Slashdot Mirror

Not always:
https://scs.senecac.on.ca/~ibc...

That reminds me of the story Frank Soltis ("father" of the AS400) told about one of IBM's customers. They ran AS400s for their distribution network. Then they decided to switch to Windows servers - and after 12 months or so, switched back to AS400s, because Windows just couldn't cut it.

The customer was Microsoft.

https://scs.senecac.on.ca/~ibc...

In about 1990 Gartner estimated that there were over 100 billion lines of COBOL in commercial use. By 2003, that had become 180 billion lines. Extrapolating, I'd expect that the figure is over 250 billion lines today. It's rather like the IBM mainframe, whose "death" was being loudly trumpeted in the early 1990s. Yet mainframe sales went right on growing, and today more of them are being used than ever. Most of them probably run COBOL applications.

What you need to decide is what software is for. If it's for fun, an art form, or a fashionable vehicle of self-expression, then by all means go with the latest and greatest languages, frameworks, and tools. But if it's a business-critical (or even safety-critical) component of vital engineering systems, doesn't it make sense to use something that is *known* to work reliably? "A legacy application is one that works", and I for one prefer to fly in aircraft that are programmed with Ada and use banks whose computers run COBOL. Call me a boring old fuddy-duddy, but some things are just better if you can count on them working.

http://scs.senecac.on.ca/~timo...

And that is why
"Between 60 and 80 per cent of all business transactions performed worldwide are processed—very effectively and efficiently—by COBOL programs running on mainframes. Within the financial industry (banks and insurance), COBOL is used extensively to process the vast majority of their transactions."
https://scs.senecac.on.ca/~timothy.mckenna/offline/COBOL_not_dead_yet.htm

I stopped writing COBOL in about 1985, but we were smart people, and our code was pretty good. It has lived all this time. Most of the new wave crap I have been involved in since has drifted off somewhere. It was relatively easy to create, but the technologies changed so fast that most of it was ephemeral. I bet some of my CICS is still running!

If Apple wanted to be real assholes, they could have made the screw heads look bitchin' like this. Good luck finding a common source for screwdrivers that look like that. And then they could use trademark/copyright/DMCA to crush anybody trying to sell Chinese screwdrivers on ebay.

Canada has been doing this for years with a full curriculum.
They even have a one week crash course.
Oh look, here's a map of schools around the world doing this right now

Canada has been doing this for years with a full curriculum.
They even have a one week crash course.
Oh look, here's a map of schools around the world doing this right now

Hell, Microsoft even used AS/400s for a long time: https://cs.senecac.on.ca/~tmckenna/offline/MS400.html

The entire course was learning about open source culture, how projects are started, what makes a successful (or unsuccessful project). We learned about concepts like the GPL, Cathedral vs. Bazaar. We learned about open source tools like Source Forge. We learned about how open source devs communicate, through IRC, newsgroups and wikis. We learned about documentation and CVS.

And our term project was to write an extension for Firefox. There were a million and a half feature requests for Firefox anyways. So why bother writing a bunch of useless code that'd get tossed at the end of the semester, when we could write half-useless code that might actually benefit the community at large later on.

Most of us failed miserably at writing code for Firefox, but it was the learning process we were marked on, and not the final product. Though, from what I understand, a few of the extensions made it onto Source Forge, or were integrated into the Firefox 2 code. One of my classmates was hired by Mozilla for his co-op term, and was flown from Toronto to California.

At no time were any of us exploited or taken advantage of. We learned about how stuff actually works in a field that we'll either be entering, or working peripherally with. The code we produced was actually useful, rather than being some throw-away Hello World. It was a great learning experience.

Another course I took was a Patterns class. We used Design Patterns as the course text. Everyone had to write a summary of one pattern and present it to the class. The prof noticed that Wikipedia had entries on all the patterns, and on the book as a whole-- but that the book's entry had a note saying "Chapter 2: A case study description needs to be added". So for my assignment, instead of covering a pattern, I wrote the entry for the case study. In writing it, I accomplished many things. I got my required reading done. I learned about design patterns. And I used my newly acquired knowledge to help expand other's knowledge by contributing to a community project. It wasn't exploitive in any way. I would have learned that knowledge anyways. Someone would have put up that summary sooner or later (though judging by the revision history, it might have been VERY later).

