If OS/2 was really dying, I am pretty sure IBM would have opensourced it as a final fsck-you to Microsoft. My guess is that they know it still rocks, and are just waiting for Microsoft to lose their strangehold on the commercial intel-based desktop os market.
OS/2 could still become the comeback kid.
If I have understood things correctly, OS/2 was what OSX tries to be - an efficent and userfriendly operating system with a solid text-based washboard underbelly. BeOS too, for that matter.
This could be terrible for Microsoft. If XP is consistently slower than W2K in all tests, the upgrade sales could plummet. Then people would realize how the monoloply works when they get an os they don't want next time they buy a pc.
We just need to figure out if it will rise again. Basically, Slackware is a great distrobution for nerds and intelligent novices. However, the lack of package management holds it back. Consider a large installation base. If there's an update in one of the packages you use, you can publish that onto an ftp server, and then have the debian boxes patch themselves. Slackware can't do that, to the best of my knowledge. I used slackware intensively up to and including 7.1. It is a GREAT distrobution. Really. You're on your own, and if you fuck up it's usually you fucking up, not some inconsistent package management system. Use it if you want to learn Linux the hardcore way.
Again, you end up spending a lot of time just keeping the system up to date. The major distrobutions are becoming easier to maintain. Basically, Slackware has an ever decreasing market niche. Too bad.
I ended up with this job because it is interesting and challenging. It's a fairly major application - we sell it for some pretty serious dough.
Anyhow - OO in Perl sucks. It's inelegant and not terribly efficient. End of discussion. No public, private, protected variables. Poor performance on inheritance and polymorphism. Should I go on? Sure, the modules use OO programming, but only a very simple subset of all the powerful concepts a real OO implementation will provide.
Furthermore, perl has virtually no typing. The code is rarely readable, escpecially the code written by the so-called perl gurus which use all kinds of funky constructs and features that don't translate over to another language.
The $_ variable itself is a good reason to boycott perl.
Overall, can you do stuff like "synchronized int counter" in perl? Even the threading is not production quality. (That would have made non-blocking sockets much easier)
However, perl has one gem. A true gem, that is a super-gun that will annihilate almost everything - it is the eval. Eval used correctly will save you hundreds of line of code. Used badly, it will slow your application to a crawl.
But why spend lots of hours on rarely run code, when you can use an eval and do the job in an hour?
Granted, Asia does not have any ongoing anti-trust proceedings yet AFAIK, but Europe is continuously looking into starting an anti-trust trial against Microsoft.
I have a strong feeling that the EU will get their butts in gear, realizing that they need to finish the job that Clinton could not finish.
If MS loses large parts of Europe, or is forced to start doing business differently there, then that will really hurt their bottom line and their public image (except in the states. there, the republicans will rant about "those snotty, arrogant europeans that are passing anti-competitive legislation").
When it's too late
on
Globalization
·
· Score: 3, Informative
I tend to get sidetracked in these discussions.
You are right in one respect, but wrong in another.
Had the treaty after WW1 been softer, WW2 would probably not have happened. Germany underwent a lot of hardship after WW1, and that was the breeding ground we provided for Hitler. Germans felt unfairly treated.
So, in a way, Chamberlain was doing the right thing - he was being understanding, for Hitler had reason to be outraged.
Today, bin Laden arguably has reason to be outraged, too.
The problem is that in both cases, the mistakes had been made and the process was beyond the point of no return. America can learn from this, and should immediately. Right now, you are upsetting the world, and the world probably will come knocking again and again until you learn your lesson.
If you're gonna be a world leader, think and act globally. Stop your president from saying outragous, silly things like "wanted, dead or alive" and "either your with us, or you're with the terrorists". Granted, he's learning, but I only think he's learning how to restrain himself. Oh - and that's your misconception to correct if I'm wrong.
When you occasionally travel abroad, bother to learn a few phrases in the local language - "thank you", "please", "hello", "yes", "no" and "do you speak english?" for starters.
The list goes on and on. Your nation has an attitude problem almost as big as mine. Maybe it's about time you started doing things right?
