Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft PDC Journal
OzzyFudd writes: "I have recently returned from the Microsoft Professional Developers conference and posted a scathing journal of my week there at www.ozzyfudd.com I am an architech who works in largely heterogenous environments, hence, I go because I have to. I offer here some commentary, criticism, and humor from behind enemy lines." Gives some interesting insight into the future of C#, as well.
It's always interesting reading supposedly objective reviews of things and finding the inconsistencies that reveal the writer's bias.. like the clear disdain for MarchFirst's Flash on their home page but no mention of it on Vitria's main page. Guess if you're writing for the Slashdot crowd there's a certain standard to maintain.
Its spelled C#, but pronounced D-flat, or D--. Programming with D-- makes your face go splat, yackity yack, can't come back, 'cause I've bought that, D flat, lost my nads.
hrm... now that sucks, I like yours better.
Check this out: http://www.netcraft.com/whats/?host=www.ozzyfudd.c om
Everyone should instruct their local YAD (Youth Against Drugs) propaganda shell about the dangers of a new, insidious drug called C-hash...
what exactly is keeping this ozzyfudd guy from hanging himself? damn, what a depressed unhappy pissed-off-at-the-world genX whiner.
If this passes for news I'll send in a review of my recent installation of Windows 2000, embellished with lots of Windows bashing so as to increase its readability.
Memo to ozzyfudd: just end it you pathetic loser.
I'm sorry, but this has to be the worst story I have ever seen posted on Slashdot. It has all the attributes of the worst, most self-opinionated, badly-written rants on Usenet. If I want to read poorly written, even more poorly argued crap from the mouths of self-righteous commie-hating, gun-lovin' far right maniacs there are all sorts of sources without having links on Slashdot.
For a start the author's credibility is immediately damaged by his warez-d00d style red on dark tiled background website complete with '5 minutes in Microsoft paint' linking images. Strange given that he says 'Web and Internet Development' are his 'life.' The script kiddie image is further bolstered by his bad English, and I'd almost think he was a disaffected teenager pretending to be an adult, except that the picture he links to (check it out at http://www.scottbushey.com/art/webcam.html, Bushey fans) would surely have been more attractive. I think it's obvious that this extravagantly bearded self-proclaimed genius lacks an education from his rant on 'The Failure of the Over-educated.' An example quote illustrates his views on education:
'The over-educated suffer from having spent too much time in school, and not enough time out in Corporate America, where like no where before have the laws of nature, the beauty of predator and prey, and the best of humanity manifested themselves.'
Er... OK. 'Corporate America' and 'the best of humanity' in one sentence... And he hates Microsoft, right? Surely Microsoft are the archetypal predator? But you see the alternative is the horrible spectre of 'socialism and its evil henchmen, the over-educated.' Shudder. What we need are far more people like Bushey with their razor sharp, thoroughly coherent thinking, honed in the supremely honourable corporate jungle, producing reams of polemic cadenced in that unique English you can only acquire by not going to college. But then apart from that terrible education that I shouldn't have had, I expect I've had my mind poisoned by the CNN because they're the 'Communist News Network' (see 'Tree Hugging Hippy Crap', his incisive discussion of environmentalists and their selfish denial of furniture to needy children by protecting trees).
Of all Mr Bushey's diatribes, however, I think the 'Speak!' one sums up his attitude best:
'Are you unhappy? Pissed off? Angry? Troubled? Are you fed up with the world or just the guy down the street? Well guess what! You have an outlet, a way to vent, you have the equivelent of a thirty second spot on worldwide TV. Get yourself a website...
'Was your order screwed up at the drive thru today? Fine, let the whole world know what total assholes those idiots at the local choke and puke are. Was the woman on the phone today when you were calling the electric company to find out why they sent you someone else's bill a total bitch! Call her out in front of the whole friggen world on your website, then post a link to it on every discussion board from Yahoo to Usenet.'
Sounds like the charter for every sad Usenet poster who's ever bellowed out their futile rage in the mistaken belief that anyone cares. The question is why should the readers of Slashdot care?
I'm sorry, but this has to be the worst story I have ever seen posted on Slashdot. It has all the attributes of the worst, most self-opinionated, badly-written rants on Usenet. If I want to read poorly written, even more poorly argued crap from the mouths of self-righteous commie-hating, gun-lovin' far right maniacs there are all sorts of sources without having links on Slashdot.
For a start the author's credibility is immediately damaged by his warez-d00d style red on dark tiled background website complete with '5 minutes in Microsoft paint' linking images. Strange given that he says 'Web and Internet Development' are his 'life.' The script kiddie image is further bolstered by his bad English, and I'd almost think he was a disaffected teenager pretending to be an adult, except that the picture he links to (check it out at http://www.scottbushey.com/art/webcam.html, Bushey fans) would surely have been more attractive. I think it's obvious that this extravagantly bearded self-proclaimed genius lacks an education from his rant on 'The Failure of the Over-educated.' An example quote illustrates his views on education:
'The over-educated suffer from having spent too much time in school, and not enough time out in Corporate America, where like no where before have the laws of nature, the beauty of predator and prey, and the best of humanity manifested themselves.'
Er... OK. 'Corporate America' and 'the best of humanity' in one sentence... And he hates Microsoft, right? Surely Microsoft are the archetypal predator? But you see the alternative is the horrible spectre of 'socialism and its evil henchmen, the over-educated.' Shudder. What we need are far more people like Bushey with their razor sharp, thoroughly coherent thinking, honed in the supremely honourable corporate jungle, producing reams of polemic cadenced in that unique English you can only acquire by not going to college. But then apart from that terrible education that I shouldn't have had, I expect I've had my mind poisoned by the CNN because they're the 'Communist News Network' (see 'Tree Hugging Hippy Crap', his incisive discussion of environmentalists and their selfish denial of furniture to needy children by protecting trees).
Of all Mr Bushey's diatribes, however, I think the 'Speak!' one sums up his attitude best:
'Are you unhappy? Pissed off? Angry? Troubled? Are you fed up with the world or just the guy down the street? Well guess what! You have an outlet, a way to vent, you have the equivelent of a thirty second spot on worldwide TV. Get yourself a website...
'Was your order screwed up at the drive thru today? Fine, let the whole world know what total assholes those idiots at the local choke and puke are. Was the woman on the phone today when you were calling the electric company to find out why they sent you someone else's bill a total bitch! Call her out in front of the whole friggen world on your website, then post a link to it on every discussion board from Yahoo to Usenet.'
Sounds like the charter for every sad Usenet poster who's ever bellowed out their futile rage in the mistaken belief that anyone cares. The question is why should the readers of Slashdot care?
I know it's a pain, but when I highlight the text (using Communicator 4.7) it gives me a nice white text on blue background. Ahh, just how I like it.
As a previous poster noted, this is something us Netscape users have to do on occasion just to read the page.
-------
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"It was people! People soiled our green!"
That selects all the text on the page, making for a higher-contrast color combination on pages written by design-clueless weenies.
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If I might ask, what exactly in this evaluation do you find factually wrong? I have no problem with being criticised for disliking Microsoft- I do dislike Microsoft and consider the notion that I would have to like Microsoft in order to be unbiased, a foolish notion. Given that I don't like Microsoft, exactly what is wrong with the evaluation? In particular, are you claiming that the bit you quoted is not the truth? I admit it is unflattering but MS's overall strategies are hardly a mystery at this point, and I think I summed them up quite accurately.
Only if you are their customer. If you are not their customer then they are your enemy. This is really quite plain, what is so hard to understand about that?
"THey spent 2billion dollars a year on research. that has to result in something good"
Um- no. It can result in vast amounts of useless wheelspinning and wasting of money. See Apple as of 1996-1997: at the time Apple was working on everything from QTVR to OpenDoc and every engineer seemed to have his own 'cool project' all funded by the endless supplies of Apple money, and very little of it got anywhere. Jobs 'steved' most of it, and now Apple tends to deliver on its ideas rather than not.