Neither of the professors in the above had any trouble marking the work. The Open Source prof ran a wiki, and had full access to Source Forge or anywhere else we wanted to upload our projects. We had to Watch our own Wiki pages. Should there be a discrepancy, revision logs are ALWAYS available. The Patterns prof just reminded me to create a Wikipedia account so that he could see my revision history. I made sure to send him a link to the historical entry that had my final submission. I don't see why there would be any problem marking work that is fully accessible and timestamped.

(Like any Wiki entry, it has since been revised and improved many times. How many times can you hand in an incomplete school project, get marked for it, and have other people finish it for you later-- and have that all okayed in advance by your prof? =) )

The entire course was learning about open source culture, how projects are started, what makes a successful (or unsuccessful project). We learned about concepts like the GPL, Cathedral vs. Bazaar. We learned about open source tools like Source Forge. We learned about how open source devs communicate, through IRC, newsgroups and wikis. We learned about documentation and CVS.

And our term project was to write an extension for Firefox. There were a million and a half feature requests for Firefox anyways. So why bother writing a bunch of useless code that'd get tossed at the end of the semester, when we could write half-useless code that might actually benefit the community at large later on.

Most of us failed miserably at writing code for Firefox, but it was the learning process we were marked on, and not the final product. Though, from what I understand, a few of the extensions made it onto Source Forge, or were integrated into the Firefox 2 code. One of my classmates was hired by Mozilla for his co-op term, and was flown from Toronto to California.

At no time were any of us exploited or taken advantage of. We learned about how stuff actually works in a field that we'll either be entering, or working peripherally with. The code we produced was actually useful, rather than being some throw-away Hello World. It was a great learning experience.

Another course I took was a Patterns class. We used Design Patterns as the course text. Everyone had to write a summary of one pattern and present it to the class. The prof noticed that Wikipedia had entries on all the patterns, and on the book as a whole-- but that the book's entry had a note saying "Chapter 2: A case study description needs to be added". So for my assignment, instead of covering a pattern, I wrote the entry for the case study. In writing it, I accomplished many things. I got my required reading done. I learned about design patterns. And I used my newly acquired knowledge to help expand other's knowledge by contributing to a community project. It wasn't exploitive in any way. I would have learned that knowledge anyways. Someone would have put up that summary sooner or later (though judging by the revision history, it might have been VERY later).

Neither of the professors in the above had any trouble marking the work. The Open Source prof ran a wiki, and had full access to Source Forge or anywhere else we wanted to upload our projects. We had to Watch our own Wiki pages. Should there be a discrepancy, revision logs are ALWAYS available. The Patterns prof just reminded me to create a Wikipedia account so that he could see my revision history. I made sure to send him a link to the historical entry that had my final submission. I don't see why there would be any problem marking work that is fully accessible and timestamped.

(Like any Wiki entry, it has since been revised and improved many times. How many times can you hand in an incomplete school project, get marked for it, and have other people finish it for you later-- and have that all okayed in advance by your prof? =) )

http://linuxgazette.net/124/smith.html
http://www.google.com/search?q=multiseat+x
http://cs.senecac.on.ca/~ctyler/ruby/
http://blog.chris.tylers.info/index.php?/archives/ 14-Multiseat-X-Under-X11R6.97.0.html
http://www.linuxtoday.com/infrastructure/200512070 0126OSDTHL

I would love keychain integration on OS X

I would love it, too. I don't feel comfortable keeping anything important (like passwords that actually matter) within Firefox, whereas I do keep that kind of stuff in Keychain as we speak. There's some kind of school project to add Keychain integration to Firefox but I can't really tell how far it's come at this point.

Does Camino offer anything else besides a different appearance compared to Firefox proper?

What you are describing is offered at community colleges in Canada. I attended Seneca College's 3 Year Computer Programming and Analysis program. On the last year of the program, students are exposed to the creation of a real life project from start to finish. Teams of students must find a real life company that is willing to allow these students to launch this system within the company (companies willing to accept a free system that solves a business problem are not hard to find even if the system is built by students). The whole process is split into two semesters having the design of the system on the first semester and the implementation on the second. During both parts, students are supervised by instructors who monitor the process. The whole process follows "the book" as close as possible. This means students are exposed to things such as project proposals, cost analysis, requirement analysis, project specification documents, legal requirements, design exercises (full blown UML design, screenshots, prototypes), project management using tools such as MS Project, and the implementation of a relative complex system. Aside from that, students also exposed to team dynamics, learn how to deal with real life clients while sticking to a plan and schedule.

