tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15929719.comments2023-10-21T01:56:53.775-07:00Van Couvering Is Not a VerbAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04898259486137280102noreply@blogger.comBlogger447125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15929719.post-55220094920809792962015-01-30T07:41:28.626-08:002015-01-30T07:41:28.626-08:00Subscribed!Subscribed!Dave Johnsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01745896284474437968noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15929719.post-41848768506536499892015-01-28T14:59:26.608-08:002015-01-28T14:59:26.608-08:00Some decades back I worked for your father in the ...Some decades back I worked for your father in the Museum of Natural History, Dept. of Micropaleon-tology. He made our dept. one of the most intriguing, most companionable places I have ever had the good fortune to work.<br /> I'm currently reading a novel set in the Museum and thought of him. The above article sounds like him, a combination of scientific scholarship and high good humor. The next time you see your father, please tell him that Dianne Faucher was thinking of him.Dianne Fauchernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15929719.post-85078170050741111312013-02-13T21:10:53.424-08:002013-02-13T21:10:53.424-08:00Yes, a PHP session is "session state". ...Yes, a PHP session is "session state". And yes, often that session state is stored on disk. That's actually the problem. If you are trying to scale out, then you will have multiple systems. Unless you have a shared disk, then the other systems won't have access to that state. <br /><br />And lets's say you do have a shared disk or other shared resource like a database. If you grow to a very large scale, then that database itself needs to scale out. So people start clustering their databases. <br /><br />Often that is fine and works for many sites. But for some sites, even that is not enough scale. If you can avoid session state, that's a great thing. <br /><br />In my experience, however, most web sites just use session state, and it's actually fine. I've gotten a little more mellow about this as I've gotten older :)Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04898259486137280102noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15929719.post-42139638494899200422013-02-08T01:34:22.267-08:002013-02-08T01:34:22.267-08:00Please forgive my naivety, as web-dev is not my sp...Please forgive my naivety, as web-dev is not my specialty, but are PHP sessions considered 'session state'? It sounds as though it is so. However, if that is true, isn't it basically the same as accessing a server-side resource on a filesystem? I mean, the server(or PHP, in this case) is generating a session identifier from a client's connection information and using that as a key for the resource stored on-disk(or wherever). Is that not still just as stateless as having the browser send some sort of state information directly?<br /><br />It does occur to me that I could be incorrect on the manner in which PHP sessions are created. Perhaps, instead of my above assumption(which, admittedly, is probably error-prone), it is generated by the worker thread handling the client connection itself and the information persistent for the life of that thread only. In this case, would serializing the session state(via the appropriate methods) to the filesystem or a database on the server and using a cookie to store the session identifier be more or less 'evil'? Does it lose any 'good' points due to higher resource usage and thus lower performance?Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11445209869646225574noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15929719.post-9981011592222201682012-11-24T13:35:06.808-08:002012-11-24T13:35:06.808-08:00Yeah but then isn't the incentive to just tax ...Yeah but then isn't the incentive to just tax the rich? The police would never stop a clunker but would sure crack down on Teslas and BMWs.Emilian Boldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10960978131273810766noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15929719.post-92153300872307921092012-10-23T14:01:41.802-07:002012-10-23T14:01:41.802-07:00OK, fixed the link...OK, fixed the link...Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04898259486137280102noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15929719.post-90427485055024986672012-08-29T11:32:20.794-07:002012-08-29T11:32:20.794-07:00As you say, David, corporations are bound by their...As you say, David, corporations are bound by their own charter to fight against any recognition of "externalities", and that's partially due to a very narrow definition of who the corporations' stakeholders are.<br /><br />I'd like to plug a friends book here - he writes (very accessibly) that corporate governance doesn't have to be the way that it is, and that changing it in certain ways would help to solve a lot of these problems:<br /><br />"The Failure of Corporate Law: Fundamental Flaws and Progressive Possibilities" by Kent Greenfield<br /><br />http://www.amazon.com/The-Failure-Corporate-Law-Possibilities/dp/0226306933Andy Cohenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15149694120083593099noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15929719.post-87611331986388490932012-08-28T09:01:55.134-07:002012-08-28T09:01:55.134-07:00I agree, imposing a cost to this externality would...I agree, imposing a cost to this externality would solve this problem. The issue however, is that corporations are bound by their own charter to fight tooth and nail any attempt to create an externality tax like this, and since corporate power is so high in government right now, that is unlikely to ever happen. So perhaps the real root problem is money in politics. Money helps drive a free market; it should not drive government, which is supposed to implement these externality fees/taxes that the corporate world is bound to fight to their last breath.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04898259486137280102noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15929719.post-65409861361394148222012-08-28T08:00:45.070-07:002012-08-28T08:00:45.070-07:00This is an anti-captialist rant.
