Your examples only apply if authorities attempt the "cure". A private citizen, or a private organization, or a professional in private practice would not be legally entitled to do so. Would you really want your neighbours to treat you forcibly if they thought you had an serious disease? Would you want your physician to do so?
It is good news for distributors of java application, like my project. To date, most JREs bundled with Linux won't run our code as they aren't complete implementations.
Yes, utilities are important, and IT should aspire to be such a utility. What IT is not, and cannot be, is a commodity in the sense that electricity supply and water supply are commodities.
I see from TFA that the owner finally took his site off-line because of the problem. So the USAF probably considers the problem solved. Another triumph for American diplomacy.
"Standards compliance is absolute, by _definition_."
Under this definition, Firefox would be as broken as IE5 because neither comply. That's crazy; current firefox does a much better rendering job on compliant pages than IE5 (as do IE 6, 7 and 8). The concept of partial compliance is real. We need it to assess real browsers.
Partial or relative compliance isn't subjective. For any browser, we can determine exactly which the parts of the standards with which it fails to comply. Your observation about American culture doesn't support your main argument.
Low cost airlines in the UK already do this and yes, it helps a little.
These are the airlines operating smaller aircraft (Boeing 737 or Airbus 319 typically) on short-haul flights. They use steps to the ground, not docking bridges.
"There are essentially two problems plaguing the UK, the first is that we don't have particularly good last-mile infrastructure, specifically everyone is on copper lines and as such we're looking at a limit of around 24mbps with ADSL2 if you're lucky enough to be close to the exchange. For us to achieve faster speeds investment is going to be needed to replace all that copper with fibre, that solves the issue of a possible max speed issue that's going to hit the UK hard a few years down the road as other nations advanced their connection speeds and we hit a brick wall."
Possibly not all of the fibre. VDSL is a way to get higher speed (~100Mb/s claimed) over copper provided that the length of cable is shorter; no greater than 500m. If the telco extends its fibre runs a little to meet this limit - which means moving the multiplexors out of the exchanges and into the street-level equipment boxes - then we can go faster without rewiring all the connections to the houses. Then the ISP restrictions will really show up.
And yes, you shouldn't be STARTING with Fedora. It isn't meant to be a beginner distro for several reasons.
Ah. You may have found a major problem there. Are new users supposed to start with some kiddy Linux and then throw it away and start again with a different distro when they've learned? If so, that's a major disincentive to even start. I hope the distros aren't designed with this aim. I never heard that Ubuntu was only for beginners.
10,000 light years is a very big cloud. Our galaxy is reckoned to be about 60,000 ly diameter (IIRC; that's the diameter of the disc, not the halo) and we are about 2/3 of the way out to the edge of the galactic disc.
All modern control systems for research telescopes and instruments involve a supervisory layer and that is often run on a Unix or Unix-like system. LSST also has to do an unprecedented amount of soft-real-time processing on the data stream (see their tour page, and this kind of astronomical software typically runs on Linux and/or Unix.
You are making an absurd point. Of course we are all just talking about formats with a specified semantics.
No we're not all talking about formats with implied semantics. Look further back in the thread and you'll find one respondant mentioning CSV as an easily-read format. That is another example where the semantics - meaning of the columns - aren't inherent in the format itself.
What would you expect OpenOffice (or any other app!) to do with an SGML document whose particular set of elements and entities it does not know?
Nothing, of course! That's why, if I had to archive data in such a format for the long term, I'd expect to include a reader and/or a schema (i.e. DTD for the SGML in question). Yes, for ODF both reader and schema will probably available in the far future. But, over 25+ years, it's not certain. Could you guarantee it? Personally?
No, just the source code (or possibly Java bytecode, but maybe that won't last so well). If the data standard turns out unreadable, then plan B is that you can still compile the reader. Or, expanding on your point, maybe the archive should just include the definition of its format in some simpler document format (plain ASCII?). But plan A is definitely to pick a lasting data standard.
Of course, plan B requires an open-source reader. But even M$ formats have those now.
(Note to Slashdot attack dogs: I do not advocate using M$.doc format, or OOXML; ODF is far better. None of my posts in this thread are an argument against using ODF in favour of M$ formats or software. I'm not a M$ shill so don't waste your bile.)
In the early 1990s, my development group was producing documents in SGML, which is ISO 8879:1986, using DEC software. SGML is a meta-language like XML, so to recover the documents fully one would need both an SGML parser (available, but not very common, excepting those specialized for HTML) and something that understood the particular set of elements and entities used by the DEC software. Open Office, my current tool of choice, certainly wouldn't read those documents even though they were conforming SGML. (Does OO read SGML at all?)
Sure, if you archive in ODF, where the element semantics are part of the standard, you're in a much stronger position. You probably will be able to read 2007-style ODF in 2032. But I maintain that it's not a certainty. If stuff is important enough to archive for 25 years, it's worth pickling an ODF reader with it.
