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And Linux Mint is just what a Fortune 500 company wants running their mission-critical systems.

https://oss.oracle.com/ol6/docs/RELEASE-NOTES-UEK2-en.html

which includes this little tid-bit

"The Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel is available as binary RPM packages that can be installed from Oracle's public yum repository as well as the Unbreakable Linux Network. The kernel's source code is available via a public git source code repository from http://oss.oracle.com/git/?p=linux-uek-2.6.39.git"

And Linux Mint is just what a Fortune 500 company wants running their mission-critical systems.

https://oss.oracle.com/ol6/docs/RELEASE-NOTES-UEK2-en.html

which includes this little tid-bit

"The Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel is available as binary RPM packages that can be installed from Oracle's public yum repository as well as the Unbreakable Linux Network. The kernel's source code is available via a public git source code repository from http://oss.oracle.com/git/?p=linux-uek-2.6.39.git"

http://www.oracle.com/us/media/calculator/linuxtco/index.html

Speaking of making things more difficult than they should be, the ISO images for installation are not readily available for download. There is a heinous registration form but no promise of the ISOs even if you fill in the form (with either fake data or real). If Oracle is going to be serious about establishing a distro, it has got to be available at all the usual download sites along site CentOS, Debian and the other established distros.

They aren't complete if you want advanced features. Just to give you a list of major stuff that's missing:

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/articles/grid/index-099021.html

I also don't want Google to own the Clouds and Apple to own the Moon.

Why not? Oracle already owns (the) Sun!

I expect them to throw their resources at legislative change to "fix" this European problem.

you're dead-on.

Oracle's press release says:

We trust that this is not the end of the legal development, and that the EU Member States as well as the European Commission will be doing all they can to protect innovation and investment in Europe’s technology industry and to prevent business models which threaten both.

or - in short - WE HATE YOUR LAWS. CHANGE THEM.

Not anymore. OpenJDK is the official Reference Implementation now.

Well, yes...that can happen.

you can extract the jre from the download using 7-zip.

download the 7-zip .msi installer.
extract and run 7-zip:
    msiexec /a /qb TARGETDIR=%TEMP%
    %TEMP%\Files\7-Zip\7zFM.exe

then download the JRE Offline-install from oracle.

navigate to the JRE download in 7zFM and extract it. inside you'll find a 'core.zip' archive. extract that, that's the JRE.

no he thinks he is iron man hell he and oracle sponsored the movies. in avengers in the first couple minutes of the film you can see the oracle logo on the servers in the secret sheild base and there is a iron man and avengers section on the oracle site

http://www.oracle.com/us/ironman2/index.html
https://blogs.oracle.com/stevewilson/entry/what_does_iron_man_use
http://www.oracle.com/us/theavengers/index.html

no he thinks he is iron man hell he and oracle sponsored the movies. in avengers in the first couple minutes of the film you can see the oracle logo on the servers in the secret sheild base and there is a iron man and avengers section on the oracle site

http://www.oracle.com/us/ironman2/index.html
https://blogs.oracle.com/stevewilson/entry/what_does_iron_man_use
http://www.oracle.com/us/theavengers/index.html

no he thinks he is iron man hell he and oracle sponsored the movies. in avengers in the first couple minutes of the film you can see the oracle logo on the servers in the secret sheild base and there is a iron man and avengers section on the oracle site

http://www.oracle.com/us/ironman2/index.html
https://blogs.oracle.com/stevewilson/entry/what_does_iron_man_use
http://www.oracle.com/us/theavengers/index.html

Link here: https://cloud.oracle.com/mycloud/f?p=service:home:0

Yeah, I guess that rules it out seeing as Java doesn't have any code conventions that developers are expected to adhear to or an easy to use tool to check for them.

InnoDB is not part of MySQL

Yes it is. MariaDB & Percona have XtraDB.

where Linux failed

Where is that? We have a free/libre operating system that is useful and secure, which supports modern features and which is widely used. GNU/Linux showed the world that you can have a good operating system without proprietary licensing.

OSX is the best OS out there today with no doubt

I will raise some doubts about that. I need an OS that is not going to try to thwart me when I debug programs:

https://blogs.oracle.com/ahl/entry/mac_os_x_and_the

I also need an OS that will not refuse to run on hardware that was not produced by Apple.

