quebeck - Slashdot User

More Than Coding Errors Behind Bad Software 726

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday January 12, 2009 @03:19PM from the bad-decisions-go-all-the-way-up dept.

An anonymous reader writes "SANS' just-released list of the Top 15 most dangerous programming errors obscures the real problem with software development today, argues InfoWeek's Alex Wolfe. In More Than Coding Mistakes At Fault In Bad Software, he lays the blame on PC developers (read: Microsoft) who kicked the time-honored waterfall model to the curb and replaced it not with object-oriented or agile development but with a 'modus operandi of cramming in as many features as possible, and then fixing problems in beta.' He argues that youthful programmers don't know about error-catching and lack a sense of history, suggesting they read Fred Brooks' 'The Mythical Man-Month,' and Gerald Weinberg's 'The Psychology of Computer Programming.'"

Judge Rules Fox Has Copyright Claim To Watchmen 262

Posted by timothy on Thursday December 25, 2008 @08:44PM from the there-are-ways-of-telling dept.

fermion writes "According to the NYT, a judge has decided that Fox owns the copyright to Watchmen, not Warner. Is this an example of copyright law becoming so complex that companies can abuse the court system to prevent competition, or just extreme incompetence by Warner? In the current business environment, either explanation is believable. Yet it is unbelievable that seasoned producers would spend hundreds of millions of dollars to create a movie that they can't even release. It seems the judge didn't want to bring this to a jury, and maybe daring Warner to appeal, or Fox to settle." The article says that Fox acquired movie rights to the Watchmen story in the late 1980s, but budget disputes and personnel changes have muddied the waters; Wikipedia has a bit more on the "development hell" which has plagued the film project.

Mono 2.0 and .NET On Linux 405

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday October 07, 2008 @02:59AM from the receding-taillights dept.

Several readers noted the release of Mono 2.0, which is compatible with Microsoft's .NET Framework 2.0. According to Miguel de Icaza, "... users can move over server applications built for .NET and client applications built with Windows Forms." InternetNews points out that only about half of the .NET apps out there will work on Mono 2.0, for a variety of reasons including (but not limited to) legacy Windows-only libraries and Microsoft's progress on .NET 3.0 and 3.5 APIs.

Comment Get the basics down pat (Score 2, Informative) 134

by quebeck on Thursday January 11, 2007 @07:48AM (#17554598) Attached to: Methods of Learning to Build Electronic Circuitry?

I've just completed a electrical engineering degree, and I can't stress how important the fundamentals are. This online book got me through the first 2 years of my degree:

http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/

Knowing exactly what each component does, and what effect it has when combined with other components is paramount to understanding more complex circuitry. Even in a digital system there is a chuck of analogue stuff which will really confuse you if you don't know what it does (and whether it affects the operation of the digital part).

Apart from the basics, the rest is all exposure really. Finding out how some effect is created, what techniques they've used, why they work the way they do, you'll learn all of this as you are exposed to more and more circuitry. You will definitely get overwhelmed if you try and learn everything though. For basic exposure an undergrad introduction textbook will serve you fine, once through that find out what your really interested in and read the recommended textbooks from any university.

Just fyi, in my electrical degree there are about 5 streams which you can specialise in, each which take about 2 years of concentrated study. And that's just at undergraduate level! (I'm in australia and our university system is different to that of the US, an undergrad ee degree is 4 years straight out of high school)

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