Mark Leighton Fisher - Slashdot User

Comment Re:Not the most surprising (Score 1) 195

by Mark Leighton Fisher on Wednesday December 15, 2021 @03:55PM (#62083857) Attached to: Rocket Scientists and Brain Surgeons Aren't Necessarily More Clever, Study Finds

"When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras." What doctors are told first when they start to learn diagnosis. Applies to debugging too.

And FWIW, "Zebras" was a working title for what became "House, M.D." because they were chasing zebra-style diseases, not horse-style (i.e. most common) diseases.

Comment Re:He's wrong (Score 1) 526

by Mark Leighton Fisher on Wednesday July 28, 2021 @04:06PM (#61631345) Attached to: 'Programming Is Hard' Considered Harmful

Or, "Programming is the art of breaking a problem into pieces so tiny that even a computer can solve them."

Comment Re:Because they are suppose to be cheap. (Score 1) 118

by Mark Leighton Fisher on Thursday February 04, 2021 @01:29PM (#61027688) Attached to: Why Webcams Aren't Good Enough

Or overestimate the bandwidth of FTP-by-mail.

Yes, such a thing existed - and one time took 2 weeks to deliver a copy of the Cello browser (i.e. early, pre-Netscape WWW).

Comment Re:Bill Gate's programming prowess (Score 3, Insightful) 306

by Mark Leighton Fisher on Monday January 13, 2020 @12:53PM (#59616024) Attached to: 'We're Approaching the Limits of Computer Power -- We Need New Programmers Now'

I've read Bill's code - he was a good programmer for someone who was creating software out of whole cloth. My comment would be that some time spent reviewing what other people had coded first for the same problem (before starting his coding) would have improved Mr. Gates' code.

University of California Hires India-Based IT Outsourcer, Lays Off Tech Workers (computerworld.com) 618

Posted by BeauHD on Wednesday September 07, 2016 @11:30PM from the outsourced dept.

dcblogs writes from a report via Computerworld: The University of California is laying off a group of IT workers at its San Francisco campus as part of a plan to move work offshore. Laying off IT workers as part of a shift to offshore is somewhere between rare and unheard-of in the public sector. The layoffs will happen at the end of February, but before the final day arrives the IT employees expect to train foreign replacements from India-based IT services firm HCL. The firm is working under a university contract valued at $50 million over five years. This layoff affects 17% of UCSF's total IT staff, broken down this way: 49 IT permanent employees will lose their jobs, along with 12 contract employees and 18 vendor contractors. This number also includes 18 vacant IT positions that won't be filled, according to the university. Governments and publicly supported institutions, such as UC, have contracted with offshore outsourcers, but usually it's for new IT work or to supplement an existing project. The HCL contract with UCSF can be used by other UC campuses, which means the layoffs may expand across its 10 campuses. HCL is a top user of H-1B visa workers.

Comment Purdue University Research Repository (Score 1) 108

by Mark Leighton Fisher on Monday December 30, 2013 @03:36PM (#45821051) Attached to: Neglect Causes Massive Loss of 'Irreplaceable' Research Data

I'm late to the party here, but I thought it was worth mentioning that the Purdue University Research Repository (https://purr.purdue.edu) is designed as a Trusted Digital Repository for research data. The default lifetime is 10 years, but the Purdue Libraries will add noteworthy datasets to its permanent digital collection after their default lifetime expires. (And yes, I am a programmer on the project.)

Comment LOCKSS (Lots Of Copies Keep Stuff Safe) (Score 1) 189

by Mark Leighton Fisher on Friday December 20, 2013 @02:52PM (#45747925) Attached to: Scientific Data Disappears At Alarming Rate, 80% Lost In Two Decades

You might want to look at LOCKSS (Lots Of Copies Keep Stuff Safe (http://www.lockss.org/)) -- we are integrating PURR with the MetaArchive Private LOCKSS Network at Purdue (PURR is the Purdue University Research Repository, which is a Trusted Digital Repository for research data).

Journal Journal: My Accepted Articles

Journal by Mark Leighton Fisher on Monday November 03, 2003 @04:30PM

My accepted Slashdot articles so far:

# 2003-01-10 16:21:30 RCA PVR Will Use Free Guide+ Program Guide (articles,tv)
# 2003-06-05 20:53:01 Outstanding Objects (Developed Dirt Cheap); Or, Wh (articles,programming)

Journal Journal: Please see my use.perl.org Journal

Journal by Mark Leighton Fisher on Tuesday June 17, 2003 @08:41AM

Please see my use.perl.org Journal.

Comment Re:Reflexive, expandable class libraries built on (Score 1) 730

by Mark Leighton Fisher on Friday April 11, 2003 @03:02PM (#5712454) Attached to: The Hundred-Year Language

Perl.

Perl5 had switch/case statements added to it by Damian Conway, at least (I think there are other switch/case implementations, but I can't recall them now). I have little doubt that I could have added a switch/case to Perl5 (although Damian's would be significantly more elegant than mine would have been). Perl6 should enable language modification easier than Perl5.

Most of what you mention (class libraries, object frameworks, class and instance behavior, etc.) are all available in Perl5. Perl6 looks to be shaping up to be even better than Perl5.

I don't know why Smalltalk didn't catch on any better than it did -- I remember reading the BYTE articles back in the 1980's on Smalltalk...

Slashdot Top Deals