Conform Software Portions: Fill & Download for Free

They are both used in more complex code than a novice would normally encounter or be expected to write.Static is used for symbol hiding, and in inline functions in compilation units and header files.Static automatically scopes a function to the compilation unit, without polluting the larger symbol namespace.Most compilers will automatically inline any static function which fits within the optimizer peephole, which can be quite large in modern compilers.Volatile is used for variables and data which may get changed outside the scope of your current thread of control.These are typically interrupt handlers — meaning you know how to write device drivers.Or they are trap routines — which means that you know how to write protected mode software in a kernel context, where you trap from ring 3 to ring 0 to handle things like page faults from a page-not-present or a protection mode violation on a page, or a math error or an ECC fault in ECC RAM.Or they are variables or data which are changed in either a signal handler, an asynchronous system trap (such as a completion routine), or a multithreaded context, in order to communicate information or context between threads.In other words, they are a pretty good litmus test to tell the difference between a more senior engineer, and a novice or junior engineer.If you can answer the question of when they are used, then we switch to more senior engineer questions, such as what’s the difference between locking code and locking data structures, and why and when would you use one vs. the other?We might also go into why you would establish a recursive page table entry, and whether you would use three level or two level page tables, or why, on a Power Architecture chip, which has only partial page support, why you might implement the software portion with skiplists, etc..Or what are the pros and cons of dividing an interrupt routine into a bottom half that runs at interrupt context, and a top half that runs in an interrupt thread, and why you would or wouldn’t do that, and should you delay acknowledgement of the interrupt until the top half completes, or should you acknowledge the hardware interrupt in the bottom half, more or less immediately.Those answers are a pretty good litmus test to tell the difference between a senior engineer, and an OS engineer you’d trust to work on a kernel, like Linux, or on an embedded system, like a cell phone.

The pros and cons depend on how your strengths match up with your responsibilities. I was prepared for the accounting piece, OK with the financial responsibilities, almost competent enough to oversee the software portion of IT, not so good for the hardware portion, fair at facilities management and woefully lacking in directing human resources. These functions to varying degrees were in my bailiwick. Much depends on your staff and how well you're able to play bandleader. The size of the company will dictate the complexity of each piece as well as the distance from you to where the work needs to be done.

Perhaps nitpicky, but here's my list of Pros and Cons.Pros:The license is permissive. This means that you have lots of permission and few restrictions. You have permission to use the code, to modify it, publish it, sell it, make something with it and sell it, etc. You have very few restrictions -- basically you cannot remove the license and copyright text from the code when you share it. This is easy when you share this in source code -- just don't delete the text. The other pro is that the license is very short relative to other open source licenses.Cons:The only real con with this license is that the term "Software" is not always understood consistently in all jurisdiction. I was told (I'm not a lawyer and I don't know if this is the case), that German software laws require certain documentation to be provided with software, thus there is a difference between something that is "code" and something that is "software" -- I'd love to know if this is correct. Anyway, this is contrasted with the BSD license (which is highly similar to the MIT license) which is just a bit more explicit by saying "Redistributions of source code..." and "Redistributions in binary form..."So what happens when you use MIT licensed code and compile it into a binary? Do you have to give credit? I think you do. See: Gil Yehuda's answer to Does the MIT license require attribution in a binary only distribution?Here's the text of the license.The MIT License (MIT)Copyright (c) <year> <copyright holders>Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.Here are some related questions:Is the MIT license compatible with the Apache License Version 2 (APLv2)?How do I properly credit an original code's developer for her open source contribution?What Open Source Licenses should I look for if I want to create proprietary derivative works from them?