Sure, there is room for improvement with GNU/Linux; that is not a result of deliberate efforts to prevent users from doing what they want to do.

You are wrong. There is a fine-grained security manager that can limit most stuff.

http://docs.oracle.com/javase/1.4.2/docs/guide/security/PolicyFiles.html
and http://docs.oracle.com/javase/1.4.2/docs/guide/security/permissions.html

You are wrong. There is a fine-grained security manager that can limit most stuff.

http://docs.oracle.com/javase/1.4.2/docs/guide/security/PolicyFiles.html
and http://docs.oracle.com/javase/1.4.2/docs/guide/security/permissions.html

OpenJDK 7 is now the reference implementation, including the Java plugin.

I'm not sure whether the Oracle version still contains secret sauce, but I wouldn't be surprised.

Stop bullshitting. If you want to claim that there is an independent Java implementation, i.e., an implementation that was produced from spec only, without licenses from Sun, the burden of proof is on you.

In fact, I think it's doubtful that any implementation can meet that standard in principle, since the Java specification itself comes under a license that restricts your ability to build independent implementations. http://docs.oracle.com/javase/specs/ Sun and Oracle have consistently refused to even subject Java to a standards process.

That is highly unusual among programming languages and platforms. You can implement C, C++, Fortran, and even C# from spec without any legal obligations to any company.

Java is the epitome of proprietary programming languages, and the fact that Sun, Oracle, and people like you keep lying about it makes it even worse.

>Please, the vast majority Java was open sourced in 2006 under the GPL

The code was. But if you want to write any Java code you need to use Java APIs. Those are copyright and subject to Oracle's terms of use. Go to http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/index.html - see that link to a copyright statement at the bottom: http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/legal/cpyr.html. That document says:

1. 1. This software ... provided under a license agreement containing restrictions on use ...
2. 2. Except as expressly permitted in your license agreement or allowed by law, you may not use, ... any part, in any form, or by any means.

So what is the license agreement: Try to download the documentation (http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/documentation/java-se-7-doc-download-435117.html). That has a click though agreement to http://download.oracle.com/otn-pub/java/licenses/java-se-7-spec-license.txt, which in turn says:

1. License for Evaluation Purposes. Oracle hereby grants you a fully-paid, non-exclusive, non-transferable, worldwide, limited license (without the right to sublicense), under Oracle's applicable intellectual property rights to view, download, use and reproduce the Specification only for the purpose of internal evaluation. This includes (i) developing applications intended to run on an implementation of the Specification, provided that such applications do not themselves implement any portion(s) of the Specification, and (ii) discussing the Specification with any third party; and (iii) excerpting brief portions of the Specification in oral or written communications which discuss the Specification provided that such excerpts do not in the aggregate constitute a significant portion of the Specification.

So - you can use the APIs for internal evaluation only. In other words - if you wish to use them for any other purpose you need another license from Oracle.

This is exactly the case Oracle has advanced against Google (who violated clause (i) above by implementing the specification).

But, they could advance a case against any Java developer, because no matter how they learned Java, these licenses do not extend third party rights, so each developer has to officially learn about Java through the Java specifications. And if you are using Java for any purpose other than evaluation, you are in violation.

If you use something other Java SE, then you are even worse off, because the APIs are not actually published. The licenses for various versions of Java have changed slightly over the years (the one for Java 5 - which Google is being sued under - says that the license overrides all other statements from Sun, although Oracle's lawyers didn't read that far into the license else they would have used that clause to nullify the damaging testimony about Sun's approvals of Google's actions.

Before you accuse people of astroturfing, learn the turf.

Regards,
-Jeremy

>Please, the vast majority Java was open sourced in 2006 under the GPL

The code was. But if you want to write any Java code you need to use Java APIs. Those are copyright and subject to Oracle's terms of use. Go to http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/index.html - see that link to a copyright statement at the bottom: http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/legal/cpyr.html. That document says:

1. 1. This software ... provided under a license agreement containing restrictions on use ...
2. 2. Except as expressly permitted in your license agreement or allowed by law, you may not use, ... any part, in any form, or by any means.

