportunity to do what OpenOffice has been doing -- offering free software that is easy to migrate to by the average windows user.
Hit them when it counts. Every company that uses windows is looking at huge upgrade fees to go to Vista, why not convince the companies when they're staring at the huge bill?
I'm glad you've found a different scenario. My experience dictates differently, but I'm glad that there are people who are not hardcore programmers that care about design issues related to HTML (if, as you say, they even bother to attempt such a feeble language (my own sarcasm)). I myself hate the imprecision related to HTML and hope that in the future this is not an issue.
This is what makes it so easy to get ahead of the curve in the web game, and also why web monkeys are so often the target of derision from 'real' programmers. The industry is full of dabblers and bubble busters who learned HTML 10 years ago, and continue to eke out a living with little sense of cost effectiveness or missed opportunities.
This is true -- I used XHTML/CSS and was way ahead of the curve when I was a web developer. Now I'm going to a job as a software developer. 'Real' programmers are the only ones who take advantage of these new standards and are the only ones who create these new standards.
Of course, those who are most pedantically obsessed with XHTML validity also tend to be the ones who are using CSS to the fullest and exploring the frontiers of web development. While being too experimental does not save money for employers or clients, the fruits of these labors does. I got into the CSS-based layout game 5 years ago, and at first I didn't see the benefits because I was too busy learning the relevant browser issues and tricks. I never really noticed how much more efficient I was getting until I moved to a new job where people were still in the 1998 era of web design, and waste was immediately apparent.
Sounds just like me and I'm glad you're like that. However, my main point is that people like you and me are negligible compared to the masses of drones who create webpages with dreamweaver, microsoft word, and even the really advanced ones who use DHTML with the possibility of some inlined style tags.
(I dont' mean to insult anyone -- look at the statistics)
Why should the people crafting the standards take this attitude? Web development has a long way to go both in terms of features and efficiency, and standards are the only way to consolidate that progress. HTML has a reputation as a hack of a language, being poorly formed, and loosely interpretted. All the more reason that it needs to be cleaned up. We can't build the next generation of applications on such an untidy mess.
I agree there can never be enough browser standardization, however why should they stop the development pipeline at the top. If you look over a timespan of more than a couple years you'll see that standards support is actually progressing well. What if they had stopped with CSS 1 until all browser had it perfect? Well, we'd still be using tables for layout and it would take a skilled practicioner twice as long to build and maintain sites.
My main point is that the web standards community should change their focus. They keep releasing new standards when they hardly have anyone on board with their previous standard. What they're trying to do is compete with the newest version of regular HTML. Even if they 'win' they will have the best standard with no users supporting it. These people need to figure out a way to get people to use version 1.0 and releasing a version 2.0 is not going to help.
I totally agree. I recently worked at a web programming gig to put me through college/grad school and saw this exemplified quite well. HTML coders are not exactly the kind of people that follow the newest trend in programming abilities. I worked for a firm that designed huge sites for major clients, but most of us still used DHTML and *sometimes* CSS. This is after XHTML has been around for quite a while.
I'm sure there was a huge article on slashdot about how XHTML (1.0) was going to be great and revolutionize the web, but most of the HTML coders that I know really don't care to do something new if they know what they can do now works. What should be done is focusing on standardizing the browsers, _not_ jumping ahead to a new version when hardly anyone has adopted version 1.0.
Stop looking at this as a programmer and start looking at it as a web developer who doesn't care about cleanliness of code or efficiency -- it's HTML for god's sake.
I am familiar with strict mode and doctype switching, I develop webpages for a living.
There are two things wrong with this. First, take a look at http://www.quirksmode.org/css/quirksmode.html (this is me looking up doctype switching like you asked). See all the things that are still not the same cross browser after you enable strict mode? Second, even in strict mode, who says we're developing for IE 6 and above.
My main point is that you can't just say "Oh, I think I'll code this webpage using proper syntax this time" and get it right because sometime, back in the day, Microsoft built IE and said "You know what, maybe we'll just do it this way... screw what the w3c has to say." It's like running a java program on windows and having the instruction i++ be the same as i += 1.2
Next time the parent to this subthread tries to make an informed comment about something, they should think about it first. Just because you can write code doesn't mean you know the intricacies of HTML and that the same design decisions apply. HTML is not an exact language and is not the same cross platform/browser -- this is exactly why I'm changing jobs pretty soon.
In particular, firefox and IE render the 'padding' CSS attribute totally differently. You can write a valid webpage using great coding style and have the width of any given element _undefined_ because you used the padding property of a box. (In Firefox it includes the padding in the width and in IE it adds the padding to the width).
Then, nest these elements inside a fixed width box and watch the fireworks in IE when your page layout collapses because an element is larger than you think.
This is all valid code and it uses as few features as possible. The way around it that I use actually uses _more_ features (I nest the div tags within another div tag and set the margin instead of the padding).
I have a feeling you haven't developed too many web pages in your day. Or at least not too many large projects where you need to use the "features" of CSS to get a properly formatted webpage.