phpBB2 RC-3 has been released. Glad to see they're still making progress. Looking forward to playing with it once it's finally released.

Permalink | Comments? | id 1549

23:41 (utc-5)

 

Whoa, I just found out that my spring break begins in two weeks! Saturday March 16th... I get a whole week off for doing nothing College is crazy. On the other hand, if I was working at the same time, I'd definitely need a break. I don't know how people work and go to college at the same time. Then again, they probably don't take a full courseload either.

Permalink | Comments? | id 1548

23:37 (utc-5)

 

Via Slashdot, MSNBC: The Threat of a Linux Generation "What worries [Janak Parekh] and many of his colleagues is that Microsoft will continue to tighten the screws, perhaps going so far as to offer Windows and other software as services rather than products. "In the past the product was in a box, and you could take it out and put it on your machine," he says. "If you wanted, you could take the software off the machine and sell it to a friend. Now Microsoft is taking things to the next degree.""

An interesting perspective, and some good quotes. However, the article shows some of what Dave's been talking about... The authors have obviously never heard of KDE (or Gnome for that matter) not knowing that it already exists in released form, and they also refer to "Windows NE"

Permalink | Comments? | id 1547

23:04 (utc-5)

 

Sarah Hughes' parade has been postponed until next Sunday, but Dateline has a bunch of Olympians on tonight. "On a special night and time, don't miss this Olympic Update. American medalists Apolo Ohno Anton [sic], Michelle Kwan and Jim Shea join Jamie Sale, David Pelletier and other Olympic champions in this Dateline follow-up to the XIX Winter Games."

Permalink | Comments? | id 1546

17:01 (utc-5)

 

While studying for my calculus exam, I ran across a quote in my calculus book by Alfred N. Whitehead that applies equally well to programming languages: "Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them."

Permalink | Comments? | id 1545

15:32 (utc-5)

 

Reveal.org, "An Organization of Former Members of the International Churches of Christ (ICC) (ICOC)". This site describes the cult Sean thinks is the one that has targetted me. So far the information I've gathered seems to fit their behavior well, though I'll still have to confirm that this is actually the cult they belong to.

Permalink | Comments? | id 1544

05:07 (utc-5)

 

Embedded.com: The Death of Hardware Engineering.

I've noticed over the last few years that hardware design seems to parallel software design, just delayed by about a decade. All the virtues and vices that programmers discovered in the '80s are now being uncovered by hardware engineers. High-level languages? What a good idea-for hardware. Compilers? Gee, you mean we don't have to hand-craft every single transistor? Object-oriented programming? The hardware guys are just now catching on.

The hardware-design profession is pulling itself through the same knothole that programmers did 10 years ago. Just as assembly code gave way to higher-level languages, hardware engineers are gradually discovering the joys of high-level abstraction. The benefits are much the same, but so are the pitfalls and the battles. When compiled languages first started to catch on, the "old guard" decried them as a lazy, inefficient, and unprofessional way to write software. Compilers were labeled as inelegant, generating bulky, slow, spaghetti code. "Real programmers toggle front-panel switches."

Old-timers complained that compiled code could never be as fast, tight, or elegant as hand-written assembly code-and they were absolutely right. But it didn't matter. For all the failings and shortcomings of compilers over human assembly programmers, they are more efficient in the one dimension that matters: programmers' time. ... It's not an efficient use of the engineers' time to design a chip [with 10 million gates], gate by carefully crafted gate. Some faster and more productive method is required.

Also see this.

Permalink | Comments? | id 1543

05:00 (utc-5)
edited: 05:02 (utc-5)

 

Via LtU, Embedded.com: Comments on Comments.

Even if you're stuck in a hermetically sealed cubicle never interacting with people and just cranking code all day, I contend that you still have a responsibility to communicate clearly with others. Software is, after all, a mix of computerese (the C or C++ itself) and comments (a verbal description meant for humans, not the computer). If we write perfect C with illegible comments, we're doing a lousy job.</blockquote><blockquote>I think the XP folks got it right by deriving the process from values rather than from a collection of good ideas. However, I'd add a fifth to their list: Pride of Workmanship. In my experience, software created without pride is awful.

My standard for commenting is that someone versed in the functionality of the product, but not the software, should be able to follow the program flow by reading the comments without reference to the code itself. Code implements an algorithm; the comments communicate the code's operation to yourself and others, maybe even to a future version of yourself performing maintenance years from now.

Finally, consider changing the way you write a function. I have learned to write all of the comments first, including the header and those buried in the code. Then it's simple, even trivial, to fill in the C or C++. Any idiot can write software following a decent design; inventing the design, reflected in well-written comments, is the really creative part of our jobs.

Permalink | Comments? | id 1542

04:51 (utc-5)