Slashdot Mirror

The threading algorithm in Netscape 4.x was rewritten by others, and was completely screwed up.

I don't know what it's like in Mozilla these days. I hope they fixed it.

What's the threading like in MacOSX Mail.app? Actually, it would be interesting to see a compare-and-contrast survey of the quirks of the threading algorithms in various programs...

1. PRIMARY, SECONDARY
2. CLIPBOARD (the Ctrl-C/V/X and File->Cut/Copy/Paste)
3. CUTBUFFER

These are all handled by the clients. That is, the clients are responsible for notifying the X server that they are dealing with the selection in some manner. No one is supposed to be using the CUTBUFFER, but some still do apparently. JWZ has a good article explaining how it all works.

2 years? The One True Threading Algorithm was developed for Netscape 2!

I just dredged this article by Jamie Zawinski from my memory. Its informative about cut and paste under X.

The link that you posted was by JWZ, the parent post was not.

Also, he was not that emotional about netscape falling apart you can read about it from himself here.

It just cheapens the Netscape name, one for which many of us still have fond memories. I would guess some of the key original Netscape programmers are pretty sad too.

I already posted a comment about this once, but I'll never forget how sad jwz's resignation letters were.

This one predates the recently slashdotted article about myths in open source by many years, and probably was the first one to call attention to the fact that (his own words) "you cannot just take a project, sprinkle it with the magic pixie dust of 'open source' and make it magically work".

And this one made me so sad when it came out I threw away all plans of making a career in computer engineering. Again his own words, "sometimes the only way to win is to not play".

Yes, he's kinda dramatic in a mexican soap opera way, but then I was 17, and was deeply struck.

It just cheapens the Netscape name, one for which many of us still have fond memories. I would guess some of the key original Netscape programmers are pretty sad too.

I already posted a comment about this once, but I'll never forget how sad jwz's resignation letters were.

This one predates the recently slashdotted article about myths in open source by many years, and probably was the first one to call attention to the fact that (his own words) "you cannot just take a project, sprinkle it with the magic pixie dust of 'open source' and make it magically work".

And this one made me so sad when it came out I threw away all plans of making a career in computer engineering. Again his own words, "sometimes the only way to win is to not play".

Yes, he's kinda dramatic in a mexican soap opera way, but then I was 17, and was deeply struck.

Aww, what peaceful little protesters they are too. (That's liquid feces, BTW)

Ahh, I have that maddox troll covered.
See

http://blog.dachte.org/live/entries/entry1067459 93 1.html

Basically, the guy's a wannabe jwz without a clue.

I Agree 100% that X clipboard copy-paste support is terrible and freedesktop should focus on that, instead of eye candy and breaking speed records.

I talk about exchange of non-ASCII data through clipboard (I want to emphasize that as I can see that many OSS types think that clipboard is for text only). I mean copying and pasting images, fragments of images (rectangular an irregular shares), with alpha channel; sound clips; video files; HTML with images copied to local application (not some lazy trick where HTML copied from Mozilla to OpenOffice has all HTML untouched and IMGs are still loaded from the network when you save that file and try to open it at home).

The X contains all necessary infrastructure, as explained here and here.

When you actually try to use the X clipboard for something more that transferring plain text, the results are terrible. Read this, this and this Slashdot comment. Shocking.

For a fuller explanation of how the selection buffer and clipboard work, see this

Apparently, he's thrown all away to become a club owner.

JWZ

Bio: I used to be a hacker. Now I run a nightclub.

I read this and found out that X has a completely adequate clipboard - it is just that applications too often clobber it. Apparently the latest version of pure desktops do it right though.

(I always thought that ctrl-c ctrl-v in X apps was just an ugly hack using the same selection as select and middle-click (apparently because old KDE did it wrong).)

• "No, it's not the App's fault. [...] The platform is
• flawed. I don't have time to completely research the interface"

I'm sorry but you are displaying your total ignorance of the design of X and making completely unjustified and incorrect criticisms in bold font as if to boast of your misplaced confidence. Please read the design documentation for X before you post about X again.

X has always provided a mechanism for storing and communicating byte-sequences between X applications. Few X application programmers have bothered to read the excellent design documentation for X which is a shame because if they had they would understand how to implement cut-and-paste together with content negotiation. Implementing consistent cut-and-paste in X applications is really as simple as following the very clear guidelines in the excellent explanation by Jamie Zawinski written many years ago.

P.S. Your pseudo-Japanese username "Minna Kirai" (literally meaning that you hate everyone) would be better as Shigoto Kirai (literally meaning that you hate work like reading about the design of X).

