I recommend postfix and the Apache 1.3 series. It takes several days to get into the Apache "mindset" but I was quite happy with it. I guess I'm assuming you're familiar with how mail and web servers work - without that background, it would be harder to follow the code.
I find it easiest to learn such a codebase by hacking in printfs - or local equivalent - to understand what variables really mean.
I wouldn't assume that there is only one patent affecting the ipod. For starters, Apple has probably filed a design patent for the physical design. That would bar look-alikes.
The article implies that Microsoft merely saw Apple's invention, then rushed to file a patent application before Apple did. That is not how our system works. In America, priority of invention is the key, not priority of filing. Apple could easily show priority of invention since they publicly marketed the product. And a patent application must be accompanied by a signed declaration from the inventor that the invention is his.
If Microsoft really did what the article implies, which I don't believe for a second, then they committed fraud on the patent office. That would make their patent worthless. I don't see any good patent attorney enabling a scheme that will only bring disgrace on his client.
Far more likely, someone at Microsoft really did invent something used in the ipod.
Simple exercise: search "aleut handshaking" on both engines - no quotes. Google gets 114 hits, Yahoo gets 32. Yay Google. Now take a closer look at those hits.
Yahoo is better than Google at blocking out these "Search Engine Optimizers" aka spammers.
No, it isn't disingenuous at all, not even a little bit.
Sure, if you write, "I've never used your site and never will, but I want to tell you as a member of the public and an internet user...". That's honest. But if you state or imply that you use their site, when you don't - if you state or imply that you will be seriously inconvenienced if they don't support multiple browsers, when you won't - that is disingenuous. Agreed?
Your other arguments also are filled with logical flaws (for example, stating many web apps have rich interfaces as if it is a contradiction to the call to use plain HTML.
Do enlighten me, then. How would you implement Google Maps (to take an example of a rich interface), in plain HTML?
I'm not trying to discourage you from discussing the matter, but posting formal comments with the Copyright Office goes a bit beyond discussion, doesn't it? The Copyright Office presumably has finite resources and is trying to support a community that may have very serious and specific requirements. Do you have the right to comment? Of course. But if your comment persuades them to divert resources away from the real needs of their community (lawyers, paralegals, secretaries at content firms) into supporting a niche browser, what have you really accomplished? Will you ever actually use the thing?
If it's Siebel powered, the site will probably be Windows-only even when it supports more browsers. Last time I encountered Siebel, it used an ActiveX control in the browser. That is really a bigger story than what browsers they support this week.
Ah, but did your vpn support VOIP, with QoS guarantees? Why not? Because it wasn't part of the requirement, right?
Web developers work within finite time and resource to hit specific requirements. When fancy bells and whistles are part of the requirement, and cross-browser support is not, off-brand browsers will suffer. Speaking only for the web developers I've worked with, they are quite capable of making sites cross-browser, and in fact usually advocate this to their employer/customer.
When you are writing the checks, the web developers will do what you say.
But how many of you have ever registered a copyright? If you haven't, isn't it a little disingenuous to write to the Copyright Office complaining?
I'm seeing a lot of comments demanding plain-jane HTML, and denying that it costs anything to support multiple browsers, because you just check for "standards compliance". I used to think this. It's completely wrong today. Many web applications today have rich interfaces approaching desktop apps. Getting them to work cross-browser is damn hard. It is definitely worth doing for a mass-market thing like gmail, but for a niche site used by a handful of attorneys? Hard to justify.
Of course, the rich interface is probably not needed or justified in this governmental site.
The problem is not solvable by standards compliance, at least in the automatable sense. You can have CSS that passes validation, looks fine in IE, and piles things on top of each other in other browsers.
Software engineering vs. computer science? Teaching, demonstrating, students?
I have more liking for CS than for SE, which is mind-numbing with its jargon. But the concept of teaching programming does not well with me. Teaching a language, yes. But I feel sad for the people who learned about computers as an academic subject, something doled out by adults like algebra and history. Computers can be better teachers than adults. Not all people like to be "students" and not all intelligence is "book smarts". You do eventually need the book smarts to be an effective modern programmer, but which is more of a hook to a kid: a chance to study complexity theory, or a chance to code up a simple video game?
In the words of Dijkstra, you don't give the user what they want, you give them what they need.
Did he really say that? I guess that explains why we're all running Dijkstrix!
