Dr. Dobb's Journal June 2003
Computer-science students at Warsaw University won $10,000 in the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest, defeating 3850 other teams drawn from 1329 universities in 68 countries. The finals pitted 70 teams against each other in a race to solve a set of 10 programming problems (http://icpc.baylor.edu/icpc/Finals/Problems.html). Competitors were given an example of test data, but did not get to see the judges' test data and acceptance criteria; and teams were penalized for submitting incorrect solutions by taking a time penalty for each one. The Warsaw University team managed to solve nine of the 10 problems in a five-hour time slot; the Moscow State University team solved eight problems, and all other competitors turned in seven or less acceptable solutions.
Sponsored by IBM, the ACM competition also included a Linux-specific "Scholar Challenge." Entries consisted of original Linux applications, and the competition offered a 16-node IBM xSeries cluster (running Linux) to the school with the highest average rating of submissions. All in all, 2871 applications were received from 646 universities in 68 countries, but in the end, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) scored the prize. The first 20 individual winners were also awarded laptops; the top honor was carried by IIT's Neeraj Kumar for his "WISECAM" wireless video sensor application.
The World Wide Web turned 10 this year, at least if you count the Mosaic browser's first release as the true birth of the global Web. While DARPANet originated in 1969, and HTTP began development in 1989, the Internet's first wave of explosive growth was triggered by the availability of an easy-to-use graphical browser—Mosaic. The 1.0 version of NCSA Mosaic was released on April 21, 1993. As Colin Davis pointed out on Slashdot.org, the original version of the browser already featured a URL bar, "Forward," "Back," "Home," and "Reload" navigation buttons, a list of bookmarks, and a search bar.
Microsoft has warned that the mixed-mode assembly feature in Visual C++ .NET (used to combine native and managed C++ code in one DLL assembly) can sometimes cause application deadlock (http://msdn.microsoft.com/visualc/techinfo/ articles/loaderlock/default.asp). The bug affects Visual C++ .NET 2002 and the forthcoming Visual C++.NET 2003. In the Common Language Runtime, it's important that no external APIs, threads, or DLLs be launched during the DLLMain initialization. However, mixed-mode C++ applications may have a hidden DLLMain, triggering a deadlock. Since the bug isn't considered a security problem, doesn't affect C# or VB developers, and no fix is expected in the immediate future.
The Bugzilla maintainers have written a guide to good manners in bug reporting (available at http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=etiquette.html). Comments, they say, are the most important area of bug reports: Comments should be to-the-point, and avoid a threatening or remonstrating tone. In Bugzilla specifically, the Priority or Target Milestone fields should only be changed by the individuals responsible for fixing the bug. And lastly, duplicates of INVALID or WONTFIX bugs should not be filed, and comments should not be added to such bugs unless new information has come to light.
"Ignore this advice at your peril," say the Bugzilla maintainers. "If committed enough times, [these breaches of etiquette] will cause those contributors to demand the disabling of your Bugzilla account."
Or, as they say, you may be asked to "bug off."
Expressing concern that "foreign Standards and technical regulation issues are becoming...the greatest challenges to expanding exports," the U.S. Department of Commerce has launched an initiative designed to weaken the effectiveness of international Standards (http://www .commerce.gov/opa/press/2003_Releases/ March/19_Evans_Standards_release.htm). The eight-point initiative involves keeping on top of Standards developments through regular reports from the National Institute of Standards and Technology; keeping a database of best practices for fighting Standards initiatives that impede access to foreign markets; increasing the training of U.S. Standards liaisons in foreign countries; developing an outreach program for overseas markets; and working more closely with industry and other branches of government.