"In 25 years you will still able to use an open ISO standard [...] "
Yes, you will; but not necessarily the one you're using today. Nor will you necessarily be able to convert the old documents with the then-current version of your tool of choice. If you want to archive, you've still got to archive the reading software.
Over 25 years (nearly half the current evolution of computers) all bets are off and being a standard guarantees nothing.
Embrace, Extend, Destroy is for products to which they can sell an alternative. IE isn't sold for money. M$ doesn't benefit fiscally by eliminating other browsers.
The big thing in Vista was always supposed to the re-engineering of the deep parts of the OS, not the UI features. I.e., it would do the same things but better, with more stability and less need for constant patching. Maybe MS managed that, or maybe they cocked it up; but had they done great things inside, Vista would still disappoint those who judge it by the UI.
"Then the other will go away." You may well be right, but it's not as inevitable as with the tapes. We can easily have browser that support both languages. If video recorders taking both VHS and Betamax had been available at no extra cost then we'd still have Betamax.
Dyson spheres are hard to see by definition. They're supposed to capture all the radiation of of a star, so not much to see. The outside would be a bit hotter than background, so possibly visible in the mid/far IR. But not in Halpha light, so not in IPHAS. Sorry.
You have it backwards. Passing off a best-case estimate as a most-likely outcome is a falsehood. Quoting for a standards-only site is explict and honest. Quoting a higher price for the extra work to support IE is honest, provided that it's described accurately. One doesn't have to give both quotesat the same time in order to remain honest.
However...
The whole point of this is for the client to discover that supporting IE has extra, real costs and, eventually, to choose to stop paying those costs. It's not to make more money for the developer. So let's agree that putting both quotes at the same time might achieve this more easily.
Not the same thing at all. In McConnell's story, the speaker is proposing to lie to the customer. This is never good. My suggestion is to put before the customer two quotes, $X for the site and $Y for the site messed around to work with IE (where $Y > $Y). They then get to choose X, Y or neither before signing. The idea is not to fleece them for more money, just to make it clear that IE costs extra development, which it does. By "engaged", I meant involved or interested or excited rather than legally committed.
How would you propose we stop supporting IE's shitty rendering engine without angering our customers?
You could try price. Offer a good price for the standard version of a site. Add a note on the quote that the site won't work well in non-standard browsers; don't mention that IE is the non-standard one. Let the client get excited about your good design and good price. When they figure out that it needs to be broken to work round IE, they will already be engaged. Then quote them much money for the IE fix. Once they realize that they're paying extra for IE they won't want it so much. On an intranet project, this could even get the whole network switched to another browser. On an internet project, it will at least move the blame in the right direction.
It's an archaic way of writing a heading for a sub-section in a document. Nowadays we'd more likely use a colon or put the heading on a line by itself in a distinct font.
Slashdot Mirror
Your examples only apply if authorities attempt the "cure". A private citizen, or a private organization, or a professional in private practice would not be legally entitled to do so. Would you really want your neighbours to treat you forcibly if they thought you had an serious disease? Would you want your physician to do so?
It is good news for distributors of java application, like my project. To date, most JREs bundled with Linux won't run our code as they aren't complete implementations.
Yes, utilities are important, and IT should aspire to be such a utility. What IT is not, and cannot be, is a commodity in the sense that electricity supply and water supply are commodities.
I see from TFA that the owner finally took his site off-line because of the problem. So the USAF probably considers the problem solved. Another triumph for American diplomacy.
Under this definition, Firefox would be as broken as IE5 because neither comply. That's crazy; current firefox does a much better rendering job on compliant pages than IE5 (as do IE 6, 7 and 8). The concept of partial compliance is real. We need it to assess real browsers.
Partial or relative compliance isn't subjective. For any browser, we can determine exactly which the parts of the standards with which it fails to comply. Your observation about American culture doesn't support your main argument.
Low cost airlines in the UK already do this and yes, it helps a little.
These are the airlines operating smaller aircraft (Boeing 737 or Airbus 319 typically) on short-haul flights. They use steps to the ground, not docking bridges.
Possibly not all of the fibre. VDSL is a way to get higher speed (~100Mb/s claimed) over copper provided that the length of cable is shorter; no greater than 500m. If the telco extends its fibre runs a little to meet this limit - which means moving the multiplexors out of the exchanges and into the street-level equipment boxes - then we can go faster without rewiring all the connections to the houses. Then the ISP restrictions will really show up.
Actually, I think they're releasing it now because they were ordered to in a (European?) court settlement, not because they want to.
Ah. You may have found a major problem there. Are new users supposed to start with some kiddy Linux and then throw it away and start again with a different distro when they've learned? If so, that's a major disincentive to even start. I hope the distros aren't designed with this aim. I never heard that Ubuntu was only for beginners.
10,000 light years is a very big cloud. Our galaxy is reckoned to be about 60,000 ly diameter (IIRC; that's the diameter of the disc, not the halo) and we are about 2/3 of the way out to the edge of the galactic disc.