It looks very much like MS is in a place similar to where Apple was back in '97... full of themselves, spending vast amounts on ill-defined projects, not taking care of the important things (i.e. the bugs developers were clamoring to be fixed), and very possibly bleeding money in Niagara-like amounts. How is this possible? It's possible because MS _spends_ money in Niagara-like amounts, and in order for that to be useful behavior it needs to produce results.
It appears that the results currently amount to developer alienation so intense (and this is from CONVENTIONGOERS, not snotty linux purists shunning the thing) that there is no excitement and little attention paid to the new toys- contrast that to the days of W95, for instance.
This is partly due to a sense of betrayal ('stop playing with new e+e and fix this damn bug!') and apparently it's also due to the fact that the new technologies are entirely reactive- they are all about filling a laundry list of features and there's little attempt to pretend otherwise. It's like C#'s real purpose is to kill Java, and any usefulness as a programming language is way down on the list- comparatively unimportant. All this is really raising the Art Of Monopolistic Positioning to new heights- it's like an ever-deeper understanding of the viral nature of MS's position in technology- the job really ISN'T to solve techie problems, or even to enable computer solutions. The job is entirely, utterly, to stop other vendors from being able to do that. Actually delivering working and useful technology is decidedly secondary.
Leaving aside the reality that this approach is getting thwacked in the courts, there's another problem: this is an entirely reactive approach. It can be effective at hurting a competing vendor in a free market, but you start hitting diminishing returns as the other vendors die off. The endgame (which we are in) leads toward major vendor-lock, but under conditions of general crappiness and a constant battle to deny obvious customer dissatisfaction (i.e. the crowd of developers yelling at the MS rep about the bug that hadn't been fixed in 3 versions). The same tools that work to hurt other vendors (outright denial of any problems, establishing that your product's benefits are what you _feel_ they should be rather than what they actually are in practice) end up working to cause severe customer rage, which is a real set-up: under these conditions any schmuck can come along and if their promise includes "Oh, and I am not Microsoft" they get an automatic boost. (see Apple in recent years- and Linux)
It may seem like a wild notion that Microsoft would go the way of Kaypro and Visicalc- but there is almost no other way they can go. I am not aware of any Steve Jobs-like figure who can come into Microsoft and start firing people and killing off stupid projects that are only reactive and vapor-oriented. They are _stuck_ with that approach- and well past the point where it's working for them. The Microsoft Way will not become clear sailing- it will continue to be bogged down in efforts to put roadblocks in competing vendors' paths, and the developer and the consumer will continue to be a very low priority compared to the power politics that make up so much of Microsoft's field of vision.
Eventually this will cost more than it earns. At a blind guess I would say that it ALREADY is costing them more than they earn- that MS is in the red if you look at the REAL figures and not entertaining games with taking next year's payroll as a tax deduction for last year twice over etc etc and so on. I say they are losing money- not because they don't still make loads of money, but because they are SPENDING so damn much and are not, cannot show any signs of moderation about this. That's a deadly trap- they daren't show any sign that they have finite pockets like any business or small country, and so they are forced to go way into the red and cover it up at any cost for largely _ego_ reasons and to protect their stock price, which is so intimately linked with their financial resources. It's a recipe for total destruction, not a slide into irrelevance but a high-speed wreck leaving no survivors.
One could wish that MS was able to behave like a normal company for a change and avoid this fate...
... has been renamed to "Internet Acceleration and Security Server".
...
OMG, thats fscking lame! How about "Internet Deacceleration and Insecurity Server"? St00pid Micro$oft
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
If you claim it is actual Budweiser it is definatly a no-no.
OTOH, testimony involving a blind taste test might mitigate the damages awarded.
As I said, the equivalent C code "p++;" would be shorter, but do you really want to encourage this kind of code?
for(p=Array1, q=Array1+100;p<q;p++) { DoStuff(*j); }Will run faster than:
for(i=0;i<100;i++) { DoStuff(Array1[i]); }It's a question of priorities and need. The second form may be acceptable in a client, but the first is probably wanted in a server or compute intensive standalone. Inside an OS, the first is very definatly preferred.
It IS possable for the second form and the first form to optimize to the same thing, but many compilers won't do that.
Did you actually try to profile such things? I did. The results were amazing. Code without pointer arithmetics executes as fast or faster. Go figure. Modern optimizers do wonders to your code.
I'll grant as fast on a modern compiler/processor, but have never seen faster. I have profiled such things many times. Optimizers ARE a wonder these days.
However, there are more pitfalls than potental good things. It allows easily for pay-per-use pricing since every use can be logged centrally as well. Privacy and security would be a high risk factor since basic network transactions are at the heart of this. And of course, these apps become dependant on decent bandwidth connections to work; no problem in corporate world, but not at 40,000 ft. Finally, MS has suggested that they'll have the .NET specifications all open for third-party developers to write for it, but most will appear to work only under MS OS's (which is why they need the proprietary C# and SOAP).
Some of these are MS-isms. However, more importanty, privacy, security, and bandwidth are going to be problems in any distributed app network whether created by MS or Linus. MO
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
Someone was mentioning Ariane 5... basically, a lot of the problem there was that they tried to recycle a lot of software elements wholesale from the Ariane 4.
Could rewriting in Eiffel from scratch have prevented the crash? Yes. Could rewriting from scratch in forth have worked too? Yes. BFD.
(currently testing something about signatures here)
Session state can be maintained on an alternate machine, allowing server reboots with preserved state,and it can be cookieless via url munging.
/sarcasm
Pretty cool, hey! Especially the maintaing of session state across different machines.
I've been using PHP3 and PHPlib for over 2 years now. PHPlib allows me to store sessions data *anywhere* I please just so long as I tell it where to look for the data. There's nothing stopping a developer doing the same thing with any language.
URL munging? been there for ages..
Besides,I wonder why someone has to mention that data will be safe across server-reboots.. surely servers are only rebooted during a known maintenance period?
Do a search on http://www.php.net for more info.
Don't forget that once they shoehorn software-rental into the market, and get us all good and dependent on it (by "us", I mean the consumer), they'll move to Pay Per Use, or Pay Per Tick, and of course, they'll have obnoxious bundling deals like the fscking cable companies; you can rent Word, but that's bundled with FrontPage, IE, Minesweeper, Wallet, Money, and SQL Server.
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Microsoft has not been pushing Java since Sun launched their frivilous lawsuit back in '97. It's a dead language on the Microsoft platform and has been for quite some time.
I'm not going to bother going into great detail as to why Java managed by Sun is doomed for failure. But if you read Roger Sessions explanation and take the time to grok it, perhaps you'll understand...
http://www.objectwatch.com/Issue_7.htm
"If you're currently developing in java, you'd have to be crazy to downgrade to an unproven proprietary platform with a shakey future."
You mean like Java itself?
I'd say you better start brushing up on you C skills.
With thousands of eyes looking at it, it *NEVER* has any bugs!
IBM and Microsoft have been getting along just fine(see: SOAP).
Sun has always hated the upstart Microsoft because they were too stupid to realize themselves the importance of PC's in the computing world.
Oracle... well considering Larry Ellison is hiring private investigators to route through people's trash, the joke certain is on them.
Could you please contain your rants to current versions of products, or I'll have to get my cluestick out and beat you with my SLS distribution of Linux.
Ahh, but it is true... Where's all the office suites written in Java?
Java has evolved itself to writing components for the middle-tier, which is an interesting use but nowhere near the hype that Sun first tried to sell.
In Spanish-speaking countries (like Mexico - GM's neighbor immediately to the south..) it easily translates into "no go"
t_t_b
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I think not; therefore I ain't®
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
But, I did read some of J. Scott Bushey's other stuff (diatribes, he calls 'em - I call 'em tantrums..) and is this guy ever full of himself!
From: "Greed isn't Good My Ass!"