I personally found it to be a valuable experience which not only looked great on the resume while I was trying to get my first programming job, but also enriched the technical knowledge I had already gotten through other courses. I'm surprised there aren't many "recognized" programs that try to to close the gap between the theory of a CS degree and pure programming/systems programs such as my old college's. This is part of the reason why I'm now working towards my CS degree at University, in order to see the field from both sides. However, 6+ years of post-secondary education (undergrad) may be something that not everyone can/wants to do.

What I would love to see for Firefox (and Thunderbird) on Mac OS X is integration with Apple Keychain. (I would also love to see Apple Address Book integration with Thunderbird, but that's somewhat off-topic.) Is there any chance of this happening in the near future, or will we have to rely on third party hacks?

Two thoughts:

- In terms of summer events, the Ottawa Linux Symposium is supposed to be a great event. I haven't made it to one yet but I've wanted to for a few years. It's July 19-22 in Ottawa (Ontario, Canada).

- [Shameless Plug] This doesn't quite match your description but I thought I'd mention it anyways: I teach at Seneca College, Toronto, and we have a 10-month intensive Linux Administration graduate certificate program that I think is one of the best Linux training programs available. We've had students from all different backgrounds including current staff from large systems vendors. We also throw a great Free Software and Open Source Symposium in October; this year we have Mike Shaver and Neil Deacon (Mozilla), Nat Freidman (Ximian/Novell), Chris Blizzard (One Laptop Per Child), and a raft of others.

And I agree that there's no substitute for getting dirt under your fingernails and actually working with the technology! :-)

Two thoughts:

- In terms of summer events, the Ottawa Linux Symposium is supposed to be a great event. I haven't made it to one yet but I've wanted to for a few years. It's July 19-22 in Ottawa (Ontario, Canada).

- [Shameless Plug] This doesn't quite match your description but I thought I'd mention it anyways: I teach at Seneca College, Toronto, and we have a 10-month intensive Linux Administration graduate certificate program that I think is one of the best Linux training programs available. We've had students from all different backgrounds including current staff from large systems vendors. We also throw a great Free Software and Open Source Symposium in October; this year we have Mike Shaver and Neil Deacon (Mozilla), Nat Freidman (Ximian/Novell), Chris Blizzard (One Laptop Per Child), and a raft of others.

And I agree that there's no substitute for getting dirt under your fingernails and actually working with the technology! :-)

I posted this on my wiki site, but figured I'd put my own $0.02 here since it was appropriate. (Besides, I'm not so sure my server could handle the traffic ;) ).

Whenever I run across people who are against something, I usually ask two important questions:

What exactly are you looking to protect?

And

Do you profit by it?

For example: people who are against abortion would probably tell you that they're doing it to save human life (in this case, unborn children). Now, whether you agree with that statement or not, that's the point: protecting life.

People who are against dumping chemicals in our water are usually trying to protect the environment and our health.

People who are against pornography are usually doing so because they feel, or have studies that show, that pornography can cause other addictive behavior (including increased sexual promiscuity, abuse, etc).

Again - people can argue one side or the other until they are blue in the face, and since I don't feel like looking like a http://www.smurf.com/homepage.html Smuff, I'm not going to debate that here. That's what the "discussion" link up at the top is for. (Go ahead - click it if you need to. I'm not going to stop you.)

But the second question can often be just as important. When Microsoft gives talks about how Free Software Movement is just http://cs.senecac.on.ca/~selmys/quotes.html communism, you know that if Open Source software usage drops, Microsoft's will rise. When a group promoting nuclear energy comes out against the use of oil and coal, you know they're really saying "Nuclear energy is better - buy it!"

Some people protest things for good motives - some are less than pure. And if there's anything that protesters soon learn, it's "use what works", over and over again.

Take the case of Jack Thompson. Not too long ago, there was the "Hot Coffee Scandal". Here's the short version: somebody discovered there was a sex mini-game in "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" (GTA: SA), but no way to play it. In other words, Rockstar shipped a game with unplayable content, feeling that nobody would ever figure out how to turn it on.

Stupidly, they forgot that unlike the PS2 and Xbox versions, people are more than willing to modify PC versions of the games. In fact, PC modifications of "Grand Theft Auto III" are very popular, including the mod http://www.mtavc.com/ "Multi Theft Auto", which modifies the PC version to allow multiplayer use.

So, when the PC version of "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" hit the shelves, of course people started looking at what they could modify. Next thing you know, the sex game is found, someone releases a mod that turns it on, and to the horror of religious conservatives everywhere, people can watch polygons of a naked woman and a man with no penis having sex.

