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The Internet

The Internet Is 'Built Wrong' 452

An anonymous reader writes "API Lead at Twitter, Alex Payne, writes today that the Internet was 'built wrong,' and continues to be accepted as an inferior system, due to a software engineering philosophy called Worse Is Better. 'We now know, for example, that IPv4 won't scale to the projected size of the future Internet. We know too that near-universal deployment of technologies with inadequate security and trust models, like SMTP, can mean millions if not billions lost to electronic crime, defensive measures, and reduced productivity,' says Payne, who calls for a 'content-centric approach to networking.' Payne doesn't mention, however, that his own system, Twitter, was built wrong and is consistently down."

Comment Wouldn't work on ASE... (Score 1) 202

for a few reasons, the biggest of which is that no one in their right mind would use ASE on Windows to begin with (thus probably wouldn't be running IIS)...

But seriously, ASE doesn't use xtype in such a way, nor do (most) of the (x)type ID's match up to meaningful ASE datatypes (the TEXT type IDs do match).

Anyway, ASE admins need not fear any more than Oracle or MySQL or DB2 or PostgreSQL or $DB admins; this script would have to be modified to run successfully on ASE.

Earth

Submission + - Phosphorus shortage ahead? (timesonline.co.uk)

MattRog writes: We've heard of peak oil. We've even discussed peak helium. Now we are facing peak phosphorus!

According to scientists, due to increased demand from sources such as biofuels (not exactly "renewable" if the inputs aren't!), we will exhaust our supply of non-renewable phosphorus in 50 to 130 years. If you didn't know, phosphorus is one of three major nutrients for plant growth: nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. Without phosphorus it's tough to grow crops. As the USGS wrote, "There are no substitutes for phosphorus in agriculture."

The European Fertilizer Manufacturers Association has a similar analysis, with recommendations for recycling and better use of the element.

Education

PhD Research On Software Design Principles? 541

cconnell writes "I am working on a PhD in software engineering at Tufts University. My interest are the general principles of good software design, and I am looking for links/references on this topic. The question is: What design/architecture qualities are shared by all good software? Good software means lacking in bugs, maintainable, modifiable, scalable, etc... Please don't tell me 'use object oriented methods' or 'try extreme programming.' These answers are too narrow, since there is good software written in COBOL, and by 1000-person teams for DoD projects. I am looking for general design principles. If it helps, I am trying to build on the ideas in this article from some years back."

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