"Am I Evil? If you have ever asked one of your direct reports "What do you want to be when you grow up?" or tried to trade corporate culture for salary with an applicant, your answer is yes. I am coming for you and your organization, I am going to drive you out of business, gobble you up, split you into pieces, and if I can, buy your bank then foreclose on your house."
Christ! I'll bet that's Bill Gates on line 2 right now, wanting to cut a deal before you eat him alive!
"I am your future. I am greedy, self-centered, avaristic, and what's worse, I think the most altruistic thing in the world is to do something so well, for so much value, that people want to pay me for it."
Oh. You intend to work for a living. Good plan, and a novel concept! Welcome to the club.
"The juggernaut that is the J. Scott Bushey experience is heading to a neighborhood near you. I've finally got to feel what its like to own a car, a bed, a new pair of shoes. No more nights curled up on the concrete floor with sore arches for me baby, no way. Now its payback time, and you dare to despise greed, the lifeblood of capitalism, when I've finally gotten a taste...?"
Ah! The untrammeled enthusiasm of youth! They're so cute at this age!
But wait:
"Currently I am employed as a consultant with Information Control Corporation. assigned to a Competitive Local Exchange Carrier in the telecommunications industry."
So he's a consultant/worker-bee.
I bet the VC's are hounding him to get a piece of his action!
t_t_b
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I think not; therefore I ain't®
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
Wow... lots of FUD and ranting so far in this thread.
:) :)
I also attended the PDC and I would like to make a couple of points.
1) There is nothing prohibiting a JAVA implementation on top of the MS Common Language Runtime. Since C# is so similar to java it fits nicely in the sphere of the CLR type system (I am not a java expert). Do you think the technical architects at MS don't want to support a Java implementation? Of course they do. It is the business side of MS (as well as the ongoing suit) that is limiting java support. At the runtime type talk the presenter mentioned that there "was not an announced implementation of java."
2) Cross langauge implementation inheritance. This means that I can right a base class in Python, extend it in C++, and then extend it again in C# (or any other of the 15 supported langauges). Of course, I have not seen this work nor has anyone examined the performance limitations. As far as I am concerned, this is a real innovation from MS (has anyone ever implementated anything like this before?). In many ways, it seems to bypass the issue of languages... use what you want because you can always interop with another language.
3) Prevalence of web services. It seems incredibly easy to expose objects on the web via SOAP and have them interoperate. Of course, we are still waiting to discover the limitations
4) Tools. Remember boys and girls, one of the ways Microsoft succeeds is making good tools for developers. Visual studio 7 seems really cool and looks like it will speed development of web apps. As long as developers like the tools they will stay with MS.
5). If you are not into web apps, XML, or B2B (biztalk) the conference probably was not that useful (except for the language stuff). If are working in the kernel, forget it
6) All of the "managed" languages (i.e. C#, VB, etc) always run in native code. They may be stored in MSIL and JIT compiled before execution, but there is no interpretation.
Yup, a paperclip and someone by the name of Bob. These guys have hired most of the top line researchers (starting from Jim Blinn and downwards) in 3D graphics and have had them for over 3 years now and they still can't produce something new. Last thing I remember was something called taranatulla (sp?) I think and wasn't that a huge sucess!
These guys are obviously enjoying themselves, but I have yet to see a single Siggraph paper from someone with MS Research in their title. Don't know WTF they are up to, but obviously the life must be pretty good for the researchers.
Life is complete only for brief intervals in between toys or projects -- John Dalton
Yup, a lot of papers. None of them have been accepted from memory (there might be some in this years, but I'll let you know in a week or so). I've been going for the past 5 years and nothing useful yet from them. Even went back through my old proceedings to check. Jim Blinn joked at his keynote two years ago about the complete lack of anything useful from them. Can't get much harder proof than that....
Life is complete only for brief intervals in between toys or projects -- John Dalton
Perhaps Microsoft is a little bitter about Sun suing them over basically nothing (fighting over two different ways of running native code? It's native code! It's not portable anyway, by definition, so does it really matter whose native code spec you use?) and decided to follow a path that wouldn't lead to more random lawsuits designed to garner free publicity from the anti-Microsoft crowd.
I can't read it at all.
Red on black, how freaking stylish. How freaking impossible to read. If you want people to read your thoughts, don't make them impossible to see.
Session state can be maintained on an alternate machine, allowing server reboot^h^h^h^h^h^h^hcrash with preserved state,and it can be cookieless via url munging.
The journal shows there is nothing new about Microsoft. They are still up to thier old tricks. Recreating technology when there no need to recreate it. Granted there was some things I saw in the report that was good and felt that there was a plus about but nothing that I see that will benefit me.
Do you understand the mix of technologies?
.NET are just plain bad ideas implemented by people who have not learned from past mistakes. Security is not an afterthought in any well-designed protocol.
Should every program on your computer be talking with the outside world? Do you trust all of those programmers to consistently get security right? Heck, do you trust Microsoft to get security right?
How do you firewall bad applications? Think you know? Now let me throw a twist in. What happens when Microsoft implements a licensing and registration check by tunnelling over https? Oops, your computer will not boot without allowing that traffic, and you now have no idea what other information is being sent home.
No, SOAP and
*sigh*
Ben
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
C'mon moderators! This has got to rate!
Believe with me, my saplings.
Here in Australia it's already late on Sunday evening :)<br><br>
I'm about to head out to watch the lunar eclipse. (lunar eclipse? Where the earth blocks the moon?)
Believe with me, my saplings.
- I developed a lot in java but I'm very willing to swap to C# once it's there. Why? because the tradition of well done documentation (not generated CRAP like Sun gives us), lots of examples and full applications, complete in sourcecode will be extended when
.NET is fully released.
I have to disagree with this. Java is one of the best implemented paradigms in the industry at the moment, and javadoc is a big part of that. Java doc is everywhere, you can find whatever you need to, it's clearer to read than most documentation (eg at the bad end: man pages hehehe), it's complete and it's easy to generate. Microsoft, also, do some documentation well. For instance, I learnt Visual Basic largely from msdn. But Microsoft documentation is always tied into some sort of rubbish interface (like msdn either on web or purchased cds) which is just ridiculous, and their technical documentation is bloaty. Further, it's often difficult to find simple answers to simple questions because of the absurd structure of their index tree. And if you do want more detailed, example based java documentation (beyond the examples standard with javadoc), there are thousands of good books and online references. Your criticisms of javadoc are right out.If you're currently developing in java, you'd have to be crazy to downgrade to an unproven proprietary platform with a shakey future.
Embrace and exend can be done well. It's what GNU is all about. But Microsoft's motives and practice are sure to make C# a one way tunnel to proprietaryville.
Believe with me, my saplings.
Meyer deverses the respect of the development community. He is a very serious, very bright computer scientist, and Eiffel is a neat little language with a devouted if small following.
On the other hand, as much as the article's author doesn't know who Meyer is, he is right on the spot. From Microsoft point of view he is just
"a poor guy, Eiffel author" who is there to prove MSs VM is multi-language and, of course, "he won't be there next year".
Meyer is being used by MS and getting some publicity for Eiffel in the process. Maybe he can find one or two new developers in PDC. But it is somewhat sad, nevetheless.
After that I didn't think it was worth another second of my time to read whatever pointless and probably inaccurate rant this idiot had to say. Does anyone have a review of the event from an intelligent source?
I think a lot of people using Windows 95 don't want to go to that performance-sapping IE 4+ interface. I mean, yes, you can remove it, but who wants to take the trouble for just a few detail improvements?
(I've solved that problem by switching to Linux for most of my desktops, but my point's still valid).
D
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This sounds like a step backwards - didn't VB switch to being a compiled language just a version or two ago?
Do we really need yet another layer of MSOverhead(tm)?
D
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I can cheerfully recommend Budget - I've gotten consistently good service from them, nothing like that fellow says.
It helps to sign up for their frequent renter plan and get a card. You'll get much better treatment that way.