Trust me. I've seen the video. It's not that hot.

Once the news is out, politicians are going nuts. Senator Hillary Clinton wants senate hearings. The ESRB, under major pressure, changes the game's rating from "M" to "AO for Adults Only". Stores pull the game from the shelves. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1441534/p osts Dogs and cats are sleeping together - mass hysteria!

Chart out the steps you have to get to this content: First you have to buy the game. Since the game is rated "M for Mature", this means that you should have to be at least 17 or older to even purchase the game. Second, you have to willingly install the game on your computer. Third, go online and find the mod. Fourth, install it.

The number of steps here are very important: it's not like you can just be play

The following link contains a list of anti-Linux quotations from Microsoft executives. It shows Steve Ballmer said Linux had 'characteristics of communism' on 31 July 2000, and called it 'a cancer' on 1 July 2001. As can be seen, these quotations are the oldest on the site, with the more recent ones sounding much less hysterical, and not mentioning cancer or communism. On 13 July 2004, Ballmer even said 'Linux is a good clone of UNIX'!

If you can point to recent quotes by Steve Ballmer or Bill Gates in which Linux is called ridiculous things like 'a cancer', I'll admit I'm wrong! Until then, however, I think it's you who's wrong.

Bill Gates has recently said those who oppose intellectual property rights are 'new modern-day sort of communists', but this is a valid point: a key part of communism is the elimination of property rights, both intellectual and physical.

The idea of being like communists may get you all worked up, but here in Europe, communism is just another economic theory, and what Gates said sounds reasonable. Eliminating property rights is communistic, but that doesn't mean it isn't valid in some cases! If software patents will stifle software development rather than help it, a communistic approach towards software ideas (not software itself) is a better one than the approach of private ownership of such. At the same time, the examples Gates used: music, films and software, which refer to copyright anyway, probably aren't.

One other thing is you haven't made any argument that hysterical comments about competitors are linked to success. You've simply said: (a) Microsoft executives have called Linux 'a cancer' and 'communism', and (b) Microsoft is successful, therefore (a) caused (b). Steve Ballmer is bald too, but that's not why Microsoft is successful!

If making hysterical comments is the key to success, why has Linux been so much more successful than Hurd? Richard Stallman has been ranting hysterically since the 1980s, where as Linus Torvalds is almost always calm and professional. By your logic, therefore, we should expect Hurd to be much more popular than Linux.

For an example of Stallman's rants, you can see his response to Gates's comments linked above (about intellectual property and communism). One of the first things that stands out is that even though the questioner asked Gates about 'intellectual property, copyrights and patents', Stallman claims Gates was only asked about software patents, and then 'shifted' the subject to intellectual property! This is simply false, as anyone who has read both links can see.

Stallman goes on to rant inanely about how Bill Gates is a communist, and claims Gates said anyone who thinks people should be 'free to program' is a communist! It's just silly, and once again, anyone who reads the other link can see so. In these two articles, Gates comes across as much calmer and more professional than Stallman, and much more so than he himself used to be. Perhaps he's learnt a lesson that Stallman hasn't.

Actually "Windows XP" isn't a Kernel. The kernel of Windows XP is called the actually called the "NT Executive" - which is composed of the Hal (Hardware abstractiomn..), Microkernel and kernel services ( device drivers,.. ).

Windows XP Architecture

I have a multi-user setup at home (I'm using it right now) which is described here... it has 3 heads (video/keyboard/sound/mouse for each). I've found it to be an economical approach that involves far less administrative work than any other multi-user configuration -- separate systems with NFS file shares, X terminals, you name it.

There are several significant challenges involved in setting up a multi-head, multi-user system:

• The 'normal' kernel USB setup merges multiple keyboards and mice into a single queue. This makes sense when you're using an external keyboard and mouse with a laptop, but it a pain in MHMU. Patches to the USB system are required.

• The 'normal' console/virtual terminal system is not MHMU-aware. This has to be patched with the Backstreet-Ruby patches to work properly.

• The 'normal' X server can handle a multi-head configuration, but expects all the heads to be used by one user. The prefbusid patch or similar must be applied to fix this.

• Apps that use sound are a nightmare-- it's painful trying to get apps to send their sound to the right speakers. With three of us on the system, I regularly get blasted by sound from Flash websites that my kids are visiting. There is no standard for defining *where* sound should go -- yes, there are soundservers such as esd and artsd, but they are not used by all apps (and try finding current documentations for esd!).