I'll tell you why it's a hot button for me. I tend to learn concretes first, concepts later. When I was 12, BASIC completely hooked me on programming. I was like the rat with a button wired to the pleasure center, and would have died of dehydration in front of a TRS-80 if not forcibly removed. Much like a talented kid banging on a drum kit, I was in love with the feedback loop, with the immediacy of the machine. In time, the love and deep awareness of computers that BASIC implanted led me through many platforms and languages.
I'm grateful that nobody tried to teach me about computers back then. I was not very receptive to adult authority at that age. I hear suggestions now to start kids with smalltalk, C++, java, whatever. I'm sure these things would not have interested me at 12. You have to write a lot of BASIC and/or assembler before you understand the point of C. You have to write a lot of C before you understand the point of C++. Those who are spoon-fed C++ at an early age must have an awfully hollow understanding.
I am immensely grateful to those who created the early personal computers and BASIC interpreters. It's notable that the computer science establishment did not contribute much to this effort. While they were pottering around in their ivory towers, Prometheuses like (gasp) Bill Gates and Paul Allen were bringing the micro to the masses. When the privileged folks, who had access to good technology before everyone else, criticize the democratizers of technology, it irritates me. Remember how UNIX folks bitched about Linux when it was young?
This comment has gone long enough, and hardly scratched the surface. I'll just say I was very lucky to grow up when I did - I don't think the aspect of computing that young people see today would have interested me at all.
All it takes is one person breaking it for it to utterly fail
Wrong. Typical faulty dualistic geek thinking. DRM raises the barrier for illegal copies entering the black market. DRM is the 3' fence. DMCA is the security guard behind the fence.
They are NOT using DRM to protect their works... [but] for a the pay per view model...
Face it, either you accept a content creator's right to control his works or not. If you do, he has the right to refuse sale and only enable rental. And you have the right to seek out different content. The reality is that the top content creators have always had the upper hand.
So I will repeat myself, there is nothing illegal about selling movies overseas.
Quite a bold assertion for a non-lawyer. Can you tell me which jurisdictions and which movies it applies to? It's hard to imagine a lawyer categorically stating that there's NOTHING ILLEGAL about a complex international trade issue.
IT IS PREFECTLY LEGAL.
But is it cool and froody?
Breach of contract is not violating federal law, it is violating contract law
Where did you get the idea that those are mutually exclusive?
The only thing they might have is posting photographs of their logo on a website and violating copyright law.
So you've read the letter from FedEx's lead counsel, and you've dismissed the other grounds mentioned there. Would you mind explaining your reasoning? In particular, why does trademark law not apply?
Then probably every website in existance with pictures that might contain logos (on products in the background, t-shirts, etc) is in violation of interstate commerce and a good portion of the US is going to be in serious trouble
Rough rule of thumb here - if you're trying to make money with a commercial site based on someone else's trademarked name, without their permission, and you prominently feature their tardemarks and copyrighted works on your site, again without permission, you may be headed for legal trouble.
The idea that learning something can "mutilate" you or decrease your ability to learn other things is crap. I, and most of the good programmers I know personally, learned on BASIC - evil old unrepentant BASIC, full of GOTO and GOSUB. Maybe Dijkstra had trouble teaching "good programming style" to students with a BASIC background because they had experience, and weren't automatically willing to accept someone else's definition of "good". Or maybe he was just kidding.
BASIC was grungy, useful, widely available, and offered a fast edit-run loop - key ingredients in getting a lot of kids hooked on computers.
The economic model you offer describes selling a pound of iron, not a book. Books are copyrighted. There are no legal competitors printing the same book. Professors, not students, decide what books are required for a course. So your idea of the publisher going bust due to poor sales assumes either
Professors stop requiring the book in response to student complaints - OR
Students refuse to buy the required book, and suffer academically
All your points have merit, but all are flawed or short-sighted. Here's some of what you should consider:
Pakistan - Yes, it's a huge problem, a global center of terrorism and radical Islam. Attacking them now would be foolish, especially when they (much against their will) have a somewhat pro-US leader.
Armored doors - I once shared your belief. Now, having read about a huge number of Jihad attacks since 9/11 around the world, I don't think you can defeat Jihad with purely defensive measures. Just keep hardening each target after it's struck?
Remember, this is the government we are talking about. They are under no pressure to approve patents in a timely manner.
Actually, examiners are under very high pressure to process applications quickly. That can mean approve or reject.
The EFF is right, of course, in that the patent system needs to be overhauled so that the system can't be used as a weapon anymore.