So what is the license agreement: Try to download the documentation (http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/documentation/java-se-7-doc-download-435117.html). That has a click though agreement to http://download.oracle.com/otn-pub/java/licenses/java-se-7-spec-license.txt, which in turn says:

1. License for Evaluation Purposes. Oracle hereby grants you a fully-paid, non-exclusive, non-transferable, worldwide, limited license (without the right to sublicense), under Oracle's applicable intellectual property rights to view, download, use and reproduce the Specification only for the purpose of internal evaluation. This includes (i) developing applications intended to run on an implementation of the Specification, provided that such applications do not themselves implement any portion(s) of the Specification, and (ii) discussing the Specification with any third party; and (iii) excerpting brief portions of the Specification in oral or written communications which discuss the Specification provided that such excerpts do not in the aggregate constitute a significant portion of the Specification.

So - you can use the APIs for internal evaluation only. In other words - if you wish to use them for any other purpose you need another license from Oracle.

This is exactly the case Oracle has advanced against Google (who violated clause (i) above by implementing the specification).

But, they could advance a case against any Java developer, because no matter how they learned Java, these licenses do not extend third party rights, so each developer has to officially learn about Java through the Java specifications. And if you are using Java for any purpose other than evaluation, you are in violation.

If you use something other Java SE, then you are even worse off, because the APIs are not actually published. The licenses for various versions of Java have changed slightly over the years (the one for Java 5 - which Google is being sued under - says that the license overrides all other statements from Sun, although Oracle's lawyers didn't read that far into the license else they would have used that clause to nullify the damaging testimony about Sun's approvals of Google's actions.

Before you accuse people of astroturfing, learn the turf.

Regards,
-Jeremy

>Please, the vast majority Java was open sourced in 2006 under the GPL

The code was. But if you want to write any Java code you need to use Java APIs. Those are copyright and subject to Oracle's terms of use. Go to http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/index.html - see that link to a copyright statement at the bottom: http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/legal/cpyr.html. That document says:

1. 1. This software ... provided under a license agreement containing restrictions on use ...
2. 2. Except as expressly permitted in your license agreement or allowed by law, you may not use, ... any part, in any form, or by any means.

So what is the license agreement: Try to download the documentation (http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/documentation/java-se-7-doc-download-435117.html). That has a click though agreement to http://download.oracle.com/otn-pub/java/licenses/java-se-7-spec-license.txt, which in turn says:

1. License for Evaluation Purposes. Oracle hereby grants you a fully-paid, non-exclusive, non-transferable, worldwide, limited license (without the right to sublicense), under Oracle's applicable intellectual property rights to view, download, use and reproduce the Specification only for the purpose of internal evaluation. This includes (i) developing applications intended to run on an implementation of the Specification, provided that such applications do not themselves implement any portion(s) of the Specification, and (ii) discussing the Specification with any third party; and (iii) excerpting brief portions of the Specification in oral or written communications which discuss the Specification provided that such excerpts do not in the aggregate constitute a significant portion of the Specification.

So - you can use the APIs for internal evaluation only. In other words - if you wish to use them for any other purpose you need another license from Oracle.

This is exactly the case Oracle has advanced against Google (who violated clause (i) above by implementing the specification).

But, they could advance a case against any Java developer, because no matter how they learned Java, these licenses do not extend third party rights, so each developer has to officially learn about Java through the Java specifications. And if you are using Java for any purpose other than evaluation, you are in violation.

If you use something other Java SE, then you are even worse off, because the APIs are not actually published. The licenses for various versions of Java have changed slightly over the years (the one for Java 5 - which Google is being sued under - says that the license overrides all other statements from Sun, although Oracle's lawyers didn't read that far into the license else they would have used that clause to nullify the damaging testimony about Sun's approvals of Google's actions.

Before you accuse people of astroturfing, learn the turf.

Regards,
-Jeremy

>Please, the vast majority Java was open sourced in 2006 under the GPL

The code was. But if you want to write any Java code you need to use Java APIs. Those are copyright and subject to Oracle's terms of use. Go to http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/index.html - see that link to a copyright statement at the bottom: http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/legal/cpyr.html. That document says:

1. 1. This software ... provided under a license agreement containing restrictions on use ...
2. 2. Except as expressly permitted in your license agreement or allowed by law, you may not use, ... any part, in any form, or by any means.

