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sun's java code conventions are hilarious. or maybe i need to get out more.

HotJava is a *web browser*, and is indeed EOL. But HotSpot is, like you say, alive and well.

BTW I interned with the JTech group at SunLabs East last year (Dave Detlefs & co.) and worked on new GC stuff in HotSpot. See my webpage (given in my user info) and drop me a line if you like -- be nice to hear from a fellow intern on /.

It looks like the hardware people use the phrase "Network Attached Storage" for devices that are dedicated to serving files. LinkSys calls theirs EFG80 (such poetry), but you need a Windows PC to run setup. Sun has a whitepaper. A Google search on "Network Attached Storage" turn up mostly hardware turnkey solutions.

Moved? AFAIK, Solaris 9 is still only uses NFSv3 (or optionally v2) so we haven't "moved" to NFSv4 yet. Dunno about any GSSAPI stuff in there, but here is Secure NFS (generally considered an oxymoron) which can use Diffie-Helman or Kerberos.

If money is tight roll your own would suit - are there any distros that just serve up samba storage?

Your options are to either

1. write one :-)
2. buy a client for each machine from one of these vendors: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7.
3. Buy a NFS/SMB gateway from one of the vendors above (or make one with Samba)
4. Use both samba and NFS on the server
5. Simply use samba

Actually, some VM do cache friendly management. All of the VM's take care of basic byte-alignment issues.

The instruction ordering for which you need explicit declaration of read/write barriers for are large matrix math operations, and even then it only matters if you've got huge amounts of data parallelism from a vector processor. Everything2 has a better description than I can write. All of the modern JVM's currently do basic instruction reordering just like C++ compilers, and it's enough to keep the execution units in modern CPU's pretty busy. Things like the "restrict" keyword aren't going to help much with that.

As for "-client vs. -server". This is really basic Java stuff. Check out Sun's own docs on the matter. Where to start. *BOTH* VM's are HotSpot VM's. Both behave the way you describe the client. The difference is that the client VM does less profiling of the code and performs fewer optimisations (actually, there are many more differences, but this is what's relevant to what you said). The benchmark taking a "couple of minutes" to run is not enough for the -server VM to really shine. It's designed for programs that at least run for hours.

Finally, it's actually NOT the number of minutes that the code runs that really determines what optimisations are good/bad for performance. It's the number of times the same code is run. And while some of the code is undoubtedly getting optimised, it is not enough for it to get all the optimisations, and it is certainly not enough for the optimisations to outweigh the penalty for profiling that was incurred during the earlier execution.

After making a few of my open source projects internationalized, I ran into a problem. The text files that need to be translated are in the Western character set (ISO-8859-1). This is a problem because characters outside this set all need to be escaped. People volunteering to translate didn't have the time or skill to figure out how to do that. I wrote a Java translation editor called Attesoro to make the process easier.

For open source projects I ran into some people that do their translations using Babelfish. The automatic translations are generally horrible, but they say that this almost always encourages somebody that knows the language to volunteer to do the job better. ;-)

After making a few of my open source projects internationalized, I ran into a problem. The text files that need to be translated are in the Western character set (ISO-8859-1). This is a problem because characters outside this set all need to be escaped. People volunteering to translate didn't have the time or skill to figure out how to do that. I wrote a Java translation editor called Attesoro to make the process easier.

For open source projects I ran into some people that do their translations using Babelfish. The automatic translations are generally horrible, but they say that this almost always encourages somebody that knows the language to volunteer to do the job better. ;-)

After making a few of my open source projects internationalized, I ran into a problem. The text files that need to be translated are in the Western character set (ISO-8859-1). This is a problem because characters outside this set all need to be escaped. People volunteering to translate didn't have the time or skill to figure out how to do that. I wrote a Java translation editor called Attesoro to make the process easier.

For open source projects I ran into some people that do their translations using Babelfish. The automatic translations are generally horrible, but they say that this almost always encourages somebody that knows the language to volunteer to do the job better. ;-)

For java developers.

i thought these were going to replace struts sometime soon...

There's UltraSPARCs in the nodes and they run Solaris.
Do you know that one of the co-founders of Sun Microsystems (Vinod Khosla) was born in India ?
Do a web search or just go to Sun's website - Sun's website

Funny, I have a 64 bit Sun workstation sitting on my desk that costs $995. Get with it man!

Could one, for instance, now compile a Java program using the SWT library to a native binary using GCJ, so it could be run without using a JVM?

Yes.

SWT takes a middle ground between the extremes of AWT and Swing, and abandons a sacred cow of Sun's- the idea that the same binary must run on all platforms without any modifications. This attitude has really been an albatross around Java's neck and is the reason everyone thinks that Java applications have to be cheesy- because Sun demands that they must be equally cheesy everywhere!

AWT takes the approach that ALL widgets are drawn by the native layer. This isn't a bad idea, except that if no native widget is available (like a slider, or tree), AWT refuses to improvise one at the Java level. This is why there are no sliders or trees in AWT, even on platforms like Windows where native widgets for both are present, because there's some platform out there somewhere that doesn't have them. Maybe AIX or something, who knows. AWT is strictly lowest-common-denominator and that's why everyone hates it.

People bitched and moaned. So Sun went straight to the opposite extreme with Swing, which refuses to even consider the native widgets. Instead, it uses Java level methods to draw pictures of them to fool you. This means that Swing can offer you a "pluggable look and feel", so you can have Motif buttons on Windows, or "Metal" buttons on the Mac! Except nobody cares. Microsoft promptly kicked Swing in the nuts by introducing skins with XP, so it becomes obvious what is really Windows and what is pretending to look like Windows but can't keep up. And Swing suffers greatly from the second system effect- it's overengineered as hell. A Hello World in Swing gobbles up 20 MB of overhead- mostly classes loading and initializing themselves. In fact, Swing is why AWT is still alive. AWT sucks, but you can run a program that lasts for more than a couple minutes with it. Writing stable applications with Swing is a real art. (It is in AWT too, but only because Sun has pretty much left AWT flapping in the wind with minimal improvements, maintenance, or bug fixes. Since Swing came along, AWT has been treated like a red-headed stepchild by Sun.)

SWT is much more like AWT than Swing, except that it takes a practical middle ground- something Sun doesn't seem capable of doing at all! It offers you a nice set of native widgets. If a slider or a tree isn't available on some platform, they draw a picture of one for you. This might make sliders and trees look funny on platforms that lack sliders and trees, but you would expect things to look funny on those platforms. People using Windows (i.e. most of them) aren't bothered by any of this.