D
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Yep.
:-).
I guess my rather ironic sense of humour didn't quite pass through correctly. That was exactly what I meant
D
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One of the other things it could do struck me as interesting.
.net enabled web browser, scheduling program and online reservations system. Or, to be specific, we have Microsoft Internet Explorer[tm], Microsoft Outlook[tm], and Microsoft Expedia[tm].
.NET[tm] specifications for integration into their own products, but by some strange coincidence, they will never work as well as (or, more realistically, will work even worse than) the all-Microsoft(tm) solution.
Let's say we have a
Tell Microsoft Outlook[tm] that you want to make an air reservation. It will bring up Microsoft Internet Explorer[tm] which will then send you to Microsoft Expedia[tm]. Make your reservation using Microsoft Expedia[tm], and the information will be automatically sent back to Microsoft Outlook[tm] using Microsoft XML[tm]. So if I make an air reservation to visit South Florida in October, the information will be automatically saved in my Outlook[tm] calendar. This is a bona fide convenience, albiet a small one. Now everyone in my office knows where I'm going, which they probably should. And I am reminded that I'm going, just in case I forget.
Although in theory this approach is based on Microsoft Open Technology[tm], in practice what happens is that people take the path of least resistance, continuing to use their Microsoft Windows[tm] computer, Microsoft Outlook[tm] and Outlook[tm] sends them automatically to Microsoft Expedia[tm]. So the end result is that the travel commission ends in Microsoft[tm]'s pocket.
In principle, then, this offers the promise of free software for all, since Microsoft[tm] makes its money by booking all my travel instead of selling me software. And I don't notice any change, since I've been paying the commissions to travel agents or rival services such as Travelocity. From the perspective of Microsoft[tm], they have just Helped The Consumer[tm].
So you could say this is neat, gee-wiz technology, or you could say it's a way to ensure that you never do business with a company other than Microsoft[tm]. Or you could say both, if it pleased you.
"But I don't LIKE Microsoft[tm] managing my life like this," you might respond. And there will probably be competition, by strong and stable companies such as Corel. They will copy the Microsoft
So if you want to know why this is a "bet the company" initiative, and why Microsoft[tm] considers this so important, well, now you know.
D
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Just a note - perl is the same way, reference counting is MAINLY used for GC. I believe in both perl & python if a circular reference is detected a more advanced GC technique is used (mark & sweep?)
Scuttlemonkey is a troll
Another tip: Copy the URL from your browser, paste it into an xterm after typing "lynx ", hit Ctrl-Right button and select "Large" from the menu. Much better than reading it in 3-point Flyspeck.
I completely concurr. I learned both java and VB from online doc's, and java is a LOT easier to learn based on the documentation. One of the problems with MSDN is that it is hard to see which document fit's in where - as it handles MSSQL, VB, and well lot's of stuff. The selection mechanism to select only the VB subset is not satisfactory. Additionally, sun has a whole java tutorial online, which is great. I learnteverything from there, and used the reference as just that - a reference. The sun documentation is a lot better.
This sounds like NFS, RPC, X, Java, etc.
I expect it will be most like Java, except not cross-platform and probably not sandboxed.
A lot of stuff I hear about .NET is the same sort of stuff I heard about when Java first appeared. The idea of getting the latest version of your application off the web every time you run it, saving your data to the server, maybe paying a per-use charge to the application service provider ("ASP"), etc. All of these things were possible with Java applets, but it hasn't really taken off, probably because of bandwidth contraints.
The Focus Theft bug should have never slipped into Windows 95 in the beginning. It shows a real hostility to the user by granting them control with a normal mouse cursor, and then taking it away. (For example try to use the Start Menu while your machine is starting up all of the taskbar TSR spam for Real, 3Com, AOL, etc.)
For NT users, the bug was only fixed a few months ago when 2000 shipped, and in most cases the IS department hasn't started the upgrade yet. And this is the OS that supposedly is really good at multitasking, and is for power users.
The irony is that Windows 3.1/ NT3.x could handle background alerts without stealing focus. And they haven't even totally fixed it in Windows 2000 -- I've had blinking, minimized IE windows that were un-maximizable because there was invisible dialog box there in the minimized window. You can select the icon on the task bar and press Enter to dismiss the dialog, but for all know it's a ActiveX control asking me if I really want to delete my harddrive.
(Another annoying Windows bug which wasn't fixed for 5 years - Create a shortcut to a folder, say Q:\MYHOMEDIR, and then try to use the Save As standard dialog to navigate into the folder via the shortcut. Your file will end up being called Myhomedir.doc!)
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Yes, Delphi has pointers. This will be lost in a haze of moderation but I don't care. All object references in Delphi are pointers. They are automagically dereferenced, which is probably where the confusion comes in.
How could Delphi make Windows API calls without pointers? Delphi is a fully natively compiled OO language. The only thing missing is multiple inheritance, which is (quite arguably) not necessary.
So if I start a religious war is that good or bad for my karma? I can't ever seem to remember.
As for Eiffel, I think the importance you attribute to it is greatly exaggerated. Meyer didn't invent the concept of "design by contract", and it was widely used before Eiffel ever saw the light of day (and is widely used in Java and C++ today). Eiffel is a simple, efficient, if somewhat limited and flawed, OOL, but it isn't a major milestone of language design or computer science. To me, the co-appearance of Meyer and Gates, however, reflects poorly on Eiffel: it looks like Eiffel is now driven by fashion than by principle.
I think we see different programming styles here. Microsoft's platforms seem great for hacking, experimenting, and poking around, but as far as I'm concerned, they aren't great for planning and implementing software in a well-defined, logical manner.
As for their "releasing source code", you make it sound like they are an open source company. Nonsense. The examples they publish are solely for getting people to be able to do anything at all with their messy APIs. The source code they publish is completely useless outside their environment, and (usually) the license prohibits any other use anyway.
This is a company that has cash problems out the ying-yang and whose stock has plummetted to about 3¾. Last time I was at ChumpUSA, they were giving away (yes, for free) their Deluxe version of their Linux distribution. Good luck making money that way. Stick a fork in 'em.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
It's # as in musical notation, ergo C Sharp. If it was the US, wouldn't it be C Pound, not C Hash?
And it looks like Bertrand Meyer is committed to .NET too. Interesting.
"They held up a poor guy, Eiffel author, as proof of their party language support."
I really like Eiffel (except for the increased
amount of typing you have to do and the theoretical thread support; not a fan of those), but his comments on free software were a bit sad. And now we see he's a supporter of Microsoft (nothing wrong with that, I suppose, but it certainly makes his earlier views seem less impartial than they otherwise might have been.)
I guess my usual habit of highlighting everything as I read is actually useful here. Red on a gray background? Maybe it's just my LCD, but I can't raed anything. And it's a bit disjointed. Go here for the start of the actual (relevant) commentary.
Um, I live in Orlando. It's not as bad as that. On the other hand, we do have something called "air conditioning" with which this fellow was apparently unfamiliar. :)
Randall.
Property law should use #'EQ, not #'EQUAL.
> I'm not a MS basher, I use their products when it makes sense
So do I. I just don't have any spots where it makes sense.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
\subject.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
> Let a marauding army of Apple-toting, Bouncy-ball-hurling, Be-logo-emblazoned Penguins and Daemons mount a full-scale offensive against Macro$haft...
A couple of years ago I saw a map based on this idea. It was on paper; anyone have a URL for it?
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
> Microsoft.NET is looking more and more like a dystopian corporate-controlled world
.NET demo blow up in his face at COMDEX last week. The news aren't saying much about it, though this Wired article mentions that it "was plagued with performance glitches", and quotes him lamely terminating it before he was done.
Heavy on the "dystopian" part.
Ballmer apparently had his
MS has a pretty bad track record with high-profile demos. Are they that clueless? Is it that they don't care, knowing that hype will carry the field where technology fails? Is it that they really believe that their stuff works reliably outside the lab? Is it that their employees are so afraid of management that they won't say that a technology isn't ready for prime time?