So what is the license agreement: Try to download the documentation (http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/documentation/java-se-7-doc-download-435117.html). That has a click though agreement to http://download.oracle.com/otn-pub/java/licenses/java-se-7-spec-license.txt, which in turn says:

1. License for Evaluation Purposes. Oracle hereby grants you a fully-paid, non-exclusive, non-transferable, worldwide, limited license (without the right to sublicense), under Oracle's applicable intellectual property rights to view, download, use and reproduce the Specification only for the purpose of internal evaluation. This includes (i) developing applications intended to run on an implementation of the Specification, provided that such applications do not themselves implement any portion(s) of the Specification, and (ii) discussing the Specification with any third party; and (iii) excerpting brief portions of the Specification in oral or written communications which discuss the Specification provided that such excerpts do not in the aggregate constitute a significant portion of the Specification.

So - you can use the APIs for internal evaluation only. In other words - if you wish to use them for any other purpose you need another license from Oracle.

This is exactly the case Oracle has advanced against Google (who violated clause (i) above by implementing the specification).

But, they could advance a case against any Java developer, because no matter how they learned Java, these licenses do not extend third party rights, so each developer has to officially learn about Java through the Java specifications. And if you are using Java for any purpose other than evaluation, you are in violation.

If you use something other Java SE, then you are even worse off, because the APIs are not actually published. The licenses for various versions of Java have changed slightly over the years (the one for Java 5 - which Google is being sued under - says that the license overrides all other statements from Sun, although Oracle's lawyers didn't read that far into the license else they would have used that clause to nullify the damaging testimony about Sun's approvals of Google's actions.

Before you accuse people of astroturfing, learn the turf.

Regards,
-Jeremy

Actually that is the same going from any language to any other language, I translated some scientific code written in FORTRAN (mostly F77, but I'm sure you know the old saying, "You can write bad FORTRAN in any language" [including FORTRAN]) to ANSI C. There were plenty of constructs even in primitive FORTRAN that were alien in C. Lots of things weren't the same, and since it was for scientific work I needed the operations to be the same bit-for-bit (iterative multi-dimensional fitting, so any rounding errors multiply quickly, the real 'butterfly effect'). So I don't see this as a problem peculiar to Java. Hence, I see your comment as a reflection of your experience, but your are limiting your scope - all cross-language translations have this problem [even natural languages], so blaming seems a little lame/biased from a wider perspective.

I'm afraid I still stand by my statement. Dynamically-typed languages have a flexibility that is excellent for small programs that is a hinderance for large programs, and especially large teams (many commercial developers are not as experienced or dedicated as your or I, yet they still need to be productive - this makes the "language du hour" with its wonderful new-fangled features less useful rather than more useful - which is why they don't get adopted in the Real World [and why language boffins can't grok that throwing keywords and quirky features at a language is actually a bad thing to do]). Yes, the factors you name are significant - I would also add the fact that in a strict statically typed language the ability of the compiler and linker to catch a lot of your mistakes *before you even run the program* is such an advantage for large programs (where your mental capacity is saturated with the complexities of the problem space, and trying not to focus on the minor nuances of the programming language at hand). Catching errors as you run the program is a crappy way to develop (and unfortunately, few people get religion on unit testing to the point of good coverage). I know, when I was using Perl a lot I found it convenient to bash scripts out (which was deceptive) but subtle errors wouldn't be found for hours of runtime (I was using Perl to manage the astrophysical image processing routines I'd written in C++ for huge data sets). Such errors would often be trivally caught or warned about by a strict language/compiler/linker combo.

With regard to the performance of Java vs C++ (and in 2008 no less) I often point people to a research paper written by INRIA (the French scientific outfit - the supercoming division in this case): http://blogs.oracle.com/jag/entry/current_state_of_java_for
This paper shows the Java's performance is better than C++ (and I won't even start on the very significant development productivity enhancements of Java over C++, not to mention the vastly better portability [test on Windows, run on your multi-thousand CPU Linux cluster]). That was in 2008, the JVM, and especially the libraries, have gotten much faster since then. More importantly, with Java you will finish your program sooner, and with fewer lines of code, than in C++ (save months of development means the software costs less to build, you are earlier to market, and sooner to start using it - all of which should not be sneezed at).

I understand the apeal of dynamic languages for quick hacks, but I maintain that if you were to invest in tools and experience (the more time you have on a single language the more productive you are, in an exponential way) in a single language then I think Java is probably the best choice for most developers.

Dynamic languages may have been slow in the past (personally I hate them, you can't write huge codebases in a dynamic language and get a team to understand it), but *Java* was always pretty damn fast: http://blogs.oracle.com/jag/entry/current_state_of_java_for (and that was 4 years ago, the JVM is very much faster since 1.6.0u10).