Often, profit mo...This is an anti-captialist rant.<br /><br />Often, profit motives are aligned with the public good: which supermarket can satisfy the most customers, who can make the best smartphone or the best bicycle. When they aren't aligned, in the case of pollution that affects the public rather than just affecting buyers and sellers/workers, most free market types would advocate government imposed externality taxes as the most fair and efficient solution.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15929719.post-70521679034953726022012-07-30T13:59:12.111-07:002012-07-30T13:59:12.111-07:00David,
Jala Neti is simple and remarkable…thank y...David, <br />Jala Neti is simple and remarkable…thank you for sharing. I make my solutions as hot as I can stand it and it seems to work quicker.<br /><br />Also the mystery of “I know there are things I can do to make them better…” but we don’t make these choices, is something that has always baffled me. I know exactly what needs to be done to make my life a paradise, but I make other choices because, as you state, “I prefer the pain I know to the pain I don't know.” However, I can’t help feel an overwhelming sense of gratitude for evening being on this journey…regardless of where I am. As a great Indian saint once said, “Why should God give more than this?”<br /><br />Thank you so much for your post and reminder of Jala Neti, and the beauty of this gift of free will.<br /><br />AllenAllen Astinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14209855120316208939noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15929719.post-29989949041911070582012-07-04T05:02:26.205-07:002012-07-04T05:02:26.205-07:00Hi,
I'm trying to upgrade from Solaris 10 to...Hi, <br /><br />I'm trying to upgrade from Solaris 10 to Solaris 11 (SPARC). The Media Pack i have, is "Solaris 11 11/11 (not Solaris Express - as Oracle doesn't support it anymore)" I have searched some documents on the internet on the steps but none of them really help specifically. <br /><br />Other thing how do i get the latest version of Live Upgrade, because the <b>Info doc 206844</b> that they mention, i cannot locate it anywhere (tried the SunSolve but nothing, it down).<br /><br />Now, if i <i>lucreate </i> a new BE (Solaris 10) on another partition/disk will i be able to <i>luupgrade</i> that BE with Solaris 11.<br /><br />Please help?Sol_Enghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00236040441324005279noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15929719.post-82026740685645433082012-06-05T16:34:09.438-07:002012-06-05T16:34:09.438-07:00Maybe I'm an Enterprisey kind of guy, or maybe...Maybe I'm an Enterprisey kind of guy, or maybe we're just comfortable with what we know, but I have not experienced Java as a pain in the ass. EJB and Java EE absolutely. Most of my work in Java does not involve working with the horrific frameworks that have been built up around it. Even Spring is a bit much. One reason I like MyBatis is it gives you a nice separation between the SQL and the Java with a minimal amount of frameworky config garbage.<br /><br />Andy: my experience is that ActiveRecord is a big part of it, but it is also just the raw performance of the VM compared to the Java VM. Although that's probably worth testing out more scientifically than general vague observation. <br /><br />In terms of TDD - if everyone did TDD assidiously, perhaps you could get by with a dynamic language. But in my experience, that is a Nirvana that is almost never reached within a team (even though I practice it myself), and also comes with its own overhead that you need to account for.<br /><br />And again, I would argue that a test framework catches things *later* than a compiler that runs *as you type* (Eclipse), and so you have larger write/fix cycles with a dynamic language.<br /><br />I still find myself so happy when I can safely rename or move things. Even with a TDD test harness protecting you, in Ruby it's just more difficult - a lot of hunt and peck to find all references, or the IDE finds *way* more references than you want (e.g. try renaming something called "execute" or "build"). Ugh.