Peter Coffee

The proverbial “Zero-One-Infinity Rule,” one of the tenets of hacker lore, says that any element of an IT architecture should “Allow none of foo, one of foo, or any number of foo.” Any other restriction or limitation smacks of favoring the convenience of an implementer over the needs or expectations of the user. This rule […]

The label of “computer literacy” isnt useful for much besides inducing taxpayers to spend too much on irrelevant classroom technology. It can be used to describe a working knowledge of the generic menu-driven interface of file and edit menus, as well as associated concepts such as files and directories. It can equally be applied, though, […]

The Internet is progressing toward “a future of control in large part exercised by technologies of commerce, backed by the rule of law.” So wrote Lawrence Lessig in 1999, adding: “The challenge of our generation is to reconcile these two forces.” Seven years later, that future is now. The prospect of content-based pricing of Internet […]

With all due respect to the righteous indignation of my colleague Larry Seltzer, I can see a number of issues that one might take with his vehement condemnation of security researcher Michal Zalewski and his disclosure of a possible vulnerability in Internet Explorer. Ill start by agreeing with Larry that Zalewski misuses the label of […]

When people used to call the Internet an information superhighway, they emphasized its openness to all and its ability to connect anything to anything. Many who used the expression had an agenda of ensuring universal info-highway access, and this has been largely accomplished in developed nations like the United States. At some point, though, the […]

Were past the stage of ITs evolution where people come to a computer in the manner that they pick up a power tool, having a specific task in mind and probably some training in how to do it. The fastest-growing model of computing today, with no end to the trend in sight, is one of […]

This year marks the 23rd anniversary of software developer Ed Posts famous essay, “Real Programmers Dont Use Pascal.” Its a tongue-in-cheek testament to the exceptional abilities and anti-management habits of the world-class coder. Microsofts VSTS (Visual Studio Team System), which is now complete with the March release of TFS (Team Foundation Server), might have been […]

As much as eWEEK Labs admires what Microsoft has accomplished with its Visual Studio Team System, were also interested in the different approach to a well-tooled developer governance environment thats offered by Version-One, whose V1: Agile Enterprise product becomes available April 18. Accessed through a Web browser interface and available either as a hosted service […]

Dual-core processors are proliferating through PC product lines, including newly Windows-capable Macintosh systems. April has also seen the open-source release of Sun Microsystems SPARC T1 processor design, with up to four threads running on each of up to eight cores. Challenges that were once in the domain of supercomputing now present themselves to enterprise architects: […]

Enterprise application developers are under growing pressure to deliver innovative work—and to do so under growing regulatory scrutiny, in an environment of volatile technology. Under these harried circumstances, developers can be pardoned for thinking “governance” is a code word for pointy-haired managers from the “Dilbert” zone looking over their shoulders and asking, “Why dont you […]