Posts by bombastic bob

C: Everyone's favourite programming language isn't a programming language

Re: Annnnd...you completely missed the point of the article

Parallelism, hardware threading, systolic arrays, NUMA, immutibility of records, transactional memory, mailboxes, caching, segmented memory architectures...

Ah, I haven't written that kind of stuff in quite a while, though my past experience in the 90's comes in handy working with microcontrollers.

I wrote a nice sort demo tool (first wth MFC, then later adapted to wxWidgets, but for all practical purposes C code with some C++ thingies in there for the GUI) that has a multi-threaded quick sort that uses a bit of what you mentioned. Multi-thread quick sort, DFT, and even a 'value of Pi' program, all somewhat trivial multi-threaded algorithms. Not hard, 'CreateThread' for Win32 or 'pthread_create' in POSIX and you can do it, too. And do not forget background IO processes, semaphores, queues, and all of the other stuff that goes with it.

All in 'C'. Not a problem.

(I even wrote a cooperative threading library for 16-bit windows, to help solve performance issues, and it worked VERY well - and I solved the segmented memory issue by use of USE32 code but of course by then 8086/88 and 80286 processors were no longer in use)

Re: C int

don't forget that on ARM the char type is unsigned, but signed nearly everyplace else.

For this reason I have been using the various sys/stdint.h definitions like 'int32_t' etc. for a while now, to avoid the kinds of ambiguity that can arise from various CPU architectures and implementations.

Re: Umm

At least C did away with the execrable 'GOTO <line number>'

Now it is 'goto code_label;'

this construct is highly useful for error handling where 'error_exit' is the label after the main 'return' path, and you clean up resources and display error messages or whatever. VERY useful when doing systems programming, and you'll see it used that way in kernel code

Example on FreeBSD: grep -r goto /usr/src/sys

(over 30,000 lines were generated by this)

I used to be an anti-goto purist. Made a few convoluted code constructs to avoid using 'goto' even. Then I saw it used a lot in kernel code, realized the error of my thinking, and started making things tight and efficient instead.

(did come up with a cheat, to use 'do {' and '} while 0' as macros, where I could use 'break;' to escape it - effectively a 'goto' to the line following the end of that section of code)

Re: Other languages....

I think you could justifiably categorize programming lingos (that aren't assembler) into a few basic categories:

Procedural: This would be things like FORTRAN and COBOL and old-style BASIC

Algol-like: C, Pascal, and all of the derivatives from C++ (and maybe Delphi) to Java and (possibly) Rust

Scripted: shell/Bash, Perl, PHP, and probably Python (though some of this may be debatable)

and maybe another category for object-oriented, but that's debatable, too.

And so the difference between C/C++ and Rust might simply be semantics, unless you are a fan of garbage collection memory management (which should be drawn and quartered and embedded on pikes at the edges of the realm as a warning to those who might DARE to try that AGAIN...)

the real horror began with trying to make scripting lingos "object oriented" though I admit a Perl module can often solve problems that are otherwise VERY difficult, simply because someone else did a LOT of work to make it possible...

Re: Some incorrect assumptions

I looked at the link in your post under 'decent set of rules' and gave it a quick glance. Not only did it advocate the use of Allman style indents and braces, it also said "The tab character (ASCII 0x09) shall never appear within any source code file.".

It has my approval!

(that way the editor or merge tool or viewing tool you use does not affect the appearance of the code)

Re: Annnnd...you completely missed the point of the article

C programmers are so entrenched in their belief of superiority that they dismiss the inherent problems in the design and (current) implementation of the language on modern computers, computers that are logarithmically more complex than the computers the language was originally designed to run on

Computers made of 'straw'? OK that was a different kind of 'logic'. [Bad PUNishment. yeah]

I noticed you also used the word 'modern'. I am reminded of how THAT has been misused to describe "fad of the week", usually another FLATSO user interface or some "new, shiny" something that's trying to become relevant.

Seriously I have not seen any CPU or system designs, with the exception of quantum computing, where a programming lingo like C would NOT be useful. (for quantum computing I'm still waiting for a programming model that actually works)

(If it can run Linux, it can be programmed in C)

Re: Nothing new, kinda pathetic really

Language purity is for academic papers, not doing work in the real world

see icon

Beijing to build Communist training college in a metaverse

Virtual Reality Communism indoctrination theme park?

This gives "Social Credit Score" an entirely new meaning (and level of intrusive Big Brother-dom)

I imagine seeing Stepford smilers and dystopian imagery, everywhere.

