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Is this from personal experience? Or do you have an article to cite? Or is it just a troll?

A desktop operating system - especially one as unfriendly as Linux - does not automatically make a great consumer device OS

This is smelling more and more like a troll. The SL-5xxx series uses a form of embedded Linux, which is clearly not the same animal. Linux itself is the kernel. All the extra crap you get on top of it is part of the distribution. The 5xxx series doesn't use KDE. It doesn't use Gnome. None of the stuff that you would use to determine whether the desktop was friendly or not exists on this machine. Instead, they use an embedded version of Qt. If you'd like to cite some articles about disappointment with this approach, I'd be more than happy to change my opinion.

And the Java implementation was an out of date joke.

Out of date? Oh, now I know this is a troll; the 5xxx series uses PersonalJava 1.2, which is the same spec that is CURRENTLY available from Sun.

Basically Sharp didn't appear to care at all about the quality of the software on the 5500.

You know, I'd much rather have them concentrate on the hardware more. Software can always be replaced. I have a Compaq iPaq sitting at home in a drawer that no longer gets used. Why? Because the hardware is mostly junk. Low battery life. And it crashes if you look at it wrong, losing EVERYTHING on it. And the backup process was just too S-L-O-W to be worth it. It's just not reliable. At least this new unit is designed with the flash memory to hold your data, even in the event of a complete power failure. That would have been a nice feature on the iPaq (instead of having to buy a flash card).

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.

How about some of the java IDEs that are out there, NetBeans, Forte, some of borlands offerings perhaps? They are also pretty damn hot not to mention that they are all crossplatform compatible and NetBeans is free. Beat that with your dotNet.

Dont worry, real scientists and programmers will be working on this, not pathetic amateurs or raving fanatics, so I suspect it will be able to handle it.

Although until it supports shitty console based text editors Im sure you wont be happy.

A Sun 15K only weighs 1.2 tons!

Not really. Solaris 9/SPARC is free with a registration, Solaris 8 still costs $20 to download. I'm pretty sure it cost money to download 9 until recently. If you want a real giggle, look at the prices they charge for a multi-CPU license.

RPM is provided on the Solaris Companion CD so you can already use source RPMs with Solaris.

From the patent office's link to the patent the assignee is "The Regents of the University of California (Oakland, CA)".

Hmmm... They say in their about page that they were spun off of the university, but it doesn't look like they officially changed ownership of the patent.

I can't see the University of California turning down a $1 billion dollar donation any more than Sun would.

Assuming this research outfit has unrestricted ownership of the patent, I think they would have a hard time turning down a number that had as many zeros in it as a billion. Then where would we be? Microsoft would have a more difficult time exploiting a purchase of this patent because of their obvious monopoly problems, but there are a couple of things they could probably do to attack open source software.

Lets say that Microsoft purchases this patent and agrees to license this "fairly" to all comers as long as all users respect their digital rights management initiatives or place some other speed bump to open source browsers or browsers on open source platforms.

Eolas's thought exercise of not allowing IE to use their "technology" is probably just posturing for a better settlement and the judgment will come down to money in the end... Something that Microsoft has plenty of.

The best case could be that the patent is overturned and drops into the public domain. Then there will not be a private interest that would control what is becoming an important part of the browser experience.

The change in thinking for this is argued in this Sun Whitepaper , and this FAQ .

If one believes the Sun guys have a clue, you can take this as a vote in favor of 1:1.

IMO, anyone who runs more than about 4*NCPUS threads in a program is an idiot; the benchmarks on 10^5 threads are absurd and irrelevant.

Once you run a reasonable number of threads, you can be quickly driven to internal queueing of work from thread to thread; and by the time you have done that, you may already have reached a point of state abstraction that lets you run event driven in a very small number of threads, approaching NCPUs as the lower useful limit. Putting all your state in per-thread storage or on the thread stack is a sign of weak state abstraction.

-dB

The change in thinking for this is argued in this Sun Whitepaper , and this FAQ .

If one believes the Sun guys have a clue, you can take this as a vote in favor of 1:1.

IMO, anyone who runs more than about 4*NCPUS threads in a program is an idiot; the benchmarks on 10^5 threads are absurd and irrelevant.

