The Insider News - CodeProject

I Programmer[^]:
In our second look at the HackerRank findings, we focus on variations in pay and developers satisfaction with their pay.

"However much I make it out, it's never enough"

Bleeping Computer[^]:
Windows Server 2008 servers will no longer boot if prerequisites aren't installed before applying the out-of-band KB4539602 update released by Microsoft on February 7 to patch a wallpaper bug.

Windows 7 won't stop, Windows Server 2008 won't start, and Windows 10 is juuuuuuust right

Because of the wallpaper fix.

A wallpaper fix.

Wall.

Paper.

fix.

I shouldn't be surprised if it's because of the old "live wallpaper" thing, which was part of IE.

So it's edge that killed weven and server 2008.

... And any last remaining vestige of interest in using ms web browsers.

I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!

Mark_Wallace wrote:
I shouldn't be surprised if it's because of the old "live wallpaper" thing, which was part of IE.

Anyone who integrates nice-to-have features such as wallpaper into the security mechanisms of the O/S should be hanged, drawn, and quartered.

Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.

NDepend[^]:
The mythical book, Mythical man month quotes that no matter the programming language chosen, a professional developer will write on average 10 lines of code (LoC) day.

Have you written your 10 lines today?

...removed several hundred, like all true professional anti-developers.

Kent Sharkey wrote:
Have you written your 10 lines today?

Wrote them, deleted them, rewrote them, commented it out, and wrote something different

One source claimed that the programmers writing microcode for the VAX-780 had an average productivity of one microinstruction a day, 250 µinstructions/year. (Sorry; I don't remember the source.)

In the old days, we had something called "documentation", descriptions of hardware and software systems and how to use them, all printed on paper. (Oldboys will probably remember the phenomenon.) I was working for a few years as a Technical Writer, when we came across a claim that a Technical Writer procduces one page of documentation a day. We questioned it, but surveyed the productivity of our own group. It turned out that we were almost exactly on one page per man day. We dug down in the publication history, and that figure hadn't changed for years.

Regarding code: In my student days, the productivity, in source code lines, about tripled when C took over for Fortran and Pascal. In Pascal, the coding style was like

IF TotalSum > 1000 THEN DiscountPercentage := 10;

When C tok over, the new coding style rules required you to write it like

C++

if (TotalSum > 1000)  
  {
    DiscountPercentage = 10;
  }

But also, since "C formatted code" has so many almost-blank lines, brace-only lines and indentations (e.g. for single-statement "if" clauses) etc., to make a e.g. a loop body more easily identifiable, it became customary to add blank lines before and after the loop. In the Pascal days, a loop body was recognized by the indentation of it. With C, this was replaced by a blank line before the loop control, a semi-indented brace after the loop control, full indentation of the loop body, a semi-indented brace at the end of the loop, and a blank line after the loop.

Percentage of comment lines also became a sign of a valuable programmer. The various open-source blurbs at the top of every single file increased this measure significantly, often adding 50+ lines of a copy/paste comment block to a file containing a ten line function. Or three lines of header declarations. The old style of adding an end-of-line comment, not contributing to the line count, was replaced by a blank line, a start comment marker on a separate line, the half-line comment on the third line, the end comment marker on the fourth, and finally a fifth blank line to make sure that the comment would stand out from the code ...

I think that # source code statements would be a much better measure of productivity than LoC. I have seen too many artificial ways to pull up the LoC count to impressive levels. There are reasons why you today no longer just count source file line feeds, but must split into groups of comment lines, blank lines, and code lines to make it at least semi-believeable. Still, lots of developers want to count brace-only lines as "code lines".

We worked a lot with hardcopy code in the old days. In my first active years, I was coding in a Pascal-like language, with "Pascal-class" formatting, working with a few guys who had picked up the C style. So I made all my code listings double-spaced, to look more like theirs. It was never remarked upon; it was treated as if that was the way I had formatted it, nice and spacious. When I returned to the editor, on my 25 lines by 80 characters screen, I could see 25 code lines at a glance, rather than 12 code lines and 13 blanklines...

I still prefer to be able to see an entire function / method / subroutine / (whatever....) on my screen without having to page up and down, even if that means that my LoC productivity comes out as very poor. When I work in Visual Studio, I can of course adjust the formatting parameters, delete and reinsert the closing brace before I commit, so that my appearent LoC productivity comes out at the same level as my fellow coders.

Member 7989122 wrote:
In the old days, we had something called "documentation"

Since we're on the Homer Simpson quotes, today[^]

I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!

Pascal

IF TotalSum > 1000 THEN 
begin
  DiscountPercentage := 10;
end.

C#

if (TotalSum > 1000) DiscountPercentage = 10;

Bastard Programmer from Hell Suspicious | :suss:

If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
"If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.