Do not forget the subliminal brainwashing and use of music and flashy lights to condition "good comrade" behavior.

[this goes WAY beyond slapping lipstick on a boar, oinky end or not]

(the fine print in the VR thingy says: this session may be monitored for future reference)

Debugging source is even harder when you can't stop laughing at it

Re: I missed a lot of fun.

Regarding only n-characters of variable name uniqueness...

I think they fixed that in FORTRAN 77 but in earlier FORTRAN 66 that was probably true for most compilers. 77 added other more structured syntaxes, like if/else and so forth [if i remember correctly]. i haven't worked with FORTRAN since the 90's but even then you had cases of older 66 code being used alongside 77 code simply because earlier machines only had 66 compilers... (and so the original code had been "maintained" for long enough it still had 66 syntax in a lot of places)

[the code in question ran on VAX and HP3000 systems)

I forget if Pascal and early MS C compilers did the same thing, but with more than 5 or 6 characters...

I can't stop laughing after reading your post...

Kaspersky, China Telecom, China Mobile named 'threats to US national security'

Re: Dummies’R’Us ....... Sign Up Here, Please

Did YOU just compare Trump to Putin?

Sealed, confidential IBM files in age-discrimination case now public to all

Re: Experience

We'll be in caves again in the next few hundred years if we allow them.....

Maybe, but they'd be Caves™ and "new, shiny!" ones, at that

Samba 4.16 release strips away more SMB 1

Re: Symlinks are the underlying problem.

symlinks have ruined the POSIX filesystem API

I completely disagree. There is NO other way to alias a directory except with a symlink for "reasons".

/me uses symlinks a LOT and it's integral with programs like busybox (common for embedded) that have to use the program name you invoked it with in order to determine what functionality to implement.

Symlinks have been around since before UNIX anyway. Data General used them, for example.

(or did you mean something different?)

well if a machine config'd to use SMB1 were compromised, it's theoretically possible to crack the rest of your network, depending.

This is why I would not allow any Samba SERVER to support SMB1, but would stlll want at least a version of smbclient to support it to access legacy windows computers that have no SMB2 support.

I cannot remember if Cygwin supports NFS but the old Interix/SFU/SUA does. Is that even available any more? I think the last version ran on XP and maybe 2k3 but that was it.

perhaps a legacy client-only version of SMB1 could continue (so you can use smbclient to access shares on legacy versions of windows that do not have SMB2) but as far as operating as a server, I do not want it configured to use SMB1 for any of my Samba daemons...

From the article: Though SMB 1 is disabled by default in today's Samba, there's an ongoing effort to allow the project to be built without it entirely.

Yes. A configure option would be PERFECT.

(And maybe also an option to build an SMB1-friendly version of smbclient for those who might want it, maybe call it smb1client)

Complaints mount after GitHub launches new algorithmic feed

and THEN putting lipstick onto the non-oinky end of the boar

No. Just No. NO "FEEDS". No.

Programmers just want to program

That SOCIAL SHIT just gets in the way

How legacy IPv6 addresses can spoil your network privacy

Re: I don't care what the experts say....

Maybe to prevent anyone on the Internet to initiate a connection with devices on your internal network

true but a decent firewall (rather than some form of NAT) would do the same job, and probably with lighter resource requirements...

Those firewall settings could be generic enough, basically block the usual things such as SMB, RPC, telnet, ftp, X protocol, VNC ports (unless you REALLY want that and I strongly discourage it), etc. as well as anything that shows up when you use 'netstat -an' on a windows box...

[so yeah your average El Reg reader's firewall].

A typical NAT router _could_ (and IMBO *should*) implement this out of the box.

Re: I don't care what the experts say....

there are free IPv4 to IPv6 tunnels out there. I've been using he.net for a long time.

Re: I don't care what the experts say....

no NAT for IPv6

well there IS a spec but I have not heard great things about it nor widespread use (other than NAT-PT which is IPv6<->IPv4 and not what you were looking for, probably)

https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/rfc6296/

Re: Underwhelming

All IPv6 addresses (with a few exceptons) are public.

For privacy, it looks like we should use VPNs or SOCKS proxies.

An ISP could provide this service or you could just use the Tor network so long as it has IPv6 exit points (I do not know, probably does, my guess).

Seriously though if you have a fixed IP(v6) address (like a home office or a business) you just assume you're being tracked, and an IPv6 /64 will be trackable based on the prefix anyway. So yeah, for true privacy, Tor or a proxy or a VPN..

