"The reason there are many languages is that different languages have different strengths. "
True. But.net requires that the languages be severely castrated before they can actually run on.net.
Microsoft want you to *believe* that you can use different languages. In fact, you use exactly one language (C#) with a variety of different syntaxes (Eiffel, VB,...)
1. Any Language - but only those languages castrated so much and to that extent that they fit into the scheme imposed onto them. Eiffel is not Eiffel. VB is not VB. Of course that is what Microsoft wants you to believe
2. Native execution - Open for reverse-engineering. No means to test binaries, because at the deployment site any interpreter (remember how badly Microsoft's C compiler misoptimises a few things?) may be around?
3. Cross-platform - Where? I see something tied to 32 bit Windows. Microsoft want everyone to believe that this thing is cross-platform, but it is not in Microsoft's interest! But since cross-platform is hyper-cool, that's one more thing that needs to be on the marketing cheat sheet.
4. Security. Native x86 code is unverifiable - as demonstrated by VMware, for instance? And why can I call COM objects from.net - when there are definitely exploits out there that take advantage of broken ActiveX controls? No,.net is not a sandbox.
5.-6. - Don't care
7. Distribution. With desktop apps - I will have to ship a multi-megabyte download to each deployment site. I will have to install that. Can you spell logistics and maintenance nightmare?
"These are just some of the improvements" - Improvements? Where?
FWIW, I have.net and the VS alpha (what is called "beta" by Microsoft) installed on W2K; it crawls on a PIII 650 with 256 MB.
But they these Uebercrackers *understand* what they are doing?
Heck, give me enough time, a bit of wading through the darker areas of the 'net and I could present myself as an Uebercracker myself - although I would just be a script kiddie.
Now, if I came to develop a novel attack - now that would be something completely different, that would actually be creative, intelligent hacking.
*That* I would rate highly.
[Does it shine through that I am looking at all "efforts" in education made around me and just laugh hilariously, because in the end all that counts for a degree is memory, not knowledge?]
Wrong. The Linux Desktop's ace-in-the-hole is Kylix.
Because Kylix is not tied to KDE. Not tied to Gnome. Not tied to anything - not even a *window manager*
Borland is a member of both the Gnome Foundation and the KDE League. And this should tell you a lot about the platform agenda of Borland: No Platform Agenda. Just The Best Tools.
Your options (?) essentially consist of two tools: DDD (http://www.gnu.org/software/ddd/) and GDB 5.0 (http://sources.redhat.com/gdb/)
I wouldn't go with the latest beta version of DDD, but use the latest release version. You *must* use GBD 5.0 in order to get a hope to work with threads.
I cannot download this tool - all I find is: "If you would like to have more information on GtkAda or GVD feel free to drop us a note at sales@gnat.com or sales@act-europe.fr, we will be happy to call you at your convenience."
>But the KDE/Qt license (GPL/QPL), while better
>than a pure GPL, is simply not commercially
>competitive
If you look at just the initial investment - sure, nothing beats "no cost" (except subsidies). But with information sciences, you simply do not look at initial investment and then write this off. Information (a class library) is a non-perishable good, so you exploit this - forever. IOW, you *once* have an investment of USD 1500 which can amortized over the whole life-time of of your company (in the extreme).
Ignoring the assumption of a going concern, let's assume that you benefit from such a licence for two years. That makes the licence costs approximately USD 13 per week. And these USD 13 per week are *easily* offset by cost savings due to quality of the library: spare a single developer 15 minutes of his time per week, and your cost has been amortized.
It is widely acknowledged that the quality of QT is exceptional, so saving these 15 minutes of developer time per week is peanuts, compared to horrible "no cost" libraries.
FWIW, if you talk investment, you need to go all the way.
It's pointless posting a long of list of tools that *claim* to be RAD tools. Except for the Java tools you listed - which do not compile to native code, BTW - I am not aware of any one working RAD tool on Linux.
Interbase is free, it is not restricted by the GPL.
Interbase has been released under a variant of the MPL that "protects" the Interbase name (IOW, only Interbase may release certified Interbase builds). Anyone may grab the code and use it whichever way they like.
Greespun writes: "... the average programmers will consume nearly their entire work day just in reading and understanding the new code generated by the good programmers."
