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I was being sarcastic. Versions 3 of Internet Explorer would create an icon (in windows 95OSR at least) with a globe named "The Internet" and many users thought this was the thing everyone was talking about.

However, in regards to your thinking about poor Netscape I have a very interesting link for you straight from the IETF working group (which IETF dissolved to deal with more serious matters than silly Internet Drafts about FRAMEs):

http://www.nyct.net/~aray/htmlwg/

I don't think they would share your feelings on the matter...

The iAPX 432 was a 32-bit processor Intel developed starting in 1975 that embodied CISC technology to the max. It was innovative, but also expensive and slow, and targeted towards the Ada programming language, another market failure.

First, your statements above are contradictory, in 1975 there was no Ada programming language, only a spec (steelman ??) that described what the language should contain (and not contain).

Also, it is not clear whether you meant that the 432 or Ada was a marketing failure (or both). Certainly the 432 was. OTOH, from its first release in 1980 or so, the Ada language has been far from a "market failure", despite there being no low-cost compilers for it and despite the limitations required by the SteelMan spec. Virtually all aeronautics, astronautics or critical communications software (Military or civilian) and weapons control software for the last 20 years was written in Ada (and not just in the US).

In addition, several commercial SW firms also found, even w/ Ada-83, that it allowed them to ship w/ far fewer bugs left for customers to find that code written in (Ugh!) C, as well as allowing bug-fixes using less than 50% of the developer resources than to fix bugs in (Ugh!) C.

As of 1995 the Ada language is much more oriented towards general programming, as well as being much cheaper to use than it had been. There has been a FREE (GPL) Ada compiler available since 1995 or so, and it is now (since version 3.2) integrated into GCC.

I was there too, and while I have no transcript or direct quotes, I do have four pages of notes which could be turned into some 20 .. 50 KB of HTML if desired.

BTW, the article that was posted is pretty accurate and has some details that will not be part of my writeup.

I exapect to be writing this up this evening. If you want a link when it is ready, please send me email. I will send the link directly to all the mail me, and if I get enough requests I will post that link as a reply to this.

I submitted the following "story" earlier this evening, apperently just a little too late. Someone else beat me to it and was on the queue (210 items long) when I submitted mine.

New York, New York 2001-05-29 18:00 EDT
Courtesy of the AnyNix Sig

Preliminary report on RMS talk at NYU.

RMS spoke from 10:15 to 12:00 today at NYU to nearly a capacity crowd (only about twenty seats vacant of about 250 capacity).

In general, RMS talked about the history and philosophy of the GNU project, the GPL, and the FSF; as well as their relation to Linux, other free but not copylefted software, and non-free "open source" software and the inclusion of proprietary software on "Linux" Distros.

The last 30 minutes or so were about how Free Software is good for business in general and Software Developers in particular.

People started leaving sometime after 11:00 until about 2/3 of the original crowd remained.

All in all, this reporter thinks the whole thing went well. RMS seemed to come across as a mild-mannered zealot for software freedom, with well reasoned and well presented arguments. This reporter has no idea of how many of the crowd were already users/advocates of "Free" or "open source" software, but is of the opinion that any who were not, but willing to "think" rather than simply react were at least somewhat moved toward his point of view.

You guys are just uisng the wrong language!

It would be especially nice if these types were *not* considered, for the sake of signatures, type-identical to counterpart size-variant types, and if enums were also given a generic root type instead of being int in signature.

I always wished that typedefs created new types, instead of behaving like wimpy macros.

typedef int FOO;
typedef int BAR;
FOO f = 1;
BAR b = 2;
int i = 3;
f = b; // ILLEGAL TYPE MISMATCH!
b = i; // ILLEGAL TYPE MISMATCH!
i = f; // ILLEGAL TYPE MISMATCH!

How about this? (pardon the formatting, <pre> is not allowed.)

type FOO is new integer ;
type BAR is new integer ;

function fiz( i : FOO ) return FOO ;
function fiz( i : BAR ) return BAR ; -- Different, overloaded
function fizzle( i : FOO ) return FOO ;
function frazzle( f : FOO ; b : BAR ) return integer ;
f : FOO := 1 ;
b : BAR := 2 ;
i : integer := 3 ;

f := b; -- ILLEGAL TYPE MISMATCH!
b := i; -- ILLEGAL TYPE MISMATCH!
i := f; -- ILLEGAL TYPE MISMATCH!

-- further:
f := fiz( 5 ) ; -- first fix
b := fiz( b ) ; -- second fiz
f := fizzle( f ) ; -- legal
b := fizzle( f ) ; -- ILLEGAL, TYPE MISMATCH
f := fizzle( b ) ; -- ILLEGAL, TYPE MISMATCH
i := frazzle( f, b ) ; -- All legal and proper
i := frazzle( 7, b ) ; -- All legal and proper
i := frazzle( f, 7 ) ; -- All legal and proper
i := frazzle( 7, 7 ) ; -- All legal and proper
i := frazzle( b, f ) ; -- ILLEGAL, 2 type mismatches
-- (operands reversed).

