I've been programming professionally for 35 years. And, I have come to the conclusion that the languages, libraries and MOST of the tools are utterly irrelevant.

Clear thought is important. And, to support this: Source control is important. On-line editing with macros are important. Literate programming is important (DE Knuth -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...). Garbage collection is (reasonably) important. Illustrations are important. Documentation rendering is important.

Hell, most of my programs are 90% documentation. Bugs? Very rare.

The SINGLE most important tool that has advanced things for me in the past 20 years? Web Browsers (HTML). Makes reading programs as literary works accessible. My programs, anyway.

Past 30 years? Literate Programming (with TDD)

Past 35 years? Scheme.

I expect my programs to be read. As literary works. That's how I write them. Most is prose, with some magic formulas. Fully cross-referenced for your browsing pleasure. With side notes and illustrations. And even audio commentary and video snippets.

These days, I see a lot of code that CANNOT be read without using an "IDE". The brain (my brain, anyway) cannot keep the required number of methods and members. Discussing the program becomes... impossible. And that which cannot be discussed and reasoned about cannot be reliable. Illustrations and diagrams need to be generated, and references from the code to those are needed.

So, invert it and make the diagram and documentation primary, and the code itself secondary to that. In other words, Knuth's Literate Programming.

Dump Windows for Linux. Pretty dumb reason. In fact, not a reason. And, it won't save you money. Back in 2008/9 a Linux netbook was 50ish dollars cheaper. Now, you can't get one (easily). If you have a need for Linux (I do, it runs the applications I want), you will typically get the machine with Windows, and then replace it with Linux. Microsoft gets money, and has one less customer to support.

But... I assume you are in the US or Canada. Didn't your currency just get a bug fix update for anti counterfeiting? An update to the US $100 bill was released October 2013. Obviously, you can't trust that yet -- give it a few years.

As to being "regulated" by government, -- what is that, exactly? BTC is one possible crypto-currency, so it is of interest what you think this "regulation" should look like.

Way to shunt blame!

I design code, your "EEs" design electrical hardware. I have been delivered hardware without such safeties. I could simply refuse to deliver code for the platform -- it will simply be offshored.

Just costs me work.

That upsets me the most. Just bought an Acer Iconia W700. Came with Windows 8 which I never used. What it is, I guess.

PS Works ok with Fedora 20. No application support for multi touch or the accelerometer though.

DX12. Microsoft is the sole definer. Implemented for only ONE Operating Environment, according to the defining body. May be implemented for two OSs at Microsofts leisure.

May or may not be upward or downward compatible with itself or anything else.

So PLEASE. STOP calling DX ANYTHING a standard. You may call it a library or an API.

PHIGS is the standard. OpenGL has pretty much supplanted PHIGS but is still not a standard. OpenGL is also an API but with broader support.

Crap.

We KNOW what happened to those bitcoins. We WILL know when they are spent. Indeed, it is possible to simply taint them (and this IS done).

Bitcoin is FULLY traceable, and is worthless unless the blockchain confirms. Which makes control very easy.

The fact that the exchange is not secure -- is the problem for the customers. Just like a bank. But, if money is tainted, the government will just print more...

With bitcoin the tainting would just end being pretty permanent. Yes, "fresh" bitcoin are worth more. I would pay more for a fresh clean btc. You want to sell me a btc that traces back to this theft (and yes, I would know in milliseconds, since I, like others) track all btc transactions, I wouldn't buy it -- I would report you to the police.

Tell me how I do that with cache?

I would need access to a registry of all currency serial numbers. Which I have with bitcoin.

It is STUPID to say that the government doesn't watch bitcoin. Hell *I* watch bitcoin. Sure people can steal bitcoin. They cannot lie about it. I know if a bitcoin is tainted. I may even participate, but I would certainly devalue those bitcoins (but would actually simply report the attempt to move stolen property to the police). The bitcoin in question transferred, and that transfer is public knowledge. The bitcoin, source and destination. After that, I can consider those btc tainted.

Of course, keeping track of all this bitcoin activity is the fundamental problem... It requires days to catch up now, and continuous on-line connection to keep up. But, I do it with an Atom based computer (not mining, just tracking transactions).

BTC is NOT "anonymous", BTC is NOT "untraceable". EVERY BTC is DEFINED by its entire history since it was mined. Using it simply adds to its history.

Bitcoin Problems:

- Ignorance
- There will come a time when the transaction records can no longer be managed by individuals (not yet a problem).
- Blind trust in the "internets" (why should someone have trust "Gox" anyway?)
- Lemming behaviour
- Deflation

Protection of law.... is what patents offer.

