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java isn't supposed to be C++.

Thank god!

the whole point of java is "write once, run anywhere". compiling to native code does not advance that.

You say this because you have chosen Definition #3 of what the word "Java" means ("a virtual machine") and ignored the other equally true definitions.

Java is also a language. It is a good language. I would like to write programs in it.

Virtual machines are cool. Security models that allow network-distributed code are cool. Serialization and agent-like behavior is also cool.

But these are not what I'm most interested in. There are a lot of people who are most interested in those things, but me, I just want to write a program that will run on some suitable number of architectures. I'm happy distributing binaries for each architecture to do that. Sure, having one binary that ran on everything would be nice, but you know, it's just not a hard requirement.

Today, I program in C.

I think C is a pretty crummy language. I would like to write the same kinds of programs in a better language.

I would like that language to be Java.

It's just that simple, and that's why this is great news.

The reason I like Java is because it's a language that both supports implicit storage management well (meaning, at the language level) and because it provides good tools for programming in an object oriented style.

Note that there is no such thing as an ``object oriented language.'' You can write code that looks like assembler in Java too, if you want. Java is cool because it makes sensible style easy.

Unlike, for example, C++.

C is a fairly crummy language, but the reason is that C is basically a set of macros on top of PDP-10 assembler, and who wants to hack in assembler? That abomination we know as C++ is a set of macros on top of C that try to bring it kicking and screaming into the early 80s, and the end result is, well, object-oriented assembler.

Not to mention that while both K&R C and ANSI C have proven to be extremely portable, C++ has proven to be anything but.

But the main problem with C++ is that it has poisoned so many young minds.

There is a whole generation of programmers who think that these broken, rusty tools that C++ provides have anything to do with an object-oriented programming style! They don't even think to question that C++ has a difference between ``virtual'' and ``non-virtual'' functions: as if a real language would have any other kind!

When I program in an object-oriented style, I do it in C, because C is a better language for writing object-oriented programs (in fact, any programs) than C++.

If you made it this far without gagging, then probably the C++ worms haven't eaten in to your brain yet, and you should go grab yourself a copy of Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, and learn what object oriented programming is actually all about. (If you're interested, you can read a mini-review of it I wrote at mozillazine.org.)

Java-the-language is not without its faults, but it's so much better than C or C++ it's not even funny. Yeah, I'd rather use CLOS, but that's just not even remotely practical any more.

• Pentium 133 MHz or better
• 64 MB RAM, 128 MB recommended
• 250 MB NTFS or 500 MB FAT disk space
• NT 4.0 is preferred; NT 3.51 will also work.

For what it's worth, I think we'll get much closer to having "something working" as we proceed through the set of milestone releases coming up over the next few months.

I think that's the problem right there.

Netscape 5.0 is the better product (IE can't come close to gecko's standard's compliance)

Netscape for windows is a kick-ass product, very stable and fully functional, flexible UI.

Netscape for linux needs A LOT of work. It's only
a shadow of it's windows counterpart (sad but true)

The bottom line is that for LINUX to get a high quality browser (short of starting something from scratch) either Netscape has to invest into some talented *NIX programmers or us penguins will have to become more involved in mozilla development.

http://www.mozilla.org - mozilla project homepage

http://www.mozillazine.org - information on the mozilla project

I fail to see what makes freemware so much better than VMWare until the licence is fixed. Until then, I have to pay the author money after 30 days. This is no different than VMWare, and VMWare works--now. Bochs/freemware doesn't (the speed of an 8086/10 on an Ultra 5 is unacceptable).

Go reread the page... Bochs is not freemware. Bochs is shareware with source included. Right now he's trying to figure out how to use code from bochs while putting freemware under a real open source/free software license.

On the topic of world domination and us freed software developers, I really don't see how it has any meaning at all. Who cares how many people are using my code or some code that has some contributions of mine? It doesn't affect me, except in the remote sense that better software makes the world a slightly nicer place.

There's no-one clamoring for my resources. Freed software will go on long after the current Linux hype is over. GNU will still be around. I'll probably still be using the Linux kernel. My PS/2s will still be running. I'll still be maintaing the XGA XFree86 Xserver. Who cares if Linux has .01% of the desktop or 99%?

I really don't care what percent of desktop marketshare linux has, though I would like it if my less computer savvy friends didn't have to suffer crappy Microsoft software.

What I do care about though, is how many developers use the software. I care how many people are using my code or some code that has some contributions of mine, because I want to see it to continue to improve. It improves faster if I'm not the only one contributing.

