Slashdot Mirror

Dr. E.F. Codd, a then IBM researcher, gave us both a canonical definition of RDBMS and rules explaining why transactional management is essential. Read it here.

Citing from the link, Rule 5: Comprehensive Data Sublanguage Rule: The database must support at least one clearly defined language that includes functionality for data definition, data manipulation, data integrity, and database transaction control. All commercial relational databases use forms of the standard SQL (Structured Query Language) as their supported comprehensive language.

MySQL is failed to be RDBMS. It still helps to manage data, somehow. But the way it pretends to be RDBMS is confusing many uneducated users and thus MySQL should be considered as a very bad phenomena in software industry.

I was initially going to link to this or this article, but the first included this memorable quote:

We like to think of most corporations as hard candies with a soft chewy center," Rouland said.

Mmmmmm... Soft, chewy center...

but did anybody notice an estimated price for various configurations either the 3300 or 3700? I couldn't find any price info on their site.

See This link and look at the bottom paragraph. Ouch.

They only licensed Mosaic from Spyglass to get IE 1.0(or was it 2.0?) out the door quickly.

But then in around about IE 3.0 Microsoft rewrote the whole thing from scratch without using the Mosaic code.

You claim that Netscape did some devilish thing and was sued for it, yet I have no memory of, and can find no record of, such an event ever having taken place. Are you thinking of the Netscape=>Microsoft antitrust suit?

Does Opera have a license with spyglass?

Legitimate question, I don't know... but are you saying that to create a browser you need it?

This is gratutious Microsoft bashing, plain and simple and a completely different situation than this Sendo story.

(Marc Andreesen)
I'm an egotistical, talentless hack who's latest
stupid idea, loudcloud, failed, so I sold off half
of the company to a bunch of Unsuspecting, good old boy rubes, since my status as "Internet Goldenboy" is in question.
(/Marc Andreesen)

I used to work for a rather lame start-up, which was run by a member of the aohell/nutscrape
cronie network of good old boys (that racist, ignorant, sexual harassing homophobic prick, The only person I know of to have a wired article about how much of a jerk he is. Opsware was
crap. It was slow, buggy, and caused us downtime
that wasn't really downtime according to loudcloud's incredible staff of marketing and law
employees. We were a startup with low funding, yet we spent $800k a month for service from them that we could have built ourselves at exodus or equinix for $200k a month.

If anybody wants information on a REAL movement
in automated systems administration, go to Infrastructures.org A movement based on Steve Traugott's Usenix presentation Bootstrapping the infrastructure.

Which is a clear indication that the game is already lost.

Processes get you a number of advantages above.

• http://www.itworld.com/Comp/3734/020927harddriveve ndors/
• http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1103-959831.html

And while I'm in the waiting room, I'll read this.

It is obvious that Microsoft has been the fantastic driving force behind software innovation over the past two decades. Their uncanny ability to feel out new markets and met the needs of their customers with cost effective, friendly licensed, quality software has forced all other developers to increase the quality of their products.

Ah, a republican AC troll. So pleased you guys still take the time to respond "personally." You're an audacious liar, so much so that it's obvious to me you wont benefit from attention to your little fantasies, so I will keep my responses brief...

Reaganites were notorious cost cutters

Like saying Nazis were notorious for their hygiene. Actually they were notorious deficit spenders; oh yeah, and the Iran/Contra affair was rather notorious too... The only costs they ever cut were in civil rights enforcement. MILSPEC was one way they tried to cover the procurement corruption, laughable, really. The kickbacks, and who profited, even made the news (the "Ill Wind"). Oh yeah, you drink that water, don't you.

The president has no recollection...

Electric utilites were not privatized, they were degregulated

Actually, you're wrong again, moron; even your own propoaganda machine doesn't split that hair... You're really funny - I love that you guys are still trying to find cover on this one - you shut off the lights in California with a fake shortage - and the fact got covered on CNN! Well, the show must go on, I guess. Please, read a summary of a rational position on Calif/Enron. You know, the utility privatization scam is widely documented enough now that almost everyone knows about it... you might want to find another dodge, or just pretend you missed it altogether rather than respond with this drivel.

NorthPoint goes out of business and this is proof that Michael Powell is "notoriosly corrupt".

