Enterprise file systems
This discussion on file systems and this one on virtual memory are good starts. See also the extent-like UFS paper and this.
Transaction costs are good: software patent debate continues
Don Marti is asking the wrong question when he writes:
The question is where you draw the line of what is or isn’t patent infringement. If Victor invents something, and I describe it in prose, I’m not infringing. If he invents something and I build it as hardware, I am. But if I do something [...]
Enterprise operating systems
Can anyone name a single feature of “enterprise†operating systems available today that was not already working in VMS or Solaris or SGI’s system 10 or more years ago?
Multi-processor support – practically prehistoric. Here’s a wise observation: â€Since the speed of light, the physical sizes of computer components, and the speeds of [...]
Software patents are so different from circuit patents (really!)
Updated (and again, and even again – below)
It should also be recognized that circuit arrangements are typically designed and fabricated at least in part using one or more computer data files, referred to herein as hardware definition programs, that define the layout of the circuit arrangements on integrated circuit devices. The programs are typically generated [...]
Low wage programming
Greenspan did put forward a proposal on how to reduce the growing inequality of incomes in the United States — admit more skilled immigrants into the country.
The former Fed chief said that increasing the number of immigrants with sought-after skills would increase the labor supply of these workers in the United States and hold down [...]
Watering down computer science, Java, and feminism
This old note by Spolsky explains why the shift to java-only in computer science classes is harmful and reminds me of two events in my old career as an academic. One was when a student came by my office to explain to me, in the most condescending manner, how the linked-list exercise I had given [...]