On the other hand, something I've really noticed since I switched to linux a year and a half ago... in general, open source/free software/freedomware already does what I want it to pretty well, and I infrequently find myself wanting to fix it. Closed source software(particularly Netscape, simply because that is the main closed source software I still use) constantly seems to be bugging me with changes I want to make or bugs I want to fix, but can't. The more people that use the opensource/free software/freedomware programs I'm using, the more likely one of them has already suggested/implemented the feature I want, or has already reported/fixed the bug I might have encountered.

P.S. Yes, I know about Mozilla, but last I checked it wasn't usable enough for me. I don't have time right now to spend more time developing my webbrowser than webrowsing. Maybe by M4 or something Mozilla will be usable, and then I'll start using it and contributing.

Spend the time to read this, and then come back and post thoughtfully.

I want to die peacefully in my sleep as my grandfather did...

All I can say is that you're not looking very hard, then -- ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla/ nightly/latest always contains the latest builds for Win32, Mac, and Linux, and sometimes source updates as well. ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla/releas es contains the most recent Gecko "milestone" release. I'm running the 04-02-99 Win32 build right now (as in "I'm using it to post this message right now").


BTW, this is Zontar The Mindless, posting as an AC because Moz isn't sending my password correctly, it seems...

All I can say is that you're not looking very hard, then -- ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla/ nightly/latest always contains the latest builds for Win32, Mac, and Linux, and sometimes source updates as well. ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla/releas es contains the most recent Gecko "milestone" release. I'm running the 04-02-99 Win32 build right now (as in "I'm using it to post this message right now").


BTW, this is Zontar The Mindless, posting as an AC because Moz isn't sending my password correctly, it seems...

In short, mozilla.org is failing to follow one of free software's most powerful and effective maxims: release early; release often. Just get the browser out there.

1. Where is 4.51 for FreeBSD?

2. The option to send email in HTML should be emphatically discouraged in the Preferences dialogue box, indicating, for example, that it is highly experimental and will cause lots of pain to users of standards compliant email clients.

What people don't realise is that there is nothing wrong with Mozilla as it is; it is simply not finished, that's all.

What people don't realise is that there is nothing wrong with Mozilla as it is; it is simply not finished, that's all.

The main things I read in JWZ's message on his site are:

• Software development is hard. Mozilla is a huge project, and just getting it off the ground has taken much longer than he wanted. The sheer size of the code base made it hard to make small changes or even understand what was going on, which confounded and discouraged new developers coming on board (or trying to). This is a problem I'm sure many developers can appreciate. As a product ages, its code base tends to grow, which makes both understanding and modification more difficult.
• Distributed software development is really, really hard. Mozilla/Netscape found it necessary to do a sginificant amount of work on the problem, and as a result developed new tools like Bonsai and Tinderobx as well as the methodologies surrounding them. Why? Existing tools available to support distributed development are woefully inadequate, and most people don't even know what a development methodology is.
• It's hard to get contributors if they can't get quick gratification. It has to be possible to download the code, see it work, poke at it, change it, and see the effect of your changes. Quickly. One of the major problems he pointed out was that people couldn't do this to Mozilla, so it wasn't worth their effort to contribute. In other words: Just because you open-source something proprietary doesn't mean people will jump on your bandwagon. You have to make it easy for them to do so, which takes extra effort.

The main things I read in JWZ's message on his site are:

• Software development is hard. Mozilla is a huge project, and just getting it off the ground has taken much longer than he wanted. The sheer size of the code base made it hard to make small changes or even understand what was going on, which confounded and discouraged new developers coming on board (or trying to). This is a problem I'm sure many developers can appreciate. As a product ages, its code base tends to grow, which makes both understanding and modification more difficult.
• Distributed software development is really, really hard. Mozilla/Netscape found it necessary to do a sginificant amount of work on the problem, and as a result developed new tools like Bonsai and Tinderobx as well as the methodologies surrounding them. Why? Existing tools available to support distributed development are woefully inadequate, and most people don't even know what a development methodology is.
• It's hard to get contributors if they can't get quick gratification. It has to be possible to download the code, see it work, poke at it, change it, and see the effect of your changes. Quickly. One of the major problems he pointed out was that people couldn't do this to Mozilla, so it wasn't worth their effort to contribute. In other words: Just because you open-source something proprietary doesn't mean people will jump on your bandwagon. You have to make it easy for them to do so, which takes extra effort.

Maybe now he'll really create Intertwingle. As much as I respect what he did at Mosaic/Netscape/Mozilla, my favorite JWZ creation has always been BBDB.