Yep; since you're obviously ignorant, or hoping we are, I'll give you the executive summary: to the RBOCs, Northpoint was a "competitor" and a "client" at the same time. Like most CLEC's, it was brutally abused via service sabotage, but the deathblow was some clever Verizon fraud. Then the bells made a huge show of pulling the plug on 12 hours notice, creating the most widespread, massive and prolonged (months?) downtime in the history of the commercial internet; millions nationwide were affected, including MSN's customers. The message was loud and clear: Don't deal with CLEC's. You might get shut off. Federal regulators? Off somewhere sending faxes from the beach, approving massive RBOC mergers while counting their bribe money.

You know, Verizon settled Northpoint's fraud claim for 175 million dollars...

So if beef prices rise

Slow down there cowboy. Telecom is regulated; the RBOC's prices and service quality aren't based on how well they wrastle their cows, they're based on how good their oversight is. But of course, you knew that, since your whole point here is just to make disingenuous comments that sound like arguments. I don't have to convince anyone Verizon is outrageously overpriced or offers abysmal service - any professional whose dealt with them knows that... Now that he's overseen the final days of behind the scenes sabotage of TA96, Powell has actually gone on record opposing the CLEC concept... backpedaling on the entire idea of competition in the industry. As I say, notoriously corrupt.

So you seem to believe that the proper role of government officials to pick winners and losers in the marketplace.

Thank you - I could have just accused you of having no idea either what I was saying or how the post-TA96 telecom industry works, but you've made my point better than I ever could.

You don't have any specific allegations of wrongdoing.

Thank you - I could have just accused you of either being senile or blatantly ignoring parts of your screen, but you've made my point better than I ever could.

just gratifying his own political bias

This is conservative dogma 101: Any attack is a partisan attack. Any criticism is a political bias. Unfortunately the facts dramatically point to Satanism. But I'll settle for cronyism and nepotism. And to your ignoring all the evidence in a goofy attempt to paint these clear and egregious failures as something other than grounds for criticism... poitical bias? You're gunning to have your headshot next to the definition, aren't you?

I'm sure you were out there dumping offal on dems and their appointees, too. At least there we have some common ground. It's not that dems wouldn't deserve your hypocritical contempt, just that you usually want to have some better reason for your arguments than drooling-fanboy-sports-team-loyalty.

I am not trying to shut down criticism of Bush

Yeah, right, AC Troll, you're just a freelance righter of wrongs, who gets 100% of their facts wrong and has no idea what they're talking about on any of the issues, but sure is fired up "bigtime" that someone may have disrespected your president and his friends.

Hail to the chief. Hit another one for the gipper, ACTroll! I'm waiting! And you can add why you don't log in - modded down too often?

A good Flat Panel already cost more than the computer it's hooked up too. When is someone going to come up with a technology that drives the price of flat panels down? IBM announced this new process last year, which I understood would be a more cost effective way to make LCDs that the velvet rub. Is anyone using this process yet in manufacturing?

Did you actually bother to read the article you linked to? They improved sales in cheap servers not Itanium. Quote:

While acknowledging improvement in Intel server sales, IDC isn't ready to declare a bull market yet. Much of the growth was driven by inexpensive models, purchased in small numbers by companies in the United States or the Asia-Pacific region that were looking to shore up their current computing capacity, IDC said.

Itanium sold only 1135 servers total! That is a *big* flop in my vocabulary considering that it cost so many billions & years to develop.

A Wired article touched on this previously.

The neat thing are the carbon nanotubes used to drive these things. NEC is working on fuel cells for phones.

---
Interview with GoDaddy President Bob Parsons

ITWorld articles from last Thursday and Friday briefly spell out what happened. From what I understand, someone screwed up some routing tables and brought down part of the 'net.

ITWorld articles from last Thursday and Friday briefly spell out what happened. From what I understand, someone screwed up some routing tables and brought down part of the 'net.

Yup, I believe most Palm's will work (at least the older ones). You just need the cable. I'm betting similar solutions exist for any of the linux based handhelds also.
Several PalmOS terminal programs
Free one
linux specific article
More non-free software

Something like the debate back in '99?