This sacrifices binary compatibility. Each platform has its own version of the SWT library. For example, there is a Windows specific swt.jar and a swt.dll that goes with it, and there is a Solaris version of swt.jar and a native swt.so library that it uses. Even though the libraries are implemented completely differently, the public interfaces are the same. So if you develop a program against the Windows version of the SWT library, you won't have any problem compiling against the Linux version. (Although I've heard that SWT blows on Linux, but that was a while ago and I don't know what the current state is.)

SWT doesn't abstract much away from you, unlike AWT, where you are separated from the low level GUI details by a leaky abstraction. In SWT you have to write the frigging event loop yourself! (Which is not a big deal- it's a while loop, usually two lines.) There are a few other gotchas, and you absolutely have to test a SWT program on all platforms you're releasing for, but in practical terms the same was always true for AWT because of the leakiness of its abstraction. SWT at least doesn't pretend that you don't have to worry about this stuff.

This means you have to compile and test a program three times before releasing it, once for Windows, once for Linux, once for Mac. This violates Sun's sacred cow of binary compatibility. But when you're releasing a Java application, you're going to make separate installers for each platform anyway, because you have to bundle a JVM for everybody. So it's not really a big deal, unless you're writing an applet- and applets went the way of the dodo long ago in no small part because of AWT and Swing!

With SWT, you can make really nice, professional looking programs. The layer between you and the OS is very thin (JNI). If your program looks silly or stupid, it's YOUR fault. When the user changes the skin in XP, your SWT programs will pick up the change right away. In fact, it isn't even obvious that you're not using C! You can write your stuff in Java and actually get away with it! So that's why I think SWT is the future (if there is any future left anymore) of Java on the client, and why I will be junking AWT/Swing completely when starting new projects.

For more info see the SWT FAQ. There is some GCJ and SWT info available here.

Furthermore, it has the possibility to use loaders, i.e. a kind of import filters. IIRC, blender is supported as a loader.

How does that benefit Sun financially?

they have no significant general user software applications written in Java

Get this

It does wonders for cross-platform development

• Jurassic Park
• West World
• Terminator
• Microsoft Software

Sun does benefit from this. Sun will now be able to have included with Windows a correct, complete, modern implementation of Java. This provides a means for competing with Microsoft's web services, VB, etc. If a wide enough Java app userbase is established, there will always be a credible alternative to .NET (it just so happens that servers for this alternative often run Solaris). Anything that helps to build that userbase is a Good Thing for everyone but Microsoft.

BTW, it will be very nice to see Java WebStart included by default with Windows. That should make things interesting.

Sun is saying lots of things, that does not make them true.

Sun is the DEC of the 2000s. Its hardware business is stagnant and its software business has no real connection to the hardware. ...However they spend 65% of their time whining about Microsoft.

I doubt that it will come to that as Microsoft will certainly appeal and the chances of blocking the temporary injunction are pretty good, they can win simply by spinning out the appeal.

Java on the client is a pretty wierd idea. Very few sites have ever used Java. I don't think we will suddenly see a rush to switch from flash to Java on the basis...

Solaris 2.6 supports 56 "locales" and is six or so years old now. Is this what you were asking about? I don't have experience with non-USA locales, but it seems the UNIX people have realized that there are countries outside of North America and have tried to accomodate them.

To clear up some points people have commented on (based on a very preliminary inspection plus a lot of discussion at the conference):

1. The default save format is still .doc (ie you have to go the extra click to save in XML format)
2. If you pick to click it, the default XML format is MS's own office-document vocabulary, which retains all the formatting, held in attributes. Hairy but processable, and they will be shipping their schema for it so people can reprocess it externally. But this format will (of course) only represent the appearance, not any structure.
3. It will also let you specify your own schema (or an industry standard one) and let you supply a binding of named styles to your element types, so you can edit using what look like styles but actually get represented in the saved file as XML markup. There is some debate as to whether this constitutes "being an XML editor" or just "being a wordprocessor that saves data in XML" (my money is on the latter).
4. It will not support DTDs, so you're stuck with W3C Schemas whether you like them or not*
5. The discussion over a [more?] suitable schema/DTD for handling office documents (wordprocessing, spreadsheet, presentation) continues at the OASIS TC on Open Office XML Formats **

* [Bias note] I think W3C schemas were a big mistake; provision for data content typing and validation, namespaces, and extended grouping could have been achieved by extending DTD syntax; and wimpy programmers who moan about having two syntaxes to handle should get a life - it's not a big deal, the code is free and has been in use for 15 years :-)

** Sun has donated the OpenOffice (aka StarOffice) XML file formats to the public domain. It's worth remembering that {Star|Open}Office has been saving in XML as its native format for some time now, and has a lot more experience at this than MS.

To clear up some points people have commented on (based on a very preliminary inspection plus a lot of discussion at the conference):

1. The default save format is still .doc (ie you have to go the extra click to save in XML format)
2. If you pick to click it, the default XML format is MS's own office-document vocabulary, which retains all the formatting, held in attributes. Hairy but processable, and they will be shipping their schema for it so people can reprocess it externally. But this format will (of course) only represent the appearance, not any structure.
3. It will also let you specify your own schema (or an industry standard one) and let you supply a binding of named styles to your element types, so you can edit using what look like styles but actually get represented in the saved file as XML markup. There is some debate as to whether this constitutes "being an XML editor" or just "being a wordprocessor that saves data in XML" (my money is on the latter).
4. It will not support DTDs, so you're stuck with W3C Schemas whether you like them or not*
5. The discussion over a [more?] suitable schema/DTD for handling office documents (wordprocessing, spreadsheet, presentation) continues at the OASIS TC on Open Office XML Formats **

* [Bias note] I think W3C schemas were a big mistake; provision for data content typing and validation, namespaces, and extended grouping could have been achieved by extending DTD syntax; and wimpy programmers who moan about having two syntaxes to handle should get a life - it's not a big deal, the code is free and has been in use for 15 years :-)

** Sun has donated the OpenOffice (aka StarOffice) XML file formats to the public domain. It's worth remembering that {Star|Open}Office has been saving in XML as its native format for some time now, and has a lot more experience at this than MS.

Not true. In the above case, the bounds checking can be easily optimized out. From Sun:

Compiler Optimizations

Range check elimination: The Java programming language specification requires array bounds checking to be performed with each array access. An index bounds check can be eliminated when the compiler can prove that an index used for an array access is within bounds.

(from Hotpot Documentation)

Which would be trivial in the case supplied.

It has come to my attention that the entire Linux community is a hotbed of so called 'alternative sexuality,' which includes anything from hedonistic orgies to homosexuality to pedophilia.

