Posts by malvcr

Linux in 2020: 27.8 million lines of code in the kernel, 1.3 million in systemd

SymtemD "is" a platform

I am borrowing Bjarne Stroustrup comment about Java because SystemD behaves the same way.

The proof is to find that it has more than one million lines of code. With that size, it could be a complete operating system. And, several things are being "attached" to its working model instead of being created as completely independent things. These facilities will not work without SystemD.

Then, if you like that platform or if that platform is good enough for your pattern usage, go ... use it. But if this doesn't work in the expected way or impose hard restrictions that you can't follow, then you must find a complete replacement for those more than 1 million source code lines. In fact, SystemD with Linux is more and more similar to MacOS than to UNIX.

In that case, Greg is wrong when asserting that SystemD is "the" solution. I will agree with him if what he say is that SystemD is "a" solution to problems "some" people have. And the main issue here is that if you want to do something very special (the type of things Linux is extremely good at), to dig on those thousands and thousands of lines of code to understand why your solution is not working as expected is a complete waste of time that leads to nothing. But ... you always can replace SystemD, right?

I expect, and pray, that Linux "the kernel" never be hard attached to SystemD. They must be different and completely independent things. And you see, as it is usual with software, somebody in the future will arrive with a better solution to the problems that current SystemD users have and, in that moment, the right thing to do is to discard SystemD as an "obsolete" piece of software without breaking Linux.

Amazon, ditch us? But they can't do without us – Oracle

Risk management

When your company have the capacity to create storage management systems in a really modern way (not using the ancient R model), then to let the core systems working in a competitor technology it is a real risk.

The natural todo is to have everything under control. If they move out of Oracle will be a way to acquire control. For so big company as Amazon, the licenses and maintenance they pay to Oracle are just pennies.

Software dev bombshell: Programmers who use spaces earn MORE than those who use tabs

Personal profile

James Coplien already evaluated the space role in good source code 19 years ago. Take some time for a good reading.

https://people.cs.pitt.edu/~chang/budha/coplien.htm

What I think is that the issue has to be with the programmers personal character and professional profile.

In general (important to declare that there are exceptions), the people that care enough to use spaces, because has total control on how the source code will looks for everybody, it is also careful enough to create better quality source code that has less failures and accomplish better with the final goals. So, this is more effective people that can resolve better the computing problems, that it is more attractive to employers and that could have better professional positions.

President Donald Trump taken on by unlikely foe: Badass park rangers

1) The park rangers are first line witnesses, and they are government employes. They have an extremely important job protecting the real US treasures.

2) The United States is supposed to be a democracy, and the government officials, even the president, are citizen employees, they are not kings.

3) The good manager is the one that can make marvels with what he/she really has in his/her hands, not what he/she pretends to have.

4) You need to have employees that follow you because you can convince them, not because you force them to do what you like to do.

There are different methods to manage. One of them is to have an iron hand, but a public service it is very different than a private enterprise. On some leaked documents an US ambassador in Costa Rica said that we have a dysfunctional democracy because "everything" here is discussed openly and our president lack of real power. But, even with all our internal problems (we have many), it is still possible to bread freedom and not so contaminated air. Would the Trump administration to help the world were we all live to have a real improvement or the intention is just to paint a temporary Utopia for a couple of people?

Maybe Mr. Trump pretends to isolate the US with a wall and with information control, and describing how politics can control nature together with a brand new set of physical laws ... I expect not to be describing some other place.

Mattel's parenting takeover continues with Alexa-like dystopia

Central brain

What voice and/or personality the device has it is really a secondary characteristic. What really worries me is that the processing is being made "outside" your home ... the same as SIRI and all these supposedly intelligent devices. In fact, there is no IA in the device, because the maker has a big central computer in some place processing all the data to offer an answer (only one brain, not many brains everywhere) ... I am not bought with this; everything will be different when the device process the data by itself without sending any type of sensitive information outside your own private space.

What about to have more contextual information? ... but this is different, you don't need to expose your detailed questions, even your own voice, to have external data, when it is needed to do that. They worked the easy path to have a product, that's all, not the right one.