Some links about the alleged backdoor in Windows allowing the NSA access to your computer are here, here and here.

"The solution can last for more than five years, the flexible tube can circulate the solution over 20,000 times and the pump works for more than 44,000 hours, the statement said."

And even if it does spring a leak:

"Plastic panels separate these water-cooling elements from high-voltage areas, in case of a solution leak from the cooling system. The Tokyo company also offers a three-year guarantee service for the product."

Sounds good to me!

The winux name has been used before.

I keyed in my post code on BT's availability checker page, and it replied with this helpful message:

BT has no plans to upgrade your exchange in the near term.
BT is working on partnerships with local and national government bodies to evaluate the possibilities of bringing broadband to your area in a cost effective way.
We are also investigating alternative technologies, such as, Satellite Services. We will be providing you with more information on this site at the end of June.
Alternatively you may be receiving service from another telecomms supplier.

It's clear to me that they have no plans to offer DSL in the small town where I live. Ever. They will just cherry-pick the big cities. Small surprise really, as they are in pretty bad shape financially. Good thing that national highways and railroads weren't built like this...

There might be an excuse for this sort of dribbling geographic coverage in the US or Canada, where the distance between cities is enormous. There is little excuse for it here in the UK.

somebody always mentions that microsoft has piles of money too. But no business can be successful losing money. you are very correct. Intel has stopped making consumer products because the money wasn't there. AMD has bent their processor monopoly...and I am hoping that in the future it will be broken. I think that if AMD gets too competitive (smaller die size, more power...essentially better design) then Intel might just have to change and do a little following themselves...is that the call of a Yamhill I hear?

No one remembers the past here on slashdot. no one remembers $500 for a processor. Sure manufacturing costs have gone down but costs don't matter in the end - competition matters. Do you think Microsoft could charge what it does for its products if competition was really allowed? In the same way, AMD has made it better for everyone but Intel by providing a great competition. and that is why I like them.

that...and they are such a good company otherwise.

You find me an Intel machine with those specs.

Outlook has significant problems scaling to the degree a behemoth like AOL-TW demands. It's beyond the almost complete absence of security that makes Outlook a really poor choice in large corporate envornments - Outlook basically falls prey to the same ills as AOL's client software: It's intended originally for ease-of-use over security and scalability.

I have definite biases here (as I prefer corporate mail solutions that run on a variety of platforms, scale out the wazoo, and Just Work), but they're rooted firmly in practical experience (first-hand and otherwise) of replacing 10's of Exchange boxes with several different solutions that actually SOLVED user requirements.

Where or when did GNU say this?
Please provide proof.

From "Why ``Free Software'' is better than ``Open Source''''

"At present, we have plenty of ``keep quiet'', but not enough freedom talk."

"We are failing to keep up with the influx of free software users, failing to teach people about freedom and our community as fast as they enter it."

"We have to say, ``It's free software and it gives you freedom!''--more and louder than ever before."

"The point that he missed is the point that ``open source'' was designed not to raise: the point that users deserve freedom."

"If you feel that freedom and community are important for their own sake--not just for the convenience they bring--please join us in using the term ``free software''"

"We want people to associate our achievements with our values and our philosophy. We want to be heard, not hidden behind a different view."

From "Live and let license", cited as a recommended reference in the previous article :

"When you hear this term, don't think development methodology, or price, think liberty."

"Open source implies a development methodology that is shared by both. Free software implies a license designed to ensure the four freedoms noted above."

These quotes show a marked deemphasis on the practical, economic and business benefits of Free Software. If it doesn't pertain to freedom, GNU seems hesitant to talk about it.

I don't have a problem with GNU using morality as the basis of its arguments, but I do have a problem when they place that morality in a vacumn isolated from the rest of reality.

then ensures that the ssl stuff doesnt work with the non blocking i/o due to the bugs present in java 1.4 which was rushed to the door too early

java.net.ssl is distinct from java.nio.* libraries, and it was known months ago that Sun was not going to provide an SSL nio library. See this article.

Hint: it's from last September.

A client needed some work done on a few of their Linux systems. They allow incoming traffic onto their LAN only through their Intel NetStructure VPN appliance. No problem, "send me the client software" I said, and they did. It was for Windows only!