If they are to truly compete, then we should be allowed to choose between the Andrea VM code and the Rik VM code when we compile our beloved kernels.
However, a kernel fork would not neccessarily(sp?) be a bad thing, as long as the forking doesn't break the ability to run binaries. I'd hate to have to recompile my entire system just switch between VM-s.
This is a good chance to inject some open source talent into an important public body. It really sounds like they could use some talent, and most importantly a broader knowledge base!
I am not saying that whizbangery will make your message more meaningful. However, well applied whizbangery will make the message easier to receive.
There are lots of articles and websites that are truly informative, but that i still have a hard time getting through. These snippets of information are so dull and drab that I just yawn and develop an immediate urge for Stile.
Folks - use those css to make your site more readable and more enjoyable. Increase the line spacing to 120%, adjust the margins and work the colors. Pick a nice font, but make sure it looks ok in the fallback that you naturally supplied. Subtle mouse-over effects are also nice. Experiment. Have some fun. Be creative - I know you really are, for coding is also an act of creativity.
Feel free to use Flash and java applets and whatnot. Howver, make sure the fallback is acceptable. The web should not be a static technology. It can, it will and it should continue to improve.
Oh - and don't forget to have a message to deliver. Empty whizbangery is Hollywood's specialty, not ours.
And we are really quit happy about it. It is relatively stable, and it runs the applications we need. Office 97, Exchange 4.0, MS Schedule something. Can anybody give me a compelling reason to upgrade to XP? W2K? We're probably about 180 ppl, including consultants.
As a matter of fact, the IT people are becoming increasingly interested in Linux. I think the combination of "free", "full built-in remote access" and "stable" appeals to them.
Microsoft will be losing brainshare like crazy. The colleges that still teach microsoft technologies will now get yet another good reason to toss out Microsoft technologies. Mine taught us assembler and some pretty interesting details about NT in OS class. That was about it.
And look where it got me. A great job programming a credit card fraud detection system using Linux, Mysql and Perl. A competitor didn't believe his own eyes when he saw the performance on our solution. He implemented using.NET.
Anyhow - just say no, kids. And if you mention the $1000 price tag, your manager will be more likely to say go ahead if you propose using open technologies. They are getting pretty fed up with Microsoft licensing.
That wasn't coherent. I hope some parts were slightly informative.
I've actually got an idea for a new ad system - derived from this user's posting. It miraculously triggered a few neurons in my gray matter, and I came up with an idea.
Here we go.
Ad networks set cookies, and use these to track users. However, since the cookie is set, why not allow the user himself to modify his info? Every few ads, put up a striking one that says "personalize this ad!", and allow the user to access his/her cookie, and add/inspect personal information. Let them tell you what they're looking to buy in the future.
Also make sure to tell them that other ad networks don't give them this option, but try to infer the information through spying on them.
Anybody think "honest ads" can fly? Or have this been tried before, and I'm just an unoriginal developer too late for the mating season?
A dedicated terrorist will use encryption. Duh. So what's the use in sniffing all our legal, unencrypted packets? It will NOT catch any terrorists.
This is yet another example of the feds trying to heartlessly profit from the ongoing tradegy. Just say no, folks! (Or start using https, ssh and ssl whenever possible)
Get the vendor to patch your servers within 12 hours of Microsoft issuing a hotfix/patch. If they will not put that into the contract, tell them they're not professional enough. If they cannot do something as easy as that, would you really want them running truly business critical solutions for you?
If you really want to succeed, you need to hone your technical skills, develop strong relationships within your organization/sphere, and also balance the line between "in charge" and "egomaniac" and "overly democratic". All this is really an exercise in wisdom. Learn when you can. Carefully apply what you've learned.
if you have been paying attention in the media. Linux this, Linux that. Never gonna make it. Too hard. Not supported enough. Flawed business model. You know the drill by now.
Folks - we should just do what we do best - continue to write great code. That is what has proven the critics wrong in the first place!
Microsoft sits on registration data about what users have what product, and those registration data contain contact information.