What better way of demonstrating this than by looking at the hidden messages contained within the names of some of Linux's most outspoken advocates:

• Linus Torvalds is an anagram of slit anus or VD 'L,' clearly referring to himself by the first initial.
• Richard M. Stallman, spokespervert for the Gaysex's Not Unusual 'movement' is an anagram of mans cram thrill ad.
• Alan Cox is barely an anagram of anal cox which is just so filthy and unchristian it unnerves me.

I'm sure that Eric S. Raymond, composer of the satanic homosexual propaganda diatribe The Cathedral and the Bizarre, is probably an anagram of something queer, but we don't need to look that far as we know he's always shoving a gun up some poor little boy's rectum. Update: Eric S. Raymond is actually an anagram for secondary rim and cord in my arse. It just goes to show you that he is indeed queer.

Update the Second: It is also documented that Evil Sicko Gaymond is responsible for a nauseating piece of code called Fetchmail, which is obviously sinister sodomite slang for 'Felch Male' -- a disgusting practise. For those not in the know, 'felching' is the act performed by two perverts wherein one sucks their own post-coital ejaculate out of the other's rectum. In fact, it appears that the dirty Linux faggots set out to undermine the good Republican institution of e-mail, turning it into 'e-male.'

As far as Richard 'Master' Stallman goes, that filthy fudge-packer was actually quoted on leftist commie propaganda site Salon.com as saying the following: 'I've been resistant to the pressure to conform in any circumstance,' he says. 'It's about being able to question conventional wisdom,' he asserts. 'I believe in love, but not monogamy,' he says plainly.

And this isn't a made up troll bullshit either! He actually stated this tripe, which makes it obvious that he is trying to politely say that he's a flaming homo slut!

Speaking about 'flaming,' who better to point out as a filthy chutney ferret than Slashdot's very own self-confessed pederast Jon Katz. Although an obvious deviant anagram cannot be found from his name, he has already confessed, nay boasted of the homosexual perversion of corrupting the innocence of young children. To quote from the article linked:

'I've got a rare kidney disease,' I told her. 'I have to go to the bathroom a lot. You can come with me if you want, but it takes a while. Is that okay with you? Do you want a note from my doctor?'

Is this why you were touching your penis in the cinema, Jon? And letting the other boys touch it too?

We should also point out that Jon Katz refers to himself as 'Slashdot's resident Gasbag.' Is there any more doubt? For those fortunate few who aren't aware of the list of homosexual terminology found inside the Linux 'Sauce Code,' a 'Gasbag' is a pervert who gains sexual gratification from having a thin straw inserted into his urethra (or to use the common parlance, 'piss-pipe'), then his homosexual lover blows firmly down the straw to inflate his scrotum. This is, of course, when he's not busy violating the dignity and copyright of posters to Slashdot by gathering together their postings and publishing them en masse to further his twisted and manipulative journalistic agenda.

Sick, disgusting antichristian perverts, the lot of them.

In addition, many of the Linux distributions (a 'distribution' is the most common way to spread the faggots' wares) are run by faggot groups. The Slackware distro is named after the 'Slack-wear' fags wear to allow easy access to the anus for sexual purposes. Furthermore, Slackware is a close anagram of claw arse, a reference to the homosexual practise of anal fisting. The Mandrake product is run by a group of French faggot satanists, and is named after the faggot nickname for the vibrator. It was also chosen because it is an anagram for dark amen and ram naked, which is what they do.

Another 'distro,' (abbrieviated as such because it sounds a bit like 'Disco,' which is where homosexuals preyed on young boys in the 1970s), is Debian, an anagram of in a bed, which could be considered innocent enough (after all, a bed is both where we sleep and pray), until we realise what other names Debian uses to describe their foul wares. 'Woody' is obvious enough, being a term for the erect male penis, glistening with pre-cum. But far sicker is the phrase 'Frozen Potato' that they use. This filthy term, again found in the secret homosexual 'Sauce Code,' refers to the solo homosexual practice of defecating into a clear polythene bag, shaping the turd into a crude approximation of the male phallus, then leaving it in the freezer overnight until it becomes solid. The practitioner then proceeds to push the frozen 'potato' up his own rectum, squeezing it in and out until his tight young balls erupt in a screaming orgasm.

And Red Hat is secret homo slang for the tip of a penis that is soaked in blood from a freshly violated underage ringpiece.

The fags have even invented special tools to aid their faggotry! For example, the 'supermount' tool was devised to allow deeper penetration, which is good for fags because it gives more pressure on the prostate gland. 'Automount' is used, on the other hand, because Linux users are all fat and gay, and need to mount each other automatically.

The depths of their depravity can be seen in their use of 'mount points.' These are, plainly speaking, the different points of penetration. The main one is obviously /anus, but there are others. Militant fags even say 'there is no /opt mount point' because for these dirty perverts faggotry is not optional but a way of life.

More evidence is in the fact that Linux users say how much they love `man`, even going so far as to say that all new Linux users (who are in fact just innocent heterosexuals indoctrinated by the gay propaganda) should try out `man`. In no other system do users boast of their frequent recourse to a man.

Other areas of the system also show Linux's inherit gayness. For example, people are often told of the 'FAQ,' but how many innocent heterosexual Windows users know what this actually means. The answer is shocking: Faggot Anal Quest: the voyage of discovery for newly converted fags!

Even the title 'Slashdot' originally referred to a homosexual practice. Slashdot of course refers to the popular gay practice of blood-letting. The Slashbots, of course are those super-zealous homosexuals who take this perversion to its extreme by ripping open their anuses, as seen on the site most popular with Slashdot users, the depraved work of Satan, http://www.eff.org/.

The editors of Slashdot also have homosexual names: 'Hemos' is obvious in itself, being one vowel away from 'Homos.' But even more sickening is 'Commander Taco' which sounds a bit like 'Commode in Taco,' filthy gay slang for a pair of spreadeagled buttocks that are caked with excrement. (The best form of lubrication, they insist.) Sometimes, these 'Taco Commodes' have special 'Salsa Sauce' (blood from a ruptured rectum) and 'Cheese' (rancid flakes of penis discharge) toppings. And to make it even worse, Slashdot runs on Apache!

The Apache server, whose use among fags is as prevalent as AIDS, is named after homosexual activity -- as everyone knows, popular faggot band, the Village People, featured an Apache Indian, and it is for him that this gay program is named.

And that's not forgetting the use of patches in the Linux fag world -- patches are used to make the anus accessible for repeated anal sex even after its rupture by a session of fisting.

To summarise: Linux is gay. 'Slash -- Dot' is the graphical description of the space between a young boy's scrotum and anus. And BeOS is for hermaphrodites and disabled 'stumpers.'