"... email (included here (PDF)) ..."

From here:

Jul 26, 2005: “Must take license from Sun”
Oct 11, 2005: “We’ll pay Sun for the license and the TCK”
“We are making Java central to our solution”
Feb 10, 2006: “helping negotiate with my old team at Sun for a critical
license”
Mar 24, 2006: “Java.lang api’s are copyrighted”

That "copied" code is a joke.

If you have the function prototype per the java doc and you test the limit cases to see what exceptions are thrown, how else can you implement that array range check in a non-trivial way?

That's just lawyer bullshit.

My first thought, too, but it's a private method, not implementing any API.

What's funny is that they're highlighting this trivial function while inadvertently showing that Android uses TimSort, whereas the Java standard library which, according to the docs, uses a tuned quicksort, adapted from Jon L. Bentley and M. Douglas McIlroy's "Engineering a Sort Function".

BR players and other device manufacturers pay Oracle a royalty to license Java. Google doesn't, hence the lawsuit.

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/embedded/overview/embedded-faq-159987.html

The technical definition of the Java language is "the set of all Java programs".

Silly me. If I were looking for a technical definition of the Java language, I would look for the Java language specification

That can be copyrighted and licensed. From there it follows that Oracle can dictate terms for reading the specification and implementing the language. Since it's impossible to write programs in Java without an implemenation, they could require that all programs written using that implementation be copyrighted in a particular way.

Of course they'd be idiots to do that. As others have pointed out, it would make anybody with a lick of sense turn the other way and run from the language. I mean, really. You can write GPL'd code that runs on Windows for cryin' out loud. A language that enforces copyright over programs written in the language? Insanity. Possible yes; but insane.

Now, as for Java specificly, there is a HUGE body of work written with the understanding that there were no restrictions on programs written in the language (which is customary). IANAL, but I doubt they could retroactively enforce such terms over legacy software.

All far too dense for an 11 year old, and all pretty much require more background knowledge than an 11 year old is likely to have. I'm not sure there really is an answer to the OP's question though, at that age, even a very bright kid is almost certainly going to lack the prerequisite knowledge to learn to program from just a book.

Say what?! I was programming at age 11, self-taught, using 'just books.' (Unless you count some early -- and very rudimentary -- Logo exposure in grade school; later scholastic use of the computer was, IIRC, limited to Oregon Trail, though once you got to high school you could take a class that taught Pascal...)

I got started hand-keying source code from magazines and books available at local booksellers. As I progressed, I picked up a copy (likely got it as a present) of the AppleSoft Basic Programmer's Reference Manual.

These days, I have to imagine it would be both easier (every API you need to get started is quickly available online, often with excellent accompanying tutorials and/or with user-contributed sample code snippets), and perhaps more intimidating (as the complexity of our systems has increased precipitously). (On the flip side, much, much easier to get a GUI working under Java than back in the day when you had to hand-code memory bank switching and deal with the bizarre "but it saved a chip!" oddities of Apple II graphics programming...)

Mind you, I wasn't a very good programmer, and honestly wouldn't be until I was finally exposed to proper procedural programming (C), then OOP (C++, and when it was released, Java), in college. But I had fun with it, and my stuff worked. Wasn't terribly robust or full-featured, but, it worked. (My database was a flat-file, not relational, and, um, written in BASIC... ;))

Okay, all that said, it might be worth checking out the Head First books. Head First Programming uses Python and is supposed to be a general introduction to programming. There's also Head First Java. No direct experience with either, but people rave about 'em.

All far too dense for an 11 year old, and all pretty much require more background knowledge than an 11 year old is likely to have. I'm not sure there really is an answer to the OP's question though, at that age, even a very bright kid is almost certainly going to lack the prerequisite knowledge to learn to program from just a book.

Say what?! I was programming at age 11, self-taught, using 'just books.' (Unless you count some early -- and very rudimentary -- Logo exposure in grade school; later scholastic use of the computer was, IIRC, limited to Oregon Trail, though once you got to high school you could take a class that taught Pascal...)

I got started hand-keying source code from magazines and books available at local booksellers. As I progressed, I picked up a copy (likely got it as a present) of the AppleSoft Basic Programmer's Reference Manual.

