The slashdot article was wrong, giving it wrong spin. It's not that people want to take something away from MoFo, but MoFo doesn't want to have it, and we either have to live with it dying or taking it elsewhere.
With all that, you have to keep in mind that a large portion (I'd guess 50%, at least) of the Mozilla developers favor the suite. Basically, it's MoFo that went off.
Finding CVS also horrible, and svk being very nice, this is so not about version control systems. VCS can't help you, if the next version of Gecko or XUL changes in a way that breaks your app, but you only realize why (or even *that* it happened) after 3 hours or 3 days or 3 weeks of investigation. That's the reality of Mozilla development.
Unfortuantely, technicalities like control is what this is all about.
Who controls the core (Gecko, XUL etc.)? Is it the same company that ships Firefox? Will they make changes to the core that will break the suite, so that the maintainers of the suite will have to regression-fix behind them? That's where it's currently heading, and nobody wants to do it, because it's a thankless - because pointless - job, a lot of hassle and hair-tearing and time consuming.
Also, is www.mozilla.org, the former home of the suite, allowed to market Firefox as the successor, pushing the Suite to be a sidenote? Then it's not wonder when everybody's switching.
What about trademarks? Is the "Mozilla Foundation" allowed to forbit Debian and long-time Mozilla developers to use the Mozilla trademark for modified builds of Mozilla?
Hehe, elegant isn't painful, by (my) definition;-)
> You are so adjusted to the Windows/Mac way > of doing things, that doing things the Unix > way is unthinkable.
No. I use Linux exclusively now for 5 years, and I am still shaking heads about its usability. Shell quotation/escaping, total lack of consistency, lack of GUI for many tasks, and often simply a lack of thought (compare ESR's essay).
I agree with kollivier: For the majority of tasks, Linux simply *wastes* so much of my time that I could buy 10 copies for Windows for that. The only reason I use Linux is because of freedom.
> The short list of duplication in Galeon/GNOME is MIME, Proxy and Mouse settings
Funnily, proxies are exactly what make Epiphany unusable to me. Until today, it never even occured to be before today to look for proxy options in the GNOME options, because I expect them to be in the network app.
Similarily, there is an *inherent* difference between my application choices for desktop and web, due to security and maybe performance. On the desktop, I usually want to edit documents, so I need to open a word processor document in a word processor. However, I don't want MS DOC files from the web to open in MS Word, OpenOffice or anything remotely resembling it, but a small and secure (feature-restricted) viewer. Trying to equal both set of settings is a bad idea.
Does Epiphany support proxies yet? Last I checked, there was no option.
And, no, GNOME options don't count. I use a proxy specifically because I want to pick and chose which apps are allowed to use the network and which aren't.
> a "graphical language" makes things easier for > lay-people to understand... > at the very highest levels of abstraction. > But when you get down to the details
With a graphical editor, you can e.g. hide the "details" "behind" the high-level object and "zoom into" it when needed. I haven't seen such a natural match for that action in textual representations yet.
> Big Design Up Front makes a gamble that the > project won't evolve or change shape during > development.
One of the most important criteria I put on a good design is that it's suitable for new requirements, ideally even unforseen ones. OTOH, people who just concentrate on getting things "done" often tend to make assumptions in the code that break later and require the whole program to be changed.
Yes, there is a limit on how general / bloated a design should be, and how far in the future it should see. I haven't found good rules on that yet.
But maybe he doesn't have time, because his boss presses him too much.
You don't learn about variables in a reference manual. And you usually don't have time to sit down and read a "How to program in Visual Basic" book, if your boss just assigned you to implement a customer request. Right after the previous one - after all, that's what your job is, right?
IIRC I still remember the discussion of which system was best: GeoWorks or Windows 3.x. GeoWorks had good apps delivered with it, and Windows had the mainstream popularity.
> Just look at how curious and creative most kids > are before they start school, and compare it to > when they're done. Something very bad happens in > the schools.:(
lol. It can't be that it's the society in general or the aging that causes the creativity to go, right?:-)
Our *society* expects people to line up in 4-rows. Yes, schools are part of that. Yes, many school could well improve.
"My greatest disappointment is the "special" pieces that are now so common. All the special pieces detract from your ability to make new and interesting things with multiple sets."
Full ACK
But they do have "LEGO Creator" (formerly LEGO Basic) series with lots of stones cheaply.
Slashdot Mirror
> Imagine a embedded device running linux.
> You can use it but the distibuter gives
> you no updated "firmware" and thus no binaries.
I got the binaries as part of the device. ROM is also a medium.
The slashdot article was wrong, giving it wrong spin. It's not that people want to take something away from MoFo, but MoFo doesn't want to have it, and we either have to live with it dying or taking it elsewhere.
With all that, you have to keep in mind that a large portion (I'd guess 50%, at least) of the Mozilla developers favor the suite. Basically, it's MoFo that went off.
Finding CVS also horrible, and svk being very nice, this is so not about version control systems. VCS can't help you, if the next version of Gecko or XUL changes in a way that breaks your app, but you only realize why (or even *that* it happened) after 3 hours or 3 days or 3 weeks of investigation. That's the reality of Mozilla development.
Unfortuantely, technicalities like control is what this is all about.