You'd think these semi-annual doses of reality would make some heads roll down in QA. (Assuming they even have a QA department.)
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
> does anyone actually have anything good to say about it?
.NET is just the thing for you.
Sure. If you want your ability to conduct day to day operations to be at the mercy of backhoe operators, if you want your data to be stored on someone else's machine where it may or may not be snooped on without your knowing, if you want to be billed monthly for use of a critical resource, and if you want to be a victim of the ultimate vendor lock-in, then
(Notice that none of this has anything to do with whether you like MS or not. If you want the perspective on MS's role in it, it should suffice to point out that this is the scam^H^H^H^Hscheme that Sun has been pushing loudly for the past several years, and MS has been alternately laughing at it or getting on the bandwagon, depending day-to-day on which stance they deem most likely to keep their customers from going over to Sun. However, it looks like they have well and truly innovated it over the last few weeks, so now they won't be laughing at it anymore. At least not until they lose interest in it and start pushing something else, like Net# or whatever they decide to call The Next Big Thing [TM].)
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
... I have not recieved even one reply that attempts to tell me I'm wrong.
You're wrong. Details supplied upon request.
"It was me against the world, I was sure that I'd win.... but the world fought back, punished me for my sins" - Social D
Dude, look at what time it is. You should be fighting a hangover or at least still have a buzz right now, not be worrying about what randoms on slashdot are doing.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
I was just a little. I feel better now.
Incidentally, that is one of the better songs on Green Day's Insomniac album.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Yes.
Delphi does have pointer arithmitic as well (I have no idea why I said it didn't), but you never use it.
As for garbage collection: I'm not too sure abotu that. Delphi does if you use Interfaces/COM, but it doesn't otherwise. Java and Python do, but I'm not at all sure about SmallTalk.
(I was actually looking for that page when I wrote my original response, but I couldn't find it.)
I've just bothered to start reading stuff about .Net - I thought it was just MS marketing speak. There's actually some pretty cool stuff in there once you get past all the crap. (I've written something at http://www.kuro5hin.org, but it was in the moderation queue when I posted this)
Anyway, reading this guys writing makes me even more impressed with .Net (although did anyone else get the impression he loves C++ even more than most Linux hackers?). For instance:
Pretty cool, hey! Especially the maintaing of session state across different machines.
This guy just doesn't listen. Even MS (now!) admits that VB is only object based. However VB7 (which is the .Net version) is a proper OO language. It has proper inheritance and encapsulation - and it even does exception handling.
I don't. There is no need for pointers in most coding, and generally the parts where pointers are used are the most bug prone. Java, Delphi, Python, Smalltalk - all proper OO languages and none have pointers. (Not sure about operator overloading)
The biggest worry is, of course, this:
The funniest thing his his whole speil:
Now this poor guy was (I believe) none other than Bertrand Meyer who (while he doesn't know much about open source software) does know his stuff when it comes to high quality software engineering. For the author of this piece not to know who he was, and to claim His language looks similar to C#... is pretty dumb. Since this guy seems to think he is some kind of technology guru, I would have expected he would have heard of Eiffel. It's not particually similar to C#, btw - have a look at design by contract for a start.
Generally speaking, when someone has a bad presentation, what they have to say is not worth reading. Both are true in Scott Bushey's case. What a loudmouthed jerk!
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
type := A; := 1; := 1; := 2; := 2;
// etc...
PMyType = ^TMyType;
TMyType = record
Foo: Integer;
Bar: Integer;
end;
var
A, P: PMyType;
begin
GetMem(A, 10 * SizeOf(TMyType));
try
P
P^.Foo
P^.Bar
Inc(P);
P^.Foo
P^.Bar
finally
FreeMem(A);
end;
end;
The base type of the pointer determines how many bytes a call to Inc() will increase the pointer by.
That, sir, was a frigging BRILLIANT posting if i may say so myself...
Thre is one here
and another one here
There are also several IDEs written in java and at least one quicken like program.
Check them out.
War is necrophilia.
How is .NET different from Jini and Sun's SunRay. Sun Rays have their state saved so you can unplug a sun ray without loosing your session. Jini does the same thing with appliances. The only difference is that the Microsot .NET crap will force you to use microsoft crap on your servers and appliances and jini from Sun will not because it is based on java. Java has penetrated into the market so much that java and XML are the hottest technology of the day. Another classic case of embrace, extend and extinguish or should I say copy, paste and inovate from Microsoft. Remember Dos, Basic and all the other microsoft copy, paste and inovate.
(Reality reasserts itself sooner or later.)
In a general-purpose language, you have to make similar decisions. Should you force variables to be declared before they are used of should they spring into existence? The former slows down initial development time, the latter is more error-prone. There's no One Right Way; you have to decide what audience your language is for.
BTW, I'm not sure what you mean when you say that Python and Squeak are the languages of the day. Whatever its merits, Python is only a mildly popular language, and I've never even heard of Squeak. And if you think that millions of programmers, programming both proprietary and open source software, have been for 20 years using a language that is "laughable", think again.
Anyway, if you think you can design this "Sheep", go ahead and do so. You'll end up with another language that's good for some uses, but not for everybody. And that's as it should be. There should be diversity in programming languages, as well as operating systems.
Forgive my ignorance but I haven't been following this .net thing... does anyone actually have anything good to say about it? Granted, this is Slashdot, but I'd like to know what Microsoft might be doing that is at least worth following. Anyone have an objective list of pros and cons?
JAMWiki Java-based Wiki engine
LOL. First, the oh-so-nice use of 'loose' instead of 'lose' (maybe he is a Slashdot editor in his spare time), then, the balls to critique another website for usability.
sigh.
"Don't try to confuse the issue with half truths and gorilla dust."
Bill McNeal (Phil Hartman)
Well done documentation??? From Microsoft??????? Are you freakin' crazy? The M$ documentation I've seen sucks. MSDN in particular is fuckin' pathetic.
I mean, there are pages with a title, and no content or links. Example code in the MSDN is sparse, and not usually very illustrative.
Cripes, Turbo C++ 3.0 for Borland had better online documentation than Visual Studio 6.0.
For that matter, the Sun Java documentation is clearly better than MSDN could ever hope to be.
// TODO: Insert Cool Sig
Ahah! A therapist!
"I will gladly pay you today, sir, and eat up
Sacred cows make the best burgers.
Oh come on, the guy doesn't profess to be a genius or even to be taken seriously:
- Here are raw feelings and thoughts typed in to the beat of loud, raccous music. They are not meant to be taken seriously. If you are in doubt as to what is humor, truth, crap, or absurdity there is always feedback.
Delusions of web design cluefulness aside, the kid is alright.Besides, didn't his dad play drums for Iron Butterfly?
"I will gladly pay you today, sir, and eat up
Sacred cows make the best burgers.
The earth was due to be hit with a mag storm from a solar flare. Such things can be a problem for data networks.
I noticed that, even now (6:20 AM EST) the main page isn't updating with the number of comments.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Um, I may be confused here, by why does it matter if Microsoft supports Java on Win2k? I'm quite happily running JBuilder 3.5 on Win2k, which utilizes the Sun JRE and Borland's all-Java IDE. As far as I can tell, those two proggies allow me to run Java apps on Win2k just fine...and all I need to run apps is the JRE.
You could change the code, reload it, and other objects had instant access to your new function.
All the while, on the MUD, players were playing: simultaneously.
The performance of LPC was also amazing. It compiled LPC code into a symbolic intermediate level, which executed very fast. A not very special 1994 PC could handle over 120 players. Because only the small number of symbols are executed, a MUD can be debugged very well and is extremely stable.
To top it off, LPC is very powerful. It has arrays, mappings, inheritance. String management is wonderful: manipulate strings as in C, with automatic memory management. Unlike C++/Java's insanely complex syntax, everyone could learn LPC. It was so easy it did not even require a debugger.