Actually, it IS the apps' fault in this case, for not supporting more than ASCII clipboard work.

our old pal JWZ has a nice article right here regarding this very thing. OpenOffice, Gnumeric, all your fancy apps just don't know how to talk to each other. Not because X's clipboard scheme is broken, but due to bad programming.

JWZ may be an egocentric, arrogant ass, but I like his xscreensavers.

--

I get the impression from this article by Jamie Zawinski that the cut and paste problems you are having are related to issues with the X clients and not with the X servers themselves. I'm guessing a similar issue exists relative to drag-and-drop (since it seems to me I've seen this feature in action in either GNOME or KDE or both).

Usually, they're "has beens" or "wanna-be" rich and famous individuals who came into some money in the past (often via questionable means), and thought owning a nightclub was a great next step to take in their lives.


Sounds like Zawinsky!

You mean Microsoft apologists like Jamie Zawinksi? Or Simson Garfinkel? Oh wait -- you haven't read the book, so never mind.

Typical slashdot jackass.

'jfb

Skinnable software is often a pain to use ("Whenever a programmer thinks, 'Hey, skins, what a cool idea', their computer's speakers should create some sort of cock-shaped soundwave and plunge it repeatedly through their skulls.") HTML email (as was previosuly pointed-out) is almost always spam, and case mods are for the silliest of nerds.

I was a lieutenant in the Microsoft Army during the browser wars. Rumor has it I was next in line to be one of those little office assistant thingies. We kicked Netscape's azz and left the survivors to build bars and lament.

Ouch. This is bound to hurt jwz's feelings. No sarcasm intended. The message on his website when he resigned from Netscape is one of the saddest things I've ever read.

I don't plan on changing providers neciscarily.

That's fsiciaatnng :-)

Anyway, I don't know how things are with Sprint, but I made two big changes to my years-old Cingular plan over the past few months -- first upgraded my phone, then had a line added for my fiancee -- and they didn't make a big deal about the "new activation" clause either time. If you've been a long-time customer, they'll probably be willing to cut you some slack. They may force you to sign up for a multi-year contract, but they probably won't hit you with a fee.

Does the fact that they are finally open-sourcing the client mean that there will eventually be a Seti@Home xscreensaver module that actually works?

I guess you're referring to the XScreenSaver hack, bsod. IT emulates not just the infamous Windows error screen, but also Mac, Amiga, Unix, etc error messages. Might be fun to leave running on a cow-orkers desktop.

I guess you're referring to the XScreenSaver hack, bsod. IT emulates not just the infamous Windows error screen, but also Mac, Amiga, Unix, etc error messages. Might be fun to leave running on a cow-orkers desktop.

Dudes, somebody just took the overview of the window system and threw it through something like DadaDodo. Mod it down.

jwz calls that song "Why cooperation with RMS is impossible", and points to a techno and a death metal remixes.

MT

jwz calls that song "Why cooperation with RMS is impossible", and points to a techno and a death metal remixes.

MT

Now onto the real business: where's the peer review in Intel's patented die processes? And how come you trust your computer, and probably some very important files to this un-peer reviewed technology?

I mean, how hard is this to understand? Honestly....

Let me tell you how hard it is to understand who you are: "Your argument is flawed of course". You sound exactly like what I would call a zealot. In fact, there's an article on slashdot right now that has the exact description of what you sound like:

So of course that day I got hundreds of emails about it. Every Linux apologist in the world wanted to make sure I was fully informed of their opinion. The replies were roughly in the following groups:

...

"You're clearly an idiot, Linux is too sophisticated for you, you clearly are incapable of understanding anything, you should go back to kindergarten and/or use a Mac." (Oddly, all of these messages used the word `clearly' repeatedly.)

...

Now. I tell you: how hard is this to understand? Do you not realize you sound stupid? You actually *sound* stupid.

Derisive laughter as I walk away...

"Whenever a programmer thinks, "Hey, skins, what a cool idea", their computer's speakers should create some sort of cock-shaped soundwave and plunge it repeatedly through their skulls." - Makali.

YES! Audio-cock!

The quote was coined by JWZ, in the original version of his famous post on the state of Video in Linux, now redacted, alas.

Except that JWZ already has made a similar comment on this page:

Whenever a programmer thinks, "Hey, skins, what a cool idea", their computer's speakers should create some sort of cock-shaped soundwave and plunge it repeatedly through their skulls.

