Posts by big_D

Re: RE: Master / slave

There was never a master/slave in code repositories. The master here is for primary or source copy, the definitive version from which copies, branches are taken or are the basis for changes.

This is the same use as in the media industry, especially music, where the master is the definitive copy, from which all reproductions are made.

In Germany, you still have to be a master in many professions, in order to run your own business. If you haven't achieved your mastery of the profession, you may be able to work in that profession (you usually have to have at least made an apprenticeship or being doing an apprenticeship), but you can't run a business until you have your Master Certificate.

There have been cases, where the children have inherited the parents business, but, because they didn't train in the profession, they can't work in the business or run it. Often they have to get a Master in to run the business and learn from them and take the relevant exams, before they can take over the business themselves. (Or just sell the business to a qualified master, but you are in a bad bargaining position to sell, because the business is worthless to you, because you can't actually run it).

Re: Profile the site...

And? Who cares?

Re: PI Hole

I never used my IPS's DNS. The first thing I did was use a trusted DNSSEC provider using DNS over TLS.

Re: This is not gonna end well

I'd have the up-vote button linked back to the users stool via the mains...

Re: I disagree with the article

I switched to DuckDuckGo a couple of years back and it is my main search engine.

Very occasionally, I will switch to Google, because DDG doesn't find what I want. But Google's quality has also sunk over recent years, one of the reasons, next to privacy, that I switched.

Google results for "handbook/problem <device>" would list about 30+ eRetail platforms, special offers and search comparison sites, I'd have to go to the 2nd or 3rd page, before I'd find a relevant link. DDG is a bit better in this respect. I mean, if I am searching for a handbook or information on problems with a product, the chances are I've already bought it, and in the latter case, I am definitely not in the mood to buy it again, if it is causing me problems!

Such results are a disservice to users and a con for advertisers! Google knows, from the way the query is formatted, that the searcher has no interest in purchasing said product, yet it wastes advertisers money by trying to show me ads and paid results that it knows are irrelevant...

Re: "In a few of them it might even insist."

Looking at the original post, it will be automatically updating by default. That implies that experienced users will be able to override the setting and update when they have planned it in.

I think it is a good middle ground. Users who don't know or care about security and patching will be automatically protected, whereas experienced users will know to shut off the option and manually manage patches as before. As long as there is an option to disable auto-patching during the update to the new version that calls it out, I have no problem with such a solution - experts will see it, know what it means and disable it, if it isn't for them; those that don't know what it means will leave it enabled.

Re: Too late

I'm sort of with you. But blacklist/whitelist goes back a couple of thousand years and has absolutely nothing to do with race, for example.

Slave, I can sort of agree with. It has become a very loaded term. But it is hard to think of alternatives, in some cases, E.g. slaving a convoy of automated vehicles to the lead car.

Re: A failure of testing

That was one of the most important things that was drummed into us in college and at my first employer.

You test what you expect to happen. Therefore you take the specification and the first thing you do is write your test cases based on the specification. Once you have your test cases finished, you can start with the programming. That doesn't make them perfect, but it means they are based on the specification and not the code you have written. That picks up a lot of common errors that would otherwise have been missed.

Unfortunately, many projects I've worked on recently have not had proper specifications and testing was cut to the bone and you had to turn out code first and write test scripts and test cases if you had time afterwards. Time scales were not realistic and the budget for the coding were much too low to do the job properly. But, hey, they are only internet facing shopping and payment systems, so doing it properly and safely isn't really necessary, after all, what could possibly go wrong?

My "best" project (as in closest to being perfectly executed) was a VisualBasic 6 system written for a large agrochemical company to collect its world-wide budgeting and sales forecasts and pushing the data into Hyperion Essbase.

The specification was pretty comprehensive and included use cases and all the business rule errors that could occur. The unit tests and system tests were written based on the spec, then we got around to coding. We had around 75,000 lines of code, when it went live. 3 programmers, 4 months of coding and testing. The system was released world-wide to over 60 national subsidiaries.

In 2 years, we had 2 bug reports. The first was a bug in Windows 98 International English edition*. The other was a simple problem with cell editing in a grid container. That is the only system I've worked on that had so few bugs reported. A shame other projects didn't run so smoothly - although I was generally assigned to projects that had already gone pear-shaped and had to help bring them back on track.

* The bug in W98 International English edition was the Win32 API for getting the localized month names. We tested it in UK English, German and French. All worked flawlessly. But a lot of Asian and South American countries were using International English editions. You gave the API function the month number and it returned the name of the month (E.g. 1 = January (EN), Janvier (FR) and Januar (DE), 2=February, Février, Februar etc.). Only in International English 1=January, 2=January, 3=January, 4=January, 5=January...12=January. In the end, HQ decided that we would just hard-code the English month names for everybody, as English was the corporate language, so we didn't have to be "nice" to the users.

Re: A failure of testing

Maybe if the programmers were forced to test their own code, in-situ, they'd be a little more careful...

I never worked on automotive systems, but I did work on nuclear reactors, traffic systems and manufacturing systems and the code was always thoroughly tested before release. We'd probably spent about 2/3 of project testing, before it was released into production - and generally, you did your own unit testing, but system and integration testing had a whole dedicated team.

Re: Just because...

Maybe the programmers should be forced to drive at a brick wall and test their own code, before it is let loose on the "end users"...

Half of the words are ridiculous anyway.

Illegal is a law term, meaning to break a rule/law. Illegal characters are breaking a rule, therefore the term fits perfectly with its dictionary definition.

Dummy data is also not a placeholder!

How is grandfather racist? Sexist/gender biased I can accept, but racist?

Hangs? Really, really? Violent? I hang my washing out to dry, there is nothing f'ing violent about that!

Native, oh, come on! I'm a native of the UK. Everybody is a native from somewhere.

Just because some people have corrupted the English language, doesn't mean we should all fall to their level!

That was a huge difference, when I moved to Germany. Every business has to be VAT registered and it also made for complications with UK businesses that weren't VAT registered.

If you buy something, you need a VAT invoice. If the supplier isn't VAT registered and doesn't have a VAT registration number, the accountants and tax accountants kick up a stink, because it causes problems with the Finanzamt (Inland Revenue). I've seen deliveries sent back to the UK for refunds purely due to the UK supplier being unable to quote a VAT registration number.

Sometimes the company has taken the hit and the extra scrutiny, because the product was hard to come by locally. But, generally, the accountants want an easy life, so will get you to send it back, if they can't get a VAT invoice.

That is why we are very careful with suppliers, no no-name Chinese imports and, generally no UK imports without a VAT number, and that was before Brexit.

Re: Should not have Netherlands VAT ...

It was a replacement drive, so no VAT in the Netherlands, but the UK Customs sees the value of the drive on the documentation and automatically slaps on VAT.

That said, as a company, they should be able to reclaim the VAT, as Seagate said. It is a pain, but that is how it goes.

Also, what do datacentres and other bigger customers do? They usually have a bunch of drives on hand as spares - if I had an array of more than a dozen drives and mission critical, I'd always have a couple of spares in my stores, just in case - either as hot spares or cold spares in stores.

When a drive fails, the hot spare is brought online, the dud removed and a drive from stores put in its place. The dud is then sent back for warranty replacement and the replacement goes into stores.

Or I'd have 4 hour or 24 hour (depending on the criticality of the data) service contract, which would deliver the replacement in a timely manner.

With "only" 64 drives, I'd be damned sure to have a support contract or spare drives to hand.