FEEDBACK

What worries me is how much you know about what gay people do. I'm scared I actually read this whole thing. I think this post is a good example of the negative effects of Internet usage on people. This person obviously has no social life anymore and had to result to writing something as stupid as this. And actually take the time to do it too. Although... I think it was satire.. blah.. it's early. -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

Well, the only reason I know all about this is because I had the misfortune to read the Linux 'Sauce code' once. Although publicised as the computer code needed to get Linux up and running on a computer (and haven't you always been worried about the phrase 'Monolithic Kernel'?), this foul document is actually a detailed and graphic description of every conceivable degrading perversion known to the human race, as well as a few of the major animal species. It has shocked and disturbed me, to the point of needing to shock and disturb the common man to warn them of the impending homo-calypse which threatens to engulf our planet.

You must work for the government. Trying to post the most obscene stuff in hopes that slashdot won't be able to continue or something, due to legal woes. If i ever see your ugly face, i'm going to stick my fireplace poker up your ass, after it's nice and hot, to weld shut that nasty gaping hole of yours. -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

Doesn't it give you a hard-on to imagine your thick strong poker ramming it's way up my most sacred of sphincters? You're beyond help, my friend, as the only thing you can imagine is the foul penetrative violation of another man. Are you sure you're not Eric Raymond? The government, being populated by limp-wristed liberals, could never stem the sickening tide of homosexual child molesting Linux advocacy. Hell, they've given NAMBLA free reign for years!

you really should post this logged in. i wish i could remember jebus's password, cuz i'd give it to you. -- mighty jebus, Slashdot

Thank you for your kind words of support. However, this document shall only ever be posted anonymously. This is because the 'Open Sauce' movement is a sham, proposing homoerotic cults of hero worshipping in the name of freedom. I speak for the common man. For any man who prefers the warm, enveloping velvet folds of a woman's vagina to the tight puckered ringpiece of a child. These men, being common, decent folk, don't have a say in the political hypocrisy that is Slashdot culture. I am the unknown liberator.

ROLF LAMO i hate linux FAGGOTS -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

We shouldn't hate them, we should pity them for the misguided fools they are... Fanatical Linux zeal-outs need to be herded into camps for re-education and subsequent rehabilitation into normal heterosexual society. This re-education shall be achieved by forcing them to watch repeats of Baywatch until the very mention of Pamela Anderson causes them to fill their pants with healthy heterosexual jism.

Actually, that's not at all how scrotal inflation works. I understand it involves injecting sterile saline solution into the scrotum. I've never tried this, but you can read how to do it safely in case you're interested. (Before you moderate this down, ask yourself honestly -- who are the real crazies -- people who do scrotal inflation, or people who pay $1000+ for a game console?) -- double_h, Slashdot

Well, it just goes to show that even the holy Linux 'sauce code' is riddled with bugs that need fixing. (The irony of Jon Katz not even being able to inflate his scrotum correctly has not been lost on me.) The Linux pervert elite already acknowledge this, with their queer slogan: 'Given enough arms, all rectums are shallow.' And anyway, the PS2 sucks major cock and isn't worth the money. Intellivision forever!

dude did u used to post on msnbc's nt bulletin board now that u are doing anti-gay posts u also need to start in with anti-black stuff too c u in church -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

For one thing, whilst Linux is a cavalcade of queer propaganda masquerading as the future of computing, NT is used by people who think nothing better of encasing their genitals in quick setting plaster then going to see a really dirty porno film, enjoying the restriction enforced onto them. Remember, a wasted arousal is a sin in the eyes of the Catholic church. Clearly, the only god-fearing Christian operating system in existence is CP/M -- The Christian Program Monitor. All computer users should immediately ask their local pastor to install this fine OS onto their systems. It is the only route to salvation.

Secondly, this message is for every man. Computers know no colour. Not only that, but one of the finest websites in the world is maintained by a Black Man . Now fuck off you racist donkey felcher.

And don't forget that slashdot was written in Perl, which is just too close to 'Pearl Necklace' for comfort.... oh wait; that's something all you heterosexuals do.... I can't help but wonder how much faster the trolls could do First-Posts on this site if it were redone in PHP... I could hand-type dynamic HTML pages faster than Perl can do them. -- phee, Slashdot

Although there is nothing unholy about the fine heterosexual act of ejaculating between a woman's breasts, squirting one's load up towards her neck and chin area, it should be noted that Perl (standing for Pansies Entering Rectums Locally) is also close to 'Pearl Monocle,' 'Pearl Nosering,' and the ubiquitous 'Pearl Enema.'

One scary thing about Perl is that it contains hidden homosexual messages. Take the following code: LWP::Simple -- It looks innocuous enough, doesn't it? But look at the line closely: There are two colons next to each other! As Larry 'Balls to the' Wall would openly admit in the Perl Documentation, Perl was designed from the ground up to indoctrinate it's programmers into performing unnatural sexual acts -- having two colons so closely together is clearly a reference to the perverse sickening act of 'colon kissing,' whereby two homosexual queers spread their buttocks wide, pressing their filthy torn sphincters together. They then share small round objects like marbles or golfballs by passing them from one rectum to another using muscle contraction alone. This is also referred to in programming 'circles' as 'Parameter Passing.'

And PHP stands for Perverted Homosexual Penetration. Didn't you know?

Thank you for your valuable input on this. I am sure you will be never forgotten. BTW: Did I mention that this could be useful in terraforming Mars? Mars rulaa. -- Eimernase, Slashdot

Well, I don't know about terraforming Mars, but I do know that homosexual Linux Advocates have been probing Uranus for years.

That's inspiring. Keep up the good work, AC. May God in his wisdom grant you the strength to bring the plain honest truth to this community, and make it pure again. Yours, Cerberus. -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

*sniff* That brings a tear to my eye. Thank you once more for your kind support. I have taken faith in the knowledge that I am doing the Good Lord's work, but it is encouraging to know that I am helping out the common man here.

However, I should be cautious about revealing your name 'Cerberus' on such a filthy den of depravity as Slashdot. It is a well known fact that the 'Kerberos' documentation from Microsoft is a detailed manual describing, in intimate, exacting detail, how to sexually penetrate a variety of unwilling canine animals; be they domesticated, wild, or mythical. Slashdot posters have taken great pleasure in illegally spreading this documentation far and wide, treating it as an 'extension' to the Linux 'Sauce Code,' for the sake of 'interoperability.' (The slang term they use for nonconsensual intercourse -- their favourite kind.)