So I undertook some research. Intel bought their NetStructure line from Shiva some time ago. After a few of their (Intel's) chip customers complained long and hard about competitive issues a la pre-packaged devices such as NetStructure, Intel decided to get out of the appliance biz. Then stopped making the NetStructure VPN appliance. They sold it to HP. Here's Intel's announcement and here's HP's announcement. Here's an IT World story about the same thing. They all tell how Intel's NetStructure 31xx VPN Gateway product line will still be available through HP as the HP VPN Server Appliance SA3xxx series. These are basically old Shiva products - hence their use of SST (Shiva Secure Tunnel) tunnels which are AFAIK unique to these products.

Here's the catch: while these server appliances run Linux (I know I saw that somewhere but I can't remember where) they have no Linux client software! Here's Intel's support page (look for their client software support) and HP's support page - don't have the URL handy but I'm sure of it - contains the same information.

The upshot of all this is that in order to work on Linux systems at a remote location from my local PC, I have to pass through a VPN Gateway which also runs Linux, but I have to use Windows on my end for the VPN client. What a crock! I looked into free/Swan but it doesn't do Shiva Secure Tunnels. Until HP gets serious about this one particular product line and gets some Linux client sotware into the picture, I'm steering clear of anything else they may trumpet as part of their "We do Linux" hype.

Yup. I think the Register has been smoking something serious:

"If one morally questionable teenie can successfully generate one operational key by leaving their home PC running overnight, then Redmond has quite clearly blundered."

Microsoft made it known long before Windows XP ever came out that the keys were only meant to prevent "casual piracy."

--------
"If you can't find any news, make some up."

If anyone thinks $20k is expensive for 150k documents, they haven't bought a search engine recently!

Check out prices for Inktomi . Of course the more documents you have, the lower the per-document cost, but still they charge $7500 for 10k documents.

The "average" price of a Verity K2 license is $200k. (check this itworld.com link.

Good content indexing is expensive. Google will be undercutting the competition with this release. $20k really is a bargain.

Adobe may be leaving Asian makets but their products won't be... Adobe is just leaving the risk behind. For example, a recent press release said that they chose Lionbridge, which will localize the company's recently released Illustrator 10 graphics software into Japanese, Traditional Chinese and Korean, "based on its ability to provide the Adobe team with improved quality and a more manageable localization process" (see press release) but I think it's simply an operation in risk management: Lionbridge invests the US$750,000 it would cost to produce the Asian versions of Illustrator 10 and then it also pays royalties. If the piracy rate is as high as the Business Software Association thinks it is -- 94 percent -- then Lionbridge takes all the risk while Adobe can only benefit. This meshes with Adobe's official position: "the company remains committed to developing Chinese-language versions of its products, despite comments reportedly made by its chief executive officer last week that Adobe could abandon the market because of software piracy in the region." (see IT World)
-Duke


Additional coverage: Mass High Tech, IT News (Australia)

Yesterday: ZeoSync Expects Data Compression Science To Improve Wireless

01/14/2002 Summary: A Florida-based scientific research company expects its technology, which compresses digital signals for transmission and storage, to enable wireless operators to deliver third-generation capabilities without deploying 3G infrastructure.

Experts question compression 'breakthrough' 1/10/02

Experts Question Compression Breakthrough Friday 11, 2002

Zariski surfaces:

Zariski surfaces by Piotr Blass ASIN: 8301019719 Zariski Surfaces and Differential Equations in Characteristic P-O Zar Piotr Blass, Jeffrey Lang 2nd Rev edition, Marcel Dekker; ISBN: 0824776372

ULAM Previous

Students

Blass, Piotr; 1977 Thesis: Zariski Surfaces.

Previously cited Archive.orgzeosync

Big Number Mathematics

The Real Life Problem

It takes days to download a large (say one movie) file today.

To increase communication speeds throughput over the Internet.

For doing the above a very high compression ratio in the tune of 1000:1 needs to be achieved.

The Possible Approach

In order to do solve the same we have approached the problem using: BIG NUMBER MATHEMATICS.

How Big is this Number ?

The number is in the range of 28,000,000,000

The base of this number system is 232

But the big numbers can not be handled by the computers that exist today

How can Computers handle Big Numbers?