When you register a Microsoft product, they thank you by sending you advertisment material. No critical upgrades or anything to that effect. AOL sends off cd-roms to everybody in america - for free, hoping a few will try out their service. Microsoft customers have PAID for their product, but Microsoft does not provide them with even notifications of upgrades/updates.
It is very satisfying to see Evolution getting the amount of attention it needs. Ximian has been critized on here for half-assing major projects. If this is their response, we're in for some high quality desktop environment! Way to prioritize, fellas.
And I master it, I would say. Then again, I went to college in USA for 3.5 years.
Whether or the guy speaks Enligsh as first, second, third or fourth language doesn't really matter that much. The fact of the matter is that the guy wrote something unintelligeble with hopeless punctuation. My French is right around the same level as his English, I'm estimating. I don't go to french websites to partake in discussions - because I know that I would not be making a lot of sense.
I forgive him his bad grammar, to some degree. However, his punctuation seems to be consistenly bad. Bad punctuation often means that your thoughts aren't crystallized yet - and thus should not be shared with the general public in a bit.
Oh. And I was a bit out of line.. Crap happens. And thanks for posting logged in. Self-righteous AC's get to me, from time to time.
I thought I had lost my mind when I couldn't decipher this post. Then I looked in your profile. I guess you just seem to be unable to form carefully thought out sentences that convey what you think. A piece of advice - punctuation is a REALLY effective way of making your ramblings more readable. I am flaming you for your own good. You seriously need to work on your written communication skills.
Oh - and I have the balls to take the -2 karma hit, coward moderators.
Why? Because it has no licensing issues, silly. And - guess what - this is just ideal for high volume, low cost enterprises. Once Linux devices really start to take off, (and they will - people just won't know what they really are) - you will hearing gorgeous Ogg Vorbis sound everywhere.
Besides, Ogg Vorbis should win on it's fantastical name alone..
Slashdot Mirror
If OS/2 was really dying, I am pretty sure IBM would have opensourced it as a final fsck-you to Microsoft. My guess is that they know it still rocks, and are just waiting for Microsoft to lose their strangehold on the commercial intel-based desktop os market. OS/2 could still become the comeback kid.
If I have understood things correctly, OS/2 was what OSX tries to be - an efficent and userfriendly operating system with a solid text-based washboard underbelly. BeOS too, for that matter.
This could be terrible for Microsoft. If XP is consistently slower than W2K in all tests, the upgrade sales could plummet. Then people would realize how the monoloply works when they get an os they don't want next time they buy a pc.
Oh. And I'm a karmawhore today.
We just need to figure out if it will rise again. Basically, Slackware is a great distrobution for nerds and intelligent novices. However, the lack of package management holds it back. Consider a large installation base. If there's an update in one of the packages you use, you can publish that onto an ftp server, and then have the debian boxes patch themselves. Slackware can't do that, to the best of my knowledge. I used slackware intensively up to and including 7.1. It is a GREAT distrobution. Really. You're on your own, and if you fuck up it's usually you fucking up, not some inconsistent package management system. Use it if you want to learn Linux the hardcore way.
Again, you end up spending a lot of time just keeping the system up to date. The major distrobutions are becoming easier to maintain. Basically, Slackware has an ever decreasing market niche. Too bad.
Oh - I write this from a slack 8 desktop.
I ended up with this job because it is interesting and challenging. It's a fairly major application - we sell it for some pretty serious dough.
Anyhow - OO in Perl sucks. It's inelegant and not terribly efficient. End of discussion. No public, private, protected variables. Poor performance on inheritance and polymorphism. Should I go on? Sure, the modules use OO programming, but only a very simple subset of all the powerful concepts a real OO implementation will provide.
Furthermore, perl has virtually no typing. The code is rarely readable, escpecially the code written by the so-called perl gurus which use all kinds of funky constructs and features that don't translate over to another language.
The $_ variable itself is a good reason to boycott perl.
Overall, can you do stuff like "synchronized int counter" in perl? Even the threading is not production quality. (That would have made non-blocking sockets much easier)
However, perl has one gem. A true gem, that is a super-gun that will annihilate almost everything - it is the eval. Eval used correctly will save you hundreds of line of code. Used badly, it will slow your application to a crawl.
