I've been writing columns for Byte since May 1999. During that time I've covered a wide range of technology issues
In the frame on the left, there are links to indices for each year of the columns, in date order. In the section below, I've arranged the links by technology area (Topic) and date, most recent column first.
You can click on the technology area below and jump right to that topic, or just browse as you want.
"May you live in interesting times" was an ancient Chinese curse. By interesting times, they meant war, revolution, earthquake, famine, or similar class of events. While the year 2000 is not a disaster, for the computer industry it sure is interesting. And one thing that will be destroyed is a lot of preconceptions.
My prior column (April 24, 2000) discussed revolutionary developments in hardware. This column is about evolution in OSes. Like biological evolution, OS development responds to predators and explores new niches in the ecology of computer systems. The phrase, "think of it as evolution in action" comes from Oath of Fealty, a science-fiction novel by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. Jerry is also Byte.com's lead columnist. (Oath of Fealty, published by Pocket Books, ISBN 0-671-82802-9).
Three months ago, I started a series on the revolution and evolution in our computer systems. In April, "Interesting Times Part I" covered the revolutionary changes in hardware this year. In May, Part II discussed the evolutionary changes in operating systems. Part III, wraps up this series with some observations and analysis about the evolution of application suites and the impact of those changes to business and individual users. I also look at the evolution in our environment and predict whether future suites will dominate the market.
We all understand what data is/are. The singular form refers to an android on Star Trek: The Next Generation. The plural form refers to the stuff we put into computers in the hope of getting something useful out. Most companies are hard a work turning data into information. Few even believe there is a next step, yet in my view there are two more: knowledge and wisdom. How do we get there from here?
With all the worry about year 2000 bugs, viruses and e-mail Trojan horses, many small and medium size businesses are working hard to prevent these problems. This is a prudent business step, but systems will fail and people will delete the wrong files despite these precautions. In addition to prevention, let's look at a complementary approach -- make it easy to recover from problems that damage vital files. While this approach is not a panacea, it does provide file recovery in whatever depth you decide to implement.
Digital Libraries (Dlibs) are organized collections of information in digital form that is usually meant for direct viewing. The definition of a Library includes an equivalent of the classic library card index. Items in a card catalog can be found in the index by title, subject or author. Digital Libraries are more complex entities that have exploded from research efforts into popular use because of recent standard developments.
I'm serving up something completely different this month, a popurri of technology items. There are items from a set of updated operating systems to Digital Libraries to a collection of earth images. Here is a brief list:
The terms 'Digital Libraries' and 'Databases' are often used interchangeably, but they are not identical. Digital Libraries usually conform to a Metadata standard such as the Dublin Core. It is sometimes applied to any database that has a browser interface to access the data underneath, regardless of the nature of the storage mechanism.
Digital Libraries are indexed and structured to make searches for relevant information much more effective than current search engines. To do this takes a plethora of standards and cooperation, from XML to DCMI to OAI. Also, some updates about OS/2 software.
After five years without a new release of OS/2, suddenly there are two. Convenience Pack (CP) was released by IBM as an upgrade to Warp V4, including many of the latest Warp Server for e-business components. Another upgrade to OS/2, based on the CP, comes from Serenity Systems as eCommStation (eCS). Serenity Systems has been licensed by IBM to resell OS/2 as a package, including optional Symetric MultiProcessing (SMP) desktop capabilities.
Grid computing, which I have called Meta Computing in previous columns, is a rapidly maturing set of concepts and software. There is now enough software and information on the web to enable almost any group to install and build a custom Grid system.
Teragrid and the Particle Physics Data Grid are for the future. NASA's IPG and SDSC have operational Meta Clusters. What we learn from these projects will change our future.
Today's computers sit on your desk, or in a room in the office building, connected directly to the systems and people they serve. It's a lot like to early days of the industrial revolution, before electric motors. Every shop that needed mechanical power had to have a primary mover such as a water wheel or steam engine at or in the shop, with axles, wheels and pulleys to transfer the power from the primary to where it was used.
In the scientific community, portals bring a common interface to a diversity of hardware and software resources. They simplify the logistics of access and scheduling. The objective of the portal is to provide easy Web access to distributed resources, including software, data storage and computational facilities.
Portals don't simply tie together a random assembly of computers, they address groups of them, called Grids. Grids are coordinated sets of computer resources which may be distributed over geographic areas and across different institutions. To be part of a grid means the systems have a basic set of common functions that support remote access and control.
While the false millennium is less than 50 days away, the era I refer to is the one where Intel has controlled the desktop with a single architecture. From the 8080 to the 8086 to the 386 and beyond, Intel has dominated market and mindshare. What are the tools that Intel used to build this position, and how will they fare after 2000?
Open Source has come of age. No longer does OS fame rely solely on systems software such as Linux, Apache and the BSD Brigade (See BSD Brigade, September 2000). In the last year, Star Office and Open Office have assulted the Microsoft throne of office suites. In the database arena, MySQL, PostgreSQL and several others have proved themselves capable of enterprise level size and performance.
