Re: [DotGNU]Introduction

[Dave Manning]

"Gopal.V" wrote:

>         well, we really lack people comfortable with assembly. But are you
> familiar with the newer x86 assembly (Pentium II,III,IV ?) or just good
> old 16bit 486 stuff ?

I've done a bit of the old 16-bit assembly, but mostly I work with 32-bit 
assembly
under the P4 instruction set.

> > crash most anything without even trying.  "Yes, it appears robust and
> > stable, but is it Dave-proof?"
>         I have heard of fool-proof, anything similar?
>         (sorry couldn't resist the joke)

Hehehe...yeah, something like that.  I've heard it said that making something
fool-proof is impossible, because fools are so damned ingenious.  Maybe it's my 
own
habit of trying to push systems to the breaking point, or ignoring developer
exagerated claims of stability (yes, that is a shot at Microsoft) but it does 
seem
that I can take most any robust piece of software, and through mostly normal 
usage
get wildly unpredictable and usually fairly destructive results.  Partition 
Magic,
a supposedly non-destructive partitioning tool, failed to partition my hdd the 
only
time I used it, but it quite successfully delete my Windows registry.  Windows 
XP?
Yeah, I did something Microsoft never intended for it.  I tried to install a
non-Microsoft certified sound card and driver, then persisted against Window's
claims that the sound card does not exist.

>         But seriously, we need good testers. We can't waste precious 
> programming
> skills on basic testing and the developers almost always fail to see the
> weak points of their programs.

Bring it on.  If it gets a Dave-Safe sticker (probably looks like a guy wearing 
a
big red "D" on his chest who has been crossed out by the international "No" 
circle
and slash) then it is probably stable.

>         If you're ready to learn , that's a *big* step forward. Most career
> programmers believe in "concentrating on your core competency", thanks
> to many magazines and refuse to learn new stuff. But FreeSoftware needs
> the exact opposite :-
>
> "do what you have never done before, and you may learn something new"
>
> Gopal.V

Thanks Gopal.  I have one of my co-workers interning under me for his senior
project who is fond of saying, "But I don't have any idea how to do that."  In
response I keep telling him "If you only do what you know, then how can you ever
learn?"

~Dave