Yes, it probably will.
All modern control systems for research telescopes and instruments involve a supervisory layer and that is often run on a Unix or Unix-like system. LSST also has to do an unprecedented amount of soft-real-time processing on the data stream (see their tour page, and this kind of astronomical software typically runs on Linux and/or Unix.
Does "cannot be used for air travel" really mean that you can't use it in airports? Or just that you still need extra ID for domestic flights?
No we're not all talking about formats with implied semantics. Look further back in the thread and you'll find one respondant mentioning CSV as an easily-read format. That is another example where the semantics - meaning of the columns - aren't inherent in the format itself.
Nothing, of course! That's why, if I had to archive data in such a format for the long term, I'd expect to include a reader and/or a schema (i.e. DTD for the SGML in question). Yes, for ODF both reader and schema will probably available in the far future. But, over 25+ years, it's not certain. Could you guarantee it? Personally?
No, just the source code (or possibly Java bytecode, but maybe that won't last so well). If the data standard turns out unreadable, then plan B is that you can still compile the reader. Or, expanding on your point, maybe the archive should just include the definition of its format in some simpler document format (plain ASCII?). But plan A is definitely to pick a lasting data standard.
Of course, plan B requires an open-source reader. But even M$ formats have those now.
(Note to Slashdot attack dogs: I do not advocate using M$ .doc format, or OOXML; ODF is far better. None of my posts in this thread are an argument against using ODF in favour of M$ formats or software. I'm not a M$ shill so don't waste your bile.)
In the early 1990s, my development group was producing documents in SGML, which is ISO 8879:1986, using DEC software. SGML is a meta-language like XML, so to recover the documents fully one would need both an SGML parser (available, but not very common, excepting those specialized for HTML) and something that understood the particular set of elements and entities used by the DEC software. Open Office, my current tool of choice, certainly wouldn't read those documents even though they were conforming SGML. (Does OO read SGML at all?)
Sure, if you archive in ODF, where the element semantics are part of the standard, you're in a much stronger position. You probably will be able to read 2007-style ODF in 2032. But I maintain that it's not a certainty. If stuff is important enough to archive for 25 years, it's worth pickling an ODF reader with it.
Yes, you will; but not necessarily the one you're using today. Nor will you necessarily be able to convert the old documents with the then-current version of your tool of choice. If you want to archive, you've still got to archive the reading software.
Over 25 years (nearly half the current evolution of computers) all bets are off and being a standard guarantees nothing.
Embrace, Extend, Destroy is for products to which they can sell an alternative. IE isn't sold for money. M$ doesn't benefit fiscally by eliminating other browsers.
The big thing in Vista was always supposed to the re-engineering of the deep parts of the OS, not the UI features. I.e., it would do the same things but better, with more stability and less need for constant patching. Maybe MS managed that, or maybe they cocked it up; but had they done great things inside, Vista would still disappoint those who judge it by the UI.
"Then the other will go away." You may well be right, but it's not as inevitable as with the tapes. We can easily have browser that support both languages. If video recorders taking both VHS and Betamax had been available at no extra cost then we'd still have Betamax.
Dyson spheres are hard to see by definition. They're supposed to capture all the radiation of of a star, so not much to see. The outside would be a bit hotter than background, so possibly visible in the mid/far IR. But not in Halpha light, so not in IPHAS. Sorry.
You have it backwards. Passing off a best-case estimate as a most-likely outcome is a falsehood. Quoting for a standards-only site is explict and honest. Quoting a higher price for the extra work to support IE is honest, provided that it's described accurately. One doesn't have to give both quotesat the same time in order to remain honest.
However...
The whole point of this is for the client to discover that supporting IE has extra, real costs and, eventually, to choose to stop paying those costs. It's not to make more money for the developer. So let's agree that putting both quotes at the same time might achieve this more easily.
Not the same thing at all. In McConnell's story, the speaker is proposing to lie to the customer. This is never good. My suggestion is to put before the customer two quotes, $X for the site and $Y for the site messed around to work with IE (where $Y > $Y). They then get to choose X, Y or neither before signing. The idea is not to fleece them for more money, just to make it clear that IE costs extra development, which it does. By "engaged", I meant involved or interested or excited rather than legally committed.
You could try price. Offer a good price for the standard version of a site. Add a note on the quote that the site won't work well in non-standard browsers; don't mention that IE is the non-standard one. Let the client get excited about your good design and good price. When they figure out that it needs to be broken to work round IE, they will already be engaged. Then quote them much money for the IE fix. Once they realize that they're paying extra for IE they won't want it so much. On an intranet project, this could even get the whole network switched to another browser. On an internet project, it will at least move the blame in the right direction.
It's an archaic way of writing a heading for a sub-section in a document. Nowadays we'd more likely use a colon or put the heading on a line by itself in a distinct font.
Agreed. On MacOS, where Apple has included decent PDF readers, I don't think there's the same negative prejudice.