Something is very wrong if this happens in Greenspun's hypothetical workplace. Either programmers are rewarded for *writing* complex code, or what Greenspun assumes to be good programmers are, in fact, hackers who are incapable of creating and designing maintainable code.
The whole point of engineering is to create solutions that are simple, flexible, and effective - and that can be *understood*.
Writing code that the average programmer cannot *understand* is not what classifies a good programmer. A good programmer will write code that is elegant, simple, straight-forward, can be understood *and maintained* by the average programmer. It is the initial coding *solution* that discriminates the good programmer from the coder.
>Unix IS userfriendly, it just isn't idiot
>friendly nor ignorant friendly.
Unix is *not* user friendly for about 95% of all potential users.
When you think Unix you automatically think "geek who likes computers". Hard truth: Of all computer related tasks, I absolutely hate about 80% of them. I plainly don't want to do them. The OS *must* be so user-friendly to get these off my back.
Linux and the Desktops on top of it do not allow me to do that - and on Linux it is even worse than on Win32, Apple, or BeOS.
In case you still haven't got the message yet: Computers are not a purpose in itself.
Does your world of distributions consist of RedHat, RedHat, and RedHat? Or are there SuSE, Mandrake, Caldera, and TurboLinux?
I mean, looking at that fiasko called RedHat 7.0 on one of my partitions and comparing it with the rather very nice indeed SuSE 7.0 on the other partition, I have to wonder...
You might want to try using Mozilla on Linux with a Celeron 433, 192 MB RAM.
I have been living on the bleeding edge for some time - and all I can say is that this is a bloated monster, which dies, hangs, is dog slow, and doesn't know how to deal with about 50% of the sites I care about.
I want working SSL. I cannot find the right words to describe the current state of Mail/News - it would go along the lines of completely unusable. I want decent form and authentication handling (try connecting to SWAT to administer Samba!)
I crave for Internet Explorer on Linux. I am sick of Mozilla.
You, Dave, close your eyes - you are the one who has to resort to completely unfounded personal attacks, only because you cannot bear the truth.
Oh, yeah, Linux is the OS of coding gods. Each single line of code is laboriously reviewed by the Open Source community. Each line is carefully crafted, tested, and everything is so amazingly well designed.
How come I cannot really believe that.
I have seen enough code (on *any* operating system) that increased my blood pressure. It is no better and no worse on Linux.
>. How would a stock (haha) Linux workstation get dbExpress onto it?
For instance by having the driver linked right into the application?
IOW, *no* issues.
BTW, libc issues are just great. It is amazing how much breaks inside libc (2.1.3!) once you do slightly more advanced programming. Locale functions, for instance? Oh my god. Try reading the lates (2.1.95 beta) Changelog.
I have yet to see a match for Microsoft Office on Linux, Visual Studio 6, MSDN, and others on Linux. Not that I would *want* it, but still, it's there.
FWIW, MSDN has MUCH better documentation, and while MSDN largely is a piece of rubbish, it is infinitely better than the documentation coming with a Linux distribution. Draw your own conclusions about the state of Linux docs.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, there was a serious bug in the GNU loader. Borland fixed that bug and provides updated builds of glibc at
http://www.borland.com/kylix/
The loader bug is also fixed in glibc 2.2.x.
[Amusing note: If you read the release notes of the Nvidia Linux drivers, you notice that Borland fixed the same bug that Nvidia just complains about]
Borland offers Borland Kylix
http://www.borland.com/kylix/
which is a full, native Object Pascal compiler with a RAD IDE, and an excellent debugger, for Linux.
There is a variety of options, from a free Open Edition to a Client/Server edition.
Contrary to what one might think, Object Pascal is in heavy use.
"The reason there are many languages is that different languages have different strengths. "
.net requires that the languages be severely castrated before they can actually run on .net.
...)
True. But
Microsoft want you to *believe* that you can use different languages. In fact, you use exactly one language (C#) with a variety of different syntaxes (Eiffel, VB,
Addressing your points:
.net - when there are definitely exploits out there that take advantage of broken ActiveX controls? No, .net is not a sandbox.
.net and the VS alpha (what is called "beta" by Microsoft) installed on W2K; it crawls on a PIII 650 with 256 MB.
