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Top 5 Submerging Technologies Pinpointed
An anonymous reader writes "Computerworld makes its picks of five 'submerging' (i.e. dying) technologies, as the article asks 'Where are the review committees for obsolete technologies?' The picks, made by 'corporate IT managers and analysts', include Windows 9x, client/server computing and Visual Basic 6."
Forgot submarines. Those have been submerging since the German U-Boats of World War II!
I'd like to submerge 'corporate IT managers and analysts'.
how about the pre-recorded compact disc? (no I havent RTFA yet)
This space available.
BSD isn't on the list? You mean the trolls were WRONG?!
Please!
For gods sake man, PLEASE!!!!!!
I browse at +5 Flamebait- moderation for all or moderation for none.
BSD.
(joke!!)
why didn't they list their site as dead as soon at it is listed on slashdot..
someone want to post the article here?
anime+manga together at last.. in real time.
.. I think they need to include the computerworld.com webserver on the list..
this practically qualifies as a repost... 2 stories on dying technology in one day.
Submerging Technologies: Five That Are Sinking Fast
These technologies are rapidly taking on water. Is it time to jump ship?
Story by Gary H. Anthes and Robert L. Mitchell
OCTOBER 20, 2003 ( COMPUTERWORLD ) - Most corporate IT organizations have steering committees to craft strategies for new technologies, chief technology officers to assess new products, and IT policies and procedures for developing and buying new hardware and software.
But where are the review committees for obsolete technologies? Who's looking at what's in the data center, on desktops and in briefcases to see if they still make sense? Who's checking to see if spare parts, vendor support and employees with the right skills will be available next month--or next year?
In most companies, no one is doing those things in any rigorous way, says John Parkinson, chief technologist for the Americas region at Cap Gemini Ernst & Young in Chicago. "I know of very few companies that actively manage sunsetting their IT," he says. "They think it will last forever."
It doesn't, of course. But in most cases, there's no need to rush: "No tool is really outdated if it serves the needs of end users," says Eric Goldfarb, CIO at PRG-Schultz International Inc. in Atlanta. However, IT managers who wait too long may risk being forced into expensive last-minute changes to accommodate new technology initiatives as business needs change. That IP telephony call center application won't fly if you have to replace not only the private branch exchange but also update network cabling and those nonswitched, shared-media Ethernet hubs.
Parkinson says that for each type of software and hardware installed, companies should have an estimated cost and date to replace it and an estimated cost to retain it. "You really should have this in the plan when you [buy], otherwise you won't know what ROI to expect," he says.
Of course, some technologies need closer scrutiny than others. So Computerworld asked corporate IT managers and analysts what items they would put at the top of their lists. Some of them may justify an immediate rip-and-replace strategy; others should be put on your "endangered" list. Here are five submerging technologies to watch in 2004:
1. WINDOWS 9x
Why it's sinking: Can 92 million users be wrong? Yes. Declining support, reliability problems, security issues and incompatibility with new applications should drive the remaining installed base to Windows 2000 or XP.
Credit: Red Nose Studio
No obsolete technology is in wider use than the 9x versions of Microsoft Corp.'s operating system. "Windows 9x is getting to be pretty much unsustainable," says Tony Iams, an analyst at D.H. Brown Associates Inc. in Port Chester, N.Y. Indeed, many companies have already migrated to Windows 2000 Professional to gain the reliability of an operating system built on the more stable NT kernel.
But eradicating Windows 9x won't come easy: IDC in Framingham, Mass., estimates that by year's end, there will still be 17 million Windows 95 installations, 48 million Windows 98 users and 27 million machines still running Windows Me. And the majority of those are business PCs, claims IDC analyst Dan Kuznetsky. "In the long term, it will probably be less costly to upgrade [to Windows XP], just because the NT kernel is much more reliable," he says.
But what if your organization has waited? Should you go directly to XP, wait for the next generation (code-named Longhorn) or choose something else?
Don't hold your breath for Longhorn: It isn't due to arrive until 2005 at the earliest. Linux is a widely touted option, but for many the idea of replacing thousands of Windows installations, training users on a new operating system and getting it to work with existing Windows applications is a nonstarter.
Tom Pratt, information systems manager at Coastal Transportation Inc. in Seattle, says he has no plans to abandon Windows 98. The applications running on his boats won't run on anything else,
MusicMatch
Turn off your middle mouse button?
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
I like how we are told to "click here" to see the top 5 dying technologies and then the headline reveals 3 of the 5 items.
The other two are Tape Backups and SNA Servers, just in case you wanted the surprise completely ruined for you.
Client/Server architecture?
Yeah...whatever.
Because the internet (www especially) would work FINE if it was all p2p.
What about Visual Basic for MS-DOS. Does anyone still have a copy?
this sig limit is too small to put anything good h
> Dot-matrix printers [will be replaced with] Ink-jet/laser printers - Dot-matrix printers are still good for multipart forms, but as volumes have fallen, prices have jumped above those of both ink-jet and low-end laser printers.
Um, hasn't this ship sunk LONG ago (except for multi-part forms, of course). Perhaps he's considering cash register receipt printers...
> Floppy disks [will be replaced with] Flash disks, writable CDs, DVDs - What fits on 1.44MB of disk space
Apple got this right early on. I've been waiting for this to happen on the PC side for a long time. Unfortunately, I'm forced to keep my floppy drive plugged in because, for some odd reason, Windows requires a floppy disk for loading raid drivers! Seems like many remote install Linux boot disk images are for floppies too, although I suppose it wouldn't be to hard to burn them to a bootable CD-ROM...
Death to floppies. Please!
Site running too slowly, karma too high, weeeeeeeeeee
OUT IN WHY
900-MHz wireless LANs 802.11 WLANs Early WLANs installed in warehouses and manufacturing floors won't work with 802.11b. Integration requires an upgrade.
1U (1.75-in. high) servers Blade servers They save space, eliminate cables and lower costs by sharing power supplies and connectivity.
Color ink-jet printers Color laser printers Color laser printers used to cost thousands; now they're well under $1,000. And color laser cartridge changes are less frequent--and less messy.
CRT monitors LCD monitors Flicker-free LCDs reduce eyestrain; the tubeless design saves on desk space, and the LCDs are less environmentally hazardous at disposal time than CRTs.
Dot-matrix printers Ink-jet/laser printers Dot-matrix printers are still good for multipart forms, but as volumes have fallen, prices have jumped above those of both ink-jet and low-end laser printers.
Ethernet hubs Intelligent switches Newer switches are inexpensive, a prerequisite for IP telephony, and typically support Simple Network Management Protocol for remote manageability.
File servers Network-attached storage appliances Why maintain file servers for shared storage when you can plug in a simple appliance?
Floppy disks Flash disks, writable CDs, DVDs What fits on 1.44MB of disk space anymore?
Mac OS 9 Mac OS X Increased stability makes this upgrade a no-brainer.
Modems Wireless LANs With WLANs expanding across offices, public spaces and hotels, the modem, with its 56Kbit/sec. speed limit, is fast becoming the computing equivalent of an automobile's limited-service spare tire--used only in emergencies, at low speeds.
PBXs IP telephony/call manager servers With applications that require an integrated voice/data network already emerging, another long-term investment in a digital PBX at this point probably doesn't make sense.
BSD Linux Better hardware support, and superior VM subsystems, as well as a more mature networking stack consign BSD to the annals of history.
PDAs Cell phone/PDA hybrids Free up your pockets! New hybrid models are finally reaching a size and price where a single, integrated device makes sense.
Serial/parallel ports USB 2.0 ports The ports won't go away on PCs anytime soon, but for new hardware, Universal Serial Bus peripherals are faster and often easier to set up.
Token Ring Ethernet Ethernet: Cheap and ubiquitous. Token Ring: Expensive, with limited vendor sources. Any questions?
Windows NT servers Windows 2000, Server 2003 Support will disappear soon--as will all those security patches and updates.
