Copyright Protection - HUMOR

[Guest Vorlin]

I was cruising EnGauged's blog, trying to absorb information like a sponge as usual, and I came across post there that is touted as a guide to writing code that is absolutely unmaintainable...... and what is unmaintainable is also about as close to reverse-engineering proof as anyone can ever hope to achieve.After all, if you're the only one who can understand what on earth you were doing with your code, how can anyone else reverse-engineer it and use it? Especially if it's scattered across 25 different xml files and every file does ops on L:Vars for other files, but none of them do the ops on any L:Vars that they themselves display.Oh, that's nothing. Take a peek at a small excerpt from the part of "the guide" on variable naming conventions:*****"Much of the skill in writing unmaintainable code is the art of naming variables and methods. They don't matter at all to the compiler. That gives you huge latitude to use them to befuddle the maintenance programmer. New Uses For Names For BabyBuy a copy of a baby naming book and you'll never be at a loss for variable names. Fred is a wonderful name, and easy to type. If you're looking for easy-to-type variable names, try adsf or aoeu if you type with a DSK keyboard. Single Letter Variable NamesIf you call your variables a, b, c, then it will be impossible to search for instances of them using a simple text editor. Further, nobody will be able to guess what they are for. If anyone even hints at breaking the tradition honoured since F

[n4gix 4,947]

if (doo-wah) { if (diddy-diddy) { if (dum) ( if (diddy-doo) { PlayGaugeSound(bee-bop.wav,,0) ; } } } }else { do_nothing ; break ; }

[mgh 89]

It's not a joke. I had access to the source code of a Fortran compiler which used the names of diseases for variables - cholera, tetanus, influenza to name a few of those I can remember.

[n4gix 4,947]

Here is a humuorous listing of variable types:long int estine;long johns;short int erns;short ribs;unsigned int s_count;unsigned players;unsigned long headcount;unsigned short yesvotes;long long ago;float myBoat;double urPleasure;

[John_Cillis 2,406]

My problem is I'm stuck humming that silly song in my head now....-John

[Guest Vorlin]

Me too... Bill you will pay LOLOn a more serious note:I happened to remember a conversation with someone about trying to protect literally years of hard work from being copied and used and this gave me an idea. But first, a quick question:We know that L:Vars are good across files but what's the risk of an update timing problem if you purposely take all the lines that perform operations on variables out of the files that they're displayed in and scatter the elements across a few files?Breaking things up across files, using find & replace to set all variables to single letters such as L:a,number and then deleting all carriage return / linefeeds... and lastly, rename all files to 1,2,3,4,5, etc....We can't make it impossible for someone to reverse engineer our work, but we can make it so nightmarishly difficult to do so that it's just not worth their time to try.I have 2 people I know that are working on high dollar, proceedural trainers and they are very concerned about being copied. I wonder how practical it would be to scramble the release versions with such techniques while keeping the clear, well written versions locked up for maintenance by the original author.Scott / Vorlin

[n4gix 4,947]

>My problem is I'm stuck humming that silly song in my head>now....>>-JohnWhich one, John?Float, float, float your boat,Down the data stream...?;)

[n4gix 4,947]

>Me too... Bill you will pay LOLI assure you, those were ALL legitimate variable types and names... ;)>On a more serious note:>We know that L:Vars are good across files but what's the risk>of an update timing problem if you purposely take all the>lines that perform operations on variables out of the files>that they're displayed in and scatter the elements across a>few files?All L:variables are really nothing more than pointers to a memory location, so in theory there should be no insurmountable problem to doing something like that. The one potential "hitch in the giddyup" might be in the order of execution of the diverse code segments, where you have the possiblity of a key variable for a calculation not being updated before the calculation, so that you are using "old data" instead of "fresh data...">We can't make it impossible for someone to reverse engineer>our work, but we can make it so nightmarishly difficult to do>so that it's just not worth their time to try.I've used cross-variable polination/protection not only between XML gauges, but combinations of truly protected C gauges and XML gauges.>I have 2 people I know that are working on high dollar,>proceedural trainers and they are very concerned about being>copied.There's no way I'd ever consider releasing something truly "valuable" to the public written in XML, until ACES develops and releases a way to binary encode the XML file...

[Guest Skymed]

WHich made me think of the infamous approach plate for Pease International Tradeport, (the former Pease AFB) In Portsmouth NH, where , if you was Tweety Bird, you could fly the perfect approach.http://www.bobtilden.com/12B00.htmSteve