-- And so forth.

-- All arithetic, comparison, indexing, operations are inherited.

Each enumeration type is distinct (with its own namespace). Enumeration types may be used for indexing and loop control, but not for arithemtic.

Sound good? For more info look here or here or here.

You guys are just uisng the wrong language!

It would be especially nice if these types were *not* considered, for the sake of signatures, type-identical to counterpart size-variant types, and if enums were also given a generic root type instead of being int in signature.

I always wished that typedefs created new types, instead of behaving like wimpy macros.

typedef int FOO;
typedef int BAR;
FOO f = 1;
BAR b = 2;
int i = 3;
f = b; // ILLEGAL TYPE MISMATCH!
b = i; // ILLEGAL TYPE MISMATCH!
i = f; // ILLEGAL TYPE MISMATCH!

How about this? (pardon the formatting, <pre> is not allowed.)

type FOO is new integer ;
type BAR is new integer ;

function fiz( i : FOO ) return FOO ;
function fiz( i : BAR ) return BAR ; -- Different, overloaded
function fizzle( i : FOO ) return FOO ;
function frazzle( f : FOO ; b : BAR ) return integer ;
f : FOO := 1 ;
b : BAR := 2 ;
i : integer := 3 ;

f := b; -- ILLEGAL TYPE MISMATCH!
b := i; -- ILLEGAL TYPE MISMATCH!
i := f; -- ILLEGAL TYPE MISMATCH!

-- further:
f := fiz( 5 ) ; -- first fix
b := fiz( b ) ; -- second fiz
f := fizzle( f ) ; -- legal
b := fizzle( f ) ; -- ILLEGAL, TYPE MISMATCH
f := fizzle( b ) ; -- ILLEGAL, TYPE MISMATCH
i := frazzle( f, b ) ; -- All legal and proper
i := frazzle( 7, b ) ; -- All legal and proper
i := frazzle( f, 7 ) ; -- All legal and proper
i := frazzle( 7, 7 ) ; -- All legal and proper
i := frazzle( b, f ) ; -- ILLEGAL, 2 type mismatches
-- (operands reversed).

-- And so forth.

-- All arithetic, comparison, indexing, operations are inherited.

Each enumeration type is distinct (with its own namespace). Enumeration types may be used for indexing and loop control, but not for arithemtic.

Sound good? For more info look here or here or here.

We're still alive and kicking, although the outlook is entirely different than it was 18 months ago. At the time, we couldn't add modem pools fast enough (Verizon (then Bell Atlantic) wasn't very fast at accomodating us).

Suddenly, new dialup customers slowed dramatically and our investment in DSL turned out to be a wise one. I don't think any ISP will survive long without offering DSL. While DSL has it's own problems which every Verizon Sucks web site will tell you about, it should help keep us alive. Time Warner opening up their cable network to independent ISPs is also a good thing (but they're all talk at the moment).

We're not dead. We're far from it. It's sad to see the industry change so quickly so fast, but the bright side is that I have DSL now instead of a 56k. *shrug*

They mentioned something about building their own fibre network along with new technology that allows you to cram multiple waves over a single fibre. I really have no idea what this means, and they were sales guys, but their offer seemed worth listening to.

We're interested in their connection because it would allow us multiple internet uplinks (ie, redundancy) since Verizon has proven itself less than friendly/competent.

There was a catch though, and one that my boss was upset about. I haven't been given all of the details since I'm not in that office anymore.

I started out as a UNIX admin and my job is being shaped towards Programmer. I'm basically "starting" the Programming department here which could promise a better salary based on the number of sites I maintain.

I would be more valuable if 3 other employees were gone, but that won't happen soon. This IS a cool place to work nonetheless.

I almost got a job as a Linux admin making 75k/year but the deal fell through because of bureacracy.

I'd LOVE to talk.

defile@nyct.net

I work at an ISP. I develop web sites from scratch in Perl. I maintain at least 10 FreeBSD/Linux Servers (along with others) and I've recently been given control of 2 NT Servers.

The ISP is successful but I'm not worth all that much to the company itself because they have no real need for what I am qualified for, or if they do, they have at least 3 other people who can fill in my job if I am lost (albeit, difficultly).

I am a "Master C Programmer" according to TekMetrics (haha) and I can hold my own in Perl. I don't even make enough to live on my own in NYC even if I tried living paycheck to paycheck with no car.

I -almost- got a job making $75k/year but the deal fell through because of bureacracy.

Pretty disgusting wouldn't you say?

I'd LOVE to talk: defile@nyct.net