Zip drives Rewritable CD/DVD drives CD-ROM drives are inexpensive and ubiquitous, and the media are cheaper.
And why are those people in the article PURPLE?
Isn't everything going web based now, isn't that a key example of client / server computing? :)
"It's better to be a pirate then join the Navy"
"Top 5 Submerging Technologies..."
Computing world's servers?
that's not a technology. If it is kill me now.
I like things that are sweet and not things that are lame. --
no Apple either. very strange.
Geeks, hackers and script kiddies -- lend me your ears
I do not come hear today to praise *BSD, but to bury it
The evil that OSes do lives after them,
The good is oft interred with their bones,
I don't want to start a holy war here, but what is the deal with you Mac fanatics? I have recently upgraded from a Mac 8600/300 w/64 Megs of RAM to a new G5 dual 2GHz with AGP 8X and PCI-X to help me at my freelance gig where I copy a 17 Meg file from one folder on the hard drive to another folder. On the G5 I spent about 20 minutes trying to install Adobe Arcobat 6. 20 minutes. At home, on my Pentium Pro 200 running NT 4, which by all standards should be a lot slower than this Mac, the same operation would take about 2 minutes. If that.
In addition, during this file transfer, my iPod will not work. And everything else has ground to a halt. Even Safari is straining to keep up as I type this.
I won't bore you with the laundry list of other problems that I've encountered while working on various Macs, but suffice it to say there have been many, not the least of which is I've never seen a Mac that has run faster than its Wintel counterpart, despite the Macs' faster chip architecture. My 486/66 with 8MB of ram running MS Windows for Workgroups 3.11 is faster than this G5 dual 2GHz machine at times. From a productivity standpoint, I don't get how people can claim that the Macintosh is a superior machine.
Mac addicts, flame me if you'd like, but I'd rather hear some intelligent reasons why anyone would choose to use a Mac over other faster, cheaper, more stable systems.
According to them, token ring is JUST now going out? the last time i saw token ring was in my middle school computer labs. None of my professors could name a 'real' (ie in the industry) instance of it still being implemented.
And it's just now dying?
If you can't see the value in jet powered ants you should turn in your nerd card. - Dunbal (464142)
I'd prefer to just remap it if possible. Maybe remap it if possible. Mapping it to the contorl or alt key would be ideal.
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
nt
Tell me how to enable it in Windows first.. I'm bl$$dy sick of having to take my hand off the mouse, go to the keyboard, and press Ctrl-V (I invariably miss and hit Ctrl-C, thereby destroying the clipboard).
My pet peeve is that the middle click doesn't work on Windows, unless they have configured the Unix mouse app, Also, when I select and paste it doesn't work and I have to go back, reselect and repaste to copy what I want. Man that ticks me off.
Disble middle click pasting links like this: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=82337&cid=7220 324
They've picked a particular version that has been updated to VB.Net. What do they expect? They picked Windows 95. an EOL product. Not much support these days for Linux kernel 1.0 either - did they mention that? Client/server computing is going strong - ever bought airline tickets over the web? No, I haven't RTFA it's already /.ed... maybe somebody could point out the reason for the article?
If I'm not mistaken, one of the tab extensions in Mozilla (I think it may be Optimoz's mousegestures, but it could be Multizilla or Tab Browser extensions, sorry I can't remember offhand) allows you to disable that. It is a bit of a pain, especially if you use mouse gestures and always set the middle mouse button to be the button to press.
The extensions mentioned are, of course, available at http://www.mozdev.org/
Submerging Technologies: Five That Are Sinking Fast
Most corporate IT organizations have steering committees to craft strategies for new technologies, chief technology officers to assess new products, and IT policies and procedures for developing and buying new hardware and software.
But where are the review committees for obsolete technologies? Who's looking at what's in the data center, on desktops and in briefcases to see if they still make sense? Who's checking to see if spare parts, vendor support and employees with the right skills will be available next month--or next year?
In most companies, no one is doing those things in any rigorous way, says John Parkinson, chief technologist for the Americas region at Cap Gemini Ernst & Young in Chicago. "I know of very few companies that actively manage sunsetting their IT," he says. "They think it will last forever."
It doesn't, of course. But in most cases, there's no need to rush: "No tool is really outdated if it serves the needs of end users," says Eric Goldfarb, CIO at PRG-Schultz International Inc. in Atlanta. However, IT managers who wait too long may risk being forced into expensive last-minute changes to accommodate new technology initiatives as business needs change. That IP telephony call center application won't fly if you have to replace not only the private branch exchange but also update network cabling and those nonswitched, shared-media Ethernet hubs.
Parkinson says that for each type of software and hardware installed, companies should have an estimated cost and date to replace it and an estimated cost to retain it. "You really should have this in the plan when you [buy], otherwise you won't know what ROI to expect," he says.
Of course, some technologies need closer scrutiny than others. So Computerworld asked corporate IT managers and analysts what items they would put at the top of their lists. Some of them may justify an immediate rip-and-replace strategy; others should be put on your "endangered" list. Here are five submerging technologies to watch in 2004:
1. WINDOWS 9x
Why it's sinking: Can 92 million users be wrong? Yes. Declining support, reliability problems, security issues and incompatibility with new applications should drive the remaining installed base to Windows 2000 or XP.
Credit: Red Nose Studio
No obsolete technology is in wider use than the 9x versions of Microsoft Corp.'s operating system. "Windows 9x is getting to be pretty much unsustainable," says Tony Iams, an analyst at D.H. Brown Associates Inc. in Port Chester, N.Y. Indeed, many companies have already migrated to Windows 2000 Professional to gain the reliability of an operating system built on the more stable NT kernel.
But eradicating Windows 9x won't come easy: IDC in Framingham, Mass., estimates that by year's end, there will still be 17 million Windows 95 installations, 48 million Windows 98 users and 27 million machines still running Windows Me. And the majority of those are business PCs, claims IDC analyst Dan Kuznetsky. "In the long term, it will probably be less costly to upgrade [to Windows XP], just because the NT kernel is much more reliable," he says.
But what if your organization has waited? Should you go directly to XP, wait for the next generation (code-named Longhorn) or choose something else?
Don't hold your breath for Longhorn: It isn't due to arrive until 2005 at the earliest. Linux is a widely touted option, but for many the idea of replacing thousands of Windows installations, training users on a new operating system and getting it to work with existing Windows applications is a nonstarter.
Tom Pratt, information systems manager at Coastal Transportation Inc. in Seattle, says he has no plans to abandon Windows 98. The applications running on his boats won't run on anything else, and it's perfectly satisfactory for his office applications as well, he says. Can Pratt stay on Windows 98 forever? "Forever is a funny term," he says. "Let's ju
"Only in their dreams can men truly be free 'twas always thus, and always thus will be."
--Tom Schulman
I'd argue we'll see even more of this when Microsoft's .NET initiative takes hold. Their plans will make it very easy for businesses to run supercomputers and lease time out to other businesses or even homes.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
Your mouse has more than one button? How do you know which one to click?
Why it's sinking: Tape is cheap, but disk technology is closing the cost gap. For day-to-day backups, disk-to-disk systems that use inexpensive ATA technology make sense.
To archive, what last longer... tape or a hard drive?
I think the majority of people in the business are using hard drives as back up devices now... so tape may very well be out. We know CDRs die sooner than expected... do hard drives sitting on a shelf store better?
Of course, I am paranoid. I still hard drive to hard drive backup and download my database from work to home weekly.
I still wonder if tape is better for archiving though.
Davak
I think remapping it, if it if it ip possible, might be a good idea (but only it if is ip possible
That's a poor observation since it's already been replaced and hardly counts as a "technology". I guess, along the same lines, they could have mentioned 1-Megapixel Cameras, BetaMax, Daisy-Wheel printers, and the Rubik's Cube.
-- I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous
I was in radio shack the other day, and to my surprise I saw a serial mouse. I thought that was dead! But now I am confused. I still really think it is dead, but is it submerging instead?
