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Welcome to mini-LWN

Here at LWN, we normally try to follow through on our promises to our readers, but we thought you would forgive an exception. Rather than skip the weekly edition entirely this week, we decided to put out a reduced version so that we don't get entirely buried as the news piles up.

Here's a status update: much of the last week has been taken up by a new and unforeseen event: our credit card clearing house decided that all those donations you folks have been so generously sending our way might be fraudulent, so they seized all of our credit card receipts, including those for advertising. They went so far as to yank some funds back out of our checking account. Need we say that we didn't need this?

The situation, as of this writing, is unresolved, though it looks like we may be heading towards a solution. Meanwhile, we are cut off from cash (other than from PayPal, a small piece of our income stream), spending time with lawyers, and generally not doing much that is actually useful for LWN or its readers. We also need to shop for a new credit card clearing company.

So it may take us a little longer than expected to get our subscription system in place - and to be able to actually charge for subscriptions. We're still working on it, stay tuned.

(Lest there be any misunderstanding: it should be said that we have absolutely no complaint with our credit card processing company. TrustCommerce operates a solid, Linux-friendly credit card gateway, and has always been very supportive of LWN.)

Comments (6 posted)

Edsger W. Dijkstra

Let us pause a moment to remember Edsger W. Dijkstra, who passed away on August 7. Mr. Dijkstra was the source of much wisdom in Computer Science, and we are all in his debt. Much of what we now take for granted (i.e. the semaphores in the Linux kernel) is rooted in his work. He is one of our founding fathers.

For a number of years I have been familiar with the observation that the quality of programmers is a decreasing function of the density of go to statements in the programs they produce.

--Go To Statement Considered Harmful, CACM, March 1968.

Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability.

The use of anthropomorphic terminology when dealing with computing systems is a symptom of professional immaturity.

The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offence.

--How do we tell truths that might hurt?, June 1975.

Today a usual technique is to make a program and then to test it. But: program testing can be a very effective way to show the presence of bugs, but it is hopelessly inadequate for showing their absence.

The competent programmer is fully aware of the strictly lmited size of his own skull; therefore he approaches the programming task in full humility, and among other things he avoids clever tricks like the plague.

-- The Humble Programmer

The Humble Programmer was Dijkstra's 1972 Turing Award lecture; it can be obtained as a difficult to read PDF file.

In the end, Dijkstra valued simplicity as the key to program reliability. One might hope that he would have found things to admire (along with things to criticize) in the free software world and its accomplishments.

Comments (1 posted)

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