itgoon

The operative word is "premature". Optimize when it is time to optimize - the OP touches on that.

If you know a given routine will be run a lot, then some optimization right off the bat is a good idea.

Now, that "knowing" is a little more difficult, but comes with user feedback and experience.

The user should hide in the cabinet underneath the chessboard.

I think that is a good datapoint, myself. If there is a predisposition for people to choose "5" under those circumstances, we will have learned something.

That's funny. I got a few dev groups to update their documentation by comparing it to a recipe: list everything needed, first. List the things which can be done ahead of time. After that, preparation steps, and then the actual time-critical steps.

It is working out quite nice.

Ditto, only for Scheme in general (I used Chicken the last time around). I chose Racket this time for all the "batteries included" stuff.

I've never shipped anything written in Scheme, but my excursions into it have always left me a wiser programmer.

> the old saw about competent sysadmen trying to write themselves out of jobs

When I preach this, I modify it to "always eliminate your role". Your job won't go anywhere, but what you're doing for that job should always be changing.

I didn't like it at first, but took the opportunity to spend time getting to know it.

IMO, it is a better way of navigating around. If I'm wanting to go a child of a folder three levels up, I just click the little arrow next to the appropriate parent, then choose the child. As opposed to up-up-up-scroll-click.

Plus, I still have the option of manually editing it, if I so choose (but that takes an extra click).

It took me forever to notice the "search" box, though. That's another really nice feature, once you get used to it.

The reason you don't keep files in your database is that file systems are much better at handling files. Faster, more efficient, basically all the reasons that a single-purpose layer tends to be faster than a general-purpose layer.

Databases are much better at handling discrete data than file systems - that's what they are built for. Sure, I could keep my data in a bunch of little files, but that doesn't work as well.

(MS SQL has a feature where you "store" the file in the database, but the db writes the file to the filesystem, and just maintains a pointer to the actual file - not a bad hybrid)

I don't know how well GridFS stacks up (it is on my todo list), although I do like the idea of replication and sharding being built in. My gut (which has been wrong before) says that it is good for websites, not so good for general storage.

I use MongoDB for the same reason as mrkurt: prototyping new schemas is a breeze. I still find myself reaching for the old RDBMS toolbox as things move along, grow, and stabilize. Sometimes, a JOIN _is_ the right tool for the job.

Shameless blog plug.

http://itgoon.blogspot.com/2010/05/i-want-online-persona-man...

I don't know. I know that other IDEs have such functionality for other languages. I don't worry too much about the previous developer's style, because reformatting is a couple of simple keystrokes. As is reformatting it to another's standard.

I think it is a bit odd that anybody still has this argument.

This is the version of the software with one or two additional features, and one or two additional zeros on the license cost.

No hypervisor host for FreeBSD, poor ZFS for Linux. If either situation changes, that's when I'll give up my opensol machines.

Well, if we're doing the anecdotal thing, then I'll be happy to back up mr. maroon. My current contract is with one of those Fortune 500 companies. I work in server ops, and am very much aware of what we have.

There are a couple of thousand servers, across three DCs, a mix of HPUX, Solaris, and Windows.

Not one Linux server. Maybe there's a few dozen running in VMs on developer's workstations, but even they tend to prefer Solaris, since that's their target, anyway.

At this scale, nobody really cares about the licensing costs of an OS. There's no reason not to buy RedHat, if only to keep the PHBs happy.

OS license costs are a smidgen, a rounding error, damn near nothing compared to the costs associated with standing them up, not to mention development, ongoing operations, etc. I'm pretty sure our storage costs, per month, exceed all the money we've spent on licenses in the last year (if not longer).

I also know of a lot of small businesses which have nothing but Windows. I know of few that have even heard of Linux. I'm talking about every law office, every doctor's office, every real-estate office...well, you get the idea.

I like Linux. I've been running it on servers and desktops of my own for over about fifteen years (since the 1.x kernel). I seldom see it in the field.

To me, that seems less like a hosting company, and more like increasing utilization.

I'm another one of the "been there, done that" crowd, back in 2002-2005 - and it was much easier then. I eventually sold for a small loss.

Rather than target the general public, try to find a couple of higher-end clients, and take care of them like they were your mother. It was those clients that ended up bringing in the most value.

Just my .02, and good luck, no matter what you do.

Basically, newspapers and magazines have the same problem as CDs: you have to buy a bunch of crap in order to get the one or two bits that you actually like.

