Pinderkent

Today I was reading through an article about the many problems associated with Flash. Although it is entitled "Flash Sucks," the article is well-written, and makes many good points that a lot of Web developers fail to consider. Among the issues covered, the usability and accessibility problems often observed with Flash-based Web sites are mentioned. The proprietary nature of Flash and related technologies is also addressed. So overall, it sensibly addressed some serious issues with a fairly popular technology that is poised for further growth.

As with many blog entries, there is a comment section at the end. And in there I noticed one comment in particular that follows a certain trend I have observed. This trend involves accusations of bias when the flaws of a particular technology are pointed out. This is something I wrote about fairly recently, after I was accused of having a "bias" against Windows and .NET because I recounted a failed software system transition using those technologies.

All technology is flawed. Some technology is flawed more than others. Some technology is inherently flawed, to the point where salvage is not a viable option. So somebody pointing out such problems, be it in a blog post or in a meeting or at a conference, does not indicate "bias" on their behalf. What it indicates is that somebody has observed a problem with the technology in question, and ideally this problem is to be resolved. Tossing around accusations of "bias" does nothing to fix such technological problems.

At far too many companies I have witnessed the effects of homogenized enterprise-grade networks. While many claim that it's easier to support such networks, I often find that difficult to believe. The benefit brought on by the widespread similarity is often overshadowed by the severe negative consequences when things go wrong.

In the past, I have seen failed automatic updates take down entire offices for a day or more, leaving several hundred people idle. That is a complete disaster for most businesses! Such a scenario can happen when the administrators test on one system that is fairly similar to what the other users are using, but some slight difference in the configuration causes the problem to go undetected. Soon enough, the update is rolled out to everyone else, and the major problems begin.

Another major problem with such a setup is that of the security. A security flaw can simultaneously affect hundreds of systems. Depending on which software is affected, and the spread of its deployment, things can get pretty hectic. ZDNet has an article about a flaw in Java that may be extremely widespread. It will be very interesting to see how this situation develops, considering how Java is used at both the enterprise extreme of computing, as well as on mobile devices.

Now, we must remember that enterprise-grade computing consists of effectively making a number of tradeoffs. It's a matter of balancing usability, cost, security, maintainability and a whole host of other factors. But we must never allow ourselves to fall into the fallacy of thinking that uniformity will solve many of those problems.

So in my experience, I have noticed that companies with a fairly wide range of computing platforms tend to be the best off. They have just enough variety to segregate their network in a way that limits problems affecting one piece of software or hardware. But likewise, they don't have so much variety that it becomes difficult to manage.

One company in particular had what I'd consider a very sensible setup. Their backend database, mail, web, etc., servers ran Solaris and HP-UX. They used PCs running a variety of Linux distributions throughout the rest of their office, as a frontend to the Sun and HP hardware. The similarity in concept between HP-UX, Solaris and Linux, but the difference in implementation, proved very helpful. The administrators of the Linux systems were quite easily able to comprehend what the HP-UX and Solaris admins were dealing with, and vice versa. But a security problem affecting Solaris usually wouldn't hinder the other systems.

They kept the variability reasonable. They were able to effectively track security advisories for the different software they were using. Their use of high-quality, high-reliability systems further made their lives easier, and also more productive. In short, it was a setup that did a very good job of maximizing the benefits of similarity with the benefits of diversity. And we tend to only find this with UNIX-style systems, which tend to share similar concepts, but differ enough in implementation.

Over at Slashdot, it's pretty common for people to comment on a story without having actually looked at any of the pages the story summary links to, let alone read the summary itself. Now I'm not overly familiar with Digg, but I do hear an awful lot about that site. A few of my articles have been submitted there. In any case, I was wondering, do the people at Digg, in general, tend to read the articles they are digging or burying? Or do they blindly dig and bury based on the article title and summary?

While I tend to use systems like NetBSD and Solaris, I do try to keep up with developments within the Linux community. As we are all aware, Ubuntu is one of the major distributions, and it gets a lot of media attention. But one thing I find confusing is their practice of naming releases.

See this list of past Ubuntu releases, for instance. You'll see that Ubuntu 6.10 was named "Edgy Eft". Ubuntu 5.04 was named "Hoary Hedgehog". The next version of Ubuntu is named "Feisty Fawn".

It matters little to me that they attach such names to their releases. What I find bothersome, however, is that people begin to refer to the versions by those names, rather than by the version number. The Ubuntu method of numbering versions is quite useful, too. It clearly shows the year of the release, as well as the month. For example, Ubuntu 5.04 was released in April of 2005, while Ubuntu 6.06 was released in June of 2006. The major version number is the last digit of the year in which it was released, and minor version number is the month.

With that numbering scheme, we see a clear time-based progression of the versions. We know that Ubuntu 5.10 was released six months after Ubuntu 5.04, and thus likely contains fixes and other notable improvements. But unless we know the mapping to version numbers, it's impossible to get that information when comparing the names "Breezy Badger" and "Hoary Hedgehog". I'd imagine some people have time to sit there and memorize all of the names. But for those of us with little time on our hands, we need the clarity and conciseness of version numbers.

Personally, I would like to see Ubuntu drop the practice of using release names. It makes it difficult to track which release somebody is actually talking about, since many people tend not to give the corresponding version number.

I know Digg is becoming a pretty popular web site. Links to several of my articles were submitted there recently, so I went to take a look around, but I didn't bother joining. In many ways, I find it is a site full of contradiction.

On one hand, the attitude seems to be that it's up to the general public to decide which stories are interesting, and which are not. The community is further used to help limit duplicate stories and spam stories from making the front page of the site. Anyone can apparently submit submissions, and immediately have them show up, as opposed to a site like Slashdot where stories only appear after an editor has accepted them. Digg is an interesting concept.

But then we have other aspects of the site that appear to contradict the openness and community spirit. For instance, it's shown who "dugg" a story. That is, for each story there's a list of users who support it that can be viewed. But there is no such list for users who disliked a story, and chose to "bury" it. This is an issue I wrote an article about recently. It was suggested that this was the policy to prevent retribution. But my feeling is this: why can't the problem of possible retribution be addressed by the community itself?

I was confused further when today I read an article about Digg removing its list of top users. Apparently, this was done in an attempt to "fight spam and gaming of their system". I find this confusing, however. My understanding is that stories can only make it to the front page if enough of the people at the site choose to "digg" them. That is, if a story makes it to the front page, it's because enough of the user community does like it, and finds some interest in it.

I don't see how getting rid of the top users list has any benefit. If these stories that are deemed "spam" or are submitted in a way that "games the system" end up making the front page, it's because of many users at the site want the story there. I suppose it doesn't matter why the people "digg" the stories that they do. If it was because the story looks interesting, so be it. If it's because the story's submitter has a good reputation or is popular, so be it.

Digg seems to strive for the utmost community involvement in the judging of stories. But then they take actions that seem to minimize the community involvement, such as keeping "buries" anonymous and trying to influence which stories readers "digg". So I'm confused: is or is not Digg about maximizing the community involvement?