And tracking is the LEAST of the problems. A windows box with an IPv6 address that is NOT firewalled by a non-windows "something" is like being promiscuous in a series of adulterous activities. NOT a matter of IF you get a virus (or whatever), but WHEN.

(I remember WinNuke, and I still see ALL of those open ports on any windows box connected to my network, and Micros~1 firewall does not, In My Bombastic Opinion, inspire ANY sense of confidence and/or security for stopping malware or outright attacks)

Oracle's compliance cops now include Java in license audits

Re: Hope this kills Java quickly enough...

replacements like Kotlin suck even worse.

Kotlin... *urp* whew that was close! (where's that pink liquid at...)

I've been using OpenJDK and OpenJRE for quite a while now, on FreeBSD. Builds from source, bo problems noted.

How not to attract a WSL (or any) engineer

Re: The motivation?

or WORSE, demands a LARGER HR DEPARTMENT managed by the same people who think up questionaires like this. After all, if they're not finding enough applicants, they just need MORE PEOPLE in HR to read and filter MORE RESPONSES!

Wow a train wreck! Let's fix it, by sending MORE TRAINS!! (saw that in a Futurama episode when every human except for one got really stupid when the giant brains invaded)

Re: This process is widespread at Canonical

I have to ask who is wasting time reading the responses to those questions... and what silly questions were THOSE PEOPLE asked in order to be hired to read people's answers to even SILLIER questions... and it goes on and on and on and on in my mind, like a bad bureaucratic nightmare from HELL...

(how can a company like this make money?)

Re: This process is widespread at Canonical

The blatant use of "singular 'they'" (i.e. BAD GRAMMAR in the name of political correctness) would have put me off immediately.

Re: high school

If I were interviewing candidates I would have questions like "what would your close friends/family say is your most annoying trait"

If someone asked ME that, I'd probably say something with the words "Fuck" and "OFF" embedded within. You should ask something relevant like "How would you solve a problem like ...' and skip the amateur psychology.

Re: high school

playing in a jazz band isn't going to win me the job.

From MY perspective, you should gain a LOT of points for that one (creative people do creative things, and Jazz implies improvisation, which is EXTREMELY creative In My Bombastic Opinion). But the way in which the questions were framed leaves too much ambiguity as to what they're looking for. You could add to your Resume/CV that you are a musician and achieve the same effect.

Re: high school

maybe the recruiters were extemely unpopular in school when they were teenages and are secretly out for some warped kind of revenge (like an extreme grudge coupled with cancel culture) ? You know, TW[A,I]TTER [ab]users!!!

"*I* am in charge now, and *I* can EXCLUDE YOU now, because *I* have *Da POWAH* !!!"

(or something else equally psychotic)

New Linux kernel bolsters random number generation

DH key exchanges probably the best way to leverage this

during a DH key exchange there's a random value, your "secret" that is only known to you, and the other side should have a similar secret.

If one side re-uses this secret, it can severely weaken the DH key exchange.

Using /dev/random. if the algorithm is both fast AND random (using entropy), each DH key exchange could ideally use its own random "secret" which is ideally also a prime number. This is why some servers _might_ choose NOT to look up new "secret" values and re-use them, from a pool or for everyone (whatever).

So KUDOS to the Linux devs for doing this. Crypto-safe random numbers from /dev/random: a VERY good thing.

(as for the symmetric encryption keys themselves, they too can be generated on the fly via /dev/random if it is crypto-safe)

How experimental was Microsoft's 'experimental banner' in File Explorer?

Re: Usual answer

not designee FOR next year's computers just designed inefficiently and ASSUMING that with next year's computer you will not notice it as much...

Re: Usual attempt to see how far they can go before causing real outrage...

Go all the way to installing explorer++ Linux

Fixed It For Ya

China's tech hub relaxes COVID restrictions to restart industrial production

Re: Covid's done, the vaccines work

Vax'ing is MEDICALLY UNNECESSARY if you have antibodies.

And after OMICRON, it's likely EVERYBODY does.

(If I had genetically designed a COVID-19 variant to at least "partially immunize" EVERYONE such that if you were exposed to ONE variant that had VERY LITTLE deadliness and you got ANTIBODIES for it because it was SO contageous, yet had VERY LITTLE CHANCE of you dying from it, that you would ALSO have enough immunity to protect you against OTHER variants BECAUSE of it, I would have designed something _LIKE_ OMICRON to do just that... but it looks like maybe nature did it FOR us, and not like it was not already predicted by immunologists that a virus would typically mutate into a variant like that based on how OTHER viruses do the same thing already)

Time to stop cowering in fear. Time to stop masking like SHEEPLE. Time to stop SHUTDOWNS especially from TYRANNICAL DICTATORSHIPS.