Sure, we could have written it in that way, both Pascal and C variants. We did not. The 4-line formatting was never being pushed before C arrived, but when C took over, it was made standard. In lots of SW development environments of today, you are frowned upon if you write a C if-statement on a single line.
Then there are those middle-between ones who allow the space saving

C++

if (TotalSum > 1000) 
    DiscountPercentage = 10;

i.e. indentation of something that is not syntactically a block (i.e. compound statement), which I think is highly inconsistent. Some make it even worse by allowing this newline/indentation style for single-statment if statement only, but not loops.

C syntax sometimes require even single statements to be braced into compound statements, such as a handler. I don't know of any C programmer that condones code following a open brace on the same line, so even the simplest catch requires four lines. So it contributes to the LoC based productivity measure.

Good explanation, tx Smile | :)

I'm on of those middle-between's, even for loops; it saves space, and as such I can convey more information using less lines, as it helps when reading the code in printed form (as in, paper).

Member 7989122 wrote:
In lots of SW development environments of today, you are frowned upon if you write a C if-statement on a single line.

Yes, since the best practice says that even single statements following the if should be in a block; ohterwise someone who hastily edits might do something stupid.

Which is a stupid reason in the first place.

Bastard Programmer from Hell Suspicious | :suss:

If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
"If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.

I believe it is 10 "bug-free"* lines per day, which have undergone unit, integration and system testing, and all bugs found have been fixed. This would actually mean more lines of code written per day.

* Free of Fatal and Major bugs.

ZDNet[^]:
DOJ said the hackers stole data on Americans and Equifax's intellectual property.

"It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles"

OK, are there any security experts in here?

I've done a bit, and I believe I can say in all correctness that there is absolutely no f***ing way that the DoJ could have tracked the hack back to four individuals working on government-owned machines in a foreign state -- they can't even identify hackers on US soil, FFS!

It's much more likely a case of "Hey, Kowalski, pick four Chinese guys outta that hat!"

When the "Department of Justice" of your country starts lying to you so blatantly and obviously, you know you're in the sh1t.

Will you chaps in the US give my regards to the doorman of room 101, given that a fair proportion of you are likely to be visiting him?

I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!

I agree. The alternative solution is that the world's best security experts working in a government organisation where secrecy is paramount to protect national interests and not reveal to their enemies how things are done, who have actual access to the specifics of the hack, don't want to jeopardise their national security by giving out all the specific details....but that's just preposterous.

I think it's safe to say that the degree of hacking required to get into the Chinese military to make such "discoveries" is well outside the range of what is possible. They have a hundred people defending their networks for each person trying to attack them.

If it were the other way around, it would, of course, only take the Chinese six days.

I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!

You have no idea how they got in, what they did, what tracks they left...nothing. You're going off of how you see hacking done in Hollywood movies.

If Sandra Bullock and Angelina Jolie can do it, anyone can.

We won't sit down.
We won't shut up.
We won't go quietly away.

YouTube, VidMe and My Mu[sic], Films and Windows Programs, etc. and FB

GenJerDan wrote:
If Sandra Bullock and Angelina Jolie can do it, anyone can.

I'd rather not see too many developers flash their boobs.

I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!

F-ES Sitecore wrote:
You're going off of how you see hacking done in Hollywood movies.

You're absolutely right. I am totally inexperienced in all things related to IT, and have most certainly never dealt with any security issues, which is why I hang out in the CP Lounge.

Here's an idea: Why don't you pop off to stack overflow? It's all like the CP soapbox, there, so you can carry on with your absurd worship of all things related to your favourite flavour of politics to your heart's content.

I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!

Mark_Wallace wrote:
I am totally inexperienced in all things related to IT, and have most certainly never dealt with any security issues,

It's not your experience of security issues that I am questioning; it is the fact you don't seem to grasp that there may be something going on that you're simply not privy to.

They did not hack so deep into the Chinese military machine that they were able to pinpoint individuals who they claim implemented an attack.

Believing that they have such capabilities is utterly ludicrous. It is a political, false declaration from a body which should be above politics, and above reproach.

Take your mindless worship elsewhere; politics is not welcome here.

I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!

Mark_Wallace wrote:
They did not hack so deep into the Chinese military machine that they were able to pinpoint individuals who they claim implemented an attack.

Maybe the hackers left some trace of something? Who knows....not me, and not you. I bet people using TOR were pretty shocked when they found out the FBI could still trace them. I bet people using HTTPS were pretty shocked when they found out the CIA could decrypt their comms. I bet people with iPhones were shocked to find out the FBI paid for a tool that could unlock it. When it comes to governments none of us know what they are really capable of as they don't advertise it. And when it comes to this hack no-one knows if the hackers left any evidence as they won't advertise that either. I'm amazed you are so naive that you don't appreciate that sometimes law enforcement doesn't make everything public.

Mark_Wallace wrote:
politics is not welcome here.

At no point have I said anything about politics. You should know by now that throwing around false accusations to try and shut me up is going to get you nowhere. Stick to the arguments at hand, and if you can't counter them then contemplate the possibility that you are wrong.

This discussion ends here. I refuse to discuss religion with Jehovah's Witnesses, and I refuse to discuss political deception with blind followers of political extremists.

I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!