Now, C# promises exactly the same features that made LPC rock:
all programs/objects can cooperate
simulataneous use and development
stable and fast
solve complex problems without insane syntactic complexity
If C# makes true on these promises, I for one will embrace it.
P.S. There seems to be a web server called Roxen which employs LPC, but I haven't gotten it to compile yet.
Here a compilable code sample of pointers and pointer arithmetic in Delphi:
:= Pointer($BADBEEF); := integer(p); := pointer(i);
procedure PointerAdd;
var
p: pointer;
i: integer;
begin
p
i
inc(i);
p
end;
The equavalent C code would be shorter, but so what - you want people to do this kind of thing often?
Oh, and there's no garbage collection in Delphi either.
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
VB is used by people who can't figure out C++. VB is popular because A monkey can do it. This does lead to a lot of horrible un-maintainable code being spewed into the world.
Most of the so called "C++ developers" can't even figure out C++. This too leads to a lot of horrible un-maintaibable code being spewed into the world.
...did this lamer chose to write his web site as dark red text on a black background? Didn't he find any more unreadable combination? Quick tip: Select the text with the cursor; the yellow background makes it more readable (...hope this trick doesn't violate the DMCA...).
Say no to software patents.
Do you really think Microsoft is going to quit supporting Java on W2K any time soon?
...
The author of this "diatribe" claimed that Java programs now had to be traslated into some intermediate language before they could be made executable. If this takes 50-100% longer than compiling a comparable C# program, what do you think people are going to write their programs in? Also, this intermediate language could make big Java bytecodes even bigger. Just something to think about
rLowe
----- rL
Actually, the guy reminds of of the comic book guy on the Simpsons. He even looks like him, in a way (his picture is linked in the "diatribe").
:)
Just the whole "holier than thou" tone of the
article was unnecessary, though it made it a lot more interesting to read - much like Dvorak's "opinions", no?? Besides, why are you poisoning your mind with Ziff Davis publications?
rLowe
----- rL
they drop Java like a hot potato, without warning, in favor of their own proprietary C# which will surely tilt the balance of power even further into MS's grasp?
:-)
We can speculate all we want about why MS dropped Java, but the bottom line is that they realised they were fighting a battle they just couldn't win. Either way they look like the bad guys, so they just chose the solution that took less time - dump Java, "replace" it with another language and pretend nothing happened, treating the J-word like it's the worst cuss we've ever been acquainted with.
You know what's funny? The university I go to just changed the language it uses for introductory CS classes from Pascal to Java (thank goodness). The network is comprised of mostly NT4 boxes (sad but true). What is administration going to do when the students are crying bloody murder because (they don't know any better and) they aren't using Windows 2000?? Use C#? Yeah right.
What's the bottom line? MS is just making more enemies. IBM already loaths MS (see: OS/2). Sun's relationship is questionable, if not deteriorated. MS and Gates make fun of Oracle at every turn. What is MS trying to do?? Gain playground respect by bullying everyone? They certainly won't have mine - and it certainly won't stop me from bitching about them either.
rLowe
----- rL
Not sure how this story got accepted for posting.
Not a worthy read.
Linux rocks!!! www.dedserius.com
www.dedserius.com
VB != VisualBasic
$ cat < /dev/mouse
They are not your enemy.
Yes they are. Look at UCITA sometime, then remember that one of their paid flunkies had a key role in its drafting. A supporter of UCITA is by definition the enemy of all consumers of software and data services.
View the WWW in something other than Internet Exploiter and see how their tools are intentionally botching webpages, to lock in their browser.
THey spent 2billion dollars a year on research. that has to result in something good, plus in some environments their products are better than other products.
I'm to the point where I don't care. Everything they do is to lock-in users. I decline to enslave my future for the sake of temporary, current convenience.
"that's not encryption - it's a new perl script that I'm working on..." - from some Matrix parody
I can't believe this is listed as one of the main stories on the front page of slashdot. Javalobby.org also had it as a main story (I assume because of the MS bashing). After wasting my time reading his journal I decided to waste more reading some of his 'diatribes'. The 'tree hugger' one being particularly interesting. I loved the assumption the tree should be cut down because 'it attracts lightning'. Its been there for 600 years and this guy is worried about lightning. Then we get the thing about how it should be chopped down and made into furniture for 'the less fortunate'. I don't know what planet this guy is living on but here on Earth wood from a tree that old would certainly never end up in the home of someone whos poor. Worth too much money...doesnt this guy watch This Old House? :)
My blog: http://jkratz.dyndns.org/~jason/blog/
and thats why this story was even allowed on /.
I'm still working on a clever footer.
Please ! Lots more submissions from this dipshit. Why ?, exactly because he is such a dipshit.
He's funny, pathetic and makes the rest of us (paranoid about turning into generic geek LoserGuys) feel an awful lot better about who we are.
OTOH, anyone who uses red text on a black background image, and can't even work a bgcolor atribute, deserves boiling in oil.
They are not your enemy. THey spent 2billion dollars a year on research. that has to result in something good,
Such blind faith! I would say that that is 2 billion wasted dollars, judging by the quality of the output!
plus in some environments their products are better than other products.
Whilst I'd concede this is possible I can't envisage an environment where poor quality might be an advantage, you'll just have to enlighten me as to which environments you mean exactly?
It's also sad that the majority here who tends to post articles OR replies won't bother to look into what .NET is all about and when there is something useful to adopt and include in Open Source projects.
Well I'm not one of them .NET is simply marketing speak for DCOM version II, which is COM v3, which is OLE version what ever.
The majority focusses on DETAILS like ...
Two majorities! it's that type of sloppy thinking that gets the Microsofties into trouble in the first place.
Could it be Java's platform independence?
or fud that MS isn't capable of cooking up such an environment.
Microsoft seem capable of cooking up all sort of things, most of them unpalatable.
I don't care if this gets moderated down because some anti-microsoft moderator hates what I write ...
It will probably get moderated down because it's full of holes, just like M$ software.
Microsoft releases a LOT OF sourcecode, free for all.: The duwamish bookstore, a complete e-commerce application ready to roll (a complete online store), with code, docs etc. numerous examples, tutorials and docs.
In my experience the sample software supplied with M$ development tools is very poor, poorly designed [if at all] its buggy, and normally contains more lines of copyright than comment. Indeed if one of my programmers produced code as poor, he would not make it past his next assessment.
I developed a lot in java but I'm very willing to swap to C# once it's there.
Why because Bills marketing tells you or you've done a proper critical evaluation of each option and chosen the best.
Why? because the tradition of well done documentation (not generated CRAP like Sun gives us), lots of examples and full applications, complete in sourcecode will be extended when .NET is fully released.
Tradition of well done documentation ? Amateurs might find step by step tutorials useful, but properly skilled Software Engineers need the details to be correct and that's what JavaDoc provides. Accurate and timely documentation not some random musings of Microsoft Marketing spiel.
You should try it sometimes.
I already did, and I've decided I prefer Java as my after bloat beverage.
Are M$ planning to rename C# for the UK? or are they on some kind of ethical marketing push? Ah naw!
Because here # hash means the same as "bodge", basically it means "screwed up".
Have you read the MS write ups on C#, SOAP, and other shit like that? The horses mouth is more terrifying than slashdot. C# is the end of C on MS platforms, though they promise it will continue to run C++ in special controled sections. MS C++ was bad enough, C# is castrated! This is news.
His bitterness must stem from repressed anger and laughter all week long. I imagine the week would have rolled by like a weeks worth of blithering adverts, like the following. It all operates wonderfully with itself. If you use your left hand, it will feel like someone else! The possibilities are endless, only bounded by your immagination, blah blah blah, puke.
Trust the man on the spot. If he's misserable, you don't want to go there. I thank him for the warning.
May you be forced to develop a VB solution for someone not related to yourself. We'll see who finds their shoe laces first.