Lots of independent developers are contributing: if not coding, then by bugfixing. Adam Lock, for example, has created the ActiveX Mozilla control. pavlov@pavlov.net (Sorry, not sure of his real name ;) has also helped a lot with the gtk conversion. And there are plenty of people submitting bugreports, be it with crashes or misrenderings or unsupported stuff; check out bugzilla to see proof.

Who's going to the party?

There's a lot of interesting things out there. In particular, I think XML and DOM could be the basis for a very good component framework in which powerful components would be easy to write, and would integrate nicely without a lot of hassle. I'm looking at RDF as a piece of this.

But, as far as I can tell, the problem that RDF solves is a bit different than the one mentioned in this article. RDF is a way of representing documents as graph structures, allowing individual files to contain both local and external pieces without everything getting tangled up.

The problem of representing metadata unambiguously is a tricky one, but is not yet solved. The RDF spec presents an interesting outline about how this might be done, but it doesn't quite tell me what I need to do to get my own Web pages to be correctly meta'ed. If I were a library, then the Dublin Core would start to give me the specific markup I needed, but that's just for libraries. What do I use do as metadata for my free software efforts?

It seems like the combination of XML plus XML-NameSpaces plus Dublin Core plus all the other recommendations, specifications, and standards analogous to the Dublin Core but for domains other than libraries might cohere into a workable metadata system for the Web, but on the other hand, the complexity and fuzziness of specification could very easily prevent the beast from flying.

When you're dealing with software, precise specification is key. Some metadata standards have succeeded pretty well in this regard - take MIME content types, for example. If you have a JPEG image, you know that the content type should be "image/jpeg". But the XML crew hasn't even managed a consistent namespace name for HTML 4.0 (I've seen "urn:w3-org-ns:HTML", "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40" and others).

For those hoping for a more technical discussion of RDF, I recommend the Mozilla page on RDF and of course the specification itself.

(PRISONER reference, for those at home)

Look at the title of the Mozilla Milestone page mentioned above (and linked here)

>TITLE<Microsoft Project Exported Information>/TITLE<

Which actually raises an interesting question: are there any decent replacements for MS Project that have a minimal learning curve for people used to using it? (Trying to wean people here off of Micros~1)

The fixed version is apperantly on the ftp site. I recommed ftp'ing directly to the site, as the links from the http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/release- notes/ page don't seem to work. Try ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla/releases/m3/mozi lla-i686-pc-linux-gnu-Se aMonkey_M3_BRANCH.tar.gz to get the Linux version. Of course, it's a little tough to get to, right now...

Try this

Yeah, it gzip decompresses some files but , at the least, "apprunner" is missing. Maybe the documentation at http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/release- notes/m3.html is missing something? What does the nsinstall program do?

GO GET MOZILLA 5 M3

How about a search box for the Open Directory Project like the ones you already have for Yahoo, etc? Open Directory Project

The PCRE code could use some more optimization, but on the other hand, at least its code is relatively easy to read. There's also the regex engine inside Mozilla's JavaScript implementation, which I know little about.

[...] All I ever get is a bunch of libraries with no executable. I just don't get it.

Go to the binaries area of mozilla.org and download a build. Look for apprunner, like the FAQ/README/whatever it's called, says. Run it. Presto, Mozilla. Well, sort of, anyway. If you still have trouble, try asking someone for an exact file to download, and exact commands to run.

Oh yeah, another thing, it might be a good idea to make a special Mozilla user: that way your existing Netscrape bookmarks, etc. can't get screwed up.

It's amazing to me how even labelling of charsets turns into a Microsoft flame fest here every time! Don't you people ever get tired of gazing into your own navels?

For the record, this other character set that Microsoft uses (that is a superset of Latin1) is, in fact, an ISO-registered character set. It is properly known as ISO-8859-1-Windows-3.1-Latin-1.

In this particular case, Apple's poor decisions have been more of a problem than Microsoft's, because the character set that Macintosh tools use (MacRoman, which is not ISO-registered) is not even a superset of Latin1 (ISO-8859/1.)

If you're interested in facts, you can see an article I posted to comp.infosystems.* about this way back in 1997.

If you were really interested in doing something productive, you could contribute to Mozilla so that future web browsers could (as the old saying goes) be lenient in what they accept, and in a cross-platform way.

Or, you could just continue your endless whining here, feeling superior without actually doing anything, and wait for someone else to fix it all for you.

-- jwz

status update from mozilla.org says that it has "achieved the main goal of the milestone which was to remove the major roadblocks to development work on Linux and Mac. These two platforms have seen some dramatic improvements in stability and functionally thanks to a number of great contributions. "

download the sources, memorize, hack, build .

XPToolkit is a project at Mozilla. Check out http://www.mozilla.org/xpfe/ for the details.