In fact, sick twisted Linux deviants are known to have LAN parties, (Love of Anal Naughtiness, needless to say.), wherein they entice a stray dog, known as the 'Samba Mount,' into their homes. Up to four of these filth-sodden blasphemers against nature take turns to plunge their erect, throbbing, uncircumcised members, conkers-deep, into the rectum, mouth, and other fleshy orifices of the poor animal. Eventually, the 'Samba Mount' collapses due to 'overload,' and needs to be 'rebooted.' (i.e., kicked out into the street, and left to fend for itself.) Many Linux users boast about their 'uptime' in such situations.

Inspiring stuff! If only all trolls were this quality! -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

If only indeed. You can help our brave cause by moderating this message up as often as possible. I recommend '+1, Underrated,' as that will protect your precious Karma in Metamoderation. Only then can we break through the glass ceiling of Homosexual Slashdot Culture. Is it any wonder that the new version of Slashcode has been christened 'Bender'???

If we can get just one of these postings up to at least '+1,' then it will be archived forever! Others will learn of our struggle, and join with us in our battle for freedom!

It's pathetic you've spent so much time writing this. -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

I am compelled to document the foulness and carnal depravity that is Linux, in order that we may prepare ourselves for the great holy war that is to follow. It is my solemn duty to peel back the foreskin of ignorance and apply the wire brush of enlightenment.

As with any great open-source project, you need someone asking this question, so I'll do it. When the hell is version 2.0 going to be ready?!?! -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

I could make an arrogant, childish comment along the lines of 'Every time someone asks for 2.0, I won't release it for another 24 hours,' but the truth of the matter is that I'm quite nervous of releasing a 'number two,' as I can guarantee some filthy shit-slurping Linux pervert would want to suck it straight out of my anus before I've even had chance to wipe.

I desperately want to suck your monolithic kernel, you sexy hunk, you. -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

I sincerely hope you're Natalie Portman.

Dude, nothing on slashdot larger than 3 paragraphs is worth reading. Try to distill the message, whatever it was, and maybe I'll read it. As it is, I have to much open source software to write to waste even 10 seconds of precious time. 10 seconds is all its gonna take M$ to whoop Linux's ass. Vigilence is the price of Free (as in libre -- from the fine, frou frou French language) Software. Hack on fellow geeks, and remember: Friday is Bouillabaisse day except for heathens who do not believe that Jesus died for their sins. Those godless, oil drench, bearded sexist clowns can pull grits from their pantaloons (another fine, fine French word) and eat that. Anyway, try to keep your message focused and concise. For concision is the soul of derision. Way. -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

What the fuck?

I've read your gay conspiracy post version 1.3.0 and I must say I'm impressed. In particular, I appreciate how you have managed to squeeze in a healthy dose of the latent homosexuality you gay-bashing homos tend to be full of. Thank you again. -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

Well bugger me!

ooooh honey. how insecure are you!!! wann a little massage from deare bruci. love you -- Anonymous Coward, Slashdot

Fuck right off!

IMPORTANT: This message needs to be heard (Not HURD, which is an acronym for 'Huge Unclean Rectal Dilator') across the whole community, so it has been released into the Public Domain. You know, that licence that we all had before those homoerotic crypto-fascists came out with the GPL (Gay Penetration License) that is no more than an excuse to see who's got the biggest feces-encrusted cock. I would have put this up on Freshmeat, but that name is known to be a euphemism for the tight rump of a young boy.

Come to think of it, the whole concept of 'Source Control' unnerves me, because it sounds a bit like 'Sauce Control,' which is a description of the homosexual practice of holding the base of the cock shaft tightly upon the point of ejaculation, thus causing a build up of semenal fluid that is only released upon entry into an incision made into the base of the receiver's scrotum. And 'Open Sauce' is the act of ejaculating into another mans face or perhaps a biscuit to be shared later. Obviously, 'Closed Sauce' is the only Christian thing to do, as evidenced by the fact that it is what Cathedrals are all about.

Contributors: (although not to the eternal game of 'soggy biscuit' that open 'sauce' development has become) Anonymous Coward, Anonymous Coward, phee, Anonymous Coward, mighty jebus, Anonymous Coward, Anonymous Coward, double_h, Anonymous Coward, Eimernase, Anonymous Coward, Anonymous Coward, Anonymous Coward, Anonymous Coward, Anonymous Coward, Anonymous Coward, Anonymous Coward, Anonymous Coward. Further contributions are welcome.

Current changes: This version sent to FreeWIPO by 'Bring BackATV' as plain text. Reformatted everything, added all links back in (that we could match from the previous version), many new ones (Slashbot bait links). Even more spelling fixed. Who wrote this thing, CmdrTaco himself?

Previous changes: Yet more changes added. Spelling fixed. Feedback added. Explanation of 'distro' system. 'Mount Point' syntax described. More filth regarding `man` and Slashdot. Yet more fucking spelling fixed. 'Fetchmail' uncovered further. More Slashbot baiting. Apache exposed. Distribution licence at foot of document.

ANUX -- A full Linux distribution... Up your ass!

The Wireless Toolkit from Sun here. I use it and it's pretty cool, and there's a version for Linux and Solaris also. It bundles the MIDP and CLDC packages referenced in this article. It makes the whole .jad and MANIFEST file management a snap. And it's also free!

You need to register to download. Supported platforms: Linux, Windows, Solaris. From the sun download faq:

"Because of the way our download service handles session management, you cannot resume partial downloads by clicking on the link again in the browser window. Rather, open the download manager program you are using, and resume the download from within the download manager itself.

We continue working with our engineers to enable support for more download managers on more platforms. For now, however, please turn off any other download managers and utilities if you are having download problems."

Downloading big files from sun under linux has been really difficult for about a year now. The only download manager until recently i had been able to get to work was DAP under windows (warning: Spyware). Basically most download managers (prozgui, getright, opera) won't be able to deal with Sun's bullshit. Ludicrously rather than fix their website to just work, Sun have written their own download manager. Its written in java, and its only tiny 140KB! The surprising thing is that this is a really excellent download manager , tiny footprint, no browser hijacking, no adware/spyware, works under any OS, automatic file verification, automatic unzips, and solid as a rock

You need to register to download. Supported platforms: Linux, Windows, Solaris. From the sun download faq:

"Because of the way our download service handles session management, you cannot resume partial downloads by clicking on the link again in the browser window. Rather, open the download manager program you are using, and resume the download from within the download manager itself.

We continue working with our engineers to enable support for more download managers on more platforms. For now, however, please turn off any other download managers and utilities if you are having download problems."