I don't care if this gets moderated down because some anti-microsoft moderator hates what I write here, but I have to say it: Microsoft releases a LOT OF sourcecode, free for all.: The duwamish bookstore, a complete e-commerce application ready to roll (a complete online store), with code, docs etc. numerous examples, tutorials and docs.
.NET is fully released.
I developed a lot in java but I'm very willing to swap to C# once it's there. Why? because the tradition of well done documentation (not generated CRAP like Sun gives us), lots of examples and full applications, complete in sourcecode will be extended when
First of all it is obvious that you have never truly investigated Sun's Java documentation. All the source code you claim MSFT releases are simply tutorials and examples on how to use their proprietary languages. Sun does the exact same thing for Java, at the online Java tutorial site Sun releases a LOT OF sourcecode, free for all . Here's a list of examples as useful as the Duwamish example I found in less than five minutes of browsing the online Java tutorial.
Bingo - Client/Server version of Bingo that shows how to use JFC ("Swing") User Interface classes,Multi-threading and thread synchronization, Inter-application communication APIs , Digital signatures , a Customized EventQueue , Managing program settings.
Duke's Bookstore -An online bookstore that utilizes the power of Java servlets and shows various aspects of session management, handling HTTP GET requests, and more .
Dozens of Applets- that are used to show how use various Swing layouts, GUI threading, event handling and playing sounds. There are over a 100 classes whose source code is available in the various examples. MSFT's MSDN does not come close when it comes to releasing source code.
As for documentation, I learned Java primarily from the aforementioned tutorial and the Online API(which I happened to download for free) and am currently implementing an extensible regression testing framework that will be used on large B2B websites for a Fortune 500 company. All the Java knowledge I have I picked up online less than a year ago, I dare you to find someone who learned COM from online documentation only who can implement a large scale, cross platform, extensible automated regression testing toolkit in a month. The key here is from online documentation only. Call me when hell freezes over.
PS: Plus Sun's tutorials and API's are available for free download here, while do only way to get the entire MSDN collection is to pay for it by subscribing to MSDN and getting a CD.
PPS: The company I worked for was very glad that all my code has HTML javadocs that the QA team and other developers can look at to get an overview of how my code works. What is MSFT's generated CRAP alternative, as you so call it?
WHY C SUCKS
-----------
int i =0;
i = i + 1;
> MS have hardly been pushing Java or J++ for over a year now
:-)
Strictly speaking, you're right in that they haven't been actively pushing it for developers, but look at how many times Java is mentioned in a typical Win2K press release. "Best platform for Java" "best platform for developing and deploying Java based applications" etc. etc. I think at last count the number of times Java is mentioned in Win2K resources almost outnumbers the bugs in Win2K.
MS has proven yet again that they can't be trusted, that they either change their corporate mind or obfuscate their strategy well. You'd think that Java were the center of the computer world in the coming century from looking at what they themselves gave as rationale for extending it with their own add-ons.
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."--Tacitus, *The Annals*
Is it just me, or does this whole C# thing seem especially brutal considering the fact that MS was, right up to the very announcement of C#, pushing Java and especially their own bastardized version of it? Let's see: MS takes a semi-open standard invented and managed by arch-nemesis Sun, breaks it through alteration, fights a bitter court battle over the right to "innovate" on what Sun intended to be a cross-platform and uniform thing, succeeds in court and succeeds in screwing Java up with "improvements" which of course benefit mostly MS's own products, and then...as a grand finale...they drop Java like a hot potato, without warning, in favor of their own proprietary C# which will surely tilt the balance of power even further into MS's grasp?
I think that pretty much sums it up. The anti-trust case must be ruled on and upheld as soon as possible, or else we're all royally fscked. Microsoft.NET is looking more and more like a dystopian corporate-controlled world worse than those in cyberpunk scifi. Imagine a world in which software firms buy pricey MS toolkits to develop in an MS language for a yearly-licensed MS operating system which is seamlessly integrated into the MS.Network, which provides monthly-licensed access to programmes you don't own executed by machines which MS does own filled with files we own but won't be able to access unless we keep paying for monthly MS.NET accounts. That is the future MS wants, a future in which we don't own good hardware or software or the tools necessary to develop for the leading platform, but instead we own WebTerms melded to MS.NET which rents us all our applications and Internet access, hosts all our files remotely, and locks us in forever.
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."--Tacitus, *The Annals*
Because Microsoft.net doesn't exist. It's a design speck/work in progress.
Uhm, I don't believe he said that all things Microsoft were bad. He was just giving his oppinion on the subject. He said that he was interested in ASP which is a (pretty much, I don't know how many people use the UNIX version provided by a third party company so I can't say this for sure) MS thing.
Plus, I believe if you fired someone based on their website you could be facing a lawsuit.
He who knows not, and knows he knows not is a wise man
I'm sick of MS renaming their technologies. It seems their marketing people are busier than their developers. Why did SNA get renamed? Why does every MS technology get renamed? I'm not a MS basher, I use their products when it makes sense, but I waste too much time try to keep up with the new names for their technologies. Why does every version require a new name?
Supposing the thoughts of one developer of software matters here goes..
No matter how hard MS Push C# I will not spend ANY time learning it. I will know what it can DO but no I will not learn it since I dont really think its a tool worth learning to use to accomplish any particular job.
I will stick with Java as I happen to like Java a lot more than the bastardized feeling C# gives me every time I peek at the reference manual
Again I am one person but Java is more tried than C# and it happens to be pretty nice, blow it away for the memory hogging it does go ahead it needs work still... BUT its finally gaining a lot of recognition and some serious companies are doing some major work with it
Allaire to just name one company that does not have Java at its business core.
They do JRun and they are gonna make ColdFusion compile to bytecode
Thats a little off from my raqnt about C# the point is Its a tool that is not going to accomplish any job better than stuff out there and no one is going to really use it for a lot of serious stuff.
Jeremy
If you think education is expensive, try ignornace
| Ceci n'est pas une pipe.
And then what? it's not about which language gets the most popular. It's the ATTITUDE towards using languages: use the language that makes you develop the best result. If VB is more appropriate, use VB, if Perl is more appropriate don't use VB or C, use Perl.
It's easy. I think a good developer shouldn't give a rat's ass about which language gets the next 'the most popular language'-award. It's useless.
--
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
hehe, the only reply worth reading :)
--
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
Newsflash: They are not your enemy. THey spent 2billion dollars a year on research. that has to result in something good, plus in some environments their products are better than other products. Choose the tool that fits the job, don't change the job to fit the tool
It's also sad that the majority here who tends to post articles OR replies won't bother to look into what .NET is all about and when there is something useful to adopt and include in Open Source projects. The majority focusses on DETAILS like the C# vs Java thing (both proprietry languages designed by 1 company. what's the difference?) or fud that MS isn't capable of cooking up such an environment.
I don't care if this gets moderated down because some anti-microsoft moderator hates what I write here, but I have to say it: Microsoft releases a LOT OF sourcecode, free for all.: The duwamish bookstore, a complete e-commerce application ready to roll (a complete online store), with code, docs etc. numerous examples, tutorials and docs.
I developed a lot in java but I'm very willing to swap to C# once it's there. Why? because the tradition of well done documentation (not generated CRAP like Sun gives us), lots of examples and full applications, complete in sourcecode will be extended when .NET is fully released.
You should try it sometimes. You can benefit from it. Instead of bashing it, you could do what made MS big and Japan's economy the world leader: adapt and extend.... Open your eyes. It will do good :)
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Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
And if you were paying any kind of attention at all, Microsoft is saying the same thing. That's why the change. The way it was explained to me is that Microsoft is going to make as much of the .net arch open as it can, but it is not going to develop a runtime for use on another os. It will help that other company develop the runtime, but they are not going to do the work. BTW, there was a demo of an ASP making a call to some code running on Solaris. I do debug distributed app, and it's a real pain in the ass, so I am looking forward to using a single ide, and it does work post mortem. Please do a little homework before spouting the anti MS propoganda.