1. Any Language - but only those languages castrated so much and to that extent that they fit into the scheme imposed onto them. Eiffel is not Eiffel. VB is not VB. Of course that is what Microsoft wants you to believe
2. Native execution - Open for reverse-engineering. No means to test binaries, because at the deployment site any interpreter (remember how badly Microsoft's C compiler misoptimises a few things?) may be around?
3. Cross-platform - Where? I see something tied to 32 bit Windows. Microsoft want everyone to believe that this thing is cross-platform, but it is not in Microsoft's interest! But since cross-platform is hyper-cool, that's one more thing that needs to be on the marketing cheat sheet.
4. Security. Native x86 code is unverifiable - as demonstrated by VMware, for instance? And why can I call COM objects from
5.-6. - Don't care
7. Distribution. With desktop apps - I will have to ship a multi-megabyte download to each deployment site. I will have to install that. Can you spell logistics and maintenance nightmare?
"These are just some of the improvements" - Improvements? Where?
FWIW, I have
But they these Uebercrackers *understand* what they are doing?
Heck, give me enough time, a bit of wading through the darker areas of the 'net and I could present myself as an Uebercracker myself - although I would just be a script kiddie.
Now, if I came to develop a novel attack - now that would be something completely different, that would actually be creative, intelligent hacking.
*That* I would rate highly.
[Does it shine through that I am looking at all "efforts" in education made around me and just laugh hilariously, because in the end all that counts for a degree is memory, not knowledge?]
>KDE's ace-in-the-hole is Kylix
Wrong. The Linux Desktop's ace-in-the-hole is Kylix.
Because Kylix is not tied to KDE. Not tied to Gnome. Not tied to anything - not even a *window manager*
Borland is a member of both the Gnome Foundation and the KDE League. And this should tell you a lot about the platform agenda of Borland: No Platform Agenda. Just The Best Tools.
Oh, I have been using Borland C++Builder and Borland Delphi for quite a while - on Win32.
I just happen to be burnt often enough on Linux to know the least painful means...
Your options (?) essentially consist of two tools: DDD (http://www.gnu.org/software/ddd/) and GDB 5.0 (http://sources.redhat.com/gdb/)
I wouldn't go with the latest beta version of DDD, but use the latest release version. You *must* use GBD 5.0 in order to get a hope to work with threads.
I cannot download this tool - all I find is: "If you would like to have more information on GtkAda or GVD feel free to drop us a note at sales@gnat.com or sales@act-europe.fr, we will be happy to call you at your convenience."
Yes, a lot of stuff is starting up by default on Sony VAIO notebooks.
Simply Remove It (sm).
>Has anyone tried writing a complete virtual
>processor/virtual peripheral system that
>performs dynamic binary translation between
>instruction sets?
Sure. The authour of Plex86 is also the author of Bochs:
http://www.bochs.com/
"The program bochs is a highly portable open source x86 PC emulator written in C++, and runs on most popular platforms"
>But the KDE/Qt license (GPL/QPL), while better
>than a pure GPL, is simply not commercially
>competitive
If you look at just the initial investment - sure, nothing beats "no cost" (except subsidies). But with information sciences, you simply do not look at initial investment and then write this off. Information (a class library) is a non-perishable good, so you exploit this - forever. IOW, you *once* have an investment of USD 1500 which can amortized over the whole life-time of of your company (in the extreme).
Ignoring the assumption of a going concern, let's assume that you benefit from such a licence for two years. That makes the licence costs approximately USD 13 per week. And these USD 13 per week are *easily* offset by cost savings due to quality of the library: spare a single developer 15 minutes of his time per week, and your cost has been amortized.
It is widely acknowledged that the quality of QT is exceptional, so saving these 15 minutes of developer time per week is peanuts, compared to horrible "no cost" libraries.
FWIW, if you talk investment, you need to go all the way.
Java: JBuilder (by Borland), Forte, VisualAge Java
Have you ever *tried* Phoenix Basic?! Yuck!
It's pointless posting a long of list of tools that *claim* to be RAD tools. Except for the Java tools you listed - which do not compile to native code, BTW - I am not aware of any one working RAD tool on Linux.
Interbase is free, it is not restricted by the GPL.
Interbase has been released under a variant of the MPL that "protects" the Interbase name (IOW, only Interbase may release certified Interbase builds). Anyone may grab the code and use it whichever way they like.