But why spend lots of hours on rarely run code, when you can use an eval and do the job in an hour?
Granted, Asia does not have any ongoing anti-trust proceedings yet AFAIK, but Europe is continuously looking into starting an anti-trust trial against Microsoft.
I have a strong feeling that the EU will get their butts in gear, realizing that they need to finish the job that Clinton could not finish.
If MS loses large parts of Europe, or is forced to start doing business differently there, then that will really hurt their bottom line and their public image (except in the states. there, the republicans will rant about "those snotty, arrogant europeans that are passing anti-competitive legislation").
I tend to get sidetracked in these discussions.
You are right in one respect, but wrong in another.
Had the treaty after WW1 been softer, WW2 would probably not have happened. Germany underwent a lot of hardship after WW1, and that was the breeding ground we provided for Hitler. Germans felt unfairly treated.
So, in a way, Chamberlain was doing the right thing - he was being understanding, for Hitler had reason to be outraged.
Today, bin Laden arguably has reason to be outraged, too.
The problem is that in both cases, the mistakes had been made and the process was beyond the point of no return. America can learn from this, and should immediately. Right now, you are upsetting the world, and the world probably will come knocking again and again until you learn your lesson.
If you're gonna be a world leader, think and act globally. Stop your president from saying outragous, silly things like "wanted, dead or alive" and "either your with us, or you're with the terrorists". Granted, he's learning, but I only think he's learning how to restrain himself. Oh - and that's your misconception to correct if I'm wrong.
When you occasionally travel abroad, bother to learn a few phrases in the local language - "thank you", "please", "hello", "yes", "no" and "do you speak english?" for starters.
The list goes on and on. Your nation has an attitude problem almost as big as mine. Maybe it's about time you started doing things right?
If they are to truly compete, then we should be allowed to choose between the Andrea VM code and the Rik VM code when we compile our beloved kernels.
However, a kernel fork would not neccessarily(sp?) be a bad thing, as long as the forking doesn't break the ability to run binaries. I'd hate to have to recompile my entire system just switch between VM-s.
This is a good chance to inject some open source talent into an important public body. It really sounds like they could use some talent, and most importantly a broader knowledge base!
I am not saying that whizbangery will make your message more meaningful. However, well applied whizbangery will make the message easier to receive.
There are lots of articles and websites that are truly informative, but that i still have a hard time getting through. These snippets of information are so dull and drab that I just yawn and develop an immediate urge for Stile.
Folks - use those css to make your site more readable and more enjoyable. Increase the line spacing to 120%, adjust the margins and work the colors. Pick a nice font, but make sure it looks ok in the fallback that you naturally supplied. Subtle mouse-over effects are also nice. Experiment. Have some fun. Be creative - I know you really are, for coding is also an act of creativity.
Feel free to use Flash and java applets and whatnot. Howver, make sure the fallback is acceptable. The web should not be a static technology. It can, it will and it should continue to improve.
Oh - and don't forget to have a message to deliver. Empty whizbangery is Hollywood's specialty, not ours.
I tried to run MSN through W3 Validator, and it was validating the reject-page. Coincidentally, the reject-page is in broken xhtml.
And we are really quit happy about it. It is relatively stable, and it runs the applications we need. Office 97, Exchange 4.0, MS Schedule something. Can anybody give me a compelling reason to upgrade to XP? W2K? We're probably about 180 ppl, including consultants.
As a matter of fact, the IT people are becoming increasingly interested in Linux. I think the combination of "free", "full built-in remote access" and "stable" appeals to them.
Microsoft will be losing brainshare like crazy. The colleges that still teach microsoft technologies will now get yet another good reason to toss out Microsoft technologies. Mine taught us assembler and some pretty interesting details about NT in OS class. That was about it.
.NET.
And look where it got me. A great job programming a credit card fraud detection system using Linux, Mysql and Perl. A competitor didn't believe his own eyes when he saw the performance on our solution. He implemented using
Anyhow - just say no, kids. And if you mention the $1000 price tag, your manager will be more likely to say go ahead if you propose using open technologies. They are getting pretty fed up with Microsoft licensing.