Patents are meant to be a legal weapon for the inventor. For example, Tensor stole Walter Raczynski's invention of a desk lamp after he showed it to them. Since he had a patent, he was able to use it as a weapon to get compensation from Tensor.
That would largely prevent individuals from getting patents. Sometimes the patented subject matter is way too big or expensive for an individual to build a model.
In the 80s in the US, electronic phones were first starting to replace conventional phones. Conventional phones used carbon transmitter, magnetostrictive receiver, a custom transformer, resistors and capacitors. But they did use electronics in two places: varistors across the receiver to protect you from loud clicks, and varistors in the network to equalize speech volume on short and long loops.
Do you think that any geek who achieves momentary fame should have a job for life? Don't you think an employee should be measured by the value he's contributing now?
I have more respect for people who actually get things done, like the Linux kernel contributors, than people who pontificate on the future of OO or whatever. Anyone claiming that HP should keep this guy because of his long-past accomplishments should have his head examined. HP should only retain people who help the company make money and move forward.
This article sucks. It keeps talking about computer science, but I get the feeling the authors are lumping in some other disciplines because to the author's blurry vision, everyone who touches a computer is a "computer whiz".
If you guessed a young geeky guy with a pocket saver, guess again: try a 35-year-old African American or Hispanic woman who already has a full-time job at a company where information technology (IT) skills are a key to advancement.
IT skills? What does that mean? Word? Excel? Setting up routers? Crimping cat5 cables? Why mention it in an article about computer science?
...significantly fewer students at the college level - 60 percent fewer - wanted to study computer science in 2004 as opposed to the year 2000.
So? There was a temporary glut of non-computer people seeking to cash in on the boom. Glut over.
And what is even more alarming are the low numbers of young women pursuing computer science at the college level - current numbers are the same as in the 1970's
Why is this alarming?
"Many of [the students] were now interested in designing games, going into graphics for industries such as the movies, designing automobiles, doing architectural design work . they just didn't know there were so many interesting careers in computer science," said Eleanor Babco, executive director of the Commission on Professionals in Science and Technology and one of the report's co-authors.
I get the feeling they're teaching AutoCAD and claiming it's CS. If they are talking about CS or programming, the students should know that whatever glamorous application you're supporting, these remain essentially solitary, mentally challenging areas.
Students shouldn't wait until they are 35 and in an office cubicle to realize that they should have taken those computer classes in college. After all, who doesn't think the IT folks in their office are the most valuable of the bunch?
Computer classes? Again, are we talking about Word 101? Oh, but these computer classes would turn you into one of the IT folks. I thought we were talking about CS? If we are talking about CS or real programming, the vast majority of college students simply don't have the intelligence for it. I would argue that they don't have the intelligence to benefit from college at all, but saying everyone should study CS is like saying everyone should play football so we can become pros later.
I think this article annoyed me a great deal because it deprofessionalizes programmers. Nobody confuses doctors and nurses under the label "medical whizzes" but programmers who've spent years or decades perfecting their craft are lumped in with anyone who makes a living with a keyboard as "computer whizzes".
Lots of programmers have their own string code. For example, postfix has vstring. In the spirit of C, such arbitrary things aren't built in to the language.
Have you used C++? It has a standard string class which solves these problems and is much smoother to use than the various C libraries.
Remember, these text protocols were not the first in their space, and were not guarranteed to succeed. They succeeded largely because they were simple and easy to debug. Many people built hypertext systems before the web took off. Several complicated binary email systems have faded out.
It's useful to be able to telnet to port 25 and troubleshoot a mail server.
OK, thanks. I really wasn't accusing you of anything - just trying to explain to grandparent that yes, a wiring error can result in overvoltage as well as undervoltage, and that it can be more subtle than sending 240 to a 120v device.
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I recommend postfix and the Apache 1.3 series. It takes several days to get into the Apache "mindset" but I was quite happy with it. I guess I'm assuming you're familiar with how mail and web servers work - without that background, it would be harder to follow the code.
I find it easiest to learn such a codebase by hacking in printfs - or local equivalent - to understand what variables really mean.
I wouldn't assume that there is only one patent affecting the ipod. For starters, Apple has probably filed a design patent for the physical design. That would bar look-alikes.
The article implies that Microsoft merely saw Apple's invention, then rushed to file a patent application before Apple did. That is not how our system works. In America, priority of invention is the key, not priority of filing. Apple could easily show priority of invention since they publicly marketed the product. And a patent application must be accompanied by a signed declaration from the inventor that the invention is his.