Only if these Big Numbers are converted into numbers which lie within the scope of computation by computers that are present today.

The Challenge

To represent these big numbers by smaller integers.

Encode Big Number into a Small Integer.

And finally Decode the Small Integer and re-create back the Big Number without any loss.

Assumptions in the Big Number Space Domain

No Negative Numbers
No Floating Numbers
Minimize Divisions

"For every person who says it might not work, there are 10 saying it does," he said, adding that he's received many congratulatory e-mails since the announcement.

Two questions.

When will GNOME be available as the default desktop on Solaris? It didn't appear in the last Solaris 9 beta.

Also, the GPL licensing implications always intrigued me. Without getting too heavily into GPL issues, I was surprised that one could distribute GPL software as a default component in a proprietary system.

This item in the GNU FAQ appears to be particularly pertinent.

How have you dealt with this apparent contradiction?

See:http://www.itworld.com/nl/db_mgr/05142001/

You have a very valid point there, and one I'm sure that the DOJ is looking into in their investigation as well as, the possible price fixing.

That's rubbish. Back in in the 1960s when the first relational databases emerged nobody had a formal specification for a relational calculus.

Dude, that's rubbish. E.F. Codd first published on the relational model in 1970, and the first relational database followed a few years later. (Here's the first supporting article I found on google, but I remember this from college in the 80s, when relational databases and SQL still weren't standards.) Your dates are off by a decade and your assertion is incorrect.

So you get this impedance mismatch and a pile of code whose sole purpose is to rewrite the data structures used in the program so that they match the data structures used in the persistence store[. . .] What we need is a persistence store with a data model that matches our programming language data model.

Relational databases are successful because you are exactly wrong. Persistence belongs in a separate, language-neutral layer, so that that different applications can share the same data store. In practically every system I've looked at, a proprietary accounting package written in C, web-based extensions to the system written in Java (or Perl) and reports written in SQL all work with the same tables.

Sure, you can move the O/R mapping out of the client code, but creating a database that has interfaces to each of these languages simply moves the impedance mismatch out of the client and into the database. (Or you could use separate data stores, and spend your career working on synchronization problems. Or you could rewrite everything--your accounting package, your report writers, your web extensions-- in a not-yet-invented transaction-aware extension of a single language, in which case your system will be as obsolete as you think SQL is by the time that you finish it.)

802.11a has very short range, which is why Apple did not implement it in its new AirPort products, but chose to wait out for 802.11g, which will offer the same range and backwards-compatibility. As was mentioned, the products probably won't be available until mid-2002. From an ITWorld article: "The range supported from access point to client in an 11M-bit/sec network is about 300 feet. The shorter, wider radio waves in a 5GHz 802.11a LAN, while offering more capacity, transmit only about 90 feet."

Second, I don't think it's very funny that DSL providers are being forced into bankruptcy by the Baby Bells (see this and this and this and do your own searches if you need more).

Laugh if you will, but in the long run, you're going to only have AOL-Time Warner cable (after they swallow most of the cable providers) vs. DSL from your local Baby Bell to choose from for broadband service. And like Coke and Pepsi, AOL and the Baby Bell aren't going to compete on price or quality.

Second, I don't think it's very funny that DSL providers are being forced into bankruptcy by the Baby Bells (see this and this and this and do your own searches if you need more).

Laugh if you will, but in the long run, you're going to only have AOL-Time Warner cable (after they swallow most of the cable providers) vs. DSL from your local Baby Bell to choose from for broadband service. And like Coke and Pepsi, AOL and the Baby Bell aren't going to compete on price or quality.

C interpreters have been around for a long time. Have a look at Scripting with C.

AMD has full access to use all of Intel's patents. Intel has full access to the use of AMD's patents. Details are here.

One more case how strict patent hurts US. Americans cannot benefit from the result of the research to improve food production, while third world countries where US patent law doesn't apply could take advantage of it.

Richard Stallment think he can live with 3 or 5-year patent. Shorter patent period might really help solving the problems.

http://www.itworld.com/Comp/2384/LWD010410maccomme nts/ should work.

---------------------------------

Is there any truth behind a recent debate which you purportedly clashed with Microsoft's Jim Allchin over the alledged "un-american" nature of Open Source software.