...so long as the upgrades between them are easy. I think one of the biggest complaints I hear about Linux distros is that xyz new program does not run on them and many cite the sheer rapid availability of new releases as one of the reasons they switched to Gentoo from Debian. Plus it is harder to continously backport fixes to an old distro. Using the latest release is far easier from a maintainer's point of view (although doing this obviously introudces more risk)...

What I do find interesting is the fact that Red Hat will not provide support Fedora. This is probably the biggest blow - it has been great to file bugs into Red Hat's bugzilla and see the hackers they employ answer rather than post to a mailing list and see your comment washed away with the flood. Sure it wasn't enterprise support but no-one enjoys seeing their bug just rot away unlooked at only to be declared too old to care about.

I wonder if in the end this means we'll see move from "Small number of tightly tested packages" to "Large RPM repository of the latest versions of all the popular packages". In this scenario if the fault is anything but packaging then you have to find the original author of the program and ask them to fix it rather than being able to pass it through to an intermediary third party.

Probably because the lingering ghosts of Operating Systems past have left the public eye. UNIX wasn't always considered the big-iron behemoth it is today. There was a time when people percieved UNIX in the same way the typical slashdotter views MS Windows today. "The good news is that in 1995 we will have a good operating system and programming language; the bad news is that they will be Unix and C++."

The legends of UNIX hold that original version was put together hastily (the filesystem was designed overnight), and for the express purposes of playing spacewar. How much of that is true and how much comes from lying MUTLICS sympathists, I'll never know. But only with time has UNIX become something worthwhile. Perhaps the award is for being the first decent example of an iterative development cycle?

I know that Neal Stephenson doesn't much enjoy contact with his readers, so this is perhaps the best place to ask this question. Maybe someone on Slashdot even has an answer. :)

Anyone else suspect a connection between Randy's wisdom-tooth episode and this blog entry from Jamie Zawinski on the same subject? Or is it just my own experience with dental surgeons that makes me cringe at both of these?

• setenv LANG en_US
  echo -n "foo.bar" | \
  perl -e '$_ = <>; print join (" | ", split (/([^\w]+)/)) . "\n";'
  => "foo | . | bar" (right)
  
  setenv LANG en_US.utf8
  echo -n "foo.bar" | \
  perl -e '$_ = <>; print join (" | ", split (/([^\w]+)/)) . "\n";'
  => "foo.bar" (wrong!)

perl-5.8.0-88, Red Hat 9. WTF?

"An AuNnYmOoS rDaEeR sUiMtBs: "An IeEtTiRnNsG tIiDbT fOrM bIsSo'S bOlG sItE: sEbA
rMlCd WrDoS aRe LgBiLeE aS lNoG aS fSrIt AnD lSaT lEeTtRs ArE iN pCaLe. WrOd Of
MuOtH hAs SaErPd To OeHtR bGlOs, AnD aElIrTcS aS wLeL. fRoM tHe LhAaAuNgGeT sItE
: 'aNoRcCiDg To A rAcCrSeEhH aT aN eNgLsIh UeVrIiTsNy, It DeSoN't MeTtAr In WaHt
OeRdR tHe LeEtTrS iN a WoRd ArE, tHe OnLy InTePoRmT tIhNg Is ThAt FrIsT aNd LaS
t LtTeEr Is At ThE rIhGt PcAlE. tHe ReSt CaN bE a ToTaL mSeS aNd YoU cAn SlTiL r
AeD iT wUoHiTt PbLoReM. tHiS iS bCuEaSe We Do NoT rEaD eVrEy LtTeEr By It SlEf B
uT tHe WrOd As A wLoHe. CeEiHrO.' jIaMe ZsIwNkAi HaS aSlO wErItTn A pErL sPiRcT
tO cEnOrVt NrMoAl TxEt InTo TeXt WeHrE lEeTtRs EcLdUnXiG tHe FiRsT aNd LaSt ArE
sClBaMeRd."

Yep... don't recall saying otherwise.

I prefer languages that allow you to shoot yourself (like Python) because they're willing to trust the programmer, but Perl has the distinction of helping you shoot yourself, which goes a little too far. Somewhere on the Wild Wild Web there's a great article that describes how dangerous Perl is for allowing to layer quick hack on top of quick hack, until one day you can't layer another hack on top and you basically have to throw it out and start anew, instead of encouraging incremental refactoring along the way. ('Course, that summarizes it pretty well...)

C++ would be better for a grad level OO design course, because at the grad level, the emphasis should be on power, not protecting the programmer from themselves, which Java does too much. Like the man says: " It's hard to live with none of: lexically scoped local functions; a macro system; and inlined functions." Java is too negative. (Improving, but only because it's attracted enough attention that certain things need be fixed for the language to move on and continue to appeal to the Heavy Hackers; witness how many projects compile directly to Java Bytecode, instead of Java itself. That's a sign.)

