To be honest, I wish it happened more.

I _wish_ management where I am cared about quality at this level. It would be worth getting chewed out once in a while to know that stupid bugs are not tolerated.

I've seen it. Nothing crazy or particularly unusual about it.

Big thing with ADA is the focus on reducing errors. Very strongly typed with a lot of compile time checking and strong run time checks (and the ability to handle them gracefully). It seems to be used in environments where reliability and error free execution are critical: defense, aviation (the planes and air traffic control), etc. I've never heard of it used in the medical field but it would make sense.

Like anything else though there is of course trade offs to support this. Plus because ADA is expensive (yes yes, I know, GNAT..) and people who know it are rare and expensive. This seems to have turned it into a niche language.

Also the ADA community in general are an unusual bunch. There is almost an apple level fanboyism going on.. it's weird.

I actually find in some cases this reduces readability.

If it's a very encapsolated chunk of code or a chunk that can be reused elsewhere and has a very clear "x goes in, y comes out" feel then fine. At a certain point though you end up with a bunch of functions that are only called from one spot, are too specific for reuse, and the only thing you gain is a requirement for the programmer to do a lot of scrolling. You also add overhead, but I'm not one to mind a little overhead for maintainability.

Much as it goes against a lot of traditional teaching and widely held rules, I tend to think that sometimes a large function actually ends up being more readable because the programmer can just read through step by step what is happening without the need to jump around.

I'll agree this is something I've seen.

Even simple stuff like version control and bug tracking.. a lot of guys coming out of school who have never even heard the terms, much less learnt how to employ them effectively.

But then it comes down to the whole "university isn't a trade school" thing, even though most people taking computer science are aiming to be coders.

Those inline comments are good (when done properly) when trying to quickly grok through a large codebase. That "done properly" bit is important. Obviously a comment that just states what the following line does is pointless.. but a one liner generalizing a 9 or 10 line block of code means 9 or 10 lines of code you can skim over.

Obviously if troubleshooting code or auditing you want to focus on the code, but then the comments still serve as a good tool to indicate potential problems by as you said, showing what the authors intention was. If the code doesn't match the comment.. the code might very wlel be wrong.

* Linear

Also like about 2/3 of the comments, I would be seriously concerned about the earthquake thing and the population thing. I mean maybe these are not as bad as everything thinks, but it seems like the two most obvious reasons "why not" wern't even addressed.

I'm assuming that "liniar" is the key word.

Also am I the only one that thinks it's hillarious that they build a multi billion dollar round thing that basically told them what they really wanted was a multi billion dollar straight thing!

Here in Canada, after Hurricane Juan, there was a lot of roof damage.

Also after the blizzard we had in 2004 (called "white Juan" because it happened in the same year as the hurricane..) most roofs were covered in snow, which I suspect is also not great for panels..). Obviously this is a fixable problem, but the cost difference was my main point anyway.

On the general issue of solar panels, my biggest complaint is around here (Atlanitc Canada) no one will give a straight answer on the actual numbers (at least they wouldn't when I looked into this last). The only assumption I can draw from that is that the numbers suck.

The way to sell me on solar (and I assume this is true of most people) is actual local case studies. I don't care if it works in Arizona. I wanna see the numbers from a place that uses it here. How much did they spend on the panels, and how much electricity did they generate over a year. I have to assume if these numbers were any good the few local companies trying to sell solar would be shouting them at anyone who would listen, rather than trying to talk around them .

Other stuff like "does our salty climate that destroys cars have the same effect on the panels" might be helpful too...

Cost? I don't know if anyone makes a "portable solar array", but I have to assume it would be ludicrously expensive for something that would be used in short term emergencies...

Not having a supply of (properly stabilized non-stale) fuel is poor emergency planning.

Indeed.

This is a terrible apples vs oranges argument. The cost of the generator (even a whole house $2000+ generator) plus cost of fuel to run it a few times a year might not add up to the cost of those solar panels in your lifetime. Also the storm that knocks out power is entirely likely to damage your panels anyway. Arguing solar panels as an alternative to emergency generators is absurd.

Only two use cases I can see are restricting access to a subset of columns (in which case a server side procedure works fine), or to allow legacy apps to work within new schemas (although this sounds like a really messy solution, and has that whole "temporary fix that gets left in forever" feel to it).

Has nothing to do with the difficulty of using the system.

I guess the best way to put my opinion (and which makes me look even stupider) is I miss the fragmentation. I mean it's still there, but there seems to be an over-arching attitude to rally around a few "standards" for the benifit of making linux more practical for the masses.

Obviously standards are going to rise to the top regardless of an end goal, and of course you can still go off and do your own thing anyway, but at least in my circles that seems to be more and more looked down on.

I always liked the flexibility of Linux, and again, it's still there.. but there seems to be a divide between those who use the "mainstream" stuff (kde, gnome, ubuntu, whaever..) and those who run alternate stuff.

I've actually never had a problem with commercial software. I prefer to use open source, but if there is nothing practical I don't mind forking out some money for something that works.

Already done ;p

It's actually interesting because in the last few years gentoo has gotten a lot more user friendly. Usable default profiles, genkernel not sucking, the fading memory of stage 1 installs, and most upstream packages switching to more generic feature-level use flags. Installing a gentoo system is now surprisingly simple.

To make it popular of course!

Kidding aside, this depresses me. In order for Linux to become more mainstream, a lot of the stuff that really drew my to linux and the open source community in the first place has to die.

I kinda wish Linux would have stayed as a niche toy for geeks..

It's one of those polarizing subjects. Some see absolutely no problem with this kind of thing, whilst others are mortified by it and can't understand why everyone else is ok with it. Both sides call each other idiots who "just don't get it" for whatever reason, no ones opinion changes, and life goes on.