Once you run a reasonable number of threads, you can be quickly driven to internal queueing of work from thread to thread; and by the time you have done that, you may already have reached a point of state abstraction that lets you run event driven in a very small number of threads, approaching NCPUs as the lower useful limit. Putting all your state in per-thread storage or on the thread stack is a sign of weak state abstraction.

-dB

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!

BTW, anyone try consoling into a modern SPARC with USB ports, or are they only for peripherals?

I do just this on a quasi-regular basis; the console is a Rev. D iMac with a KeySpan serial thingy and cu(1) from Taylor UUCP, and the SPARC is a headless Sun Ultra 1 running NetBSD.

Well I assume if your posting on /. you are familiar with CVS? Go to this page and grab a copy of the source. All you need to compile is the java sdk and the ant build tool.

I hope you're joking... Pick the version of your choice, then download the appropriate JRE.

Think about Point #2 in this context. How many programs have you tried that you are surprised to learn are Java? If you said none, you probably aren't looking hard enough. (Hint: Look for the java.exe file in the installation directory.) You tend to recognize Java apps by their distinctive look. The distinctive look has problems with perceived performance. As such, many good programmers change it to use a non-standard look.

After you visit jGoodies, you should understand more of what I mean.

As for Point #1. I don't know enough about MFC to be 100% sure, but I believe that Windows automatically handles repainting when you are populating complex objects such as tables. (e.g. You'll tend to notice large tables in SQL Server Enterprise Manager paint nothing in the table as you scroll. Instead, you can watch the text filled in after the fact.) Swing (the Java GUI toolkit) requires the programmer to make these optimizations. Why? Because that's who *should* be doing it.

What if for some reason, I want to design a scrollable table that is fast enough when pulling data over dial-up connections? Under Java, I might design it so that the data doesn't display until the user stops scrolling, or I might display partial data. Under MFC, do I have much choice? Not without jumping through a great deal of hoops.

Notice how Microsoft writes new components every time they have a new piece of software (e.g. Office toolbars, Outlook shortcut bar, etc.). They do this to improve performance in their programs. Java programmers shouldn't have to rewrite GUI components, just data models. However, few and far between is the programmer who actually does this.

BTW, another spot you might want to visit is
Swing Sightings. You can find links to all kinds of well written Java programs.

If you'd like to try a Java program that uses native components instead of Java Swing, try Eclipse. While I personally don't like it, it should help you understand the perceived problem a little more.

You grab Eclipse and starting writing Java. (Eclipse is also written in Java ;)

Step 1. Go to http://java.sun.com and download the JRE 1.4.1.

Step 2. Visit http://www.datadino.com and click on "Webstart Now!".

Step 3. Right click and save Meat Fighter. Find where you saved the JAR file and double click.

Step 4. Right click and save Duke Nukes Stuff. Double click on the JAR.

Step 5. Visit jGoodies and try their wide variety of products.

If you are under Linux, I'm afraid the games probably won't perform well. (Little issue with getting X to be configured to handle high speed direct-framebuffer graphics). However, DataDino should work, although you may need to get the installer instead of using the super-cool WebStart link (Mozilla problem only!). If you don't have a database to use, visit the "Supported Databases" page and download the test HSQLDB database.

The plain and simple fact is that Java is fighting two issues:

1. Poorly written apps that give all Java apps a bad name. (For example, "genius" A decides to load a table before releasing the event thread. Table takes 5 minutes to load and user gets annoyed. The solution would have been to load the table in a separate thread so that the user can see and interact with the table items as they are being loaded.)

2. Perceived performance vs. actual performance. People see Swing and the default look and feel and instantly "feel" that the app is slower than windows. Nothing could be farther from the truth. In all reality, it is probably running faster than the Windows app, it just doesn't seem right. This is caused by the Java L&F being way too "flat". Your brain doesn't quite connect the buttons and other objects as being solid objects to be manipulated.

Go out and download and install Java's sdk. Also, take a look at jama.

Due to new competition from Microsoft, we will now be embracing the new NFO standard. This allows you to share documents truly between any system, with documents 10% the size of PDF files. Also, you can have graphics such as a cool-ass dragon breathing fire around your letterhead right over a banner that says: "M Y C O M P U T O R C O M P A N Y R O X O R S!"