-Seriv
Almost everyone I know has bought a color inkjet printer (even if they didn't really want it: "it came free with a 4-pack of nine volt batteries"). Can anyone report on *home* use of a color laser printer?
"We believe that five years from now, most medium- and large-sized penises will be using snapshots on disk as the primary recovery media," says Bob Peniswhore , an analyst at Gartner Inc. "But that doesn't mean rape is going away in the next 12 months." Alternatives just aren't well known yet, he says.
..is submerged apparently. maybe the admin read the article, and thought he'd turn off that bit of client server technology that is apparently dying.....
Actually you don't need to disable middle click in X, you just need to change mozilla's default behavior- this problem used to drive me nuts too.
If you're using (iirc) Mozilla 1.3 or better, type about:config in your address bar. Find the line that says "middlemouse.contentLoadURL". Right click on it and choose modify. Set it to false.
This turns off the behavior of middle click on an empty space going somewhere.
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
Next time post AC. It's the right thing to do. That way you don't end up getting modded down.
Please, respect the moderators.
Disk drives replacing tapes? Ha. I could see flash RAM modules doing it when (not any time soon) they become cheap enough. There's more to backup than cost per megabyte. Would you be comfortable having a bunch of disk drives with critical data stored off in a remote location for as long as a year and then popping them in and expecting them to run? DLT tapes, on the other hand, can be stored indefinitely. That is the key. Hard disks just aren't stable enough over time. DLT (and Flash RAM, probably) is.
"Strategic applications should never be developed in the traditional fat-client, two-tier client/server model," he says. "The business logic becomes inaccessible and hard to maintain. Instead, the right approach is a service-based design--that is, to build a business services layer in the application that can be exposed via Web services or any other mechanism." Can anyone give me an example of this "business services layer" ?
This article is about technologies that are dieing not dead. (seriously, I am just kidding)
I just right-click on it and choose from the drop-down. But you are right. It shouldn't be that hard.
"Nobody really checks their email any more. They just delete their spam"
The only accurate predictions I see is SNA
.NET doesn't really seem like a replacement to me.
Windows 95 will of course die but, it's stiil a few years away.
VB6 will take even longer to be replaced that Windows 9X. Also, is it really being replaced? VB
Client server isn't going to die, the client is changing that's all. Old app specific clients are being replaced by browsers but it will remain a client server architecture.
Tape Backup - Step away from the crack pipe dude. Tape backup is going now where in the forseeable future.
This troll is really getting old, use your imagination looser
How exactly does someone drop tape storage? We back up 15-20 gigs each night and move it off site the next day. The only way I can think of to do this is with tape. Dumping from one drive to another works great, and we do that as well, however both drives are still in the same physical location. moving the data over the net to another box just isn't feasible, the bill to move 500 gig of data a month would kill us. Removable harddrives are just too fragile to be considered reliable back ups, the abuse I put these tapes through would kill a HD in a day or two. Burning spindles of CD's or even DVD's just isn't cost effective.
Are their any other methods that I haven't thought of?
Thats just dead, not submerging.
And I have the a Dos version of Turbo Pascal.
-Seriv
Seems to be the example of why nothing is outdated. To me they seem to be the example of what is wrong with IT. 50 Something year old paranoid people running MIS departments absolutely oblivious to new technology.
I have to wonder about the guy who said his windows 98 applications have no where to go. It should not be to much work to get those working under WINE. At this point WINE probably provides better windows 9X compatibility than XP.
Isn't Wine's goal to emulate most of the Windows product line? That means Wine can run Win 3.x apps and Win XP apps. That, and considering Wine is reverse-engineering Windows on an "as-needed" basis doesn't make me think that Wine would be better at Windows 9x compatibility than Win XP. But prove me wrong, Wine guys!
However, they're clueless when they say it's cheap. The drives are insanely priced -- it's cheaper to build a RAID 5 array than buy a tape drive.
My god. Client-Server is dying? WTF drugs are they on? I'd like to be able to ignore reality to that level of depth, too.
...Steve
Stupid troll. The least you can do is find some new material to troll with.
I would like to vote for the entire Visual Basic collection, not just version six. It's a huge pain to use!
...
The only thing that keeps me sane while using it is the sight of that Cobol book on the shelf
Just use a two button mouse like all the l33t w1nd0W5 d00d5.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
How could they forget the Schnorkel?
Just the name alone should qualify it as a winner..
BRILLIANT troll, sir!
....it's called Tech jobs. At least here in Calif. I've been unemployed for almost 2 months and can't find an IT to save my life (or my rent).
Tech jobs in general are disappearing or at least still in a funk. Maybe getting into IT was not that great of a career choice after all...
-Valiss
"But eradicating Windows 9x won't come easy: IDC in Framingham, Mass., estimates that by year's end, there will still be 17 million Windows 95 installations, 48 million Windows 98 users and 27 million machines still running Windows Me."
:P
People that think "Hey, it works just fine!" - nevermind the fact that it's a gaping security hole just begging to be exploited.
Although magnetic tape's cost per megabyte will give it a role in keeping archival records for years to come, better technologies and techniques are eroding tape's dominance for day-to-day backup and recovery tasks.
Heh. Let me tell you why tapes are good. Tapes are very, very simple and well understood. You can repair a broken tape with a Stanley knife and Sellotape if you have to. Sure you might lose a few blocks, but with decent archiving tools (like cpio and bzip2) losing a file won't cost you the entire archive. If a tape drive fails, just replace it, easy.
Now, when a hard drive fails, what're you going to do? Repair the platter? Transplant it to another hard drive? Just not feasible. And how're you going to store archives? Tapes are cheap and high density. Maybe you've moved buildings a couple of times and they've been kicked around, how certain are you HDs can be plugged back in and run? And they take more physical space too, and still cost more.
Tapes aren't going anywhere anytime soon.
This is the chart that concluded the article...
Legend---
Out - O:
In - I:
Why - Y:
----
O: 900-MHz wireless LANs
I: 802.11 WLANs
Y:Early WLANs installed in warehouses and manufacturing floors won't work with 802.11b. Integration requires an upgrade.
O:1U (1.75-in. high) servers
I:Blade servers
Y:They save space, eliminate cables and lower costs by sharing power supplies and connectivity.
O:Color ink-jet printers
I:Color laser printers
Y:Color laser printers used to cost thousands; now they're well under $1,000. And color laser cartridge changes are less frequent--and less messy.
O:CRT monitors
I:LCD monitors
Y:Flicker-free LCDs reduce eyestrain; the tubeless design saves on desk space, and the LCDs are less environmentally hazardous at disposal time than CRTs.
O:Dot-matrix printers
I:Ink-jet/laser printers
Y:Dot-matrix printers are still good for multipart forms, but as volumes have fallen, prices have jumped above those of both ink-jet and low-end laser printers.
O:Ethernet hubs
I:Intelligent switches
Y:Newer switches are inexpensive, a prerequisite for IP telephony, and typically support Simple Network Management Protocol for remote manageability.
O:File servers
I:Network-attached storage appliances
Y:Why maintain file servers for shared storage when you can plug in a simple appliance?
O:Floppy disks
I:Flash disks, writable CDs, DVDs
Y:What fits on 1.44MB of disk space anymore?
O:Mac OS 9
I:Mac OS X
Y:Increased stability makes this upgrade a no-brainer.
O:Modems
I:Wireless LANs
Y:With WLANs expanding across offices, public spaces and hotels, the modem, with its 56Kbit/sec. speed limit, is fast becoming the computing equivalent of an automobile's limited-service spare tire--used only in emergencies, at low speeds.
O:PBXs
I:IP telephony/call manager servers
Y:With applications that require an integrated voice/data network already emerging, another long-term investment in a digital PBX at this point probably doesn't make sense.
O:PDAs
I:Cell phone/PDA hybrids
Y:Free up your pockets! New hybrid models are finally reaching a size and price where a single, integrated device makes sense.