Downloading big files from sun under linux has been really difficult for about a year now. The only download manager until recently i had been able to get to work was DAP under windows (warning: Spyware). Basically most download managers (prozgui, getright, opera) won't be able to deal with Sun's bullshit. Ludicrously rather than fix their website to just work, Sun have written their own download manager. Its written in java, and its only tiny 140KB! The surprising thing is that this is a really excellent download manager , tiny footprint, no browser hijacking, no adware/spyware, works under any OS, automatic file verification, automatic unzips, and solid as a rock

Sun's J2ME Wireless Toolkit is available for Linux and includes an emulator, so Linux is fine for MIDlet development. I do almost all my MIDlet development under Linux, only occasionally loading up the old Windows box to check my MIDlet on other emulators.

You could have saved yourself some hassle installing all the different toolkits. Just download Sun ONE Studio 4 update 1, Mobile Edition, its completely free (as in beer), and is a great integrated development environment (about 20MB download). All the tools, emulators and demos from the article are bundled. Since last week I'm running it under RH Linux 7.2, with 512mb of ram (YOU NEED LOTS OF RAM!!!). Took just one minute from skipping the regestration screen to stepping through the worm game in the debugger (I always love the game worm/snake/nibbles in all its incarnations, and the demo version provided is beautifully programmed - simple but object-oriented and multi-threaded in a tiny amount of code).

You could have saved yourself some hassle installing all the different toolkits. Just download Sun ONE Studio 4 update 1, Mobile Edition, its completely free (as in beer), and is a great integrated development environment (about 20MB download). All the tools, emulators and demos from the article are bundled. Since last week I'm running it under RH Linux 7.2, with 512mb of ram (YOU NEED LOTS OF RAM!!!). Took just one minute from skipping the regestration screen to stepping through the worm game in the debugger (I always love the game worm/snake/nibbles in all its incarnations, and the demo version provided is beautifully programmed - simple but object-oriented and multi-threaded in a tiny amount of code).

Oh, please read the damned advisories before claiming things that aren't true...
The official solution is not to remove the whole package, but to install this patch:

http://ftp.cobalt.sun.com/pub/packages/raq4/eng/Ra Q4-en-Security-2.0.1-SHP_REM.pkg

Note that it's a flaw in the admin site scripts that causes this problem. So if you don't use that and have disabled it, then no problem. :)

Bah! I copied the wrong link, I meant the Klienman book.

Sun Microsystems Press has the best book I've read on the subject. "Better" than the traditional methods is up to your design. If you are spawning MANY processes per minute, on some implementaions pthreads will be much faster. There are some other payoffs as well, but really it comes down to what you are really trying to do...

Yes I know this. Theres an article on devedge which explains the issues pretty well. The 'obtainment' issue the devedge writer describes is interesting, I have to assume that W3C felt that pages should link to the download page for the plugin if the plugin was unavailable, while MS felt plugins should download and auto-install.

Sun's description shows you the nitty gritty, but explains less of the 'why'.

The worst of this is the jsp:plugin tag, which generates code for the 1.3 plugin. Saves a lot of typing, but won't it get out of date pretty fast?

-Baz

Everyone writing software for a living should read the Ariane 5 Failure Report: Ariane5.html
and the description of the Mars Pathfinder "reset" problem: pathfinder.html
Another good study to read covers the loss of the Mars Polar Lander: marsreports.html

Everyone writing software for a living should read the Ariane 5 Failure Report: Ariane5.html
and the description of the Mars Pathfinder "reset" problem: pathfinder.html
Another good study to read covers the loss of the Mars Polar Lander: marsreports.html

Standards processes involve an independent body that controls and supervises the standardization process. Standards bodies have well-defined and proven rules that many people established and agreed on before any individual standard is being considered.

And the JCP does not fit in what way...?

There is an independant (from Sun, which is only one member among many) panel that controls what goes in Java and what does not, with members from many companies. On a smaller level, anyone is free to comment on public drafts or even propose additions as an individual, a practice I find very nice. How many other "standards bodies" would let an individual have any say at all?


The standardization process often involves a whole host of legal agreements and guarantees that don't exist with the JCP. For example, many standards bodies, not only is the submitter bound to disclosure of related patents and RAND licensing terms of their patents, but so are the other members of the standards body.


Would such an agreement read something like:

4. Intellectual property: In-Bound
A. Contributions to the Spec Lead. You hereby grant to each Spec Lead (and, if different, Maintenience Lead) for each Expert Group for which You are not the Spec Lead, with respect to teh Output of the JSR led by the Spec Lead, a perpetual, non-exclusive, worldwide, roayalty-free, fully paid-up and, subject to section 4.D irrevocable, licence, with the right to sublicence...


Each company and individual praticipating in the JCP has to sign something like that, and all of the other text located here

I'm not sure why you would want any sort of RAND style licensing in your standards body at all.


Another problem with the JCP is that it isn't producing a standard for Java, it's producing a large set of pieces that define specific bits of functionality. Think of it this way: do you know what APIs were part of the Java platform in March 2000? What about today?

Yes, you mostly see individual pieces being worked over as it's a more rigorous process to add a core API or feature. But that still does happen (like with generics) through the JCP.

Telling you what the API looked like in March 2000 is really quite meaningless - instead at any point you can easily see what API's are in what version of the JVM, which is much more important to know (as I'm using 1.3.1 at work now, even though 1.4 has been out for some time). You can find a list of various API's here, which tell you EXACTLY what you can expect to exist from any 1.3.1 J2SE implementation, and optional API's that you can make use of as well if you need to. You can find the bytecode spec if you like as well, and build the whole thing from scratch which to me is the CORE definition of having a real standard.

To me, a standards body really does two things: (1) Keep any one organization from controlling the standard (which implies that it keeps the technologies used patent free), and (2) make sure that ANYONE can build an implementation of the standard which would work with other implementations, using only the documentation produced by the standards body. The JCP meets both those requirements and has other nice features as well like individual participation, which means to me you are going to see more varied discourse on a standard and not a puppet body echoing the will of one member.

If the JCP were not a real body, things would be different in the Java world as Sun does not always get its own way. Generics would have been in 1.4 if it were up to Sun alone.

Anyone who wants to know more about the process of the JCP shoudl read over the process overview here, or the full detail here.

It's not yet clear when, in what version of .NET, that becomes available... though it may be there sooner then JDK1.5 is released (and no one actually confirmed that 1.5 will have generics included).

> If you don't know, Microsoft is a reputable software company...

Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

You're hilarious.

Microsoft is a criminal, and everyone knows it.

Microsoft has more in common with organized crime than with reputable companies.

Microsoft has been caught red handed defrauding the public and sabotaging other companies' products.