If Microsoft really did what the article implies, which I don't believe for a second, then they committed fraud on the patent office. That would make their patent worthless. I don't see any good patent attorney enabling a scheme that will only bring disgrace on his client.
Far more likely, someone at Microsoft really did invent something used in the ipod.
Simple exercise: search "aleut handshaking" on both engines - no quotes. Google gets 114 hits, Yahoo gets 32. Yay Google. Now take a closer look at those hits.
Yahoo is better than Google at blocking out these "Search Engine Optimizers" aka spammers.
Do enlighten me, then. How would you implement Google Maps (to take an example of a rich interface), in plain HTML?
I'm not trying to discourage you from discussing the matter, but posting formal comments with the Copyright Office goes a bit beyond discussion, doesn't it? The Copyright Office presumably has finite resources and is trying to support a community that may have very serious and specific requirements. Do you have the right to comment? Of course. But if your comment persuades them to divert resources away from the real needs of their community (lawyers, paralegals, secretaries at content firms) into supporting a niche browser, what have you really accomplished? Will you ever actually use the thing?
Yes, but how many existing government web services require IE? How many existing government forms are in Word format? Do you know or care?
If it's Siebel powered, the site will probably be Windows-only even when it supports more browsers. Last time I encountered Siebel, it used an ActiveX control in the browser. That is really a bigger story than what browsers they support this week.
Ah, but did your vpn support VOIP, with QoS guarantees? Why not? Because it wasn't part of the requirement, right?
Web developers work within finite time and resource to hit specific requirements. When fancy bells and whistles are part of the requirement, and cross-browser support is not, off-brand browsers will suffer. Speaking only for the web developers I've worked with, they are quite capable of making sites cross-browser, and in fact usually advocate this to their employer/customer.
When you are writing the checks, the web developers will do what you say.
But how many of you have ever registered a copyright? If you haven't, isn't it a little disingenuous to write to the Copyright Office complaining?
I'm seeing a lot of comments demanding plain-jane HTML, and denying that it costs anything to support multiple browsers, because you just check for "standards compliance". I used to think this. It's completely wrong today. Many web applications today have rich interfaces approaching desktop apps. Getting them to work cross-browser is damn hard. It is definitely worth doing for a mass-market thing like gmail, but for a niche site used by a handful of attorneys? Hard to justify.
Of course, the rich interface is probably not needed or justified in this governmental site.
The problem is not solvable by standards compliance, at least in the automatable sense. You can have CSS that passes validation, looks fine in IE, and piles things on top of each other in other browsers.
I have more liking for CS than for SE, which is mind-numbing with its jargon. But the concept of teaching programming does not well with me. Teaching a language, yes. But I feel sad for the people who learned about computers as an academic subject, something doled out by adults like algebra and history. Computers can be better teachers than adults. Not all people like to be "students" and not all intelligence is "book smarts". You do eventually need the book smarts to be an effective modern programmer, but which is more of a hook to a kid: a chance to study complexity theory, or a chance to code up a simple video game?
Did he really say that? I guess that explains why we're all running Dijkstrix!
I'll tell you why it's a hot button for me. I tend to learn concretes first, concepts later. When I was 12, BASIC completely hooked me on programming. I was like the rat with a button wired to the pleasure center, and would have died of dehydration in front of a TRS-80 if not forcibly removed. Much like a talented kid banging on a drum kit, I was in love with the feedback loop, with the immediacy of the machine. In time, the love and deep awareness of computers that BASIC implanted led me through many platforms and languages.
I'm grateful that nobody tried to teach me about computers back then. I was not very receptive to adult authority at that age. I hear suggestions now to start kids with smalltalk, C++, java, whatever. I'm sure these things would not have interested me at 12. You have to write a lot of BASIC and/or assembler before you understand the point of C. You have to write a lot of C before you understand the point of C++. Those who are spoon-fed C++ at an early age must have an awfully hollow understanding.
I am immensely grateful to those who created the early personal computers and BASIC interpreters. It's notable that the computer science establishment did not contribute much to this effort. While they were pottering around in their ivory towers, Prometheuses like (gasp) Bill Gates and Paul Allen were bringing the micro to the masses. When the privileged folks, who had access to good technology before everyone else, criticize the democratizers of technology, it irritates me. Remember how UNIX folks bitched about Linux when it was young?