All of these software packages are necessary for independence from Microsoft, but they are not sufficient for full operation of a business, even a small home business. What has been missing are essential tools for security, backup, and business processing. Today, I can comfortably state that open source covers the first two of those needs and the third, business processing, is well under way.
With all the publicity that Windows and Linux get, you may be forgiven for not being aware of a number of other Operating Systems (OS). So in addition to my coverage OS/2 and BSD, there are some other choices that I find interesting and useful alternatives.
Since Windows, Linux and Mac are covered by other Byte writers, my emphasis will be on these alternative OSs.
I'm serving up something completely different this month, a popurri of technology items. There are items from a set of updated operating systems to Digital Libraries to a collection of earth images. Here is a brief list:
Today's computers sit on your desk, or in a room in the office building, connected directly to the systems and people they serve. It's a lot like to early days of the industrial revolution, before electric motors. Every shop that needed mechanical power had to have a primary mover such as a water wheel or steam engine at or in the shop, with axles, wheels and pulleys to transfer the power from the primary to where it was used.
Digital Libraries are indexed and structured to make searches for relevant information much more effective than current search engines. To do this takes a plethora of standards and cooperation, from XML to DCMI to OAI. Also, some updates about OS/2 software.
After five years without a new release of OS/2, suddenly there are two. Convenience Pack (CP) was released by IBM as an upgrade to Warp V4, including many of the latest Warp Server for e-business components. Another upgrade to OS/2, based on the CP, comes from Serenity Systems as eCommStation (eCS). Serenity Systems has been licensed by IBM to resell OS/2 as a package, including optional Symetric MultiProcessing (SMP) desktop capabilities.
This column will introduce you to a classic OS - OpenVMS. Currently at release 7.3, VMS originated with the DEC Vax, a classic machine. the latest OpenVMS, Version 7.3, announced in October 2000, features clustering, data backup and improved disaster tolerance.
BSD, one of the two original variants of Unix, has been reborn without proprietary code into a basketball team of Unix operating systems. Like Linux, BSD follows the Unix philosophy for OS and environment. Unlike Linux, each version has significant differences from the others, following different paths of specialization. The BSD OSs also cover different ranges of processor architectures - from 3 for FreeBSD to more than 30 for NetBSD.
For anyone looking at or using Linux, one of the BSD versions may suit you better. This column gives an overview of the different versions with links for more information. In some cases it may be reasonable to move from a commercial Unix to one of the BSD versions for applications, lower costs or support. And for anyone interested in the state of operating systems, it's worth knowing where BSD fits in.
WarpTech2000 (WT2K) was put on by POSSI, the Phoenix OS/2 Society. This three-day technical conference was held May 26- 28, 2000 at The Wigwam Resort, a five-star resort about 30 miles from Phoenix, Arizona. The conference was memorable for people, atmosphere, and content. A list of the sessions at warptech.org/WTSessions.html gives a picture of the range of topics this ambitious conference covered. From Remote Booting Alien Operating Systems under OS/2 to Connecting Databases to Java Applications, the sessions covered a broad range of technology and how to use it with OS/2.
Linux gets all the press, Microsoft gets all the hate mail, OS/2 gets ignored. But somehow, OS/2 users keep on running this relatively unknown and little respected system. Why? "Success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan." The failure of OS/2 to capture large market share has many causes, but here are the main ones:
I'm serving up something completely different this month, a popurri of technology items. There are items from a set of updated operating systems to Digital Libraries to a collection of earth images. Here is a brief list:
NVO, the National Virtual Observatory, has just received a $10 million NSF grant. While this is not enough for the whole job, it is enough to establish a prototype and prove the concept in real use.
Just how challenging is the NVO? Very. Extremely. Mind boggling complex. NVO will advance both science and technology by significant strides. I say this both as a physicist, with a long interest in space and astronomy, and as an senior IT professional. So what, I hear you say. So what indeed.
Recently for me, earthquakes went from the theoretical to the real. On February 28 at 10:54, I and the rest of the Northwest were treated to a live demo of what a quake really feels like. I found information on the Olympia, WA. event at ANZA Special Events. Scroll down the page to see the recorded waves from that event. The large graph excursions were almost strong enough to knock me off my feet.
BSD, one of the two original variants of Unix, has been reborn without proprietary code into a basketball team of Unix operating systems. Like Linux, BSD follows the Unix philosophy for OS and environment. Unlike Linux, each version has significant differences from the others, following different paths of specialization. The BSD OSs also cover different ranges of processor architectures - from 3 for FreeBSD to more than 30 for NetBSD.
For anyone looking at or using Linux, one of the BSD versions may suit you better. This column gives an overview of the different versions with links for more information. In some cases it may be reasonable to move from a commercial Unix to one of the BSD versions for applications, lower costs or support. And for anyone interested in the state of operating systems, it's worth knowing where BSD fits in.