For example, regarding Java, Microsoft's internal documents said the following:

> "Strategic Objective . . . Kill cross-platform Java by grow[ing] the polluted Java market"

> "at this point its [sic] not good to create MORE noise around our win32 java classes. Instead we should just quietly grow j++ share and assume that people will take advantage of our classes without ever realizing they are building win32-only java apps."

From: http://java.sun.com/lawsuit/051498.unfair.html

The first is sabotage. The second is fraud.

No one should trust Microsoft, and everyone should be avoiding .Net, Palladium, and anything else that comes from Microsoft.

dear reader the gnome armageddon has started,

first of all i want to clarify that this text was meant to be a source of information otherwise i wouldn't have spent so much time into writing it. belive me it took me a couple of days writing this text in a foreign language. even if you don't care at all for gnome, you may find some interesting information within this text that you like to read. please try to understand my points even if it's hard sometimes, otherwise you wake up one day and feel the need to switch to a different operating system.

on the following lines i'm trying to give you a little insight of the gnome community. the things that are going on in the back, the information that could be worth talking and thinking about.

many of us like the gnome desktop and some of us were following it since the beginning. gnome is a promising project because it's mostly written in C, easy to use, configurable and therefore fits perfectly into the philosophy of u*nix. only to name some of its advantages.

unfortunately these advantages changed with the recently new released version of gnome. the core development team somehow got the idea of targeting gnome to a complete different direction of users. the so called corporate desktop user. in other words they're targeting people that aren't familiar or experienced with desktop environments. usually business oriented people who are willing to pay money for getting gnome on their computers.

having this new target in mind, the core development team mostly under contract by companies like redhat , ximian and sun decided to simplify the desktop as much as even possible by removing all its flexibility in favor of an easy clean simple interface to not confuse their new possible customers. so far the idea of a clean easy to use desktop is honourable.

some of the new ideas, features and implementations such as gconf , an evil windows registry like system, new ordering of buttons and dialogs, the removal of 90%-95% of all visible preferences from the control center and applications, the new direction that gnome leads and the attitude of the core development team made a lot of users really unhappy. these are only a couple of examples and the list can easily be expanded but for now this is enough. now let me try to get deeper into these aspects.

you may imagine that users got really frustrated because their beloved gnome desktop matured into something they didn't want. during the time, the frustration of a not less amount of people increased. more , more and more emails arrived on the gnome mailinglists where users tried to explain their concerns, frustrations and the leading target of GNOME.

but the core development team of gnome don't give a damn about what their users are thinking or wanting and most of the time they come up with their standard purl. the reply they give is mostly the same. users should either go and 'file a bug' at bugzilla or the user mails are being turned so far that at the end they sound like being trolls or the user feedback is simply not wanted. whatever happens the answers aren't really satisfying for the user. even constructive feedback isn't appreciated.

if you gonna think about this for a minute then things gonna harden that they are directing into the commercial area. the core development team actually don't care for the complaining home user. it's more important for them to reach the customers with the cash. it seems that this has been told to them by the company leaders. everything about gnome has been decided already, a way back or direct communication isn't possible. don't get trapped by sentences like 'we listen to our users'. they listen to you - yes, to make funny silly jokes about you afterwards.

i thought that everything was build up on friendship, build on programming for fun, build on understanding each other. but the reality looks like it's all for the big money. the cash is what matters everything else is a lie and a dream. time for people to wake up.

not long ago they threw one of the most important long year core developer martin baulig out of team. a guy who worked really hard on getting gnome into the right direction. a nice friendly person who put all his time into gnome. but narrow minded gnome elites such as havoc pennington were responsible that he left the gnome project. the trouble and the pressure that was put on him was to much.

with the new gnome desktop a lot of user interface changes happened such as button reordering . needless to say that this confuse people who are used to the 'right' button ordering for ages. even our fellow linux guru alan cox wasn't thrilled about this idea. but the gnome elites such as havoc pennington, seth nickell, calum benson and dave bordoley knew it better. why following the road of any other desktop that exists ? why not doing something that don't confuse their users and still stay usable ? well it seems to be too easy. gnome needs to be different than anything else so they changed the button order which was one of the reasons that users became unhappy. they said that there was a hard fight about this and the decision was made to change the buttons. but i belive they simply copied the behaviour of macos because most of the gnome developers use a macintosh as either laptop or desktop. sad that they forgot to keep in mind that users tend to mix applications and that this will lead into weird button searching and clicking.

but as if this wasn't enough the same people decided that the new gnome human interface guides were the ultima non plus ultra in human interface guides. the announcement contained informations that the kde usability people got initiated into it. unfortunately the kde people heard about it the first time when seth nickell went to the kde mailinglist which happened after the announcement. you can imagine that they got highly pissed off about this attitude. you can read more on this link . to summarize it, the kde people clarified that gnome should care for their own business.

the problem that came with the new interface guides was, that every little gnome hacker started to become an user interface expert over night. a lot of gnome programs that we like to use matured into a disaster over night. hackers that never programmed correctly for their life started to blindly follow the hype of simplification. for an example look what happened to galeon's interface (pay attention for the last paragraph). even philip langdale a long year galeon hacker got highly indignant by the target that gnome leads and wrote this email to the galeon mailinglist.

here another reason why users became angry. the elite assumes, that the user knows nothing about their system. you find a couple of heavily insulting mails on their mailing lists containing sentences like the quoted ones.

"the user don't know what a window manager is",

"the user don't know what themes are",

"the user don't know what a homedir is",

"the user can't compile a kernel",

"the user don't want to customize their desktop",

"the user shouldn't see preferences which purpose they don't know"

you may imagine that a lot of people are being offended by such lines because it's exactly these gnome users who are meant by these phrases. to read more such lines on the gnome mailinglists, simply click on this link and grep in their archives. be said that most of these sentences are coming from havoc pennington.

such evil practices shouldn't be tolerated by the users and need to be fighted. u*nix users aren't stupid people. who actually gave havoc pennington the rights to decide what the user wants and what not ? various users told him that people who use a u*nix like system are well aware of their capabilities dealing with such a complex system. there's a reason why people are switching from alternative operating systems. they want to learn, they want to use the full power of the system, they want to change everything they like.

to top all this, look at the future plans of nautilus . the current maintainers got the idea of changing the whole nautilus concepts into an object oriented user interface design. you may be highly interested in reading the exact words of alex larsson's vision for nautilus' future direction by clicking on this link .

to summarize it, it's assumed that the user don't need to deal with his homedir or his whole filesystem because it may confuse him or because he don't understand it. the new concepts of nautilus should be that the user deal with symbols in the nautilus view. e.g. you get a cdrom symbol and by clicking on it you see the directory of your cdrom, you get a photo symbol and by clicking on it you get a list of all your pr0n pictures, you get a music symbol and by clicking on it you get a list of all your mp3's. you don't know where all these files are located because you don't deal with the bottom layer of your homedir or filesystem anymore as mentioned earlier.