This guy just needs to get a life. This is the most significant thing that Microsoft has done in years. I really feel that all of those Penguin huggers out there should be a little concerned that you OS will go back to being a hobby like it should be. I am really getting tired of hearing MS bashing. I was at PDC. This technology is going to make an impact. It is the real thing. I have been waiting for tools like this for years. I work in a corprate environment. To me speed of development is real high on the list. To be able to have several different languages call functionality from each other, and to be able to debug all of them at the same time in the same ide is a huge home run for me. The flexibility the can offer is huge. You all can give me this C++ is for real programmers crap all you want. I am in the business of delivery working polished products in as little time as possible. I use C++ when it makes sense to use it (which isn't very often). I have 7000 users that I need to get solutions to. The ability to drop code on the machine and run it (no more registry nightmares, no more DLL hell) is a dream come true. Anders Hejlsberg made it quite clear that the .net runtime can be implemented on most any os, and Microsoft will support the effort. Well I say let's challenge IBM to get up and running on AIX. How about OS390? I can run Java code there, why not C#.
It was designed for lynx
Upgrade your browser, and uninstall that heathan GUI.
No more submissions from this dipshit. Although, reading his rants were quite a scream, not to mention "kewl!" My favorite, in no particular order:
1. Cluetrain is Clueless (24 "yers" in one rant)!
2. Common Shallow Phrases Translated (I'm guessing he's been rebuffed by women on more than one occasion).
3. The Fallacy of the Techno-Slacker (alt.Carl.Steadman.ate.my.balls) (J. Scott is the KING of all he surveys)!
Is C# pronounced C - Hash or C-Sharp? C# has been a musical term for quite some time.
I used to have a better sig than this, but I got tired of it
I thought Microsoft had designated PDC to stand for "Primary Domain Controller". Did Microsoft change this around too?
:P
My take is that MS keeps changing stuff around so they APPEAR to always be releasing new technology, and that they can now force the "Microsoft Army" of MCSE's and MSD's to go back to their little training seminars, buy more books from Microsoft Press, and waste more time.
I'm so glad that I'm in a Unix shop now
[Connection closed by foreign host]
probably the result of moving from one data center to the next... little problems crop up over time, it was only a matter of time till one (or all) of the servers crashed, either that or the data center that slashdot is hooked up to lost their primary OC-98...somthing along those lines
moox. for a new generation.
You know, I think the tone and attitude of this guys's journal is basically what sucks about the entire IT industry. And the comments about his housekeeper at the hotel, the habitual use of the word "kewl", and his brief pauses to reaffirm that he has to know, intregate, and and deploy all the "flawed" technologies adds up to one unhappy read. I know people like this in my software group and they are really maladjusted and unfun to be around.
>>
Who actually uses Eiffel for anything? I've don't think I've seen anything created for either linux or any of the bsd's that really use it.
Eiffel is the most feature complete declarative OO language, that has decent performance. Its drawbacks are that it requires a lot of typing, and has minor commercial and Unix backing.
ISE is rolling out Eiffel# btw.
Design by contract can easily be added to any language, through an Icontract interface. It appears as though MS is going to make it an optional feature in all its languages.
You're right. Their tools are better if you get them for free. If you use them though, you are locked into continuing to use them.
Seeking alternatives is worth trying.
Come one we all know it's all Linus fault "World Domination, Fast" so MS countered with their own world domination strategy, the .NET platform.
What a dick.
Discussion of actual PDC events was light, coated in acid, lacked objectivity. Relying upon Mapquest to guide someone through an unknown city demonstrates a high level of naivete. Paper maps, which Alamo gives for free, always work better. Smoking a cigar in a smoke free room out of spite demonstrates a wanton disregard for the health and comfort of other people. Dismissing this as saying it is the hotel's fault is not acceptable. Making critical statements about MarchFirst's splash page while having one of the most amateurish, might-as-well-have-done-it-with-frontpage, website is downright hypocritical. The threats of violence against the room cleaning service was too heavy handed and betrayed an intense loathing of humanity. The desire to take a waitress home because she was flirty clearly shows a high level of desperation. Referring to a waitress as a peach gives us a glimpse at his desire to be seen as some sort of hard-boiled detective type who can fling such coloquialism without batting an eye. The writer clearly wants to be seen as the Man in Charge, the Man with the Plan, the Man who is never wrong. Another poster said that if they were this man's boss, they'd fire his ass for wasting money on this convention. I don't think I'd fire him, but I would think twice about sending him to any convention ever again. I wouldn't expect my people to go down and get brainwashed, but I would expect them to delve in and bring back information on how these developments will help/hinder my business. I understand a journal is a personal thing, but seeing he submitted his journal as some sort of newsworthy item, I feel comfortable in making these comments. Notice, I didn't touch upon his sushi obsession.
This is not the way to build a lasting empire.
...because it sounds like his boss wasted a lot of money to send this guy to a 5-day seminar that he was not interested in going to or got anything out of. If I were his boss and came across his website, I'd have his desk cleared out tomorrow morning before he got in.
Honestly, people. Why are the majority of you afraid to stand up and say, "Hey, Microsoft may have actually come up with something that looks like it could do the job." Your bigotry against "the evil Microsoft" is more repelling than your fervor for an open-source world...
IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
GOBACK.
These MS languages aren't the "in" languages of the day. The "in" languages over the next few months will be Python and Squeak
In time I think that the fascination with Python and Squeak will disappear though, and a new language will emerge that will combine the power of C with the syntax of Python. It will be called "Sheep". Sheep will be a portable assembler attempt in line with what C is trying to acheive, but much cleaner and more readable.C fans won't like it, but reasonable people will see the advantages of using Sheep to reimplement a lot of their software. System level software especially will benefit from be reimplemented in Sheep due to the far shorter development times it will produce.
C will seem like quite a laughable language in comparison. Microsoft will jump on the bandwagon and release Visual Sheep, but they won't move their existing codebase over from VC++ because of the sheer bloat of it.gcc will be coming out with a sheep compiler, gsp, (or something similar), in a few months. Java will be totally replaced as well, because if you think about, who needs an interpreted (bytecode interpreted then, whatever) WORA language, when there's a compiled language that does away with the #ifdef's of C, yet is faster than C and cleaner than both C and Java?
A lot of C fundamentalists (some Open Source gurus amoung them) will protest and insist on keeping C as the official language. A new open source Operating system, a system written mostly in Sheep, including most of the kernel, will replace Linux and FreeBSD because of their lack of support (and by support I mean, rewriting all of their software in Sheep, including the kernels).This new system will mostly be a clone of BeOS, but because of the better language, it will surpass BeOS is every way - and truly bring Open Source to the masses. It will combine the best elements of BeOS with the best elements of FreeBSD and Linux. A system that, while having a very smart GUI, will not be dependent on that GUI for normal operation, and will also be totally multiuser. C compatibility libraries, written in Sheep, will exist to make the transfer easier, but once reasonable developers start writing in Sheep, they will be sickened by the thought of going back to C.
Hope you've enjoyed this look into the future"A few atoms won't even light a match" - Dr Jones, 1933
One point I have to agree with in that posted rant, is that Alamo Car Rental totally sucks. Beyond belief. Stay away from them at any cost.
;-)
Go with National, or Avis, or pretty much any other car rental company. ANY other rental company will be an order of magnitude better than Alamo.
I'd like to hear more details about the strict type system that was mentioned... (a last ditch effort to keep this post on-topic
- Spryguy
- Spryguy
There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
Exactly! Use necklaces made of mollusc shells instead. This oughtta solve all the problems! How come I didn't think about it myself?
Did you go to a law class in Harward per any chance?
It's not called C-Hash, it's called C-Sharp.
"And like that
That very paragraph is what he calls "some interesting insight into the future of C#" - who wouldn't be interested in insights into the future?