Posts by Robert Forsyth 384 publicly visible posts • joined 1 May 2007
From my 41 years of limited experience
Usually when a previous programmer has commented that their hack was to workaround a compiler bug, they have not understood what they were trying to do or the machine could do for them, and the compiler was fine.
I suppose the compiler should protect the programmer when they use a binary floating point variable as their loop counter and increment by the binary approximation of 0.1.
Part of the reason, the US was so late to the WW2, is they supported both sides. Also the communist were with the Allies, i.e. on our side.
(Simplistically)
Europe tried to punish Germany for WW1, which leads to the Make Germany Great Again and the use of minorities as scapegoats for the failing of an idea without substance.
Evolving a design is usually better than starting from scratch (Agile verses Waterfall).
All those old parts have proven infield use and safety.
You can iterate changes to lower the cost of manufacture and fitting of each component while maintaining safety.
You can test each change.
I understand your sentiment of FAA testing everything, but that is not how it works (nowadays).
There are companies which crash cars for manufacturers, so the manufacturer can show reasonably low risk of harm or minimal harm to the occupants and conformance to the regulations.
Neither Waterfall nor Agile is one thing, it might be a case of using the right tool for the job.
You build a machine in 3 months, it costs £1000.
After a couple of months, you evolve/engineer its parts to save costs - a hand machined set of aluminium parts assembled into a component is replaced by something stamped out of steel sheet or injection moulded plastic. It now costs £700.
After another couple of months, you redesign the sub frame, so that it can be assembled by robot. It now costs £500.
After another couple of months, a key component has supply problem, you redesign for an alternative.
Alternately, you build a machine in 8 months, it costs £500, but you cannot make any because a key component is not available. Anyway, you cannot sell any because a competitor has the market.
Agile is a strategy to cope-with or manage change. Also it is finding problems early when they are cheaper to fix (LEAN); improve communication...
Why not just employ typist, instead of expensive programmers?
Or just have a motor and a cam bash those keys?
In your last paragraph, have you discovered the reason for the decline in manufacture?
It is software?
When a probe crashes into a planet, because the sensor has been fitted upside down.
When insulating foam comes loose and knocks some thermal tiles off a wing.
When the angle of attack sensor freezes up.
I thought this was old news, perhaps I missed something when I skimmed the article.
Some years ago, medical images were being machine classified, but by a less known/respected university.
In the Crosse & Blackwell soup factory, they had a machine to reject the suspect cubes of diced veg.
Both a dog and a human can predict the future position of a ball in flight, and catch it. Is this differential equation solving? Both a dog and a human dream in their sleep, they both know when they have done something naughty; do they both have a conscience? A dog will bark to be let in, when it cannot see the person to let them in, do they have abstract thought? Does a dog have a soul? They are remembered by their human companions, after they die.
As you work your way down the intellectual levels...
Do you remember your first car? Its little quirks, its failings as it got old. It indicates when it's hungry or it's unwell. Does it make a happy noise, a serious one or an angry one? Does a car have a soul?
I'm an old goat.
Alice comes = Alice is come or Alice has come
compare: Alices have come
There is no plural in Alice comes, jests, sings.
The Alices have come, they are jesting and singing.
The walking stick belonging to the man with the shiny knob. Fruit flies like bananas.
Even in the 1980s, AI was more than one thing/discipline. I remember reading about a search algorithm based on the behaviour of ants. Fuzzy logic was used to guess when a tube platform was too full. Markov chains/models use for speech recognition.
Earlier there was a realization that natural processes could be emulated with a simple processor and complex data; rather than a complex processor and simple data.
Software Engineering exists, but it isn't what companies typically want when they ask for a Software Engineer.
Software Engineering is (devising ways to) efficiently producing software of sufficient quality. This may be by means of a compiler or interpreter for a domain specific language; or some trade off in choice of algorithm between implementation complexity and speed; or using some off-the-shelf part instead of bespoke.
Software, at one level, is giving detailed instructions on how to do a task on a slightly abstract machine or simplified model of a machine.
I think an engine is the work of an engineer, not the other way round; engine is named after engineer; a design is the work of a designer, clean is the work of a cleaner; compared to, paint is not the work of a painter.
With running a railway steam engine, some body plans water (and coal) refilling which will depend on the load on the engine. The engine driver may be a safety engineer, in that they imagine/predict the consequences of a coarse of action, so letting the fireman drive the train when it is safe to do so.
I was under the impression (I swallowed their PR) IBM were much improved over days of past, but seem I have wrongly spouting rubbish - I am truly sorry to all those in earshot.
My more direct experience is, they seem to deliberately choose a less common interpretation of the requirement* - for no financial advantage - just to show stupid the customer is.
* we can all easily do this, invent an unlikely 'round hole' scenario and let it suffer the 'square peg' requirement.
My IBM experience was the PC hell/help-desk was moved (outsourced) to a Canadian first-line call centre, I think the requirement was for a polite and English speaking call centre (like in Leeds or Ireland, perhaps). The Canadian call centre was quite good with late evening problems.
Ofsted inspections cause some schools to game the exam system:
Not allowing borderline students to take exams;
Teaching how to pass exams, but not learning much about the subject.
I assume the school's reward is based on exam results, and not how they improve the pupils.
Looking at my daughter's recent exams (and mocks), they are almost exactly the same as mine of almost 40 years earlier.
Computer Science is not really Software Engineering, Software Engineering is not really Programming. There is some overlap.
Computer Science, the science of computers - how they work
Software Engineering - how to build software more correctly, cheaply and quickly
Programming - devising a solution to the requirements and instructing the computer to execute this solution
The article said the judge thought "using the whitelist indexed by part/file type (and sender) to bypass the AV rejection" was non obvious.
The plaintive, if not idiots, badly presented the evidence i.e. a shedload of documents with no narrative.
According to Wikipedia, Dr. John Harrison described whitelisting applications to prevent the execution of malware in 2005.
Access Control Lists have been around since 1984, and could be considered a whitelist, also the passwd file on Unix.
(I was under the impression) Ireland wants hi-tech jobs in Ireland, by attracting hi-tech companies with low taxes. I'm not sure the strategy works, I guess it works for Ireland as they seem to be trying not the frighten other 'hi-tech' companies.
Having rich companies (and poor ones) stifle technology diversity and innovation.
(I thought) The original design was to mimic a red top tabloid, I assume that is why in landscape there are useless grey bands left and right. Could these unused areas of screen fulfil the mechanics of a web-page (navigation to the left) and (slow moving or static) advertising (to the right).
I am not sure you have to limit yourself to this metaphor, it is a web-page.
Don't have an ad at the top, then repeat it down the page, that just annoys. Although I want you to make the most money from your adverts. Perhaps you could have a classified ads section.
Basically there are landscape and portrait modes, with a roughly portrait content area.
In landscape the banner, navigation menu, and footer can slide to the left. And the equivalent to the leaflets that fall out of a newspaper to the right.
In portrait mode the banner and navigation menu reveal when you scroll up or stop scrolling for a few seconds.
The main content area, seems reasonable:
Big picture news story somewhere near the centre.
Top News big size, medium, small, small; top left
Most read just a list to the right
Latest news big size, medium, small... below
I don't think the categories (Data Centre, Software, Security, etc.) work, although the headline could be tagged with its category in small perhaps DC, SW, Sec, DO, Bus, PT, Sci, ET, BN, and Lec. Clicking on the section navigation would filter.
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