> I for one would speculate, not to sound harsh, that if you haven't made silly errors like this then you haven't been around the block enough times.
on the other hand, those of us who have been around the block enough times have almost certainly encountered co-workers who were bright, talented, cute, whatever - but at the end of the day were just ... sloppy ... lazy ... careless ... in their approach. It's a personality thing - they had nice childhoods, they never learned to by hyper-vigilant and paranoid, and as a consequence... they write buggy code that can't be trusted.
I'm contemptuous of his coding practice, not his writing or grammar. His writing is pleasant to read... but so what? where are the multiple layers of defense standing between a simple syntactical or semantic error and a full scale business-impacting technical fuck up. that is what I meant by being vigilant and paranoid.
I'd be offended if it wasn't for the fact that your original accusation appears to be that I had had a happy childhood. I'll take that one on the chin.
As for the rest... well, I don't understand where you're going with it. Pop psychology aside, are you really suggesting that you write utterly seamless code every single time? You've never done a build and then realised that you made an error somewhere along the way, gone back and fixed it? You act as if my mistake had the potential to ruin a business. Of course it didn't- I picked up on it before the code had even been pushed to the remote repository.
You can live in a world where everyone does everything perfectly, every time (and pay the price when you inevitably don't) or you can set up systems with unit testing, user testing, and- yes- developer testing that results in bugs being dealt with in a timely manner before a single end-user sees anything.
But hey, each to their own. Whatever works for you. If you get it right first time, every time, then you are a better programmer than I, and I congratulate you on it.
>>You act as if my mistake had the potential to ruin a business. Of course it didn't- I picked up on it before the code had even been pushed to the remote repository.
Not to beat on you, but didn't you discover the error after users started using it in a big news day?
Is it wrong to wonder about Dennis' personal life? Did he marry, have kids, take a lover? Like to garden, travel, read? He is such an important and influential figure in the history of computing, but it feels like we know little about him beyond his professional accomplishments.
Is it conceivable an organization like the CIA has deeply 'undercover' operatives, who are living in foreign countries, as citizens of those countries, working as teachers, doctors, milkmen, etc., but who could be pressed into service when circumstances required?
I really couldn't say. It could be as simple as that. It could be that he was under investigation for something and he bargained for immunity. It could be that he was under the impression that he was being investigated and felt that fingering Manning before someone discovered their conversation would protect him. It could be hatred for disgruntled military personnel or an overriding urge to spill secrets. There's no telling right now.
> Apple can't hurt Google by undermining it profits because it doesn't make the hardware and it gives the software away.
Apple can undermine Google's profits from mobile advertising, by giving the advertising revenue from iAds away (keep a small cut, give the rest to developers.) Google is trying to commoditize hardware, but Apple can do the equivalent with respect to advertising revenues. Apple doesn't need to make money from ads, google does.
The phones are expensive. They are not a commodity.
Also, when you buy a new phone, you don't get to choose what operating system you want to install on it and then buy that OS. The phone+os ships together as a single entity.
"A commodity is a good for which there is demand, but which is supplied without qualitative differentiation across a market. It is fungible, i.e. the same no matter who produces it."
That is becoming a more accurate description of the Android market by the day. Nexus One, EVO 4G, Droid X... they're all pretty similar.
>That is becoming a more accurate description of the Android market by the day. Nexus One, EVO 4G, Droid X... they're all pretty similar.
So then why buy any specific one of them?
Because they aren't similar, your ridiculous statement aside.
The whole point of the Android hardware ecosystem is that it's a disparity of often very different phones. Some have fast CPUs some have slow CPUs. Some have great cameras with a Xenon flash, some don't. Some have keyboards, some don't. Some are big, some are small. It is the absolute opposite of commodity, and only the most ludicrous, superficial analysis could even imagine using that word.
An iPhone, on the other hand, is a commodity as far as iPhones go. It's an iPhone, you know. Just an iPhone.
I've never seen commodity used to refer to products from the same range, from the same manufacturer. Basically, you've just claimed that anthying that isn't a hand-made one-off creation is a commodity, massively weakening its actual meaning which you're supposed to be defending from misuse.
Commodity isn't a totally binary state, even with fuel or coffee you get variations in quality and brand. It's just that these factors do not dominate. At the other end of the scale Apple is trying very hard to stop iPhones becoming commodities by stopping cross platform Flash apps, not allowing access to iTunes etc. which prevents similar devices from other manufacturers being swapped in without disruption. Saying you want to move your complements down the scale towards being a commodity doesn't imply that they will end up at the extreme, just that they'll have less market power over you, the definition of commodity often being given as an item being sold or bought at a market rate.
There is absolutely no confusion when people talk about the commoditization of phone hardware. No one is saying phones will become coffee. You can get pretty much any combination of features from any vendor.
Feel free to be frustrated by imprecise usage of technical terms.
It isn't just imprecise -- it's completely the opposite of reality.
It's as logical as saying food is a commodity item because ultimately you eat food. Or cars are a commodity item because you use them to drive from a to b. Only an utter moron would use it in such a context.
Food is pretty much the archetype for commodities. Not because "you eat food," but because it doesn't really matter where your apricots, rice, or baby mice[1] come from. You'll buy the one that is either freshest or least expensive, and rarely focus on the provider unless it happens to have an advantage that relates to those two criteria.
Ok, the car comparison is good. I agree now that phones can't really be a commodity.
I still think it's okay to refer to decreasing differentiation in a market as "commoditization". People understand what's being said, and there's no other concise way to say it.
on the other hand, those of us who have been around the block enough times have almost certainly encountered co-workers who were bright, talented, cute, whatever - but at the end of the day were just ... sloppy ... lazy ... careless ... in their approach. It's a personality thing - they had nice childhoods, they never learned to by hyper-vigilant and paranoid, and as a consequence... they write buggy code that can't be trusted.