Re: How many bytes per Italian character?
- From: Joseph M. Newcomer <newcomer@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 06 Apr 2007 12:45:22 -0400
There's a reason I don't use free open-source products: I can't afford them. They are FAR
too expensive.
Example: someone once said "Well, you should use gcc because that way, if you find a bug
in the compiler, you can fix it". Rubbish. I used to work for a compiler company. I
*know* how hard it is to fix bugs in optimizing compilers. Or in semantic analysis. Or
even in syntax analysis. Who, exactly, is paying me to make this fix? Not my customers,
that's for sure. And if I fix the bug, then only MY version of the compiler has the fix,
for months, assuming that the fix makes the cut to get into the master source. So now I
have to get into the compiler maintenance business because my customers can't compile the
code without my version of the compiler. They may be maintaining this product for a
decade or more. So I have to maintain THAT VERSION of the compiler for ten years. Sure.
It is easier to work around a bug than make a unique instance of a compiler, linker, or
operating system, with all that follows from that.
The operative phrase here is "TCO" (Total Cost of Ownership). The guy who maintains my
Windows site (I outsource my site administration) is part of a team of four who maintain
200 Windows server boxes. A colleague of theirs maintains the linux servers, and
apparently she works full time plus overtime to maintain ten boxes.
I love teaching. I teach 10-15 classes per year and they are among the best weeks of the
year.
joe
On Fri, 06 Apr 2007 16:07:17 GMT, MrAsm <mrasm@xxxxxxx> wrote:
On Fri, 06 Apr 2007 11:41:47 -0400, Joseph M. NewcomerJoseph M. Newcomer [MVP]
<newcomer@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I spent a lot of years teaching new programmers, especially new hires in a commercial[...]
product environment. They take a LOT of effort to train properly. Essentially, training
became a full-time job when I had 5 junior programmers.
I had to do not only technical
training, but also attitude training (it doesn't matter if "it works"; it has to work
robustly, be maintainable, be clearly documented, etc. It has to be modular, obey proper
Basing on the things you wrote, I believe that you must be a very
dedicated teacher and trainer, you must be the kind of teacher who
does his job with passion and love.
Your students are very very lucky!
The myth of open source is that you can fix all the bugs yourself. So suppose you fix the[...]
:"bug" (who says you didn't introduce six new ones in the process?) You now have an app
that runs only on YOUR copy of the OS. So you have to distribute your copy of the OS to
the end users. And they have to integrate this copy with their other copies that have
different bug fixes. And what if your fix conflicts with someone else's fix?
Perhaps you never had to
produce code that ran on multiple versions on Unix, where each vendor "fixed" the bugs and
utilities. It was as close to hell as I hope to ever see.
Yes, you're right.
I did not consider this very important aspect of the problem...
(Of course, open-source has also other problems, e.g. the economy of
open-source software is not clear to me; I can't understand how people
can get money from so called "free-software".)
MrAsm
email: newcomer@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Web: http://www.flounder.com
MVP Tips: http://www.flounder.com/mvp_tips.htm
.
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