A man walks into the doctor's office and says, "Doctor, when I walk this way it hurts." The doctor responds, "Well, then don't walk that way!"This joke reminds me of how we adapt to using software. I used to think that as time went by the software that I use became more stable. A buggy Windows 3.0 was upgraded to a less buggy Windows 3.1.
The same thing happened with Windows NT. The first version, 3.1, had more bugs than Joe's Apartment. They were crawling all over the place. Then, as time went by, the bugs went away. Or so I thought.
I have been using the Windows NT 5.0-I mean Windows 2000-beta since it was released. The first beta of the product was so bug ridden that I de-installed post haste. When beta 2 was released, I gave it another chance. It was still buggy, but not so much that I couldn't use it, and I did so on a daily basis. Now, five months later, I can honestly say that Windows 2000 beta 2 is a very stable product.
What's that you say? Windows 2000 beta 2 is the same product I installed five months ago? Can't be. There must have been a service pack since then that fixed the bugs. Right? Wrong!
Windows 2000 beta 2 is the same product I installed five months ago. It is I who have changed.
You'll have to bear with me, because my theory is kind of strange and I'm frazzled after enduring a weeklong move to a new building. I have come to believe that computer software does not become more stable over time-people become more stable over time.
It appears that, like Pavlov's dogs, I have been trained by my computer not to do the things that cause me pain. This, of course, means that my subconscious screams at me to use the delete button on the Outlook button bar, not the delete key, because every time I use the delete key, my system freaks out and goes berserk. After a few times, the randomly generated mouse clicks, which depending on where my mouse pointer is pointing may or may not be disastrous, get more than a bit annoying. So, as a defense mechanism, I don't do that anymore.
This is not just a theory that applies to beta software. I have noticed that many released software packages are unstable until they train me to use them properly. At this point, I think I could teach a class in "Bug Avoidance 101," or write the book The Complete Moron's Guide to Bug Avoidance.
What I really need is a new function in all of my software that gives me a treat every time I avoid a bug. Press the delete button, get a nilla wafer! Of course, any freshman psychology student can tell you that a combination of positive and negative reinforcement works best. I guess that means that every time I use the delete key, a hand should come out of my screen and slap me in the face!
As wonderful as these new functions might be, I think that people might object to being slapped in the face every time the software hiccups, and who could afford the nilla wafer refills that most software would entail.
I have a better idea. Software manufacturers should be required to ship a component as part of their software that e-mail's a nasty message to the developer who wrote the code each time a bug occurs. Imagine how much e-mail these developers would receive every day. They'd clean up their act mighty quick.
Our initial reaction to bug-ridden code is to accept that there is nothing we can do about it and try to avoid the bug in the future. This is the wrong attitude. When bugs occur, report them. If it is beta software, send in the bug incident report. If it is release software, complain. You pay good money for software and software companies should be held accountable for software that doesn't work.
Until the complaints of IS managers everywhere lead to more stable software, I guess I will just have to take it on the chin and refill my computer's nilla wafer dispenser.
Chris Amaru is Technical Director of BackOffice CTO Magazine.
"Who's.com-ming the world?" proudly trumpets a recent ad from Sun Microsystems. It must have been a typo. The ad should have obviously read: "Who's.con-ning the world?" For once again, Sun seems to have pulled off a linguistic slight of hand with Java that would even give a legalistic rush to the Prevaricator-in-Chief.
At the heart of the new Java jive is Sun's decision to follow in the footsteps of LINUX. For Java, Sun has embraced the "open source" model and will make Java source code available to one and all. Hey, "Open" is Sun's middle name, right? Well, it's sort of open. It's just that like a neurotic grasping mama, Sun can't quite let its Java baby go into the world without a few apron strings attached.
Unlike open-source LINUX, if you want to make a commercial derivative from anything that you build out of Sun's Java Open Source, you will have to pay royalties to Sun. Is this cute or what? Sun "cons" thousands of programmers around the world to slave away for nothing and then charges them for the privilege of using their own work!
You've just got to love the sheer chutzpah of Scott McNealy. Even Stonewall Bill Gates would have to blush under the Justice Department's video cameras, if he had dared to try this stunt. But wait, Sun's not-so-open Source scheme gets even better.