>Getting a port of this to the desktop would be seriously cool
It *is* available for the Desktop, no need to run X Windows - but only with QT/embedded...
W2K stability is large a function of the device drivers' stability.
...
I have had W2K *repeatedly* BSOD or hang - but in all but one cases, the reason was a) ZoneAlarm (firewall) or b) my TV card.
The only inexplicable hang I have had was a Real Jukebox hanger shutting down the system into hibernation mode during playback (a notebook, BTW).
On the other hand, I have seen XFree die on me, it continues to show artefacts on my notebooks display,
Greespun writes: "... the average programmers will consume nearly their entire work day just in reading and understanding the new code generated by the good programmers."
Something is very wrong if this happens in Greenspun's hypothetical workplace. Either programmers are rewarded for *writing* complex code, or what Greenspun assumes to be good programmers are, in fact, hackers who are incapable of creating and designing maintainable code.
The whole point of engineering is to create solutions that are simple, flexible, and effective - and that can be *understood*.
Writing code that the average programmer cannot *understand* is not what classifies a good programmer. A good programmer will write code that is elegant, simple, straight-forward, can be understood *and maintained* by the average programmer. It is the initial coding *solution* that discriminates the good programmer from the coder.
As far as I can tell, the gold version was produced about a week ago.
>Unix IS userfriendly, it just isn't idiot
>friendly nor ignorant friendly.
Unix is *not* user friendly for about 95% of all potential users.
When you think Unix you automatically think "geek who likes computers". Hard truth: Of all computer related tasks, I absolutely hate about 80% of them. I plainly don't want to do them. The OS *must* be so user-friendly to get these off my back.
Linux and the Desktops on top of it do not allow me to do that - and on Linux it is even worse than on Win32, Apple, or BeOS.
In case you still haven't got the message yet: Computers are not a purpose in itself.
>Imagine, releasing their 7.0 a week before KDE2
>final
Hmmm, I have been running SuSE 7.0 for about a month now.
>KDE is too hard to install.
One thing is clear: You haven't tried it. Download all rpms, read the README which tells you to do
rpm -uvh *.rpm
and, wonder of wonders, that is *it* - and has been it for the last couple of KDE2 snapshots.
>Red Hat is the most commercial of all distros
And the sky is green.
Does your world of distributions consist of RedHat, RedHat, and RedHat? Or are there SuSE, Mandrake, Caldera, and TurboLinux?
I mean, looking at that fiasko called RedHat 7.0 on one of my partitions and comparing it with the rather very nice indeed SuSE 7.0 on the other partition, I have to wonder...
You might want to try using Mozilla on Linux with a Celeron 433, 192 MB RAM.
I have been living on the bleeding edge for some time - and all I can say is that this is a bloated monster, which dies, hangs, is dog slow, and doesn't know how to deal with about 50% of the sites I care about.
I want working SSL. I cannot find the right words to describe the current state of Mail/News - it would go along the lines of completely unusable. I want decent form and authentication handling (try connecting to SWAT to administer Samba!)
I crave for Internet Explorer on Linux. I am sick of Mozilla.
You, Dave, close your eyes - you are the one who has to resort to completely unfounded personal attacks, only because you cannot bear the truth.
Oh, yeah, Linux is the OS of coding gods. Each single line of code is laboriously reviewed by the Open Source community. Each line is carefully crafted, tested, and everything is so amazingly well designed.
How come I cannot really believe that.
I have seen enough code (on *any* operating system) that increased my blood pressure. It is no better and no worse on Linux.
>. How would a stock (haha) Linux workstation get dbExpress onto it?
For instance by having the driver linked right into the application?
IOW, *no* issues.
BTW, libc issues are just great. It is amazing how much breaks inside libc (2.1.3!) once you do slightly more advanced programming. Locale functions, for instance? Oh my god. Try reading the lates (2.1.95 beta) Changelog.
You compare a Mercedes Benz with a Beetle.
I have yet to see a match for Microsoft Office on Linux, Visual Studio 6, MSDN, and others on Linux. Not that I would *want* it, but still, it's there.
FWIW, MSDN has MUCH better documentation, and while MSDN largely is a piece of rubbish, it is infinitely better than the documentation coming with a Linux distribution. Draw your own conclusions about the state of Linux docs.