O:Serial/parallel ports
I:USB 2.0 ports
Y:The ports won't go away on PCs anytime soon, but for new hardware, Universal Serial Bus peripherals are faster and often easier to set up.
O:Token Ring
I:Ethernet
Y:Ethernet: Cheap and ubiquitous. Token Ring: Expensive, with limited vendor sources. Any questions?
O:Windows NT servers
I:Windows 2000, Server 2003
Y:Support will disappear soon--as will all those security patches and updates.
O:Zip drives
I:Rewritable CD/DVD drives
Y:CD-ROM drives are inexpensive and ubiquitous, and the media are cheaper.
According to the chart at the end of the article, Zip drives are a dying technology. I've got news for those guys: Zip drives died, rigor mortis set in, the were embalmed, buried, and have mostly decomposed.
I've got a few of them at home, including two internal IDE Zip drives, an external USB Zip drive, and an external SCSI Zip drive. I also have about 50 Zip disks but I can't even remember the last time I spun one of them up.
Iomega pissed away that entire market with their greed. Had they been smarter, they would have given the drives away in every Dell, Compaq, and Gateway system sold and made money off of the media (ala the Gillette shaver business model). Instead, they continued to charge too much for the drives, limiting their adoption. As CD-R and CD-RW media plummeted in price, Iomega continued to charge an arm and a leg for their Zip media rather than dropping prices to retain customers. They introduced the Zip 250, Zip Click!, and Zip 750, all of which failed due to the high drive costs, exorbitant media costs, and marketplace confusion with customers not knowing which model to buy in order to exchange data with colleagues and friends. They never effectively tried to broaden the appeal of their media with MP3 recorders, players, or in-dash car units.
After effectively killing the Zip product line, they introduced external CD-R/W drives. Unfortunately, they were just rebadged units stuck in gaudy blue cases -- for which they charged double what everyone else did. They're toast.
COBOL, Fortran, mainframes, tech jobs, on-shore IT managers...
:)
The list is long, the night is short. Run, lemmings, run!
Rb
Thank you! Getting the answer to this question that's been buggin' me forever was so worth the offtopic and redundant moderations. Thank you again, I'll continue to go be a Linux newbie now.
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
Stan:You know, I learned something today. I learned that maybe, color laser printers are better than injet printers. Also, tape backups are gay.
Kyle:Yeah...[concerned] You know, it seems like something's still not right. [camera pans to BSD]
Cartman:Yeah, something feels...unfinished [drum roll]
Stan:Wh-what could it be? [the drum roll heads for a climax]
THE END
BSD:(Yee he hee!) [end credits roll]
Karma: Chevy Kavalierma.
These n-tier applications are largely a throwback to mainframes. What they mean by "thin client" is they are essentially using a web browser as a 3270 terminal. Like mainframes, these n-tier solutions make administration easier. Still, just look at how often you use a major web page and you are being paced not by what your client is doing or your internet badwidth, but just waiting on a server.
The big thing that impelled the growth of middleware and n-tier was the predatory licensing policies of Oracle and other major database vendors and the fact that web browsers are so dang limited in their functionality. A lot of stuff in the SQL Server world is _still_ essentially client server. We also have databases like Postgresql.org that don't have the licensing problems Oracle did-and as Postgresql gets better replication and clustering features(this is a major priority of that team), it will become possible to throw a lot of hardware at a database--just like you can with oracle. A friend of mine did a simple web server that was a Postgresql perl stored procedure--it compared remarkable well to mod_perl--and was _much_ more simple to install and understand--basically you improved server performance by elimination of layers between the client and where the data was--which makes programs quiet simple-and fully uses the high level aspects of SQL.
Another solution here is www.technicalpursuit.com-these folks are basically working so that clients don't have to go back to a server for simple things like sorting a list.
The real state of the art for distributed applications isn't a web browser-or java type middleware- at all-is is probably www.mozart-oz.org --but it will probably be a while before anything like that goes mass market.
Stuff like Sybase and informix is going away-but middleware intensive systems just aren't a silver bullet. Generally only larger companies with deep pockets can develop software that way--and there are lot of other businesses that have serious database needs--those needs will get filled somehow.
That is very very cool. Wish I had mod points today because this is the type of post I like to read on Slashdot!!! Thanks!
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws-Plato
Other boats cruising with a lot of ballast:
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Unless I miss my mark, or am on something myself, it seems to me that saying that client-server computing is a sumberging technology is saying that the internet is becoming obsolete...
Peter M. Dodge,
Chief Executive Officer,
LiquidFire Studios
Platinum Linux - www.
Of course we should abandon all our old software that still works and buy new software; this generates more income for the software vendors! Win98 SE is a case in point; I have a LOT of software that runs on Win9X but not on NT/Win2K/XP. And a lot of hardware for which no NT/Win2K/XP drivers were ever written. If the PC and software I've got are doing the job, why should I replace them? 'cause they're insecure? Then put them behind a firewall! It's not as if XP is perfectly secure either!
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Someone alert the nearly 1 billion web users worldwide.
You can map middle-click to a key. I used to have it mapped to the Windows Menu key (#117 for me). The trick is that keys are a bit different from mouse buttons.. keys map through a modifier table, whereas buttons don't. The trick is that X will treat certain keys are mouse events and not map them through a table if you send a Pointer_EnableKeys event (map this to a key, and use this to turn on the special functionality).
my ~/.Xmodmap file:
keycode 117=Pointer_Button2 Multi_key
keycode 78=Scroll_Lock Pointer_EnableKeys
Then, to middle-click, I hit Ctrl-SclLck, then WinMenu. You can continue to middle click with WinMenu for a while, but after some period of time or some number of events or some specific events (I don't really know), you have to send Pointer_EnableKeys again.
my ~/.xinitrc file:
XKEYS=/home/os/.Xmodmap
if [ -f $XKEYS ]; then
xmodmap $XKEYS
fi
xset r rate 250 50
xmodmap -e "pointer = 1 2 3 7 6 4 5 8 9 10"
Now, I had a 10 button mouse (configured by XF86Config:Section "InputDevice"{Driver "mouse"}:Option "Buttons" "[nbuttons]"). You could tell X you have a 4 button mouse, and then map them like such:
real button:
[1] [2] [3] [not real]
[1] [4] [3] [2]
Then, middle click would send a Mouse_Button4 event, which most apps ignore or treat as Button1 or Button3. At least you won't accidentally paste!
I don't know of a better solution, sorry. If you find something, let me know for curiosity's sake: (os) @u DE l. e () Du
It's official.
BSD is dying.
"Smoking helps you lose weight - one lung at a time" -- A. E. Neumann
At this rate, /. will never die.
Only a small segment of the business community still uses them.
;)
yea, I suppose you are right, if every point of sale system on the planet is considered a "small segment of the business community". Think about it the next time you are at a restaurant and they hand you the multi-copy bill to sign or any other time you use a credit card. Think about it the next time you take your car to the repair shop and they print up the work order and then later the bill. Does your paycheck get direct deposited? If not it is likely printed on a dot matrix printer. Also on the subject of banks, they usually use dot matrix printers for receipts and check endorsements.
Yea, dot matrix must be dead I haven't seen one for almost forever.
From an end-user's point of view, it looks like the same old client-server. I disagree with them not calling the browser a "heavyweight client", because it is, even when the webapp isn't using all the bells and whistles of client-side javascript for layout, dynamic layering, and form validation. Its just a generic heavyweight client, not a specialized one, as the protocols are standardized.
But as I was saying, the end-user sees themselves talking to a single server. www.something.com/someapp/... Nothing more. Its pure client-server to them, with a generic client and a URL to find a server. Oh, yeah, and its about as slow as the old client-server systems were 15-20 years ago.