Who controls the core (Gecko, XUL etc.)? Is it the same company that ships Firefox? Will they make changes to the core that will break the suite, so that the maintainers of the suite will have to regression-fix behind them? That's where it's currently heading, and nobody wants to do it, because it's a thankless - because pointless - job, a lot of hassle and hair-tearing and time consuming.
Also, is www.mozilla.org, the former home of the suite, allowed to market Firefox as the successor, pushing the Suite to be a sidenote? Then it's not wonder when everybody's switching.
What about trademarks? Is the "Mozilla Foundation" allowed to forbit Debian and long-time Mozilla developers to use the Mozilla trademark for modified builds of Mozilla?
All of that is currently happening.
....which speaks pretty badly of the show.
What comes to me, I didn't watch X Files very often, but when I think "Alien conspiracy", I think "X Files".
> Of course, if the world did end on that date,
> the DVD sales would be huge!
Don't bring the Hollywood guys to ideas...
> you were a student at this "top tier" law school?
Did he say so? He just said that he participated in the trial.
> I wish *someone* would make it as easy to
> install programs as it is on Windows, or
> even better, on Mac.
ROX/Zero Install
> Linux needs to earn the respect of the
> "Windows power user" crowd now
A lot of them are switching to Linux or did already.
> could provide excellent feedback
"power user" is another word for "geek" for me. I don't see how that would help out of the current situation.
> > How can something so elegant be so painful?
;-)
Hehe, elegant isn't painful, by (my) definition
> You are so adjusted to the Windows/Mac way
> of doing things, that doing things the Unix
> way is unthinkable.
No. I use Linux exclusively now for 5 years, and I am still shaking heads about its usability. Shell quotation/escaping, total lack of consistency, lack of GUI for many tasks, and often simply a lack of thought (compare ESR's essay).
I agree with kollivier: For the majority of tasks, Linux simply *wastes* so much of my time that I could buy 10 copies for Windows for that. The only reason I use Linux is because of freedom.
> The short list of duplication in Galeon/GNOME is MIME, Proxy and Mouse settings
Funnily, proxies are exactly what make Epiphany unusable to me. Until today, it never even occured to be before today to look for proxy options in the GNOME options, because I expect them to be in the network app.
Similarily, there is an *inherent* difference between my application choices for desktop and web, due to security and maybe performance. On the desktop, I usually want to edit documents, so I need to open a word processor document in a word processor. However, I don't want MS DOC files from the web to open in MS Word, OpenOffice or anything remotely resembling it, but a small and secure (feature-restricted) viewer. Trying to equal both set of settings is a bad idea.
Does Epiphany support proxies yet? Last I checked, there was no option.
And, no, GNOME options don't count. I use a proxy specifically because I want to pick and chose which apps are allowed to use the network and which aren't.
> If I hire you and am paying you then I want
> every last minute of work out of you.
I don't. I'd rather have a happy and motivated employee than one running down hours/minutes. The employee is happier and I get better results.
[good points cutted]
...
> a "graphical language" makes things easier for
> lay-people to understand
> at the very highest levels of abstraction.
> But when you get down to the details
With a graphical editor, you can e.g. hide the "details" "behind" the high-level object and "zoom into" it when needed. I haven't seen such a natural match for that action in textual representations yet.
> For the most part, the complexity of programming is inherent.
:).
No. Example: C/C++ pointers. And that's only the most obvious one.
> these techniques work just as well in the
> written-programming-language world as they
> do in the design-by-drawing-pictures world.
Thanks. I just prefer to draw pictures than to write text
> Big Design Up Front makes a gamble that the
> project won't evolve or change shape during
> development.
One of the most important criteria I put on a good design is that it's suitable for new requirements, ideally even unforseen ones. OTOH, people who just concentrate on getting things "done" often tend to make assumptions in the code that break later and require the whole program to be changed.
Yes, there is a limit on how general / bloated a design should be, and how far in the future it should see. I haven't found good rules on that yet.
> Bill Gates is not known for being a technology visionary.
But his motto long ago was "Information at your fingertips". Isn't that just what we have now?
*runs*
> an aspiring engineer is not afraid of RTFM!
But maybe he doesn't have time, because his boss presses him too much.
You don't learn about variables in a reference manual. And you usually don't have time to sit down and read a "How to program in Visual Basic" book, if your boss just assigned you to implement a customer request. Right after the previous one - after all, that's what your job is, right?
Just because current solutions fall short doesn't mean that it's impossible or the wrong direction.
can != want to
IIRC I still remember the discussion of which system was best: GeoWorks or Windows 3.x. GeoWorks had good apps delivered with it, and Windows had the mainstream popularity.
I just try to imagine the eyes of the networking staff when they colocate the C64 in a rack at the ISP's data center.
> Just look at how curious and creative most kids :(
:-)
> are before they start school, and compare it to
> when they're done. Something very bad happens in
> the schools.
lol. It can't be that it's the society in general or the aging that causes the creativity to go, right?
Our *society* expects people to line up in 4-rows. Yes, schools are part of that. Yes, many school could well improve.
No, things with lasers which look like lasers are cooler.
"The LEGO company would beg to disagree."
Trademark laywers. Ignore them.
"My greatest disappointment is the "special" pieces that are now so common. All the special pieces detract from your ability to make new and interesting things with multiple sets."
Full ACK
But they do have "LEGO Creator" (formerly LEGO Basic) series with lots of stones cheaply.