I suspect that ones that serve a focused niche will continue to survive, just not at the size they've been used to.

For me, family is easy. It is our custom to charge each other full rates, period. Saves a lot of bad feelings.

For friends, I usually request some kind of equivalent work for trade, or full rates. For example, I'll clean up your viruses if you'll mow my lawn (or paint a room, give the gf a manicure, whatever). I suspect it would work for family, too, if I needed it to.

If he gets offended so much that he doesn't see the point, then he doesn't view himself as a partner. He thinks he's the boss.

The most important thing to convey is that you are both bringing value to the table, and neither of you can do it without the other. If that is a problem, find someone else.

Pick some aspect of his job, and say the same of it ("Accounting? That's just addition and subtraction!" "Sales? That's just going out drinking").

If he gets offended, just smile.

The problem with the underwater plumes is that they can't be contained. While you may have the image of an underwater oilslick, it isn't - the oil can be measured in parts per million (you might not even notice if you had a glass of it).

The problem with those plumes is that bacteria eats the oil, and then breeds. Those organisms use up the oxygen in the water, leaving a dead zone unfit for life. There was already a decent sized dead zone from the Mississippi, but this has the potential to dwarf it.

Develop the discipline.

Do you brush your teeth every morning? If so, how did you develop the discipline for that?

IMO, there's even more similarity between the two. If you skip brushing for a day, you'll have slightly bad breath. If you skip a week, you'll have really bad breath. A month? You're looking at cavities. The longer you put it off, the worse it gets, the effects just aren't immediate.

The same goes for time management. Skipping a day is no big deal, but if you keep skipping, it only gets worse.

The Home Depot case has been resolved in the little guy's favor: http://blogs.findlaw.com/decided/2010/05/unkindest-cut-home-...

In an ideal situation, you would not be okay. BP wouldn't have even the potential of protection, and your investment would be wiped out.

Your punishment would be proportionate to your involvement.

I'm using it for a handful of internal projects. The selling points for these scenarios were that the server is cross platform, the server footprint is really small, and there is rich and mature-enough library support to use it from just about anywhere.

It's main purpose is to act as a quasi-cache for a bunch of database queries. A couple of batch apps pull chunks of data from a bunch of databases, essentially consolidating and precalculating a bunch of stuff.

The biggest strength we've found so far is that it is schema-less. We're not spending much time thinking about how to organize the data, just getting it and sifting it.

Hope this helps

Never underestimate the brainpower of someone who has nothing to do but think about one problem.

Goes for dogs, too :)

Here's a dumb question: most *nixes come with vi as the text editor, but the shell uses emacs keybindings. Why is that?

(btw, if you learn emacs well enough, you're commandline-fu goes through the roof)

My own view on "lifetime" anything is that I'm taking a gamble on whose lifetime is longer, and consider that when choosing that option. Ultimately, the amount I pay comes down to how long I think the company/product will last.

Anecdotal, I know.

And it has one of the best IMAP-centric rants, ever:

http://sup.rubyforge.org/svn/trunk/lib/sup/imap.rb

"fucking imap fucking sucks. what the FUCK kind of committee of dunces designed this shit."

Classic.

That's more of a startup oriented attitude. To continue the house analogy, if you wanted to avoid the premium associated with the higher contract, could enter into a similar agreement with the builder.

He builds the house on the cheap, in exchange for a percentage of the final selling price. If the contract was sound, why wouldn't that be an equitable deal?

There's probably a law against it, though (houses are funny that way).

In the case of the original post, I would be willing to work there - as a very expensive contractor, with the degree of my loyalty explicit in the terms. He'd probably object to the part about him paying my attorney to review it, though.

If you build a house by having it done by a professional, you're going to be paying more to have it completed. There's usually contract clauses and insurance to ensure that you're not left with a half-finished house.

When you hire that professional, you're not only paying for his experience, but all those other things, as well. There's a premium attached to those clauses and insurance. You could choose to forgo those assurances, and save some money, but you have a higher risk. Not to mention, a lot of better professionals would refuse, thus limiting the pool of candidates.

The author of the article wants it all: the assurance of the higher-cost option without the premium.

> I haven't had a virus in 14 years.

That you know of.

I can say the same thing, but I always put in that little caveat at the end. Same for being hacked. I've looked for evidence, and never found any reason to believe otherwise.

I've done too many cleanups for people, for whom I have the upmost respect, who said similar things for me lose my humility on that score.