A completely laissez-faire system has no protection under law.

Trade secrets aren't that useful -- once out, there is no longer any protection under law. Only the protection of a Guild would work.

A Trade Secret or NDA under current law is a "one-time only" thing. Once the cat is out of the bag, there is not stuffing it back in. A Guild offers the ability to stuff that cat back in. Sure, it may take "mafia-style" tactics, but if the Guild is placed correctly, it WILL be allowed to get away with it.

So, you assume biking is only for exercise?
No wonder using a bike is so dangerous on the street.

Interesting... you used the word rentier! Wrong.

The point of granting patents was to OPEN the process up. Say we completely eliminate patent protection... Now, inventions will remain secret. Guilds will form and the technology will be held within the Guild (as history has shown us, even to death). Eliminate the Guild? The technology dies. Making the Guild more powerful than the Government.

Um... this will happen all the time!

You access some resources on your corporate network from your laptop. To do this, you have configured an application to talk to the server. That server happens to have the name whizzy.corp.

So far, no biggy. IF you launch the application and you are not at work, whizzy.corp doesn't resolve. For example, at your local starbucks, BEFORE you open your VLAN.

What happens when .corp is assigned? Suddenly whizzy.corp is now a machine on he internet. Say the application is your corporate IM system.

(I would imagine that names like exchange.corp would be very hot items).

For this reason, the recommendation is that .corp, .home and .mail be reserved.

I would like all the RFC 6762 names to be reserved (.intranet, .private, .lan, .internal as well).

Of course, startup applications on laptops COULD be locked down, along with a strict no-byod policy, thereby eliminating these issues... maybe. If your company supports a VLAN, they may well arise anyway. This CAN be made to work, but I am (fairly sure) that most users wouldn't like it.

Why do you mention Linux? This sub-thread compared Windows against z/OS. The "market share" for z/OS as a general compute device is, of course, even less than Linux. However, z/OS is arguably much more secure than Windows.

Why is it that Windows criticism is taken as Linux support? Linux has its place (and I use it as my primary OS) but I certainly wouldn't claim it is secure. Windows should be secure, given that it is pre-installed on almost every consumer computing product.

I used to subscribe to Cable TV and Cable Internet.

My supplier (Rogers) managed to piss me off. So badly, in fact, with required service (6 years ago). That I told them to cancel. Indeed, they had strung "temporary" wires over my property -- for two years.

They were warned. No easement to string that wire.

I took shears and removed the wire A real "cable cutting".

Combine this drone with the phone/tablet killswitch and much hilarity can be had!

- or -

A new sport. After all, skeets can't dodge, and mailboxes are just too easy a target... Highway drone shooting!

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I used to think /.'s biggest problem was dups! Now we've got BETA -- and I promise to NEVER complain about dups again!
 

First, "rwx" works for most use cases.

Second, ACLs were in Redhat AS3, which puts it back to 2003.

I'll even concede that Windows is secure now. But, my opinion is that it should be! (given how much it costs). My experience is with Unix.

Pretty much 24/7 people come a-knockin' at SSH. Trying user/password combinations. Quickly (which gets them blackholed) or slowly.

Even my Linux XBMC box gets thousands of attempts a day.

I imagine that Windows gets it worse. Using a small percentage OS that covers the functions I need? Is a good thing. Sure, obscurity isn't security, but I do know how to harden the boxes I deploy. At least to the level needed.

Windows needs to be a whole lot "harder" out of the box. People get it on new computers. I know I do! People with no knowledge or experience in security.
Who want to "download" and gleefully poke holes in the router. At least, until a standard was devised to allow programs I consider untrusted to do the poking for them. Then, to find exploits in those routers... possibly (wearing a black hat) allowing snooping of local traffic, and injection of bad packets. Why not?

Still not going to bother me any, and, no, I don't bother with ACLs in most circumstances. Simply, by the time the ACL would help is far too late anyway.

If I control your router, and your router attached storage, I really don't care about your computer anymore.

Which brings us back to Linux and BSD. And, our aforementioned group that simply deploys with no deeper understanding.

I am very glad that Microsoft has made money. I have a financial interest in them (no, I don't have a stake in Redhat).

Why? Microsoft gets to move a unit of Windows for just about every home PC. (I bought some Acer Veriton 282G units that didn't come with Windows, but, in general, this hold true).

I would prefer that my Fedora/whatever boxes remain somewhat obscure. I would like router vendors to be more open (specifically, support flashing third party firmware without voiding hardware guarantees).

Rant is over. Resume your regular /. read.