A simple Google search turned up a story from four years ago. It doesn't address this issue directly, but the gist is the same.

Whats wrong with this then?:

Google Search: fix a broken window Ad vanced SearchPreferences&nb sp;SearchTips
"a" is a very common word and was not included in your search. [details]

Searched the web for fix a broken window . Results 1 - 10 of about 189,000. Search took 0.90 seconds.
Category:Recreation>&nb sp;Autos>MakesandModels >Mazda>RX-7&nb sp;

Learn2 Repair a Broken Window
... 2torial #0515: Learn2 Repair a Broken Window. Home Run!!! As we know, windows break ... way,
the "rabbet" is the notch in the window sash that the glass fits into. ...
www.learn2.com/05/0515/0515.asp - 28k - Cached - Similar pages

Remodel.com Fix-It-Smart: REPLACING BROKEN WINDOW GLASS
... Fix-It-Smart, Home. REPLACING BROKEN WINDOW GLASS Broken window glass can be
replaced by regular glass or by plastic unbreakable glass. ...
www.remodel.com/fixit2/REPLACING_BROKEN_WINDOW_GLA SS.asp - 15k - Cached - Similar pages

Remodel.com Fix-It-Smart: REPLACE A BROKEN WINDOW
... Fix-It-Smart, Home. REPLACE A BROKEN WINDOW This guide
was adapted from USDA Extension ...
www.remodel.com/fixit2/REPLACE_A_BROKEN_WINDOW.a sp - 16k - Cached - Similar pages

ITworld.com - Tweak columns in Explorer and fix a broken ...
... OPINION Tweak columns in Explorer and fix a broken Java patch Plus: Tips on drag-and ... printer:
He drags the icon from one window to another. To do this in ...
www.itworld.com/jita/3799Win2kFeat/0,,1_3799.htm l - 32k - Cached - Similar pages

Glass_and_Windows, Topic 108
... I have a broken window, they are old wood windows,
can anyone help with telling me how to fix it? ...
www.doityourself.com/archives/Glass_and_Windows_ 10 8.htm - 9k - Cached - Similar pages

Repair a Broken Window Pane with the iVillage Home How-To ...
... painting. Becoming soft. Remove stubborn window putty with a heat ... Take a shard of
broken glass with you to ... STREAK-FREE GLASS CLEANSER FIX A LEAKY GUTTER CLEAN ...
www.ivillage.com/home/howtoguide/repairandrenova te /articles/ 0,9449,167075_211955,00.html - 71k - Cached - Similar pages

Re: Don't fix what isn't broken
... 2000 12:48 pm. In Response To: Don't fix what isn't broken (Terri Zamore). ... the light
of day in OS X. For instance, window management in OS 9 is at the very ...
www.maccentral.com/storyforum/forums/_news_0011_ 23 .upgradeguy/ ?read=10 - 6k - Cached - Similar pages

Centre of Criminology News
... HOW MANY CRIMINOLOGISTS DOES IT TAKE TO FIX A BROKEN WINDOW? The following responses
to this query were provided by faculty, staff and students at the Centre ...
www.library.utoronto.ca/libraries_crim/centre/crim news.htm - 35k - Cached - Similar pages

LifeMinders Home Sample
... Unsubscribe. Fix It Projects Replace A Broken Window.
Maintain Your Gutters Now...Or Pay Later. Gardening ...
www.lifeminders.com/examples/home_minder.html - 13k - Cached - Similar pages

Home Upkeep
... Fix a Leaky Faucet How to fix most faucets yourself and save
money. Repair a Broken Window Fix your own broken windows. ...
www.frugalliving.about.com/cs/homeupkeep/ - 54k - Cached - Similar pages

ResultPage:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Next Searchwithinresults Try your query on: AltaVista Excite HotBot Lycos Yahoo!

GoogleWebDirectory - CoolJobs - AdvertisewithUs! - AddGoogletoyourSite - GoogleinyourLanguage - AllAboutGoogle
©2001 Google

Ritchie joined Bell Laboratories in 1968 after obtaining his graduate and undergraduate degrees from Harvard University. He assisted Ken Thompson in creating Unix, and was the primary designer of the C language. He helped foster Plan 9 and Inferno.