That wasn't coherent. I hope some parts were slightly informative.
I've actually got an idea for a new ad system - derived from this user's posting. It miraculously triggered a few neurons in my gray matter, and I came up with an idea.
Here we go.
Ad networks set cookies, and use these to track users. However, since the cookie is set, why not allow the user himself to modify his info? Every few ads, put up a striking one that says "personalize this ad!", and allow the user to access his/her cookie, and add/inspect personal information. Let them tell you what they're looking to buy in the future.
Also make sure to tell them that other ad networks don't give them this option, but try to infer the information through spying on them.
Anybody think "honest ads" can fly? Or have this been tried before, and I'm just an unoriginal developer too late for the mating season?
A dedicated terrorist will use encryption. Duh. So what's the use in sniffing all our legal, unencrypted packets? It will NOT catch any terrorists.
This is yet another example of the feds trying to heartlessly profit from the ongoing tradegy. Just say no, folks! (Or start using https, ssh and ssl whenever possible)
Pakistan harbors terrorists that strike against the Indian part of Kashmir. Ireland harbours the IRA. USA harbors abortion-clinic-bombers.
Without hipocracy and consistency, the real world would probably grind to a halt..
Get the vendor to patch your servers within 12 hours of Microsoft issuing a hotfix/patch. If they will not put that into the contract, tell them they're not professional enough. If they cannot do something as easy as that, would you really want them running truly business critical solutions for you?
If you don't like it, don't buy it. Capitalism is a wonderful thing (sometimes).
If you really want to succeed, you need to hone your technical skills, develop strong relationships within your organization/sphere, and also balance the line between "in charge" and "egomaniac" and "overly democratic". All this is really an exercise in wisdom. Learn when you can. Carefully apply what you've learned.
if you have been paying attention in the media. Linux this, Linux that. Never gonna make it. Too hard. Not supported enough. Flawed business model. You know the drill by now.
Folks - we should just do what we do best - continue to write great code. That is what has proven the critics wrong in the first place!
Microsoft sits on registration data about what users have what product, and those registration data contain contact information.
When you register a Microsoft product, they thank you by sending you advertisment material. No critical upgrades or anything to that effect. AOL sends off cd-roms to everybody in america - for free, hoping a few will try out their service. Microsoft customers have PAID for their product, but Microsoft does not provide them with even notifications of upgrades/updates.
It's a sad, sad world.
It is very satisfying to see Evolution getting the amount of attention it needs. Ximian has been critized on here for half-assing major projects. If this is their response, we're in for some high quality desktop environment! Way to prioritize, fellas.
And I master it, I would say. Then again, I went to college in USA for 3.5 years.
Whether or the guy speaks Enligsh as first, second, third or fourth language doesn't really matter that much. The fact of the matter is that the guy wrote something unintelligeble with hopeless punctuation. My French is right around the same level as his English, I'm estimating. I don't go to french websites to partake in discussions - because I know that I would not be making a lot of sense.
I forgive him his bad grammar, to some degree. However, his punctuation seems to be consistenly bad. Bad punctuation often means that your thoughts aren't crystallized yet - and thus should not be shared with the general public in a bit.
Oh. And I was a bit out of line.. Crap happens. And thanks for posting logged in. Self-righteous AC's get to me, from time to time.
I thought I had lost my mind when I couldn't decipher this post. Then I looked in your profile. I guess you just seem to be unable to form carefully thought out sentences that convey what you think. A piece of advice - punctuation is a REALLY effective way of making your ramblings more readable. I am flaming you for your own good. You seriously need to work on your written communication skills.
Oh - and I have the balls to take the -2 karma hit, coward moderators.
Why? Because it has no licensing issues, silly. And - guess what - this is just ideal for high volume, low cost enterprises. Once Linux devices really start to take off, (and they will - people just won't know what they really are) - you will hearing gorgeous Ogg Vorbis sound everywhere.
Besides, Ogg Vorbis should win on it's fantastical name alone..
You are wrong. As simple as that. Think it over again =)