Our university has had hundreds of Sun Ray 1s replaced because of a bad capacitor in the power supply. Here's Sun's FAQ on the subject:

http://www.sun.com/service/support/products/deskto ps/sunray_faq.html

My favorite part: In very few cases, there may be a noise, like a "pop" and maybe a small amount of "smoke." I really like the quotes around "pop" and "smoke." Cracks me up.

Look at their product line. Their base-level SunBlade 2000 workstation has a 1GHz processor, 1GB of memory, a 73GB disk drive, a good graphics board, comes with StarOffice, and costs $10,995. Keyboard and monitor extra. What's wrong with this picture?

You can get a Sun Blade 100 for about a thousand dollars . That's quite competitive. You can't compare these Mhz-for-Mhz with PCs remember.

Yes, but those are workstations. The 15 stations for production are probably for running something like Maya or menv, and the other are programmers workstations. I was aware of the switch also. Heck even Pixar said that they might try a few Macs with OSX

Workstations are completely separate from the Renderfarm which is mostly SUN machines:

Sun Customer Success Stories: Pixar
SUN MICROSYSTEMS TECHNOLOGY USED IN RENDERING DISNEY/PIXAR'S "MONSTERS, INC."

Well I guess I took your comment too seriously, didn't notice the tongue in cheekness ;-)

Yes, but those are workstations. The 15 stations for production are probably for running something like Maya or menv, and the other are programmers workstations. I was aware of the switch also. Heck even Pixar said that they might try a few Macs with OSX

Workstations are completely separate from the Renderfarm which is mostly SUN machines:

Sun Customer Success Stories: Pixar
SUN MICROSYSTEMS TECHNOLOGY USED IN RENDERING DISNEY/PIXAR'S "MONSTERS, INC."

Well I guess I took your comment too seriously, didn't notice the tongue in cheekness ;-)

I think you mean Jini. (not an acronym, apparently).Everything you described applies to Jini, but not to JNDI. JNDI is used to make resolvable URIs, essentially (eg: ldap URIs, JDBC:postgres URIs, java:comp URIs, etc). You'll see it used in servlet containers, and I believe in anything with distributed components (to look up those components by name and access them). The big sell on Jini was like you described: it used JavaSpaces services to declare devices on the network, and give them a common interface. Essentially, it was another level on RMI. I think JavaSpaces led to JNDI eventually...

Sun sells OEM mobos that can run Solaris, and there are a few manufacturers out there, though I think Axil is gone.. Fujitsu builds some enterprise-class sparc systems, and I worked on a system built by a japanese or korean company (forget which) that was just an AXi base IIRC.. Also, Integrix builds OEM systems, though I've only used their pizza-box RAIDs before..

You might be able to build your own, but these days finding a 250 or 450 on ebay may be cheaper...

Yes, Virginia. There is a Gnome for Solaris.

Actually, what's funny is that this works on Everyhing BUT PC's. It works on Suns and on Macs.

On sun it's called openboot and it's called open firmware on the mac.

You can access it with STOP-A on a Sun, and for a Mac it's Command-Option-O-F on boot.

Here's info from sun and A Sun Example

Here's Open Firmware info from apple and Mac Example.

Actually, what's funny is that this works on Everyhing BUT PC's. It works on Suns and on Macs.

On sun it's called openboot and it's called open firmware on the mac.

You can access it with STOP-A on a Sun, and for a Mac it's Command-Option-O-F on boot.

Here's info from sun and A Sun Example

Here's Open Firmware info from apple and Mac Example.

That sounds a lot like the Sun Ray. I can't find any info GCI from Taiwan (those who can read Chinese could look here to see if GCI==gci.com.tw. It looks like an ordinary retailer.) Does GCI sell Sun Rays, or do they have a new solution?

US $467-per-box seems surprisingly high (conversion by xe.com/ucc/) for a thin client. Thin clients (at least the ones I've seen) are usually built around stripped-down architectures -- essentially, a USB controller, a video card, a NIC, and the minimum that's needed to tie them together. Then again, if you toss in the price of an LCD monitor (space concerns) and a smart card reader, $467 may be reasonable.

Does anyone know what GCI sells? The Oracle of Google doesn't reveal anything about GCI and "smart card" or "thin client". (It does reveal a page saying that there is a "ANSWER GCI LTD", originally from Taiwan, in Telford, but supplies no details beyond the fact that they're in "computer sales.") If they're a reseller, reselling thin clients, I would be intrigued to discover which ones.

