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Comment Re:Yes, but for the wrong reason (Score 1) 220

But what's an abstract idea?

Isn't the definition that you have to be able to give a patent to a developer skilled in the specific art and he/she can implement exactly the device described by the patent without inventing anything new? If that's not possible, the patent is supposed to be invalid because it's an abstract idea instead of a concrete implementation.

Comment Re:Debuggers (Score 1) 294

Simplest case, trying to debug remote code running on a server for which you have deploy-but-not-debug permissions on (this comes up a lot for me, actually).

For these cases, you should set up a local mirror environment where you are allowed to debug. Of course, if you can't reproduce the problem locally (because of system-interdependencies or a critical database you aren't allowed to copy for testing due to privacy issues), you have a problem...

Comment Re:I would think (Score 1) 379

If a change is security related and non-obvious, then won't doing it in such a rush probably introduce new bugs/vulnerability into the code?

I guess you're not a programmer? When programming, you develop mind models of the code. This means that you can see behind the structures and write complicated stuff very quickly. After a while of not working on the code, you forget that model, and small changes are very dangerous, since they might result in side effects in other parts of the code you didn't consider.

That means that when you're constantly working on the same codebase and add features quickly, you get better code and less bugs. Note that this only stands true without a deadline looming ahead (which I don't think the OpenBSD devs have), since then you tend to make dangerous shortcuts and litter the code with "FIXME"s you tend to forget about.

That's also how hackathons work. I've been able to create full products in a weekend that otherwise would have taken months.

Comment Re:I would think (Score 3, Insightful) 379

The often repeated mantra that high level language compilers do a better job than humans isn't true, and doesn't become true through repetition. The compilers can do no better than the person programming them, and for a finite size compiler, the optimizations are generic, not specific. And a good low level programmer can take knowledge into effect that the compiler doesn't have.

While I agree, there are also specific cases where a human cannot reasonably do an optimisation a compiler has no troubles with. For example, a CPU can parallelize subsequent operations that are distinct, like talking to different units (floating point math, integer math, memory access) and not using the same registers. A human usually thinks in sequences, which require using the result of an operation as the input for the next operation. Everything else would be unreadable source.

Finding distinct operations and re-ordering commands is easy in compilers, and the optimized result has no requirement of being readable.

C tries to find a middle ground there, where the user still has a lot of possibilities to control the outcome, but the compiler knows enough about the code to do some optimizations. The question is where the correct balance lies.

Comment Re:Stop using Youtube (Score 1) 306

my company wrote, directed, filmed, and edited a music video for a lesser known artist who is a friend. We did it pro bono because he is a friend. We posted the video to YouTube and he started using it successfully to promote himself and get more appearances. [...] That bigger company claimed they owned the copyright on the video. Google happily revoked our right to monetize it and gave us the option to take it down or let the bigger company monetize it.

Well, this sucks, but it might actually be legally correct: When you friend signed away his soul to the record company, he gave them every right to act this way. As such, your company would have had to make a contract with the soul owner, not with the poor remains.

Many musicians seem to be very naive and don't realize this when they sign up with a publisher, not even years later. Many don't even seem to think it necessary to point this out when they're doing contract work, like for indie games, even though it's very relevant. YouTube casters (which are the main PR for indie games) are not allowed to review games that come with this kind of tainted music. They are not even allowed to show trailers of the game. The casters not getting paid for their work is the mildest of results from violating this law.

I've even seen musicians that tried to argue with their masters about that they would like them to allow game reviews, but it's a very sorry sight.

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