These days, I have to imagine it would be both easier (every API you need to get started is quickly available online, often with excellent accompanying tutorials and/or with user-contributed sample code snippets), and perhaps more intimidating (as the complexity of our systems has increased precipitously). (On the flip side, much, much easier to get a GUI working under Java than back in the day when you had to hand-code memory bank switching and deal with the bizarre "but it saved a chip!" oddities of Apple II graphics programming...)

Mind you, I wasn't a very good programmer, and honestly wouldn't be until I was finally exposed to proper procedural programming (C), then OOP (C++, and when it was released, Java), in college. But I had fun with it, and my stuff worked. Wasn't terribly robust or full-featured, but, it worked. (My database was a flat-file, not relational, and, um, written in BASIC... ;))

Okay, all that said, it might be worth checking out the Head First books. Head First Programming uses Python and is supposed to be a general introduction to programming. There's also Head First Java. No direct experience with either, but people rave about 'em.

Actually no that's not correct. Apple and Oracle are working together on it:

"In November, Apple and Oracle announced that they would collaborate on a Mac-based incarnation of OpenJDK, an open source version of Java."
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/02/27/no_java_in_mac_os_x_lion/

No, it is correct. The keyword from your quote is "would," indicating a past projection of a future event. OpenJDK on OS X is still incomplete.

At present, the only publicly released, supported version of Java on OS X (Lion or Snow Leopard) is Java 6, provided by Apple alone and based on licensed Oracle code, not OpenJDK.

Oracle fixed the Java issue exploited by Flashback on Feb 14. Apple released a developer preview build the very next day. Apple did not release the final, public version until Apr 5, after the Flashback malware was already spreading in the wild, over a month and a half after Oracle fixed it and gave the code to Apple.

Actually no that's not correct. Apple and Oracle are working together on it:

"In November, Apple and Oracle announced that they would collaborate on a Mac-based incarnation of OpenJDK, an open source version of Java."
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/02/27/no_java_in_mac_os_x_lion/

No, it is correct. The keyword from your quote is "would," indicating a past projection of a future event. OpenJDK on OS X is still incomplete.

At present, the only publicly released, supported version of Java on OS X (Lion or Snow Leopard) is Java 6, provided by Apple alone and based on licensed Oracle code, not OpenJDK.

Oracle fixed the Java issue exploited by Flashback on Feb 14. Apple released a developer preview build the very next day. Apple did not release the final, public version until Apr 5, after the Flashback malware was already spreading in the wild, over a month and a half after Oracle fixed it and gave the code to Apple.

Lol. You are *very* out of date. No need to use JNI when JNA provides excellent access to native code. Pus, ever since Java 1.6u10 it *screams* (for example, all graphics are implemented as OpenGL or DirectX shaders, depending on the platform). In fact, INRIA found that Java beat C++ for their uses and was approaching FORTRAN for speed, and that was 4 years ago (and Java is faster still now with things like the G1 collector): https://blogs.oracle.com/jag/entry/current_state_of_java_for

I hope that helps get you up to date on why developers and enterprises who know what they are doing continue to use Java (more than any other language, according to the Tiobe index).

I don't know why all the fuss is about breaking our version scheme so the Enterprise has a harder time planning appropriate upgrades to their work stations. And now we decided to break compatibility with your legacy Java systems. ... The enterprise doesn't stick with IE because they think it is a good browser they know how much it sucks. They stick with it because it can be maintained and managed properly in an enterprise environment.

Large/Enterprise organizations value version stability more than security? That's poor judgment. What does "maintained and managed properly" mean if it doesn't include security? It means two things: IT can cover their asses and blame problems on Microsoft, and IT can keep using vulnerable software rather then upgrading when there's security issues. Using vulnerable software is convenient for IT, but a poor solution to keeping production running.

You theorize that IE is used because it's broke but version stable. I think it's dumb inertia combined with sentiments like 'nobody ever got fired for buying Microsoft' and 'you touch it, you own it', rather then a considered and reasoned decision to use IE. Your post echoes complaints about upgrades that many others have made, but they always sound like IT complaining about having to do their job, and I can tell you from experience that the upgrade cycle never ends, and the desktop issues are nothing compared to server-side systems. IT needs to get over it and fix the problem in a way that's either (relatively) long term or easy to replicate.

Finally, here are two alternatives to IE: They could use Mozilla Firefox Extended Support Release and get both security and stability. Or they could disable Java in the browser and use Java Web Start for their important Java apps.