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04898259486137280102noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15929719.post-72488483643231005692012-06-05T16:25:49.614-07:002012-06-05T16:25:49.614-07:00Ha! The nostril is the window into the soul... :)Ha! The nostril is the window into the soul... :)Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04898259486137280102noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15929719.post-50694084484159813932012-06-05T16:19:42.172-07:002012-06-05T16:19:42.172-07:00We'll be Van Couvering alter this month and at...We'll be Van Couvering alter this month and at the end of July. In the meantime, my 8 year old daughter LOVES the Neti pot. Each person in the family has one. A family that Neties (is that a verb too?) together...<br /><br />Neti cleanses the soul. I never realized that so much of our soul was just a little ways up our nostrils. The people looking deeply into our eyes were wrong. - Pete SAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15929719.post-11868319331105303552012-06-04T09:49:32.957-07:002012-06-04T09:49:32.957-07:00As Jani says, dynamically-typed languages have the...As Jani says, dynamically-typed languages have their downsides. I'm just learning Ruby now, and I was initially surprised at how little help the IDE was able to give me, because it has no idea which methods are available on any given object.<br /><br />I also agree with Jani that the Java ecosystem has become unmanageably complex. It gets to the point where you're using so many specialized libraries, each with their own complex configuration, that it becomes very difficult to figure out why something just won't work. I still love the Java language, but because of that complex ecosystem, I'm getting kind of fed up with programming in Java.<br /><br />Finally, I wonder if you're getting your performance improvements because you're switching to Java, or because you're switching away from a default implementation of Active Record. Couldn't you implement the same data-access layer in Ruby? If you did, I wonder how its performance would compare. That is, it's possible that the performance improvements are coming not from a superior implementation language, but from an improved use of the underlying SQL database.<br /><br />As always, thanks for your thoughts - this is a topic I've been thinking a lot about lately.Andy Cohenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15149694120083593099noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15929719.post-88652728689409061582012-06-01T02:37:40.896-07:002012-06-01T02:37:40.896-07:00I stopped reading at "First of all, I'm w...I stopped reading at "First of all, I'm working with an older version of RoR, 2.3.11"...Russell Bellnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15929719.post-85291763842374463562012-05-27T04:47:52.996-07:002012-05-27T04:47:52.996-07:00I think what you're saying are RoR's downs...I think what you're saying are RoR's downsides are infact downsides of most if not all languages with dynamic typing.<br /><br />As someone who has worked mostly with dynamic languages, I have ran into pretty much all of this many times. <br /><br />Test-driven development is a big, big win in dynamic languages especially due to this. Your tests will act as the sort of safety net a compiler would in static languages.<br /><br />I have also worked with Java, and even with the downsides you list here, I still prefer dynamic languages over Java. <br /><br />The reasons are simple: Java is such a huge pain in the ass. Java libraries tend to have so many layers and things to everything that even the simplest things become complex to understand.<br /><br />I have lately been using Haskell for web development. It's statically typed, but it feels nicer to use than Java due to very strong type inference and other features. I think it might be a pretty good alternative which sits somewhere between the heavy enterprise style Java code and the leaner dynamic language code.Jani Hartikainenhttp://codeutopia.netnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15929719.post-49665833779891715922012-04-15T16:55:25.105-07:002012-04-15T16:55:25.105-07:00You've perfectly described one of the characte...You've perfectly described one of the characteristics of development. It does not satisfy cravings for tangible, tactile progress. There's two construction sites next to the building I work in and a couple times per day I take a moment to look out the window to examine the progress - envying the clear evidence of theirs before going back to my desk and typing more.Babblesmithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15962333708729825342noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15929719.post-77324593631265695462012-03-22T01:47:00.710-07:002012-03-22T01:47:00.710-07:00Beautiful blog post!