What the article describes is the point of view that there were only two tiers: the application and the database. That's what's changed. The database is accessed by a middleware app that processes the data, then sends it to the client in a form that the client renders to be human-readable. Multiple tiers become possible, when the web app provides a web-service that some other computer program uses to assemble data into the human-readable view, etc.
So things are both what they were, as you imply, and yet utterly different. But its only the implementation that's different, and the article was talking about implementations.
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
... or "submerging", whatever that's supposed to mean.
.NET and Java. HTTP and HTML are wonderful, but they are not the solution to every problem. In some cases, people need GUI behavior that is just too difficult to get through a browser. For example, just try editing a grid of data in a browser. The web is not made for that sort of activity.
I work for a company that builds business software. We have big projects building N-tier apps with "rich clients" on both
The most rabid believers in American Exceptionalism are the exact same people whose policies are destroying it.
Analysis: VB 6 is dying VB .NET rulez...
Com'on - no self-respecting developer wants to use either of those. Both are dinosaurs and the whole concept of VB should have been retired long time ago with the profit for everybody *including* Microsoft... Exactly what is so great about VB .NET that makes it so especially superior to VB 6? All stupid development problems of VB stay in place (like inability to leave a line of code unfinished... for example.)
Comments: Client/Server is dying? What about the Internet.
Well, just one thing: RTFA and if you still don't get the point, better take some classes or stop posting b*llsh*t.
Analysis: Ethernet replaces TokenRing.
Hey, has anybody ever checked the dates before they post an article? Ethernet existed before TokenRing and TokenRing was created to address very specific needs. Nobody needs TokenRing anymore because Ethernet evolved and covered the needs TokenRing was made to cover.
This could be a very long comment, but I'm lazy...
Thanks for the info. I'll write it down. But I found a more immidiate solution. See my post history or look further down the thread.
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
I miss the times when we all had tons of moderation points. It seems only the editors now have the mod points.
I used to get great pleasure out of smacking down the flamebaits and modding up the interesting trolls.
Now the slashdot servers are crying... and they have taken our moderation points away.
Alas.
AC
Client-Server technology is far from submerging. I would even go so far as to say Client/Server computing is even more pervasive today than it ever has been. Thin Client computing isn't dead either.
HTTP, POP/IMAP, FTP, IRC, NFS, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, AIM, many online games, P2P file sharing, SQL servers, File Servers, all are examples of client-server applications. The complexity of clients is changing, however. Even the thinnest clients are still rather complex programs (eg, browsers, games, remote desktop, Outlook).
What is pretty much dead, is text-based client-server computing (telnet, tn3270, etc). You still see a lot of ssh and even telnet around, but seldom do you see complicated text-mode applications running on a terminal. About the only place this is still common is in retail chains.
Thin graphical clients are also not dead -- in fact, they're on the rise. Use of Remote Desktop, Terminal Services, VNC, and the like are all highly popular for Sysadmins and users alike. Microsoft provides ways to help to users that involve the very same thin client technology.
So I strongly feel the statement that client-server computing is "submerging". I think that it emerged once, and is here to stay.
Also, since I hopped off the Windows bandwagon a few years ago, and started using Linux and Mac OSX as my main OSes, my 1 remaining Windows system has been "stuck" at Win98SE, and that's where it'll stay until I decommission it in the distant future.
My favorite quote from the article: "Indeed, many companies have already migrated to Windows 2000 Professional". Already? That's some real cutting edge stuff.
Dot matrix printers? Token Ring? Windows?
It's like the 80s all over again!!!
(By the way, a recent Slashdot survey confirms: Windows is dying.)
That's "Mr. Soulless Automaton" to you, Bub.
Two months? Boo fucking hoo. Call me in a year, fella, and tell me all about it.
This is not my sandwich.
In light (no pun intended) of these revelations, I thought I'd post few of my own predictions of which technologies will "submerge" in the future.
/. effect in prime time too.
Black and White TVs: A lot of these beasts are still out there but they'll gradually continue to be replaced by color TVs. HDTVs you ask? Don't hold your breath - they are still too pricey and will be for few more years. You are better off going with a regular color TV for now - HDTV is a nonstarter.
Cars from the 80s and early 90s: You may not believe it but there are millions of people who still drive their 10-20 year old pieces of "equipment". They are going to be gradually replaced by newer vehicles.
Year 2002 Tax forms: There are literally millions out there that have not yet been destroyed; those will be no good for 2003 tax returns and newer forms will quickly start circulating by the beginning of next year.
5.25 Floppy disk drives: with the emergence of technologies such as CD and DVD drives, the remaining installations of this classic should be wiped out in no time.
There are a lot more out there, but I have neither time nor willingness to go through them all. Apparently, computerworld does and they got their needed
You lie, it wasn't modified. Nice try tho, it's only worthwhile to use this to troll for stupid moderators if someone actual mirrored the text using their account.
In my lab, there's a very expensive scientific instrument (a mossbauer spectrometer) connected to a PC that must run windows 3.1. The software won't run on windows 3.11, windows for workgroups, win 9x, NT, 2000 or XP.
We could buy a brand new instrument (over $50,000)
We could try to reverse engineer the software interface to try to get it to run on a modern PC (might not be successful)
Or we could live with it.
Guess which option the boss chose?
What about Visual Basic for MS-DOS. Does anyone still have a copy?
It's easy to find - just google for vbdos.zip [Direct Link]. In fact, you can find most older software this way - ie, Borland Pascal 7 (bp7.zip | Direct), Turbo C++ 3 (tc3.zip | Direct), QuickBASIC 7/PDS (qb7.zip | Direct), Turbo Prolog (tprolog.zip | Direct , etc.
Try poking around in the directories containing the files listed above (eg, http://thegeekery.org/downloads/ci/ - they tend to have cool stuff.
ps. - I had a book on VB for DOS - the book was terrible, but so was VBDOS, so I guess they went well together.
They forgot BSD!
I was going to put a sig here, but I had already submitted the message.
My vote would be for WAP.
Does anyone remember when it was going to be the next great thing - it'll revolutionise the world, we'll tak the internet with us on our phones and PDA's! Wow!
Hmm, someone didn't think that one out too well.
WAP is dying as fast as it appeared.
This sig has been deprecated.
I have let to see a $600 LCD look better then a $600 CRT.
CRTs:
+ better color
+ better viewing angles
+ Can be set to be flicker free
+ Cheaper (just MSRP not TOS)
- larger and bulkier
- many people don't know how to set their refresh rates
- heat
Than Mac OS 9 must have been even less than dead, as OS 9 is considered out, while BSD based Mac OS X is considered in.
I wouldn't trust a disk as a backup for anything other than a short-term copy of another disk image. We mirror our disks and then cut the important data to tape. The mirrors get recycled each day, tapes each week with monthly backups archived for two or more years.
I personally can't stand swapping tapes, and backups are slow (1 MB/s using SCSI-2), as a result we only backup a portion of our systems, however DDS3 (or AIT/DLT for larger companies) can't be beat.
On a side note. I just replaced a 4 month old craptacular Maxtor 120 GB drive which already has bad sectors. Who the fsck in their right mind would trust a hd as a medium for backing up (is the author of this article smoking some crack?). I understand using a hd for making a temporary copy of a disk, especially before committing the data to tape, yet for any length term backup, you have to be insane. I can play frisbee with my DDS3 tapes, and they will still last 20 years, yet the disks might last 1 year even if they aren't touched (based on current trends).
In related news, stone tools are rapidly becoming obsolete due to recent advances in metalworking, and scientists Ug and Thag Gr'onk are said to have made significant process in controlling fire.
"'I pass the test,' she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.'"
- JRR Tolkien.
Yeah, it may lock up constantly, but security issues? Buddy, Windows '98 is what saved me from MSBLAST, and all its ilk.
With the exception of the never-ending IE holes, all the latest security problems seem exclusive to 2000/XP.
Just give me 98 and a decent firewall, and I'm off.
Of course, I could be totally wrong.
free speach
Did you mean: free speech
For us, a big reason to back up to tape is to easily move lots of data offsite. Not really sure if there are ways to send terabytes of data to a remote location any other way.
