Posts by rob 90

The 'fun-nification' of computer education – good idea?

Re: Latin, softwre and misunderstanding

Computer Science is applied math, to say anything else is just denial.

As far as I can tell, computer science seems to be based on Automata Theory, Algorithms and Group Theory at the core (you're welcome to add to this). Additionally, a understanding of what occurs underneath all of the software is based on physics. Can you be a good programmer without this, sometimes, however, the best programmers that I have met either have this background through school or self education.

The worst programmers I have personally met have espoused ideas as you have. For example, my one technical lead who though object oriented programming was like a living creature. Or another technical lead who didn't have a understanding of foreign key despite being a database programmer.

perhaps you are the exception.

Sysadmins and devs: Do these job descriptions make any sense?

Re: No

Although I agree that the 1d job classification cuts out too much.

Throughout my career as a software engineer/software developer, I have had to set computers up (both linux and windows), as well as configure system parameters to efficiently run the software I was developing. This has been the case with most of the software engineers/developers I have worked with. Yes, system admins tend to be very good with routine stuff, but change things around slightly, and they tend to become lost.

Women! You too can be 'cool' and 'fun' if you work in tech!

I not sure about the EU, but across the pond, I have had just as many spineless male bosses as spineless female bosses. It has made me appreciate the few good bosses I have had.

MIT boffins: Use software to fix errors made by decaying silicon

Re: How does one know the answer is correct?

The slower "error free" mode is what is currently done in producing processors. The processor companies will test the processors up to a certain speed, and if they produce correct results on the test harness, they will package the processor. Occasionally, they will sell the ones that work at slightly slower speeds, and mark them as such.

The point of this paper seem to be to attach a probability of a correct computation at each step of the code. This way, some corrective measure can be taken if the probability exceeds some limit. For playing youtube videos of cats, the tolerance could be larger (who cares if the tabby cat's color is slightly off). For a guidance computer, the probability limit would be much lower.

Fed up with Windows? Linux too easy? Get weird, go ALTERNATIVE

Re: VMS

VMS has been a zombie system ever since DEC was broken up. Although, the basic architecture of Open VMS lives on in the architecture of Windows NT.