I've always thought that...Beautiful blog post!<br /><br />I've always thought that the guys from Hesse's The Glass Bead Game were some kind of future programmers.<br /><br />[edit: typo]Emilian Boldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10960978131273810766noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15929719.post-18098305986413244852012-01-05T07:28:03.786-08:002012-01-05T07:28:03.786-08:00Thanks David for this post. For those who complain...Thanks David for this post. For those who complained about broken link - Go to http://src.opensolaris.org/source/<br /><br />then search for DbManager.java<br /><br />and then download to save a copy.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15929719.post-63267838449128491472011-11-09T03:08:42.450-08:002011-11-09T03:08:42.450-08:00Cheers, David. I wondered this morning what choice...Cheers, David. I wondered this morning what choices Couch would have in regard to letting other instances replicate to it. My approach is that nodes would manually peer, setting read/write/moderated trust in either direction or both.<br /><br />So, I think you're right. Some R&D with Couch is definitely required - I will look into it.Jonhttp://blog.jondh.me.uk/meshingnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15929719.post-63225261933201479262011-11-08T16:32:17.817-08:002011-11-08T16:32:17.817-08:00Actually CouchDB, including its bidirectional repl...Actually CouchDB, including its bidirectional replication, can run on an Android phone. So I don't believe it requires the server resources at the level you are thinking :) Definitely recommend checking it out, it's open source so you are more than welcome to contribute!Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04898259486137280102noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15929719.post-52249475574416718552011-11-08T16:12:54.655-08:002011-11-08T16:12:54.655-08:00That's a mighty good question! I've heard ...That's a mighty good question! I've heard of CouchDB but since I've not used it, the bidirectional replication feature comes as news to me. That is very similar to what I am trying to achieve.<br /><br />However, CouchDB requires quite substantial server resources to run, from what I can tell. The niche I foresee for my project is predicated on my (quite unproven) theory that web-based software will only become popular for relatively small datasets if it is trivial to install on cheap, shared hosting. Though I am not familiar with the NoSQL world, it seems to me that document stores are mainly the preserve of corporate users having 100M+ records and plenty of cash to spend on infrastructure.<br /><br />True, I could use a hosted document-store service; for the relatively low levels of usage I am aiming at, these are priced somewhere between free and 20USD/month. But it is (afaik) still not quite the upload tarball to host + unpack + web-based wizard UI that I'm aiming for. Hosted CouchDB is also quite rare, whereas there's nearly a shared/VPS host in every back yard these days.<br /><br />That all said, your suggestion does give me pause for thought. I've blogged a few suggestions where a replicated dataset with no central/co-ordinating server might help achieve the critical mass necessary to shake up an existing market - such as publishing scientific papers or recruitment advertising. But my immediate thought is - if this is easy already - where are they? IMO, versioned replication can be considered "democratised" when individuals/groups with negligible resources can offer a link on their website to a dataset server (in whatever form that might take) and say "mirror us and help us build our data".Jonhttp://blog.jondh.me.uk/meshingnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15929719.post-70822371411294930042011-11-08T13:47:45.113-08:002011-11-08T13:47:45.113-08:00Hi, Jon. Sounds interesting, but couldn't the...Hi, Jon. Sounds interesting, but couldn't the same kind of thing be accomplished with CouchDB? How does what you're doing differ from that approach?<br /><br />Thanks!<br /><br />DavidAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04898259486137280102noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15929719.post-68315183109584145772011-11-08T12:00:57.279-08:002011-11-08T12:00:57.279-08:00Hi David,
I'm a few years late to this party,...Hi David,<br /><br />I'm a few years late to this party, but nevertheless thought that a WIP project of mine might be of interest.<br /><br />From my various research around the web, much of the work on "p2p databases" has employed Distributed Hash Tables to get different nodes to handle different parts of the data. Provided the data has sufficient redundancy, this works, albeit with slow query times.<br /><br />My project, called Meshing, intends to change the social and political dynamics you mention by (in the main) giving everyone a full copy of the data. It requires an internet-based server, but - like Wordpress - the intention is that if the software is free, you install it yourself or pay someone to do it for you. Thus, it has a levelling and democratising effect even if it doesn't come with a Windows installer!<br /><br />The project is written in PHP, will work on shared hosting, populates data between nodes relatively slowly, and versions all record updates. Storage will work with most modern databases.<br /><br />I've written a fair bit about it on my blog, including potential use cases. The prototype is <a href="https://github.com/halfer/Meshing/issues/milestones" rel="nofollow">in progress</a>; as of Nov 2011, the storage/versioning is nearly done, and XML transport will be next.Jonhttp://blog.jondh.me.uk/meshingnoreply@blogger.com