If I recall correctly, this protocol would handle both discovery and drivers. The basic idea is that each type of device would have some industry agreed upon interface. For example a printer would support and interface with a "public static Status print(Document d) throws IOException" interface. There is a way to ask for devices near you that support such an interface. The devices that do, would respond with an Object (or driver) that implements that interface and you would be good to go.

Microsoft didn't support it so hardware vendors don't support it, so it is fairly dead at this point. However, it would have been kewl.

I can't lay claim to the stateful session bean idea. It's actually from the J2EE Design Patterns. It's the Value List Handler Pattern. The patterns in that catalog are actually pretty good, 11 of the 15 I had done before reading the list, so they are pretty natural fits for when making applications.

I can't lay claim to the stateful session bean idea. It's actually from the J2EE Design Patterns. It's the Value List Handler Pattern. The patterns in that catalog are actually pretty good, 11 of the 15 I had done before reading the list, so they are pretty natural fits for when making applications.

Here's the official site & here's Sun's lesser-known public OF site ....

There most definitely are Lisp implementations (both Common Lisp and Scheme) that compile to machine code. Two examples are CMUCL and Bigloo. It seems clear from some benchmarks that they easily outperform the likes of Perl, Python, and Java. Note that the previous link won't work if you just click on it, but if you copy it, then put it in the location bar of a new window, it will. It seems the author of the page doesn't much like Slashdot.

You're absolutely right about the power of being able to generate source at runtime and evaluate (run) it. That's one of the things I like about Python as well. In fact, I don't think any language can be considered high-level if it doesn't have that. Guess where this concept originated? In the early implementation (around 1960) of Lisp, a function called "eval" was invented to be the definition of the Lisp interpreter. The details are in "The implementation of LISP".

The nice thing about the compiled lisps is that you also have the compiler available at runtime, which means that you can generate source code dynamically, then compile it. You are no longer bound by the traditional code/compile/run cycle.

I don't know of compilers/interpreters that can make such high level decisions about when to bind and evaluate, but I believe that Lisp allows a lot more flexibility in that area than C-like languages. Also, it looks like Self might offer something in that area. Another class of languages I have yet to explore, but may be far superior on these issues is that of pure functional languages, especially the lazily evaluated ones. I plan to learn one of the ML's eventually, like OCaml.

Unfortunately, as you pointed out, the best tools can't always be used because of external requirements like programmer or user familiarity. In fact, that's the main reason I haven't really gotten into using Lisp yet: I'm comfortable with languages I already know. But, I'm determined to try new things, especially when there's evidence that there are better tools available.

Wrong. Pet Store was built as a demo illustrating the "best practice" implementation of J2EE. It's Sun saying "This is how you should build YOUR apps.". As such it's fair game (and the perfect choice) for platform performance comparisons.

From the site:
"The JavaTM Pet Store Demo is a sample application from the JavaTM 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition ("J2EETM") BluePrints Program at Java Software, Sun Microsystems. It demonstrates how to use the capabilities of the J2EE 1.3 platform to develop flexible, scalable, cross-platform enterprise applications.

The JavaTM BluePrints Program program helps developers create robust, scalable, and portable applications by providing guidelines, patterns, and code that illustrate best practices on how to build end-to-end applications using Java technology.

So is it that The Middleware Company will just claim that the winner is the one that paid them? Or is it that .NET really is the performance winner whereas J2EE wins most of the other awards?

And why is it surprising that the performance winner is the one whose entire platform, from the operating system to the SQL server to the framework, is made by a single vendor? Of course it will perform better - they're all in the same building (or complex in this case).

Mandrake
Redhad
OpenOffice
Apache
StarOffice

How about these fine competing products for basic Microsoft desktop/server software? Ones that work approximately as well as Microsoft's.

Bah. Even Sun sells a real server with SCSI for about as much as the Xserve.

Except that you don't have to pay for a Solaris/Sparc license.

yes patches are free...for the sparc version of Solaris.

Huh? What's that supposed to imply? They are free for the x86 version too.

That was the Idea.... now the idea is to get people to buy Suns x86 based servers The Cost of the OS not only helps support the developers, but also gives you a little more incentive to buy their hardware. (It's about the same price as competetive systems from dell, hpaq, et al. why not get the OS free?)