Are there large companies just backing up to harddrive and not sending the data to multiple locations? Seems pretty risky.
You have to be careful to remember that what's happening to you isn't happening to everyone. For many companies, the portability and zero client maintenance of a web client make it the better option. For others, a richer client may make more sense. For some the web services model has a lot to offer. For others, it's a boondoggle that doesn't improve manageability or user experience.
I haven't met anyone who's company is moving away from web clients. On the other hand, I can think of many, many companies that are moving towards web clients away from client/server, client/sneaker, or client/nothing type architectures.
But talking about the industry as a whole is silly - there is no industry as a whole. Computers are deployed in hundreds of industries, each of which is in a different place in technology and has different needs from that technology. I'd suggest that ComputerWorld likely has as good a perspective on this as any - and all their observations certainly square with my experience (in my little niches).
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
And I just finally passed my Microsoft LANManager VB Client/Server Programming certification tests!
I can't see disk only backups replacing tape any time soon, for the following reasons:
:)
1, How do take your backups offsite with disks? Sure, you can have an offsite DR centre, but that requires far more expense in terms of floorspace, power etc than a simple bank vault with a box of tapes in it.
2, How do you handle version control with disks? Say I have a customer who wants to back 12 months (or recently in our case *10 years*) for recover a backup. This is much easier with tape or optical, as you can implement a policy of write once, read many or cycling out tapes every month/quarter/year. The cost of doing this with disks would be a lot larger (never mind the fact that you might have difficulty getting the disk online after a long period of time).
3, With disk based backup, you have to keep these disks spinning all the time, thus consuming power, A/C, floor space etc etc. Tapes are way cheaper because you don't have to spin them all the time. You also save on floor space, because you can use a smaller library than you have actual tapes (through a rotation policy).
4, How to backup the backup? That is, what if you have an event that knocks out your backup array? You can potentially lose all the data that's in your "online" backup device. Tapes can avoid this issue because they are off site or not in use.
5, Tapes are lot more robust and have a longer shelf life than disks. I have been able to recover tapes that are 10 or 15 years old with a minimum of fuss. This is a lot more difficult with disks of that vintage.
I think a hybrid disk-tape approach fulfils the need for speedy backup/restore, but addresses the above issues. You can then stage the backups on the disks, and archive them to tape at your leisure. This is the approach that software like SAM-FS takes (small disk cache, big library at the back end). Having said all of that, I do rather like the snapshot and remote backup features that my NetAPP filer has
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Yeah, that really sucks. It's as if they designed it for people with two hands.
The main reasons to buy an inkjet printer is for color or for wide printing. The article argues that for color printing, a laserjet is now the better choice. And for the wide printing, which is now solidly in the domain of the inkjet printer, the inkjet replaced the pen plotter, not the dot matrix printer. As such, I do not think anyone has replaced a dot matrix printer with a inkjet in at least 5 years.
In the places where dot matrix printers a still used, like POS, they need speed, form capability, low cost, and indelible ink. The inkjet printer satisfies at most speed. The laserjet printer can potentially satisfy all four, as it is fast enough to individually print a few pages for a form in the time that dot matrix prints a single page.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
While we're talking about obsoletion, why not include the very Corporate IT Managers and Analysts this article quotes? While sacking/offshoring thousand of jobs, their own overpaid positions have been safeguarded, but for how long, considering the savings for axing them are many times that of regular workers?
Yes, I know email newsletters are still in demand, but it's going away too. And in any case, no Backweb/Pointcast-like implementation.
"1. WINDOWS 9x
..."
Why it's sinking: Can 92 million users be wrong? Yes. Declining support, reliability problems, security issues and incompatibility with new applications
Crappy support, reliability problems, security issues... yes, yes, and yes! Switch to incompatibility with OLD programs, and you've got all the same issues it had when it first came out.
computerworld.com == insight!!!
-ave
...or maybe not.
- Win9x: For most of our hardware, nothing else makes sense. Our budget (small biz -- 20 employees) doesn't let us upgrade that often. Personally, I run Windows only when I absolutely have to, and I certainly am NOT going to run it on the latest hardware. Hence, Win9x.
- Client/Server: You know what? It's not dead, especially for smaller installs. Sure, IBM and other greats can't justify having an app that has to be installed on every darn workstation or has to have heavier clients (I dislike 'fat', it implies bloat.) We don't cater to 300 workstations, we cater to 4 or 5. C/S is still the way for us and will be for ages.
- Tape Backup: Because you'll never convince the PHB that hard drives are just as reliable. Mind you, when the boss buys Maxtor POS drives, what do you expect?
- 1U (1.75-in. high) servers: What in hades do I need a blade for? We add services once, maybe twice a year. We have all of 10 things in the rack...maybe. 1Us are still important for us.
- Color inkjet printers: How often do I print code in color? Reports in color? ANYTHING in color? Rare enough to not justify the laserjet price, that's how not often.
- Ethernet hubs: Intelligent blah, blah, blah VOIP blah, blah, blah. Anyone else tired of this? When my fly gets voice command, folks. That's when I'll care.
- PBXs: Just bought one a few years ago. Have no interest in spending money on something that isn't broken and won't be for years.
- PDAs: This is a case of Last Mile Land out here. I don't even HAVE a cell phone because I can't get a signal -- no towers near enough. A PDA would be nice, but Xmas presents just don't come that large usually.
- Serial/parallel ports: Nothing quite as reliable or easily configured as talking to a simple, straightforward port that doesn't give you any guff.
The rest of the predictions are expected and agreed upon. These are just ones I don't see migrating from anytime soon, and I'm sure lots of other people could make similar lists. Does that mean we're against progress? Hell no. It just means that we'd prefer if those vendors kept their "Convert Now!" pressure down until we damned well are ready to convert and not before. Some pressure is good...keeps us all looking at the new possibilities. But I don't need some jackass breathing down my neck about technologies (VOIP) that will make no sense in our corporation for ages to come yet. I also don't need vendors dropping support for "legacy" systems just because they came out with WhizBang Product 2.0.Blog,Twitter
Token Ring Ethernet
Ethernet: Cheap and ubiquitous.
Token Ring: Expensive, with limited vendor sources. Any questions?
People still use token ring? Did people ever really use token ring?
"For example, just try editing a grid of data in a browser."
RedHat Interchange with all the modules installed pulls up Gnumeric into your browser. Edit away then save the xls file. Modern day browsers are more capable than browsers of yore. All those W3C standards and XUL technology exists for a reason.
Use it.
WOW this guy is smart! The old stuff is out, and the new stuff is in! i will have to refer to this article daily to make sure I know what's going on!
clients totally suck for a lot of applications
I agree - many applications aren't suited to web apps. However, for some applications, a web client is pretty close to optimal. In addition, in many situations, the benefits in terms of portability are extremely important.
For many businesses, web clients are a good choice, and will continue to be so. For some medium sized shops, they are the holy grail - short-staffed, skin-of-teeth IT staff can keep applications running without managing installs of anything on client machines. Web apps are easy to write, and many people have gotten good at writing them. They force developers to avoid many types of mistakes.
Web clients are saving companies millions of dollars - and are likely here to stay for a good while.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
Visual Basic 6: Why it is stinking.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Remind me again how this works. You get rid of a 1+GHz PC. You pay $230 for a pin-headed client. How much does the (wave-of-the-hand) citrix metaframe xp farm cost? How long does it last? Does M$ 0wnze any part of that? Just how royally locked in are you?
How many of those people want to browse, get email, do spread sheets, compose memos, doodle with a database? Will they have to buy a 2+GHz machine for that? Kinda defeats the purpose of the thin client, doesn't it?
Yes, I'm being kinda flippant and snarky about this, but I've seen some of these wave-of-the-future schemes backfire. Sure, if you have a couple thousand minimum wage clerks, you can give them the job-only thin client machines. But how widespread can that be? Realistically?