the question is why are people that know nothing about their users, that know nothing about correct user interface design destroying gnome ? the users don't deserve all this specially those that backed gnome for all the years. even sun threw a bunch of so called user interface experts together and have them work on gnome. don't forget that sun are the creators of the common desktop environment . we don't need another cde clone named gnome. even havoc pennington author of the good user interfaces text isn't able to get his own written software following his rules.

not long ago there was an report about the 'two captains of nautilus' where the reporter (uraeus a gnome contributor himself) reported alexander larsson and david camp. you may imagine that such a report can't be taken serious because it's done by their own people. we here have a saying that sounds like this 'one crow doesn't hack the eye of another crow out'. now you can click on this link and read more. it may be interesting to read the replies from various users all over the globe of what they think about gnome and nautilus in general (please pay attention to the listed ip's there). another nice and informative reading can be found by clicking on this link .

the fileselector problem was a long discussed issue in the gnome community. finally they came to an solution for this and have decided to go for this ugly fileselector instead going for this one which was developed by a free volunteer for a long time and in general looks and behaves better.

most users have no problems with the idea of keeping things simple and clean. removing some not needed preferences was indeed a good idea but it doesn't stop. people started to remove everything from their apps. you're forced to use dubious programs like gconf-editor which basically works like the windows registry editor, to tweak uncommented preferences. i don't think that this is an advantage. even the possibility to tweak preferences with an editor was taken away with that ugly implementation of gconf. all your preferences are stored in a directory tree with an unknown amount of *.xml files. even if you delete programs their keys are still remaining orphaned in these trees and finding them is like playing trivia. at the end it's worth a discussion if a system driven by a single home user needs such a registry like system. we didn't need such a system for over 30 years but the gnome development team got the idea copying one of the most retarded systems from windows to u*nix. not to mention that the copy is more retarded than the original.

it's a shame to see how such a nice desktop got thrown into the trash by such people. but there is a lot more behind the scenes that i don't know about. everything around gnome is a big marketing strategy. poor people are working the hell out of gnome for nothing and companies such as those mentioned above are getting the big cash. for sure you could say - go and fork gnome - but seriously how can you go and fork gnome ? such a big project which needs a bunch of people to keep the code alive and compatible. well you know it's all about open source the code is signed under the gnu/gpl or gnu/lgpl, you can't own it. even the companies are aware of this. but if you can't own the code - go and hire their developers. you can direct them like puppets in any direction that you - as company - like. exactly this is happening with gnome.

well you could easily come up and tell me to simply not use gnome and let them do whatever they like. well, you are right with that but things are more complicated nowadays. gnome is influencing a lot of third party projects such as xfree86 which recently added a lot of gnome components into their cvs repository. please know that with the next coming xfree86 version you get a lot of gnome components without even knowing it. code like, gnome-xml , pkgconfig , fontconfig , xcursor and xft2 were mainly written by people who're heavily involved into gnome development. also the gimp is maturing more and more into getting the look and feel of a native gnome application. the cvs version of the gimp has a lot of gnome pixmaps inside and they are heavily working on integrate the gimp into gnome. if not today but the direction is sure and i fear the day this gonna happen.

it's ok that these things exist and it's ok to see xfree86 and the gimp are beeing hacked on. but please think about the people that don't like or use gnome. what about them ? why force them to have gnome components installed on their systems ? why can't gnome go the same way that kde went e.g. doing their own stuff without infecting other projects like aids. seeing more and more libraries and applications that were in no way related to gnome jumping on the pkgconfig boat which's really not needed. look what will happen to solaris, the world famous operating system on u*nix used by big companies and long years experts. they really plan to replace cde with gnome. i know that cde wasn't the best invention of desktops but it rarely crashed and it fits far better into the philosophy of xfree86 with their configuration system than gnome. you know the good old way having your settings defined with .xdefaults and all nice default configurations are going into /etc/x11/app-defaults/ and so on. understandable that the good old way may be blocking the future of applications for multiusersystems - but why must it have to be a windows registry like system that replaces future configuration ?

well to come to an end i personally don't like many of this stuff. i can't stand the button reordering, i don't like the gconf system and even more i don't like the commercial outsourcing of gnome and the bad influence that gnome has on other applications. the bad attitude of some gnome developers is another story since we are all different reacting humans. luckily there are people sharing some of my thoughts otherwise i wouldn't be able to proof my text with so many links. even amongst the gnome developers there are silent voices of people that hate many of these decisions and silently use something else. right now if you checkout the gnome cvs repository every day you find out that the whole gnome development seemed to came to an halt. the contributions to their cvs are poor. while projects such as kde are reaching easily 10-20k commits per month - gnome is getting around 1-2k per month on it's best times. it really looks like the situation of gnome is unclear so it would be better to have it not influence so much other programs or at the end we deal with an disaster.

now i hope this text was informative for you. i hope that you start to think about the situation and the global direction. the situation of gnome is unclear, their target is groggy too since i can't belive that the users that they are targeting ever heard of u*nix or linux. they plan to get out of the 0.05% desktop niche but this will for sure not happen if they continue their current direction and their bad ugly attitude.

• Templates only work on Objects - you cannot use templates on built-in types (int, double, etc) unless you manually box/unbox them.

There's a bit at the end of this article.

It doesn't mention this specifically, but it alludes to also including static imports, foreach-like construct, and possibly enums.

For the impatient:

The preliminary spec for generic types in Java is here.
The Sun prototype compiler can be downloaded here.
And a forum for discussion of Java generics is also available.

You might also want to check out CodeGuide. This is AFAIK the only IDE which already supports Java generics as described in the spec (and is an awesome IDE for traditional Java as well).

Enjoy!

-- kryps

For the impatient:

The preliminary spec for generic types in Java is here.
The Sun prototype compiler can be downloaded here.
And a forum for discussion of Java generics is also available.

You might also want to check out CodeGuide. This is AFAIK the only IDE which already supports Java generics as described in the spec (and is an awesome IDE for traditional Java as well).

Enjoy!

-- kryps

Don't forget to visit the Adding Generics Forum for more detailed posts about generics and other new features being added to Java.

SunSolve

- are happy to learn how to make managed code/vm code call to native and vice-versa (this is far from a trivial problem)

My sources are open. ;-) The free redistributability of the runtime is in the JRE license, and is also mentioned in the Java Licensing FAQ.

My sources are open. ;-) The free redistributability of the runtime is in the JRE license, and is also mentioned in the Java Licensing FAQ.