Take the "IT myths" challenge!
Probably each of you has heard plenty of misconceptions and myths surrounding the IT world. For example, the idea that incognito mode makes you anonymous is rooted in many people’s minds as fact or that Macs don’t get viruses also circulating on the internet as the truth, etc.
In the spirit of busting different IT tales, let’s share the most common IT myths and shed light on the truth!
We are curious to know the most absurd, funniest conspiracies or myths you heard about the IT industry, different technologies, or maybe even the programming profession. Maybe for someone else, your example will serve as a great discovery.
Everyone who shares at least one IT myth will receive 100 reputation points and the fame of the bearer of truth!
As for my job, the most common misunderstanding is that community management is all about social media...
So: no, it has nothing to do with social media ;-) It's all about growing the community of Dynatrace users and providing a space where they can ask questions, share knowledge, submit product ideas, and have access to 24/7 self-service support! :-)
Let me start that first.
So... Have you ever heard that Java is not the same as JavaScript?
Due to the coincidence of names and the partially similar usage of these two programming languages, many people regularly mistake one for the other, using these names interchangeably. So what’s the difference?
Paradoxically, Java and JavaScript have a lot in common, and a lot is completely different! JavaScript (originally EcmaScript) was developed at the end of the 1990s by Netscape, the web browser-makers. Java, on the other hand, was made by Sun Microsystems in 1995. In 2010, that company was bought by Oracle and since then, the language has been developed by this corporation.
The most important differences (for non-programmers):
- Java applications can run in any virtual machine (JVM) or browser. JavaScript code used to run only in browser, but now it can run on server via Node.js.
- Java code must be compiled, and JavaScript code is all-text.
- Java is a programming language, JavaScript is a scripting language
PS A joke is that Java is to Javascript as cat to catwalk ;]
These are some of the best I remember:
- Around 1990, one MD fried of mine asked me how come viruses can reproduce in computer? Not a coronavirus at the time, but I had to explain that a computer virus was not a biological virus...
- For programmers, I normally ask if they know that one of the best string search algorithms involves searching from the end of the string backwards? The Boyer-Moore string search algorithm... more than 40 years old...
- Since I work in security also, this is a tales gold mine. One of my best ones there is when I managed to transfer negative sums of money across a Bank. Or buying half a TV, well a whole TV for half the price, which I did live in a training session in Madrid, Spain.
- I once managed to convince a telecom's engineer that cables wrapped in a physical loop would provoke a bounce in the bits. With convenient timing and a magician trick, I unraveled the loop and the network speed improved 10 fold in real time. I never laughed so much in my life, after explaining that the looping cable had the bits bouncing around, and that once the cables were cleanly alligned, that they started moving freely along ;-)
- For all the Java & Javascript experts, my favorite one is that: .1+.2!=.3
- Of course, you can't get enough idiocracy out of IT systems if you haven't read comp.risks. Started reading it in 1992, and you get thousands of stupid stories of IT failures. Beware, if you read the following link, you will probably not do anything reasonable in the next few years. You have been warned ;-) https://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/
Myth: We need no stinking Sales. They just mess up with our beautiful code.
Truth: Coding is less usually less than 20% of all activities within a project. Sales part being the most important of it all as it runs throughout the whole project duration.
Myth: Code works fine on my machine so we do not need spend time running integration and load tests. It can go straight to production.
Truth: There are hundreds of reasons why something that works on your machine might not work on UAT, pre-production and production environments. We need to validate if the delivery works before as a whole before putting it in production.
I dealt with these issues in the past. At the time, arround 1997, I would downgrade the network speed on the switches of developers so that they could have the experience of our worst users. Those users were located in Azores, in the middle of the Atlantic, with 64kbps and 450ms latency. The developers couldn't understand how there programs were so slow but I would explain that those of the Azores users were similar. I even would time how much time the Azores users would say a certain function would take, and to my amusement, the developers would have a similar experience. Overall, programs got much better for all :-)
"Plugging your phone in every night will kill the battery”
This may have been good advice back in the days of nickel-cadmium batteries, but modern lithium-ion and lithium-polymer batteries don’t suffer any harm from being left charging for long periods. In fact, Li-ion batteries last longest when you keep them between 40% and 80% charged. Also, if you let Li-ion batteries discharge completely for too long, they can be permanently damaged or become dangerous, so you are better keeping them plugged in than letting them drain completely.
But Li-ions do have one polarizing challenge: The batteries have a built-in sensor that tells your gadget how much electricity is left in the battery and, over time, that stops matching up with the battery’s actual charge. To reset it, you have to charge the Li-ion battery to full, let it run down to the point where your gadget gives you a serious battery warning and then charge it back up to full again. However, this only needs to be done every three months or so and for some gadgets, you might not need to do it at all.
Apple used to recommend this process but now says it’s no longer needed. Check your gadget’s manual to see if it has any specific directions.
Good one! I remember 10 years ago I put my laptop battery to a freezer to retain it's power and capacity for the time I haven't used it for long time - I used unmount the battery and connect laptop with a cord! :D