My other car is a 1984 Nark Avenger.
Serial ports may lessen in importance, but they can never be completely replaced by USB. Certain RT events require hard timing, which USB can never provide. My Brother In Law needed to buy a PCMCIA serial port card for his laptop to talk to a ladder programmer controller.
They may disappear as defaults from machines though, like the floppy has been eliminated as standard from Macs and now Dells.
-- The WIPO Avenger
... but the guy is clueless.
I think it's a (not so) clever way to try to get you to upgrade your old Microsoft stuff.
Linux lovers everywhere: You must ensure the 90 million Windows 9X users convert to linux, not XP. That is your mission.
I'm a lazy bastard, I won't be helping, please report your results.
-pyrrho
Hey, they forgot to mention Nokia N-Gage.
I am just wondering how you've configured you're playlist and preferences, and if there's some kind of stuff to do, cracks to download or something else,to enhance itune. About the playlist i've made lists by decenies (starting from the 50's), lists by genre (the major ones: classical, rock, hip hop, jazz, electronic, pop, ect), and i also have "my top rated", "my worst rated" (which i haven't used yet :) "recently played" and "top 25 most played".
If you want to brag do this here too. I have:
9186 songs, 26,4 days, 43,07 GB
DotMatrix is NOT on it's way out. In fact, it's the only printing device available that can work with carbon copy paper. You know, the kind that has the yellow, black, pink, and white copies? Seriously, what other kinds of printers (or typewriters) are available to physically strike the CC paper?
Life is not for the lazy.
More fun is to predict the upcoming technologies that while die before they properly start. (PS If you're a venture capitalist here is the place to look.)
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
I've been cleaning up and found a copy of Wired dated March 1997. The cover reads:
... Remember the browser war between Netscape and Microsoft? Well, forget it. The Web browser itself is about to croak. And good riddance."
"PUSH! Kiss your browser goodbye:
I gave up paying attention to stuff like this a while ago.
Visual Basic 6 may be the most popular programming language, but its days are numbered. "VB 6 is the dinosaur of old. There's tons of legacy code out there, but no self-respecting developer wants to go there anymore"
.NET) will be with us for years to come. Maybe "self-respecting developers" won't want to maintain this code - but what self-respecting developer used VB6 in the first place?
I wonder if we could find an article from 20 years ago saying the same thing about COBOL...and 20 years from now we'll have an article by some wizened VB guru extolling the virtues of the Variant data type and COM programming over whatever (sort of like this guy in his column about COBOL vs. Java).
The fact that "there's tons of legacy code out there" is proof enought that Visual Basic 6 (not
It does. Much better design, a better thought out program. They've been in the jukebox market since 97, they will survive. Althought in all honesty, they will have to be content to be the number two in the music for sale biz. Or at least until Apple records Sues apple computer back into the stone ages.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
I can see CDs or DVDs replacing tapes, but not hard drives, not at the rate hard drives fail. And restoring from a corrupt tape is more likely to get you at least some of your data back, whereas restoring from a corrupt hard drive is painful and expensive.
Client/Server will be around for a long time, and the article just replaced it with some new buzzwords for the same technology. You want a simple but massively popular client/server application? You're looking at one now. And there's the link to Apple's iTunes with its iTMS which doesn't seem to be dying at all, at least not in the last 3.5 days.
VB6. It might decline, but it will be around for a guaranteed 5 to 10 years. There are thousands of VB6 applications out there that no one is going to rewrite in VB.Net while the current ones are still working, and the legions of VBA, especially Excell, applications will guarantee another long stretch, and it's by no means certain that VB.Net will be the replacement as it means basically relearning the language, at which point it would probably just be easier to switch to C# or jump ship and do it in Java.(Eclipse and SWT have the potential to make all those early client side Java dreams true)
As for the rest, well they might be dying out or declining but my mother and sister still use Win98SE as do literally a full 40% of computer users worldwide. They'll probably switch when they get new computers but not before, and as long as their current computers work they won't switch (Browser, e-mail and office work, basta)
Hey, we're just switching from vb4!
Fat clients are not dead, they are now called "Internet-Explorer Web Applications". Business really want GUI's over the web, and they keep pushing us developers to make web forms more GUI like, with mixed results, and marriage to IE.
What is lacking is a good HTTP-friendly GUI standard protocol (candidates include XUL, XWT, and SCGUI). JavaScript+DOM+HTML is designed for e-brochures, not business GUI's. It is a hack to use it for bizGUIs. When a standard finally happens, then client/server is truly doomed except for niche products.
Table-ized A.I.
But eradicating Windows 9x won't come easy... That sounds like virus lingo to me! Coincidence?
The article is a great example of marketspeak run amok. Really, nothing to see other than the consequences of reading too much trade rags.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
I predict that some day precompiled software will be extinct. I mean isn't it obvious? One day grandmothers and toddlers all over the world will be running applications and operating systems 3% faster than if evil corporations compiled them for their customers. In fact, one day there will be no customers, just paypal donations. And everything will be magical. Another magical possibility is when people don't go to dealerships to buy cars, but build them from spare parts. The lexus from scratch (LFS) project will change everything. I can see this all happening in 2 to 3 years as I never leave my house and am totally disconnected from reality.
There is still nothing that has the same consistency, directness, and ubiquity of floppies.
I have not seen read-and-write direct file system mapping of CD/DVD's yet that are practical. What else can you stick in a slot, type "COPY *.TXT A:" have it starting writing, and then carry it to another machine that also has one. Nothing comes close yet.
Lacking is:
1. Universality: "every machine has one that can read the same format".
2. Direct file system mapping.
3. Quick to set up. No funny "copy assistent" apps to open.
Zip-disks came kinda close once, but nearly halted sales since.
Table-ized A.I.
needed 2/5 sure bets, so that he would only need 1 of the rest to come through for him to be mostly right. Seriously, what possessed him to include Visual Basic 6 and Windows 9x? Whenever a huge company like Microsoft releases an "upgrade" to a successful product you can be damn sure they will do everything they can to kill off the predecessor in order to sell the upgrade. How often does it happen that Microsoft isn't able to pull this off? Almost never, and if the first upgrade fails, they can always release another, and another, and eventually they'll get it right.
Admittedly, you need to _design_ the program(s) in this case, not just write the first thing and complain when it needs to be rewritten. On the other hand, if you want to let $8/hour programmers write the client apps, then you probably don't want them messing with the business logic. In that case, "thin" is the way to go.
The article mentions Windows 9x as dying technology. No doubt about that. But the article makes this statement:
They make this prediction that these 92 million users are going to be driven for various reasons to Windows 2K/XP. What's funny about this is that the very same article then goes on to number two...
So if they predict this mass drive from Old Windows (tm) to New Windows (tm), why then tell us that 2-teir architecture with fat clients is dead? Windows is the fattest of the fat. What a silly contradiction. Of course, they give absolute minimum treatment to Linux with lame excuses as to why it isn't or won't be adopted.
A few other silly things about this article... Dot-matrix printers being replaced with laser or ink yet? This is either a "no shit, Sherlock" or it's a "never will happen." There's a LOT of dot-matrix printers out there that are used on carbon paper for instant duplicates. You can't do that with other types of printers without printing multiplesheets. Dot-matrix is also better for populating forms that can otherwise be filled out by humans (on the same carbon paper, btw). So, this article is either stating the obvious or dead wrong on this point. Useless.
Next, they mention CRTs will be replaced with LCD displays. I would argue that we'll see OLEDs which are cheaper to manufacture and higher quality than LCD displays long before LCDs really hit the same volume as CRTs. This is a nah-uh.
As for file servers being replaced by small storage appliances... uhm, I think they missed the point.
I cannot believe this article got posted to Slashdot. It's the most absurd thing I've ever seen. It was written by some poor schmuck who has no clue and is struggling to write to save his job. The simple trick here is to write something that'll spark controversy or something along those lines... utterly pointless, obvious, or outright wrong.