This comment has gone long enough, and hardly scratched the surface. I'll just say I was very lucky to grow up when I did - I don't think the aspect of computing that young people see today would have interested me at all.
Face it, either you accept a content creator's right to control his works or not. If you do, he has the right to refuse sale and only enable rental. And you have the right to seek out different content. The reality is that the top content creators have always had the upper hand.
Quite a bold assertion for a non-lawyer. Can you tell me which jurisdictions and which movies it applies to? It's hard to imagine a lawyer categorically stating that there's NOTHING ILLEGAL about a complex international trade issue. But is it cool and froody?
Where did you get the idea that those are mutually exclusive?So you've read the letter from FedEx's lead counsel, and you've dismissed the other grounds mentioned there. Would you mind explaining your reasoning? In particular, why does trademark law not apply?
Rough rule of thumb here - if you're trying to make money with a commercial site based on someone else's trademarked name, without their permission, and you prominently feature their tardemarks and copyrighted works on your site, again without permission, you may be headed for legal trouble.
The idea that learning something can "mutilate" you or decrease your ability to learn other things is crap. I, and most of the good programmers I know personally, learned on BASIC - evil old unrepentant BASIC, full of GOTO and GOSUB. Maybe Dijkstra had trouble teaching "good programming style" to students with a BASIC background because they had experience, and weren't automatically willing to accept someone else's definition of "good". Or maybe he was just kidding.
BASIC was grungy, useful, widely available, and offered a fast edit-run loop - key ingredients in getting a lot of kids hooked on computers.
What makes you think you can grep a DRM'd book?
Actually, examiners are under very high pressure to process applications quickly. That can mean approve or reject.
Patents are meant to be a legal weapon for the inventor. For example, Tensor stole Walter Raczynski's invention of a desk lamp after he showed it to them. Since he had a patent, he was able to use it as a weapon to get compensation from Tensor.
That would largely prevent individuals from getting patents. Sometimes the patented subject matter is way too big or expensive for an individual to build a model.
In the 80s in the US, electronic phones were first starting to replace conventional phones. Conventional phones used carbon transmitter, magnetostrictive receiver, a custom transformer, resistors and capacitors. But they did use electronics in two places: varistors across the receiver to protect you from loud clicks, and varistors in the network to equalize speech volume on short and long loops.
Do you think that any geek who achieves momentary fame should have a job for life? Don't you think an employee should be measured by the value he's contributing now?
When I heard "Alan Kay" I remembered this load of whining. Here's my comment on that.
I have more respect for people who actually get things done, like the Linux kernel contributors, than people who pontificate on the future of OO or whatever. Anyone claiming that HP should keep this guy because of his long-past accomplishments should have his head examined. HP should only retain people who help the company make money and move forward.
IT skills? What does that mean? Word? Excel? Setting up routers? Crimping cat5 cables? Why mention it in an article about computer science?
So? There was a temporary glut of non-computer people seeking to cash in on the boom. Glut over.
Why is this alarming?
I get the feeling they're teaching AutoCAD and claiming it's CS. If they are talking about CS or programming, the students should know that whatever glamorous application you're supporting, these remain essentially solitary, mentally challenging areas.
Computer classes? Again, are we talking about Word 101? Oh, but these computer classes would turn you into one of the IT folks. I thought we were talking about CS? If we are talking about CS or real programming, the vast majority of college students simply don't have the intelligence for it. I would argue that they don't have the intelligence to benefit from college at all, but saying everyone should study CS is like saying everyone should play football so we can become pros later.
I think this article annoyed me a great deal because it deprofessionalizes programmers. Nobody confuses doctors and nurses under the label "medical whizzes" but programmers who've spent years or decades perfecting their craft are lumped in with anyone who makes a living with a keyboard as "computer whizzes".
Lots of programmers have their own string code. For example, postfix has vstring. In the spirit of C, such arbitrary things aren't built in to the language.
Have you used C++? It has a standard string class which solves these problems and is much smoother to use than the various C libraries.
Remember, these text protocols were not the first in their space, and were not guarranteed to succeed. They succeeded largely because they were simple and easy to debug. Many people built hypertext systems before the web took off. Several complicated binary email systems have faded out.
It's useful to be able to telnet to port 25 and troubleshoot a mail server.
OK, thanks. I really wasn't accusing you of anything - just trying to explain to grandparent that yes, a wiring error can result in overvoltage as well as undervoltage, and that it can be more subtle than sending 240 to a 120v device.