LTO-6 is not available yet. When available, each cartridge will hold up to 3.2 TB uncompressed. (I can make up practically any figure I want for compressed data capacity. It just depends on the type of data and the compression algorithm.) That's not bad, but IBM's TS1140 tape drive has been available since June, 2011. It supports tape cartridges that each hold up to 4.0 TB uncompressed. The Oracle StorageTek T10000C tape drive supports cartridges that each hold up to 5 TB uncompressed. It depends on what you're doing -- raw storage capacity per cartridge is certainly not the only relevant specification -- but there are interesting choices.

First, Go has an FFI system like every other language. You can directly compile C code into your binary, and make wrappers with "cgo" for C and C++ libraries. Second, you should read this about dynamic linking -- I don't know if it's perfectly accurate but it's definitely interesting: What does dynamic linking and communism have got in common?

As the article points out this is a known vulnerability. And there has been a patch available since October 2011.

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/topics/security/javacpuoct2011-443431.html

The infoworld article mentions that the applet used a "rogue" DLL. Where did that come from? If it didn't install any files on the system, why is there a "rogue" DLL on the system? Did it just "install" that DLL into memory also? And if the malicious applet code managed to get escalated privileges, why didn't it install something on the drive? And isn’t the term “install” being misused in the article? In fact, isn’t it true Mr. Infoworld Article person, that the alleged malware was merely “loaded” into memory? The truth is there was no flight leaving Guantanamo Bay, you doctored the flight logs, you ordered the code red, you framed OJ Simpson

expand o matic raid z

It is "only" an implementation issue.

I would love it: just add a HD, and get extra diskspace that is raid-protected, or (schedule a ) remove a HD, and the data will restripe over the remaining HD's.

Java 7 has a Closeable interface that is analogous to the .NET IDisposable interface. It can be used in a block of code similar to a "try-catch" block that is equivalent to the C# "using" block, and guarantees cleanup. This is on top of the automatic cleanup that happens anyway, after a delay. For comparison, while in principle C++ code can be made robust against resource and memory leaks, in practice the use of C-like APIs and third-party libraries makes this a very difficult goal to achieve.

You're also conflating memory management and timely release of resources. In C++ those are treated as more or less the same thing, but in managed languages like Java and C#, they're somewhat independent. Programmers shouldn't care exactly when the garbage collector kicks in to release memory because the vast majority of the time it doesn't matter, and when it does matter, there are API calls and configuration parameters that can be used to alter GC behaviour. The Closeable/IDisposable interfaces provide a structured method for resource cleanup when it does matter, such as connections and handles. This is surprisingly rare -- out of the thousands of classes in the Java SDK API, there's only a little over a hundred that implement the Closeable interface.

Writing C++ code that uses complex control flow such threading, events or closures can be challenging, and programmers can becoming pre-occupied with resource lifetime management. I've seen many C++ programmers make the incorrect assumption that because their experience is that the advanced language features of C++ make an this complex problem somewhat simpler and safer to solve, then other languages that don't have equivalent features must in some way be flawed. Of course, this is because they don't realise that in other languages it's not a significant problem. It's a form of projection, just like alcoholics often think everybody else has a problem with their drinking too.

Java 7 has a Closeable interface that is analogous to the .NET IDisposable interface. It can be used in a block of code similar to a "try-catch" block that is equivalent to the C# "using" block, and guarantees cleanup. This is on top of the automatic cleanup that happens anyway, after a delay. For comparison, while in principle C++ code can be made robust against resource and memory leaks, in practice the use of C-like APIs and third-party libraries makes this a very difficult goal to achieve.

You're also conflating memory management and timely release of resources. In C++ those are treated as more or less the same thing, but in managed languages like Java and C#, they're somewhat independent. Programmers shouldn't care exactly when the garbage collector kicks in to release memory because the vast majority of the time it doesn't matter, and when it does matter, there are API calls and configuration parameters that can be used to alter GC behaviour. The Closeable/IDisposable interfaces provide a structured method for resource cleanup when it does matter, such as connections and handles. This is surprisingly rare -- out of the thousands of classes in the Java SDK API, there's only a little over a hundred that implement the Closeable interface.