Supported software includes: Glib, GTK, Apache, bind, Samba, Tomcat, Perl, bash, bzip2, gzip.

Shipped but unsupported software includes: emacs, vim, lynx, mutt, pine, mySQL, rpm, KDE 3.0 (Gnome comes as standard, along with CDE), KOffice, qt3, gcc 2.95.3, gdb, ddd, cvs, python, gimp, autoconf, automake, GNU make, many standard Linux libraries ...

Basically, you can now have a complete GNU development environment out-of-the-box.

Maybe you should do two seconds of research before you try to spread your FUD.

I presume sun would have to reverse the decision to support Solaris 9 on x86, seeing as the LX 50 uses x86 hardware.

Works/ed for sun.com (john.simon@sun.com) and CVAinc.net

He's a consultant and his contact info is

John Vernier Simon - Consultant/System Administrator
E-mail Address: jsimon@cvainc.net
Voice Mail: 972-354-3344

His business street address is

CVA Inc.
101C N Greenville Ave # 268 PMB
Allen, TX 75002-2235
866-236-0512

and his personal email is

tzzhc4@yahoo.com

And his HOME INFO is PROBABLY (result is from AT&T's anywho with a search for "John Simon" in "Allen" "Texas")

440 Timerbend Tr
ALLEN TX 75002
972-359-6383

Works/ed for sun.com (john.simon@sun.com) and CVAinc.net

He's a consultant and his contact info is

John Vernier Simon - Consultant/System Administrator
E-mail Address: jsimon@cvainc.net
Voice Mail: 972-354-3344

His business street address is

CVA Inc.
101C N Greenville Ave # 268 PMB
Allen, TX 75002-2235
866-236-0512

and his personal email is

tzzhc4@yahoo.com

And his HOME INFO is PROBABLY (result is from AT&T's anywho with a search for "John Simon" in "Allen" "Texas")

440 Timerbend Tr
ALLEN TX 75002
972-359-6383

Python and Perl are both (relativily) young languages...

I wonder what your definition of young is. In your post it sounds as if you think of C++ as old, or at least not young. C++ was developed around 1983, making it almost 20 years old. The first release of Perl was 1987, making it only 4 years younger, and Python was first publicly released in 1991, another 4 years under Perl. While you can perhaps make a case for Python being "young" at 12, I would think 16 is close enough to 20 to consider Perl not-young. After all, Perl is 80% as old as C++. It's not as if it's Java or C#.

The private protected access was removed from the language because it violated a nesting relationship that was valuable. You can list the existing accesses in an ordered relationship from least to most accessible as follows:

private
package (i.e., when no access modifier is specified)
protected
public

The "private protected" access does not fit cleanly into that ordered list. This ordering capability keeps certain parts of the language simple, and is therefore valuable.

The assumption is that packages contain "related" code, and so encapsulation within a package is less critical. If you throw code randomly into a package you will end up with unusual exposures (although with inner classes this can be controlled better), but if it hurts, don't do that.

Even iostreams in C++ are better here--you can just use cin and cout for I/O; convenient, isn't it?

It has a lot of implementations of different, handy algorithms, that can all do the same tasks. And this has a high learning curve associated with it, I'd say even higher than learning the STL in C++. Since you didn't actually write this code yourself, you have to know (i.e., read the documentation or benchmark the implementation or both) how fast each operation is for a given task in each implementation to pick the right one. Also, it helps if you know what it does to your data along the way. For instance, the fact that Strings are UNICODE in Java might explain why a simple change can double your memory requirements.

Well, you can draw lines, and boxes and circles in Java... but not pixels. There's no drawing primitive for a pixel. I think you could convert from one type of graphics object to another (that has pixels and nothing else) but only at a hefty penalty in speed and memory usage, and obviously if you wanted both, converting between the two would be highly silly.

I like Perl quite a bit; it has a lot of higher-level language features, but it doesn't impose any bizarre semantics on me, or hide any features from me.

You can read about it from James Gosling's home page (also has info on Arianne 5).

Luckily the engineers were able to upload a patch to Mars. That's remote debugging/patching for you :-)

You can read about it from James Gosling's home page (also has info on Arianne 5).

Luckily the engineers were able to upload a patch to Mars. That's remote debugging/patching for you :-)