If we made a concerted effort, the MHMU patches could be merged into the main source trees for X.org and the Linux kernel, and the distros could be set up to offer MHMU configurations at installation time.

However, the number of people using MHMU configurations is currently too small to really make a push for the integration of these features into the main source trees and distros.

So if you're using this type of system, or would find it beneficial, then let's work together to make this a mainstream option!

(I think that MHMU would be useful for: tellers in banks; kiosks such as library catalogs; computer labs and learning commons in colleges and universities; and family computing setups).

Years ago, when Mariner 10 went and disovered the Caloris Basin and wierd terrain on Mercury, I immediately wondered if something like that could happen on Earth. I was one of the first to notice that the volcanic Deccan Traps that formed in India at the time of the dinosaur extinction just happened to be located (after taking contintental drift into account) on the opposite side of the Earth from Chixulub. (As I recall, I wrote a letter to Scientific American about it, way back then...but they didn't think it publishable) And now the evidence seems to be accumulating, in favor of exactly such scenarios.

From a note I sent to the author of the article:

My two daughters (now 8 and 10) have also used Linux since they were tiny (3-4 years old).

One change that I made to the normal system install was to modify the display manager (gdm/kdm) to enable multiple X sessions on different virtual terminals. We ran four different X servers -- one each on VT7 through VT10. Each of these VT's was assigned to a member of the family, so that we could each login and use the system even if another family member had not logged out.

Thus, regardless of who was logged in, I could switch to my VT by pressing Ctrl-Alt-F7 and login there. If I got tied up with a phone call, my wife could then press Ctrl-Alt-F8 to switch to her VT and login there, without disturbing any applications which I had running. I could later switch back to my session on VT7 with Ctrl-Alt-F7. Likewise my two girls had VT9 and VT10.

(This is set up with a relatively minor change in the Xservers file (for xdm/kdm) or gdm.conf file (for gdm)).

I would have continued that practice, except that when I recently upgraded my home system, I added two additional keyboard/mouse/monitor setups. Thus we now have a single PC that supports three simultaneous users (using Backstreet Ruby; here is a description of the setup). For our family needs, this is easier to administer and uses less power than a 3-machine LAN while still providing plenty of performance.

Ghost for unix? already done.

Way to throw the moneychangers out of the temple, RMS!

Cool hack if ever I have seen one! Build-your-own Mars Base in one of the most Mars-Like places on Earth, and do real research on how to operate said base when (not if) we get to Mars.

If you keep up with the web traffic on this project, NASA's position seems to be basically "Great work guys!" and "Can we send our best people?" to which request the Mars Society seems to graciously and intelligently accede.

The best advice I could give is to eat, sleep and sh*t UNIX. When I finished up school, I spent several weeks playing around on a home network, configuring things like NFS, Samba and ssh, all the while gaining a more thorough understanding of both specific applications and the ways in which they integrate with the underlying OS. Tell your boss that you want a UNIX workstation, or if that falls by the wayside, load Linux/*BSD on a PC. I find it much easier to admin UNIX by using a UNIX box rather than running SecureCRT or PuTTy off Windows. Besides which, you'll have more opportunity to use the OS on a regular basis. You'll also become accustomed to patching your system.

Don't expect to become an uber-admin overnight. Starting green (like I did), you might not be trusted to admin everything UNIX, as the large, mission-critical Solaris/Oracle servers surely aren't proving grounds for a newbie. Prove yourself first, and as you mature into a professional admin, your skills will be noticed and put to good use accordingly. I'm more established (and trusted) now, but in my earlier days, the systems I supported weren't terribly important (mostly dev), and as such I could work without beads of sweat on my forehead.

WATCH EVERY MOVE YOU MAKE! I cannot impart this enough. Don't allow yourself to become lazy and careless, for as a result you might end up typing `kill' in place of `ps -ef' and quickly cut-n-paste a PID without thinking. Yup, I killed an appserver this way. Don't do things as root that can be done just as easily as an unprivileged user. Drill that into yourself from the get-go. You cannot be careful enough.

Working for a Uni is incredible. The pay is good; although it's not as good as the private sector, the working conditions more than make up for it. I've got my own office (at 21 yrs old, no less!) down the hall from several admins who have proven to be awesome sources of knowledge for a young sysadmin with far too many questions. Large, heterogeneous computing environment, flex hours up the wazoo, two hour lunches, etc, etc.

You're guaranteed to learn a ton, but do maintain a sense of humility. The more you learn, the more you realize how little you truly know in the grand scheme of things.