you'd have a vast library of libraries. Something like CPAN or something you'd get in the C world. Libraries written to perform some task and nothing more. Then documented with care and the API published.

Anyone wants to do something, they take the library that appeals to them and adds it to their program and build up a program from these bits.

Now the problem today is that a) some only use libs that come with the OS or language framework, b) the libraries that are out there are shit, written quickly and for a bit of a mishmash of scenarios.

For example, you can get an XML parser and it will work perfectly. It will only parse XML though, but then, that's what only what you want from a XML parser library! .... well, except it also comes with network routines and specialised SOAP parsing and a suite of http helper methods, including a web services subsystem :-(

So the problem is not so much that we have libraries, but that the libraries we have are not good enough as library code.

I'll agree there - thought its not Java at fault necessarily - not unless you lump in a bunch of other languages like VB, C#, JS etc.

The problem is of the library code you're using. Libraries should be small, well defined, easy to use, and documented.

The problem today is (especially with code written in Java, .NET or JS) that it is knocked up to solve some problem but the problem is not only not properly understood, but the code that is provided doesn't solve it particularly well. Its not defined as a discrete task, more as part of some greater whole that someone thought "worked ok for me in my circumstances, so should be fine for others too".

If libs were properly specified as libraries and their API documented fully, then we would see more code reuse and better, cheaper code. If only, but the cost of making such a library tends to be too slow and difficult for the 'I want it now' majority, and this is why we continue to have this kind of shitty code problem.

but "For Fucks Sake" doesn't spell anything like I thought you spelt his name but I guess I'll start spelling it like that if you insist.

For completeness, how do I pronounce it?

only as a place to host your project.

For finding related projects, or finding projects that want help you still miss the features of sourceforge. in fact, if it wasn't for the dice-ificaton of SF, SF would be the premier site to host your OSS projects. I wish Dice would get this.

Besides, I stopped trusting github after the revelation how the founders were playing with it and their employees. If they can't run themselves professionally, I don't trust them to run the entire business or sites professionally either, I've been on too many sites that closed up for whatever reason to want to lose my source to the increased risk that github screws things up more.

I'm beginning to get the same, its a bummer :)

Apparently there is some technology that is new that replaces the lens with a little plastic one - like they do for cataract surgery. Ages ago I read about this procedure being performed for vision, but mainly to correct shortsightedness, particularly for people with really bad vision.

http://www.revophth.com/conten...

Now, it seems this might be the way for the likes of me... if I wasn't too worried about my eyesight. Might give it a few more years first :-)

bullshit. I get a .xls from my accountant to enter my details, and its full of protected cells and functions. I use LibreOffice, and so far my accountant hasn't even noticed anything untoward with the returned .xls file I send him.

Considering Word can't even open some Word documents created with older versions of Word, I think this is pretty damn good.

ODF is more like a zip file of XML files

You can have a single-document xml file, but its quite rare.

Not that it really matters so much, the only problem I had was finding a library to write a .ods file (basically wanted to write a csv, but in a format that Excel would actually fucking render correctly, the fucker). Writing out .xls files was just not available unless I had Office installed and called some COM wrapper to some craziness.

Did you even read the summary?!

that's a poor argument. After all, physics is just applied maths, and chemistry is just applied physics, and biology is just applied chemistry.... and just by sitting here typing I'm using maths!

Maths as a discrete thing is different to computer science even though they do share the same branch of education.

That said, nowadays, is cutting and pasting code from Google, and pressing . and letting intellisense tell me what to pick next, really maths. Is it really programming! :-)

I guess it depends, I have used math twice n my professional career - once to use trigonometry to show the distance between 2 points (Pythagoras) and once with a complex equation that was reduced to a simpler one.

Now, if I was a cryptograpic engineer, I think I might use math more often :)

But, as I tend to be more of a LoB engineer, math is not something used very often at all. If at all. I refer to the aforementioned pythagorean equation for the distance between 2 points using a triangle.... the business people I was working with considered me a genius for knowing that kind of thing even though it was something remembered from my O level days (yes, I'm old, maybe they don't teach it any more)

Imagine instead if they'd listened to him and worked towards this vision

then he would have replaced Ballmer by the board ... so obviously first thing to do was ignore him, and then sack him. Got to look at the "big picture" - you know, the one of Ballmer's bonuses that matter much more than any thing stupid like innovating in the right way to keep the company at the forefront of their field.

plenty of "do nothings" at Microsoft - all the old guys who were lucky enough to get shares, now called "rest and vest" by the new comers who haven't seen the same kind of perk for well over a decade.

But I imagine Microsoft has very many people who they really don't need - smaller divisions can perform much better than large empires.

same here - only I don't try to keep it in sync with other devices (don't want changes I make to my PCs keepass db to be automatically synced to my phone that might be stolen)(I might be going a little too paranoid here)

I also use Mozy for the cloud storage, as it encrypts everything stored (with a different key) and it has history.

Keepass is awesome, my only worry is that I forget which file I used as the encryption 2nd part and delete it one day!

same in the UK, the regulations on what comes out of the tap are much stricter than what gets sold in bottles.

But.. maybe we should go back to basics and drink water the way our ancestors did to keep healthy - by brewing it with hops :-)

tell me, I read (yes) the Daily Mail article, read the linked one to the Independant and then submitted with the DM one as it was better, even though it had been sourced from the other paper's site.

Though samzenpus did a good job rewriting my "na, they'll never accept it" sub, he really shouldn't have lost that link :(