Writing C++ code that uses complex control flow such threading, events or closures can be challenging, and programmers can becoming pre-occupied with resource lifetime management. I've seen many C++ programmers make the incorrect assumption that because their experience is that the advanced language features of C++ make an this complex problem somewhat simpler and safer to solve, then other languages that don't have equivalent features must in some way be flawed. Of course, this is because they don't realise that in other languages it's not a significant problem. It's a form of projection, just like alcoholics often think everybody else has a problem with their drinking too.

Java 7 has a Closeable interface that is analogous to the .NET IDisposable interface. It can be used in a block of code similar to a "try-catch" block that is equivalent to the C# "using" block, and guarantees cleanup. This is on top of the automatic cleanup that happens anyway, after a delay. For comparison, while in principle C++ code can be made robust against resource and memory leaks, in practice the use of C-like APIs and third-party libraries makes this a very difficult goal to achieve.

You're also conflating memory management and timely release of resources. In C++ those are treated as more or less the same thing, but in managed languages like Java and C#, they're somewhat independent. Programmers shouldn't care exactly when the garbage collector kicks in to release memory because the vast majority of the time it doesn't matter, and when it does matter, there are API calls and configuration parameters that can be used to alter GC behaviour. The Closeable/IDisposable interfaces provide a structured method for resource cleanup when it does matter, such as connections and handles. This is surprisingly rare -- out of the thousands of classes in the Java SDK API, there's only a little over a hundred that implement the Closeable interface.

Writing C++ code that uses complex control flow such threading, events or closures can be challenging, and programmers can becoming pre-occupied with resource lifetime management. I've seen many C++ programmers make the incorrect assumption that because their experience is that the advanced language features of C++ make an this complex problem somewhat simpler and safer to solve, then other languages that don't have equivalent features must in some way be flawed. Of course, this is because they don't realise that in other languages it's not a significant problem. It's a form of projection, just like alcoholics often think everybody else has a problem with their drinking too.

But Sun is no more. It got taken over by Oracle. [grin]

Although I agree about databases being the answer, the advantage of having tag information in a filesystem is the sheer number of tools/programs that interface with a filesystem.

You could arrange a database to track all your movies and music by multiple systems (e.g. year produced, actors, genre) but you'd have to ensure that whatever program you're using to browse/play those files would have to be able to interface with the database. If the information is in the filesystem, then all of the usual programs would suddenly be able to take advantage of the extra tags with no extra work.

There's an interesting crossover with database filesystems. Oracle's DBFS http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E14072_01/appdev.112/e10645/adlob_fs.htm will allow you to store and retrieve database objects with standard tools. There's a lot of common features between a filesystem and a database and usually the best performing filesystems have the most database-like features.

You also have Oracle ... in that list that have little to no support for Linux with their software (or other questionable attributes).

Oracle? I mean sure Larry's O-monster is definitely one of the major Big Evil Corporations(tm), but you can't say they have no support for Linux. Hell, the flagship product Oracle Database has been available for Linux (and even certified on several distros) for at least 10 years now -- I was running 8i on a Slackware box back in 2003!

Many years ago, they came out with their own Linux distro (based on RHEL), and now you can even get a turn-key solution that includes an "appliance" server, which runs their software ... get this ... on Linux! They will fully support you with mission-critical issues, as long as you pay for the support contract ;)

Furthermore, most people don't even know that Oracle has dedicated team of paid staff that does nothing but work on FOSS. One of these projects is OCFS2, which I have personally been involved with (as a user & community member, not a developer) for 2-3 years now and has recently become part of the mainline Linux kernel.

Apparently the HTML version has already been upgraded: http://supporthtml.oracle.com/ -- apparently an all-HTML version will replace the entire portal in not so long (which may or may not be this one at the supporthtml page, but I know that is not what the HTML version looked like a month ago).

Oracle hasn't replaced that site yet -- the primary site is still Flash and you've now reminded me why this will be a big headache.

Seconded. Oracle's central support portal still holds on to that flash-based dashboard. By my estimation, they were appeared to have this in development at a time when flash had the highest penetration, but by the time they finally released it (2009), the world had moved on to AJAX-based interfaces. If they had just held on a bit longer in their dev-cycle, they may have caught that wave and avoided flash altogether.

Notably, a good percentage of the Oracle Support population are linux-oriented, so maybe this is a good opportunity for Oracle (and other *nix-centric organizations) to speed up the development of their next-gen web portal.