He is a member of the US National Academy of Engineering and is a Bell Laboratories Fellow, and has received several honors, including the ACM Turing Award, the IEEE Piore, Hamming, and Pioneer awards, the NEC C&C Foundation award, and the US National Medal of Technology.

Ritchie out loud

Check out our audio file at http://mithras.itworld.com/media/001021kalev_ritch ie.ram to hear further conversations between Dennis Ritchie and Danny Kalev. LinuxWorld.com: Can you introduce us to Plan 9 (see Resources for a link), the project in which you're currently involved, and describe some of its novel features?

Dennis Ritchie: A new release of Plan 9 happened in June, and at about the same time a new release of the Inferno system, which began here, was announced by Vita Nuova. Most of the system ideas from Plan 9 are in Inferno, but Inferno also exploits the exceptional portability of a virtual machine that can be implemented either standalone as the OS on a small device, or as an application on a conventional machine.

As for Plan 9, it combines three big ideas. First, system resources and services are represented as files in a directory hierarchy. This comes from Unix, it is worked even better in Linux, but Plan 9 pushes it hardest. Not only devices, but things like Internet domain name servers look like files. Second, remote file systems -- likewise not a new or unique idea. But if all system resources are files, grabbing bits of another machine's resources is easy, provided the permission gods permit. Third, and unusual, is that the namespace -- the hierarchy -- of files seen by a particular process group is private to it, not machine-wide.

LinuxWorld.com: C and Unix have exhibited remarkable stability, popularity, and longevity in the past three decades. How do you explain that unusual phenomenon?

Dennis Ritchie: Somehow, both hit some sweet spots. The longevity is a bit remarkable -- I began to observe a while ago that both have been around, in not astonishingly changed form, for well more half the lifetime of commercial computers. This must have to do with finding the right point of abstraction of computer hardware for implementation of the applications.

The basic Unix idea -- a hierarchical file system with simple operations on it (create/open/read/write/delete with I/O operations based on just descriptor/buffer/count) -- wasn't new even in 1970, but has proved to be amazingly adaptable in many ways. Likewise, C managed to escape its original close ties with Unix as a useful tool for writing applications in different environments. Even more than Unix, it is a pragmatic tool that seems to have flown at the right height.

Both Unix and C gained from accidents of history. We picked the very popular PDP-11 [industrial computer] during the 1970s, then the VAX during the early 1980s. [See Resources for links to both.] And AT&T and Bell Labs maintained policies about software distribution that were, in retrospect, pretty liberal. It wasn't today's notion of open software by any means, but it was close enough to help get both the language and the operating system accepted in many places, including universities, the government, and in growing companies.

LinuxWorld.com: Five or ten years from now, will C still be as popular and indispensable as it is today, especially in system programming, networking, and embedded systems, or will newer programming languages take its place?

Dennis Ritchie: I really don't know the answer to this, except to observe that software is much harder to change en masse than hardware. C++ and Java, say, are presumably growing faster than plain C, but I bet C will still be around. For infrastructure technology, C will be hard to displace. The same could be said, of course, of other languages (Pascal versions, Ada for example). But the ecological niches you mention are well occupied.

What is changing is that higher-level languages are becoming much more important as the number of computer-involved people increases. Things that began as neat but small tools, like Perl or Python, say, are suddenly more central in the whole scheme of things. The kind of programming that C provides will probably remain similar absolutely or slowly decline in usage, but relatively, JavaScript or its variants, or XML, will continue to become more central. For that matter, it may be that Visual Basic is the most heavily used language around the world. I'm not picking a winner here, but higher-level ways of instructing machines will continue to occupy more of the center of the stage.

LinuxWorld.com: What is your advice to designers of new programming languages?

Dennis Ritchie: At least for the people who send me mail about a new language that they're designing, the general advice is: do it to learn about how to write a compiler. Don't have any expectations that anyone will use it, unless you hook up with some sort of organization in a position to push it hard. It's a lottery, and some can buy a lot of the tickets. There are plenty of beautiful languages (more beautiful than C) that didn't catch on. But someone does win the lottery, and doing a language at least teaches you something.