Just get on with our lives already... no more panic, no more lockdowns, no more shutdowns, no more masks, no more draconian VAX mandates, none of that. The population is IMMUNE ENOUGH now. It is OVER. Let it GO AWAY.

(and let's NOT REPEAT THIS MADNESS, EVAR AGAIN!!!)

ExoMars rover launch axed over Russia tensions

Re: I guess

with a couple o' years to expedite, maybe time for SpaceX to expand a bit and ramp up some capacity...

(should be easier in Texas, not California)

Heaps of tweaks and improvements incoming with GNOME 42

I would suggest maybe a site like this full of tech geeks doesnt really understand modern user interface design and would rather use a terminal.

a) while getting work done, I have a LOT of mate-terminal sessions running on multiple virtual desktops under Mate - and each has a specific name and a specfic purpose. (I count 9, only one of that has no application windows open on it at the moment)

b) Mate terminal sessions are often ssh'd into other things, so I leave them open out of convenience. And since on FreeBSD my default shell is 'csh' it's nice to have all of that easily searched command history there.

c) pluma with syntax highlights and 'trim extra space off the ends of lines' is my go-to code editor, for everything from C and C++ to php, html, and javascript/css. If you have a hybrid project, that's kinda necessary.

d) if you set up your Xorg correctly (and do not forget to firewall port 6000 if you do this) you can use 'export DISPLAY=some-workstation:0.0' and run pluma natively on THAT machine, with no need to (let's say on an RPi) use an 800x480 touch screen to edit code. Just have it run on your big bad workstation with it's yuge monitor and keyboard and mouse, edit away, use a git repo to manage source files across the multiple machines.

(yeah probably described how a LOT of productive people get things done)

Oh, and that word modern - probably does NOT mean what you think it means!

Re: Community consensus

You can try Mate's Caja and Pluma. They work fine for me.

Re: SystemD

Slackware's audience probably won't miss having Gnome, and may not even have noticed...

"There's no Gnome? Really? Whatdya know! I never noticed!" (or similar)

Re: All your...etc.

Ugh, systemd

And now I have Burt Bacharach singing the theme song for "The Blob" running through my head....

*Pop*

Beware of the Blob it creeps, and leaps, ...

Re: GNOME themes are CSS stylesheets

middle click still works. But I want non-hiding scroll bars that show me about where I am on the page based on their relative position. When searching through a doc or source file or whatever for specific text, and it wraps around, the scroll bar will bounce back up to the top and let you know you've "wrapped".

That and I tend to grab the thing and scroll it like was intended.

Besides - it IS my computer and my theming choice. They SHOULD respect it!

Re: They want to trash everything

pluma does everything I want. And if it ever "sells out" I'll FORK IT.

Re: GNOME themes are CSS stylesheets

and TRIPLING DOWN apparently on the 2D FLATTY FLATSO McFLATFACE FLATASS rounded-look scrollbar (that is WAY too FORNICATING SKINNY to properly grab with a mouse) and FUGLY Micros~1 Windows-Ape/Win-10-nic/FLATTY look. YUCHHKKKKK!!!!!

NO. Just NO.

TraditionalOk, please, or similar, or GTFO.

But having ALL WEB PAGES AND APPLICATIONS COMPLY with my theming choice for GTK3 and GTK4?? THAT I *WANT*!!

And you can BET YOUR SWEET ARSE that on MY machines, it will NOT be ADWAITA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Within Mate, getting rid of adwaita requires an extra step:

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences \

theme 'TraditionalOk'

For Firefox, this (about:config):

widget.content.gtk-theme-override = "TraditionalOk"

widget.non-native-theme.enabled = false

Yes it WAS a ROYAL PAIN IN THE ARSE to figure this out. It PISSED ME OFF SO MUCH I *BOTHERED* to figure it out. Those 2D FLATASS millenial SMUGS can SUCK MY FREEDOM OF CHOICE instead of FORCING ME into their 2D FLATSO HELL!!!!!!!!

(see icon - this 2D FLATASS ANTI-FREEDOM crap REALLY pisses me off!!)

AI drug algorithms can be flipped to invent bioweapons

Re: "I want [to synthesize] something that does not use [anything] on the watch list"

wait until the AI spits out a recipe for making the molecules, and/or the equivalent of an organic chemistry C&C machine.

