The first priority needs to be to make it easy and obvious to do the right thing.
Trying to make rules to forbid doing something insecure isn't helpful at all. If I need to do something and the only way I know how is the unsafe way, there's a big risk I'll pick that way.
Unfortunately, it seems that security work is often just about trying to stop people from doing things, not helping them to do it the right way.
Nice link from Casey there. I was captured by his analysis of perchlorates in the soil, because you can decompose it to release oxygen, as well as obviously make another type of rocket fuel (on top of other local products like methane, oxygen, and hydrogen).
This isn't strictly related but in the section on tensile structures the author mentioned the Goodyear Inflatoplane[1], which is one of the craziest things I'd never heard of.
I had one and it was great! The reason: You could do a lot of the necessary things with a phone, like:
* Making calls
* Sending text messages
* Set an alarm/timer
* Take a photo
You could also do a lot of the less necessary things like:
* surfing/facebook/reddit, through the web browser.
* playing (some) games
But, those less necessary things were just a _little_ too much effort to be worth it. Surfing was a bit cumbersome and I didn't have that many apps on it.
I found myself using the phone less for unnecessary things and just as a tool to actually do things I needed.
I loved it for that. If they sold decent phones still, I might probably buy another. Now I'm back to android and use the phone for more unneccessary things again.
Yeah, I'm going to go ahead and call BS on that too.
Here's the info about standby time you can find for iPhone6:"
"Up to 16 days (384 hours)"
I'm interested in knowing if anyone even got half of that. And if you actually start using your phone it'd go down a lot more (which you probably would want to, since you know... you bought it to have as a phone)
"If you think about it, Android's problems with open source allowing manufacturers to have their own flavours of Android..."
One is not really dependent on the other. You could use open source and not allow modifications or you could use closed source software and allow endless customization.
I also don't consider it an "android problem" that manufacturers do this. Most of the good stuff ends up in standard android after a while, which wouldn't have happened if no one was allowed to make the changes in the first place.
> One is not really dependent on the other. You could use open source and not allow modifications or you could use closed source software and allow endless customization.
Good point.
> Most of the good stuff ends up in standard android after a while, which wouldn't have happened if no one was allowed to make the changes in the first place.
This was mainly due to Google pushing more stuff through Play Services. It would be nice if there was some more control/constraints on Linux flavours.
"I know it is cross platform, but the focus of the eco-system in very much on Windows."
There's a funny thing about its cross-platform nature: You almost never see C# apps on other platforms. Why is that? There must be thousands of useful C#/.Net applications made that other platforms could benefit from, but the ONLY ones I've seen are the ones that targeted Mono to begin with. Nothing else.
> There's a funny thing about its cross-platform nature: You almost never see C# apps on other platforms. Why is that? There must be thousands of useful C#/.Net applications made that other platforms could benefit from
I'm not sure that that's actually the case. C# has never caught on in a big way for consumer desktop development; the bulk of that still seems to be C++ and Win32/Win32 wrapper. It's used for _enterprise_ desktop development, of course, but people are less excited about porting that.
I think its simple. Unless the person is interested in Mono they don't develop for it and don't have any interest in supporting it.
Many people use C# to develop applications for Windows and don't, won't or can't support other environments....
And while there are thousand of useful C# programs I doubt many don't have direct python / Linux competitors readily available that do near enough the same thing.
a) I can't imagine somebody bothering to support .net software on the Linux desktop without being paid for it. I know those guys[1] are a minority, but it takes only a minority to create an absolutely toxic atmosphere. Maintaining a end user product can lead to frustrating interactions, and it doesn't really help if your choice of technology means that there exists a significant number of people who literally want you, your spouse, your three year old daughter and the family dog to die in a fucking fire.
b) Mono was always a bad choice for asp.net, which means that the software people are actually paid for doesn't run well on Linux. That was mostly a problem outside of xamarins control, and I hope it becomes better not that the devdiv MS seems to be somewhat committed to work together to make it truly interoperable.
"I think its simple. Unless the person is interested in Mono they don't develop for it and don't have any interest in supporting it."
But why wouldn't someone who IS interested in running the application on Linux simply do the last bits to get it to other platforms? I have NEVER seen that happen.
"And while there are thousand of useful C# programs I doubt many don't have direct python / Linux competitors readily available that do near enough the same thing."
Sure, but I refuse to believe all the competitors are always doing a better job. There should be at least some application that found their way over to for example Linux.
I've been kind of avoiding mobile development after getting my fingers slightly singed by spending too much time with jQuery Mobile before giving up - the one thing that tempts me to try doing some mobile development is the Xamarin tool set.
"What I find issue with is that people will completely dislike a solution for the brand alone. I've seen this for years when I've suggested/supported Mono in Linux."
To be fair, Mono never delivered on its promises. There must be tonnes of .Net applications that Linux users would have been thrilled to get on their platform. Yet the only ones I have seen running on Mono were the ones that were specifically targeting Mono, not ones that were running on windows and just happened to find their way to Linux.
So, either most .Net applications are crap that no one really cares about or they were tied to the windows platform.
Of course, it could just be blind, unmotivated hatred, but that's not how I've perceived it.
IMHO Mono offers nicer constructs for a higher level runtime that can utilize lower level system libraries with less friction. Compared to Java+JNI, C# is a dream.
Most of the applications that don't work tend to either utilize windows specific features, or use components that do likewise. With XAML, the fate is somewhat sealed in terms of cross-platform applications.
ASP.Net apps tend to run with little/minor modification, however are usually written towards MS-SQL server, so they are tethered there. You're right that most cross-platform Mono apps are written as such.
Personally, I don't care if a Mono app doesn't run in Windows, or ties to libraries that aren't or are difficult to bundle for windows. I still really like C# as a language, and prefer Mono to a lot of alternative higher level systems.
That said, if Node gets some good UI integration for Gnome, all bets are off imho. I really love node.js + npm, and if I can write desktop UI with it, that will be what I use for just about everything. (There are a few libraries/bindings, but most are incomplete, and some are tethered to a browser-based UI, which I don't mind too much, but are forks from node proper)
I don't think anyone is arguing that if Microsoft blinked out of existence, no one would be inconvenienced.
What a lot of people ARE saying is that "if not Microsoft, someone else."
If Microsoft never bought the software that eventually turned out to be Office, someone else would have provided a solution. If Microsoft hadn't bought (and resold) QDOS, someone else would have provided an operating system for IBM, and people who make chairs wouldn't have seen a big difference today.
The first priority needs to be to make it easy and obvious to do the right thing.
Trying to make rules to forbid doing something insecure isn't helpful at all. If I need to do something and the only way I know how is the unsafe way, there's a big risk I'll pick that way. Unfortunately, it seems that security work is often just about trying to stop people from doing things, not helping them to do it the right way.