Oh, by the way, if your new language does begin to grow in usage, it can become really hard to fix early mistakes.

LinuxWorld.com: C99, the recently ratified ANSI/ISO C standard, contains several new features, such as restricted pointers, variadic macros, bool, and new libraries for complex and type-generic arithmetic. Are you satisfied with C99?

Dennis Ritchie: I was satisfied with the 1989/1990 ANSI/ISO standard. The new C99 standard is much bulkier, and though the committee has signaled that much of their time was spent in resisting feature-suggestions, there are still plenty of accepted ones to digest. I certainly don't desire additional ones, and the most obvious reaction is that I wish they had resisted more firmly.

Of the new things, restricted pointers probably are a help; variadic macros and bool are just adornment. I've heard the argument for complexity for a long time, and maybe it was inevitable, but it does somewhat increase the cross-product of the type rules and inflate the library. One issue the question didn't mention is the introduction of the "long long" type and its implications, which is one of the more contentious issues in discussion groups about the language -- and it also makes the type-promotion rules much more complicated. But of course, 64-bit machines and storage are here, and it had to be faced.

I'm less ecstatic about the C99 standard, but don't denounce it. They did a pretty good job; C does have to evolve. I was not involved with its work, but was given opportunities to snipe or contribute earlier. So I won't do much second-guessing after the fact.

LinuxWorld.com: Considering proprietary languages such as Java and C#, was the decision to make C free deliberate? C users sometime complain that standardization bodies have no teeth and cannot force vendors to provide standard-compliant implementations. What is your preferred model of language development and standardization?

Dennis Ritchie: I can't recall any difficulty in making the C language definition completely open -- any discussion on the matter tended to mention languages whose inventors tried to keep tight control, and consequent ill fate.

I'm just an observer of Java, and where Microsoft wants to go with C# is too early to tell. Although Sun doubtless has spent more on Java as a strategic tool than would be justified simply by garnering some publicity for neat research work by Gosling and company, they've been quite open about the language specification as such. But of course they have been regarding the whole Java package (with libraries) as strategic versus Microsoft and other competitors.

True enough that standards bodies themselves have weak teeth, but they do have influence and importance when a language begins to be widely used. Partly this is simply because it does allow public comment, partly because it adds a certain gravitas to the project. If there is an ISO or ANSI standard, and you distribute a product that claims to conform, your customer has at least a hook for arguing to you when it doesn't.

On the other hand, the "open evolution" idea has its own drawbacks, whether in official standards bodies or more informally, say over the Web or mailing lists. When I read commentary about suggestions for where C should go, I often think back and give thanks that it wasn't developed under the advice of a worldwide crowd. C is peculiar in a lot of ways, but it, like many other successful things, has a certain unity of approach that stems from development in a small group. To tell the truth, I don't know how Linus and his merry band manage so well -- I couldn't have stood it with C.

This whole area is complicated and there is no single lesson to be drawn from its history, except that early and extreme attempts at close control are likely to be detrimental.

LinuxWorld.com: When will we have a C99-compliant edition of The C Programming Language? (See Resources for a link.)

Dennis Ritchie: This is a question about which Brian [Kernighan] and I have thought hard and long, with considerable advice and assistance via email, Usenet, visits from our publisher, and interviews like this one. And we're still thinking. We are prepared to announce that we have not committed ourselves either way.

Microsoft is still going through the appeals process with the US government about their monopoly status. Corel, arguably one of Microsoft's largest competitors in both the Office Suite and PC Operating System markets, has been having Financial Troubles of late, resulting in the resignation of the CFO
It is in Microsoft's best interest to have Corel around, to be able to point fingers at
"See? We aren't a bad monopoly.. Look at Corel (who we own stock in), or Apple (who we own stock in)... There's no problem here"
--

This message brought to you by Colin Davis

Go to the actual site (http://forums.itworld.com/webx?14@@.ee6 caf5) to post a question. /. is not hosting the interview.

Thrashing...please wait...

-------------

Every time KDE is mentioned we have the claim about no standards or people needing QT to develop KDE apps.

Actualy what you need is to folow the stile guide.

KDE Standards and Style Guides

Ohh. And here is an interview with Kurt Granroth.