Then someone accidentally leaves it on "auto" and the next thing you know...

Another thing that came to mind while reading the article:

D O _ N O _ E V I L

(that goes double ++ for the medical and pharmaceutical professions)

JavaScript library updated to wipe files from Russian computers

Re: Any sanctions?

I'd expect him to be kicked out and get a lifetime ban or something,

If he's lucky, that's all that would happen.

It could go as far as CRIMINAL CHARGES and/or EXTRADITION.

Re: Stupid is as stupid does

So, this Miller is an asshole.

I was thinking 'criminal' but in my mind, you are "not wrong"

Re: Stupid is as stupid does

the war is not universally popular there

It is my understanding that the war is universally UN-popular in Russia, among the regular people. Why would they want to become the SOVIET UNION again?

I have to wonder WHAT LAWS WERE VIOLATED in the (alleged, reported) intentional publishing of MALWARE with the intent of causing damage and copying unwanted files onto people's computers...

because if THIS is TOLERATED, then WHAT'S NEXT?

(think of every wacko out there who ever did things in protest that simply IRRITATE everybody and even cause various forms of damage, from throwing paint on people's fur coats, to filing predatory and/or malicious lawsuits to halt a project over some political or environmental pet pieve... (and YES, I'm talking 'new form of cancel culture' and WOKENESS being a major factor here)

Half of bosses out of touch with reality, study shows

Re: I don't know about anyone else

The cost of commuting (especially with fuel prices DOUBLED in many cases, and new cars harder and more expensive to come by) is HIGH, from the amount of time involved to the cost of vehicles, and do not even get me started on the sacrifices often necessary to use PUBLIC transportation... (which in my case became both time AND money even though i could sleep on the train)

Also worth pointing out, the cost of maintaining an office full of people. It would be cheaper for companies to pay for special high speed internet for each employee. Ditch the buildings, order hardware online and have it shipped to home offices, and pay for high speed internet at those offices, and EVERYBODY wins!!!

(for when it is practical, of course - it's hard to make a whatsit from your home office when the assembly line and warehouse are at the site)

Germany advises citizens to uninstall Kaspersky antivirus

Re: Just don't use ANY anti-virus

a lot of flaws found in windows take the form of "privilege escalation" which is where things like NOT using an admin login fall apart.

Sure, NOT using admin is a good idea. I do this when possible. You won't be able to use anything from "The Store", but who wants those CRapps anyway. And if your user gets infected with some registry polluter, you can always just delete it and re-create it. That kind of recovery is simple. Or you can run tools from the admin user to clean it up (same idea) as the admin user is not likely to have been corrupted. UNLESS... it was a privilege escalation flaw that the malware used to screw you over.

Still it is A level of protection, and should be made use of.

But unless you stay off of 'teh intarwebs' with your windows machine, do NOT use a Micros~1 browser or mail reader, ONLY read mail in plain text without graphics displayed inline, and ONLY view those graphics (or e-mail attachments) with an appropriate viewer program via "file open", you'll probably need a minimal AV program (like defender *cough*) to provide yet another extra layer of defense.

Re: Just don't use ANY anti-virus

Real security involves using a computer system that is more secure by design, such as GNU/Linux instead of Microsoft Windows, plus being more careful about what you do with your computer.

You are "not wrong". however, for the average user, especially those who actually SURF THE WEB with a windows computer using a login that has administrator-level access, the A/V at least provides a minimal level of defense. (I do not use it, as it mostly gets in the way of software development, but I do not use windows machines for web surfing either, and any e-mail is read by "not outlook" in PLAIN TEXT MODE ONLY and NO inline graphics)

So yeah I call that "safe surfing" but it works best when NOT using a Windows OS.

Microsoft slides ads into Windows Insiders' File Explorer

Re: Killing off their own golden goose

oh yeah, like it's OUR fault for NOT "turning it off" using an external piece of hardware with a hackish configuration on it... because "they" fixed it so you cannot merely edit the windows hosts file. (even THAT is really too much for an end user to HAVE to do to turn this crap OFF)

We should not even have to CONSIDER doing this in the FIRST place... (it's on THAT level of WRONG)

Isn't Hamburg going TO open source, and NOT reverting to Micros~1 products? I just found a 2020 article that says so, and nothing since to say otherwise.

I think it was Munich that flip-flopped on this but they seem to be back in the open source realm now along with Hamburg.

Imagine having to redo from scratch the whole fragile and utterly complex back office structure

it has been done before (at a significant cost savings, I might add)