And here I am wasting my time.
Join Tor today!
Dial up is fast being replaced by broadband. Companies like AOL will dissapear soon if they don't embrace broadband.
*BSD is Dying
Marginalized operating systems like BSD require you to jump through more hoops to get things accomplished. Not only do you have to track changes in your operating system, but you have to track changes in unsupported software and emulation libraries. You always have to tweak and use "work-arounds" because your hardware is probably not supported by any vendor.
Things only get more hairy day by day as BSD becomes increasingly marginalized.
Even though it has been said before, nonetheless it is true: BSD is dying.
900-MHz wireless LANs802.11 WLANs
> Couldn't aggree more... but anyone say "BRIDGES"?
1U (1.75-in. high) serversBlade servers
> They are smallers, but you loose redundancy of connectivity and power supply. So, they will still be around for LONG!
Color ink-jet printersColor laser printers
> Not an issue... but bear in mind that a ink-jet printer costs about $100... So, aggree to corporate/departamental usage... don't agree for home users usage... (messy isn't a consideration or it wouldn't exist any cars around... with the messy oil changes!)
CRT monitors LCD monitors
Agree. And LCD prices are lowering to good levels in comparision. Thru, at less developed countries, the cost will still be a factor to consider.
Dot-matrix printersInk-jet/laser printers
The are still here for the stated reason... and will continue to be here for those reasons.
Ethernet hubsIntelligent switches
Arguing that the SNMP is a reason to change is laugatable... (SNMP - Security Not My Problem).
But agree that more comoditized "inteligent" network equipment will fade the market for hubs... but they will be here for a long period still... (after all they are cheap, easy to use and don't require ANY configuration to run).
File serversNetwork-attached storage appliances
Because you need the extra services that they provide and that aren't yet available from the called appliances?
After all, for small companies, appliances have a market, but for the big corps, you need a storage freezer or you end up with a nightmare IT with a dataware house full of appliance boxes... Capacity and redundancy will dictate the market...
Floppy disksFlash disks, writable CDs, DVDs
No contest here... but i prefer my machines with that archaic floppy...
Mac OS 9Mac OS X
DoH
ModemsWireless LANs
Hmmm... Comparing apples with patatos... Modems are used for both faxing and internet connection mainly. If the comparision was irdabluetooth... i would agree (and no, bluetooth isn't dieing, it is evoluting as a replacement of cables and irda connections, and i like it hehehe ).
PBXsIP telephony/call manager servers
Can i say price here? (PBXs are already obsolet by simple call consoles so there isn't a contest here).
PDAsCell phone/PDA hybrids
PDA's will be here for long... for starts the price tags aren't even close! And to end... people want funcionality and flexibility... not everything in a device with the kitchen sink!
Give me a mobile to make calls and a PDA to manage my data... (btw a pda + a mobile is less weight and volume then one of those nokia bricks that have a pda included).
Serial/parallel portsUSB 2.0 ports
Yup but... nothing can be compared with hardware integration simplicity with those "older" ports...
Most harware vendores will ship serial port stuff for a long time (specially when there is a fail safe fall back to telnet to allow configuration - speed isn't a consideration in this cases)... but for printer market and the like... usb is the way to go...
Token RingEthernet
What is Token ring? (j/k)... Yup... ethernet = comoditized network... Token Ring = Niche market...
Windows NT serversWindows 2000, Server 2003
DoH
NT servers will survive for a long time even if they will evolve to linux with samba in the process... Most corporations that are still using NT don't need the added bloatware that W2K/W2K+3 will give...
Zip drivesRewritable CD/DVD drives
Both have their uses, but zip will fade as a market more to flash disks then to cdrw/dvd-ram/rw (i would say). (all machines that i know don't carry anymore cd-rom/dvd rom readers, but some combination with writing capability. Zip drives have an hard time to compete with this status-quo and flash ram devices will put a nail in the rest of it's market).
That is my oppinion on that "analysis"...
Ink jet replacing matrix printer?... What are they smoking?! Matrix printers are usually used in situations when you have to print a LOT of text/numbers (e.g. accounting sheets). It is exactly the area where ink jets suck (just compare the price of an inkjet cartridge and a matrix printer ribbon and how long they last)
Also, I would guess that the A3 matrix printers are still much cheaper than laser printers of the same size.
And WLANs replacing modems?
I have always had the impression that modems were used for connecting to places that are far away (i.e. out of the reach of your WLAN card), not to the server on the other floor.
Bah.
Real life is overrated.
That was already when the rot started to set in... because Iomega effectively dissuaded the competition from making ZIP media and kept prices high for 100Mb of storage. They also seemed to not be able to make backwards compatible an understandable concept when marketing the ZIP 250 drives and so on... and had loads of driver problems.
Conversion Rate Optimisation French / English consultant
The real list would have SCO OpenServer listed on it
Karma: Bad. (As in Good?)
The journalists must have been desperate to write about something. They either took the obvious like Windows 9x (of course Windows 9x is dying out since Micro$oft isn't supporting it any more) and dot matrix printers (well, duh!), or the plain wrong, like client-server computing.
Computerworld? Give it a miss!
If you're a comp science teacher for 6yr olds, you should know how to do that or at least how to consult your favorite search engine.
This is where the real stuff is: The Trailing Edge and Trailing-Edge.
What the fuck? Attached storage appliances replacing file servers? Maybe on home LANs where all you need a file server for is sharing files.
However if you want a single machine that does nightly backups of important data on a network with multiple user permissions and well... file servers are nice! A fine tuned file server saves to much time and aggrivation as a sysadmin.
"Did you make a backup?"
"Uhhh... no."
"Good thing the server did."
Why would I trade the flexibility of my file server for some attached storage device? I'm not saying the latter is useless, but the two items really are for people/organizations with difference needs. If all you're doing is building a single repository for mp3s and video on a household network, then yeah... attached storage is fine.
Anything more complicated, particularly scripted backups (or anything else that's scripted) you need a server. I can't upgrade the hard drives with attached storage devices nor can I just decide to make it RAID, etc. I'm going to guess that while the initial investment in a server is more, over time it'll cost less. (How powerful does the system outside of the hard drives need to be?)
And the speed difference between laser and dotmatrix is incredible. I've worked at sites where the you could see a line printer move through a big box paper in minutes. These beasts didn't have a moving head, they had a row of fixed pins spanning an entire page width, so the entire line was printed at once. I guess you could get similar performance in a laser printer, but not for the same price. Boy, were those printers were loud too.
> If your computer won't boot, you use a boot floppy, that alone is why it's still around.
Maybe you do, but I don't. My computer isn't a piece of shit, and if it was, I'm running NTFS anyway. I can't remember the last time I booted off of a disk on a computer that supported bootable CD-ROM.
> have floppies from my Apple 2 that still work after 20 years and not being used for years at a time. Most CDs I've burned over 2 years ago have already failed
Oh, I see, you're full of shit. The day a floppy lasts more than 3 days is the day I buy an LS-120 drive.
Once the word about click death got out, Zip was dead in the water. You just can't use a backup medium that could kill the drive, that will in turn kill any new disk put int he drive. No freaking way.
Plus, that was about the time that CD-R got really cheap, and every computer in the world had a CD-ROM drive already, so the whole reason to use Zip disks (moving big files) totally evaporated. Why use a medium that self-destructs violently, is limited in size, and costs more?
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
I'd buy their argument that inkjets are on the way out if the market for photo printers was anything less than enormous. As it is, inkjet and laser are different tools for different uses.
The client-server technologies are also being forced out by their vendors, who are tiring of the plethora of client support issues. Oracle is heavily phasing out the client-server version Oracle Forms. They've provided an upgrade path that pipes Forms over http using the 9iAS app server, but in the long run they don't want to have to support anything other than a browser using Java. It makes sense to me - unless a client needs to serious heavy lifting work on the client side, it should run through a browser.