Open Source has come of age. No longer does OS fame rely solely on systems software such as Linux, Apache and the BSD Brigade (See BSD Brigade, September 2000). In the last year, Star Office and Open Office have assulted the Microsoft throne of office suites. In the database arena, MySQL, PostgreSQL and several others have proved themselves capable of enterprise level size and performance.
All of these software packages are necessary for independence from Microsoft, but they are not sufficient for full operation of a business, even a small home business. What has been missing are essential tools for security, backup, and business processing. Today, I can comfortably state that open source covers the first two of those needs and the third, business processing, is well under way.
I've been writing about meta class systems for some time now. Meta is often used as a prefix to other words, such as metadata, which means higher level data, or data about data. Analogously, metatools are tools which control tools. This hierarchy may be extended beyond two levels. Meta Tools (MT) are tools that enable use and control of resources. This implies that a MT is logically a higher level function than the resources themselves.
In this column, I use Meta Tools to define a class of tools that enable the use of complex distributed resources. These individual resources may themselves be complex entities that use a different set of tools to control its own components.
Despite several generations of rapid hardware advances since the 1960s, software has barely ambled through one generation. The classic description that the "Cobbler's children have no shoes" can be applied directly to programmers.
One paradoxical aspect of computers and software is that the process of writing software, -- the price/performance of programmers, if you will -- has gained much less in productivity, compared to the evolution of computers and hardware themselves. Last month, in Part I, I talked about why programmers' productivity has evolved much slower than hardware. Now, let's continue this examination and explore some ways to significantly improve matters.
Note: This is a column I added after the original four part series was published on Byte.com. The original four now comprise parts two through five in this series.
Many of the early projects I have been involved in had problems at delivery. Over the last twenty years of my career, I have developed a set of techniques to address those problems, keying on the hidden variable that is the primary cause of failures - Communications.
Building software is analogous to building a house: It starts with determining what the customer can afford (budget), wants (requirements) and proceeds to details (specification) and then to construction (design & implementation). After the building is done, it is inspected (quality assurance) and any problems (bugs) are fixed. Finally it is delivered - late and over budget happen here too, for much the same reasons as software projects.
The problem you face in writing specifications is that it doesn't seem to have an obvious payoff. It is easy to write up something that covers the ground but misses important points. The information below examines the eight points of specification and gives background for how and why they should be entered.
You've no doubt seen the phrase "Quality cannot be tested in". Bugs can be eradicated, but the essence of quality is knowing what you are doing every step of the way, and communicating information in a clear and unambiguous way.
In part one, I talked about how supercomputers handle data, networking, I/O and very large databases, and introduced the Grid concept. In Part two, I will look at special applications of supercomputers and how they will affect our future.
After looking at a traditional supercomputer application done in an untraditional way, I'll be exploring factors limiting performance in commodity cluster computers. These clusters, because of their ease of assembly and low cost, promise to be a major part of future computer environments.
The recent Supercomputing 2000 show highlighted everything from very-high-end networking to super displays for data, and the new approach to distributed computing - Information Grids.
SC2000, the eleventh annual exposition of supercomputing technology, infrastructure and applications, held November 4 through 10 in the Dallas Convention Center, set new conference records for both computer and network performance. The scientific network is described here and includes a useful diagram.
This column will introduce you to a classic OS - OpenVMS. Currently at release 7.3, VMS originated with the DEC Vax, a classic machine. the latest OpenVMS, Version 7.3, announced in October 2000, features clustering, data backup and improved disaster tolerance.
One of the fun parts of spelunking around supercomputer sites is the discovery of new information or technology. This time around I started at The Cornell Theory Center and examined the various projects, eventually linking to Los Alamos National Labs (LANL), near the recent fire in New Mexico.
Since May 1999, my column here in Byte.com has been titled "Utility Infielder. The name, taken from baseball's term for somebody who can play most positions, gave me wide latitude (and longitude) to write about subjects that didn't fit into other columns in Byte.com. Regular readers of Utility Infielder at Byte.com know I've written about OS/2, and some on other operating systems and OS-level issues. My column has also included everything from protecting aginst viruses and Year 2000 to "why is it hard to improve programmer productivity?" It was a challenge, and fun too, always something new coming around the corner. I enjoyed it, but of late had wondered about writing to a more specific focus.
This is a link to a section of the Computational Science column that introduces a major new approach to doing science.
"Computers make scientific discoveries happen faster"
The cliche scientist is often seen as a white coated, bad hair day man who absently wanders around a university campus making obscure chalk marks on any convenient blackboard. This cliche has been hammered home by TV and movies until recently. Films like "A Brilliant Mind" have broken that mold, and all to our benefit.
What scientists do is conceptually simple - it is the details of how it is done that make the process appear complex. For a simple explanation of what the scientific method is, see "The Scientific Method" at the end of this column.
In addition to a specific method, scientists are usually masters of mathematics for theory and of numbers for experiments. This is best explained by a quote from Lord Kelvin (Sir William Thomson), 1824-1907, British Physicist:
"When you can measure what you are speaking about and express it in numbers, you know something about it."