I think a loosely typed language like Python would be even better for a grad-level OO class though, not because Python Is The Best Language Ever, but because for a grad class in OO-design, it's nice to use a language with enough power to rapidly and powerfully model an OO architecture, without getting in the way.

Speaking for my own Software Engineering class, which used Java, we all did our models for our project, and then discovered that Java wasn't really capable of implementing our model. So our programs silently differed from the models, since we knew the prof couldn't read them all. (At the very least, we'd have needed a lot of classes to implement Patterns which weren't on the class diagram.) I strongly suspect this happens in the real world too often. I do know that if we'd been using Python, I could have stuck to the object model in the diagram.

I think for educational purposes you need something that allows you to focus on what you're doing. I didn't post this before because if the title of the course is "An Introduction To Java", it's not relevant. But if I were in charge, I'd go Python, or maybe a type-inference-based OO language, so the students spend less time fighting the language and implementing the world's eight millionith Proxy class, and more time designing good OO designs.

JWZ may have some ideas

Who said that all software projects will continue development up until the point where you can use them to read you E-mail?

If I didn't spend 10 minutes an hour meandering arround the office I would probably go insane.

I am not sure why this is funny. It really is a good idea with typing breaks, and of course you can do other work while not typing.

The tool Xwrits may be of use for people interested in this item but not prepared for the entire GNOME upgrade shebang. It must be cool, JWZ uses it (and so do I).

X cut and paste can be confusing, mainly because there are two ways of doing it. Jamie Zawinski wrote a good article which explains how it works.

Genetic Algorithms and Genetic Programming use the principles of natural selection to evolve solutions to problems that hopefully get better and better.
Dadaism "A western European artistic and literary movement (1916-23) that sought the discovery of authentic reality through the abolition of traditional culture and aesthetic forms."

Here is an example Dadaist poem -
People who can't develop a taste
for the primeval
but rather wrangle in this world
and in their noseless faces
daily brush and paint and lacquer
three abundant heraldic
stylized moustaches
one above another.

Now, let's find something in between, jwz has just done that - DADADO..

DadaDodo is a program that analyses texts for word probabilities, and then generates random sentences based on that. Sometimes these sentences are nonsense; but sometimes they cut right through to the heart of the matter, and reveal hidden meanings.
---

"Microsoft has updated their Mactopia Web Site to include a section on Virtual PC. It's taken them since February 2003 to do this.

Q: What is the duration of the transition period after this transaction?
A: The transition period is approximately six months from today (February 20, 2003).

Read some of the famous papers by Richard Gabriel on why "Worse Is Better". This isn't really an answer to your problems, but it may help explain why things are the way they are.

Worse Is Better

Worse Is Better[2]

People in the LISP world often refer to this. Of course Worse Is Better hasn't seem to help FORTH at all, it's the most "worse" solution of them all. (I'm not trolling, I really am a serious FORTH fan. But FORTH is elegent because of it's simplicity in one's ability to write a compiler for it, not because it's easy/easier to use)

Both Todd Allen and Scott McCloud have so far overlooked the potential for using web-based syndication (RSS, SOAP, etc.) and weblogs as an important, rapidly growing method for promoting comics.

Almost all major weblogs and newspapers feature an RSS feed nowadays, but they are also important for online comic strips too. Eight of the ten most popular RSS feeds read by LiveJournal users are for comic strips, with a "scraped" feed of Calvin in Hobbes coming in as the most popular feed. Currently, it only has around 3,000 readers, but if you start adding in everyone else out there reading Calvin & Hobbes' RSS feed with some other type of reader, you're talking about a serious, rapidly growing number of recurring readers -- the kind of people most likely to buy merchandise or donate to help support their favorite artists.

Web-based syndication can be a good thing for comic creators. Tom Tomorrow gains extra readers for his weblog and his cartoons with his RSS feed, and there are several comic strip artists out there using weblogs to post their latest strips, interact with their fans, promote new merchandise, and, yes, automatically create syndicated feeds.

Because tools like Syndirella or Cheesegrater are making it easier for people to scrape content off of websites, it's safe to say that we are in the early stages of a "Napsterization" of comics on the Internet.

This could be bad news for the big syndicates and even for the publishers, but it could be great news for the artists. Yes, they might have to give their work away for free, but they can also control how their work is syndicated, too. They can decide for themselves what their business model will be and promote it using their own weblogs, with their own syndicated feed.

All they need is an online tip jar...

They already are...again.