Before you can let your Java masterpiece loose in the world, your Java application will have to be "certified" by Sun as being 100% Java compliant. Ostensibly, this is so Sun can make sure there aren't thousands of Java derivatives out there clobbering each other. Sun is far too smart to let any set of proprietary advances vitiate the Sun Java code license. What's more, this scheme also gives Sun a good look at all the free work it just ".con-ned" out the ISV community.
So how is it that LINUX, which has none of this big mama nonsense, hasn't splintered apart? Granted Linus Torvalds keeps a tight rein on kernel development, but that's about it. You can buy an open-source LINUX system from the likes of Red Hat or S.u.S.E. for your PC, and each will install the same core system, in the same way, and with the same machine-interaction behavior. This open-source point seems lost on Sun. Or perhaps the point isn't lost on Sun at all.
After all, the big move is now under way to get Sun's Java into DTVs, set-top boxes, and whatever else in the consumer home-electronics market sports a microprocessor. But really, just what would a 100% Aryan-Nation-Pure Java world provide for the typical "@home" consumer? In theory, a consumer could instantly move any Java applet, such as a TV or music-programming menu for example, from a Sony home-entertainment center over to a competitive unit from the likes of Hitachi, Panasonic, or Toshiba.
In practice, however, the user interface and controls for each of these devices will be quite different. What good is hitting a Sony CD-R rewrite button on a portable Java menu if no such function exists on a Panasonic CD player? Then, there is the other matter that in all likelihood the internal data structures for these competing devices will be wildly different.
In a world where most consumers still haven't figured out that they can change their Netscape browser's home-page default to another of their own choosing, how likely is this Java-on-the-move scenario? For consumer electronics, the "write once, run everywhere" is an even bigger ".con" Sun marketing sham than the Java "open source" programming scheme.
It certainly helps Sun. It probably helps consumer-electronics vendors. Better yet, it clearly hurts Bill Gates. Nonetheless, it does precious little when it comes to rescuing consumers lost in a sea of unnecessary device complexity. Yet the media and the market keep on buying into this Java story. P.T. Barnum was right after all.
When it comes to ".con-ning" the world, however, McNealy is just in catch-up mode. Few, if any, have learned the lessons of P.T. as well as Bill G.
Legend has it that when crowds lingered too long and slowed the take, Ol' P. T. cleared the tent with a sign: "This way to the egress." Quite a story, but Ol' Bill G. has done Barnum one better. The lead government lawyer, David Boies, pressured him to comment on a statement by Russel Siegelman, an Microsoft executive, who said of the Windows [dialog] box, "it's our one unique and valuable asset." When the trust buster then somewhat ambiguously asked Mr. Gates about this tremendously valuable "box" of his, Bill replied with a straight face, "The Windows box is a piece of cardboard."
Hoo-hah! Talk about ".con-ning" the Justice Department.
Heh. Doubt it. Now, don't get me wrong. I like and use the Gimp every day. But I don't think it is in any position to be a threat to Photoshop.
And besides, even tho Corel is porting apps to linux, this doensn't mean that they are supporting the Gimp. In fact, their Draw apps would be much more of a threat to Photoshop.
A brainless bastard. He is the one hurting our children, not purple smurfs with tv's on their stomachs. 'nuff said about that.
Can we dispel the myth that geeks tend to be conservative republicans?
Where did this come from? Did I miss something? Most geeks I know are pretty apolitical, areligious, etc. I know *two* Christian geeks, and a few that are religious but not Christian (myself included). I don't know of very many geeks that even give a flop about politics (although I do).
Just my personal experience. Perhaps it is different in other places.
Were that inventor's estate still operating, I would be glad to pay them a reasonable fee for the use of their intellectual property.
Okay. Point well taken. However, if you had been riding around for quite some time in a car with wheels before the wheel was patented, would you still want to shell out some hard earned cash to pay him when you buy a new car? If so, you are a fool.
For how many tens of thousands of years did the human race lack the wheel? Should the inventor therefore have been sacrificed on the alter of the collectivist mob because they "could have thought of that"? Absolutely not. Was the inventor so sacrificed? Almost certainly. We need not enshrine and repeat the mistakes of the past.
Are you paying the inventor of the wheel everytime you buy a car? Nope.
I think the problem here is not "they could have thought of that," but that they did think of that.
I find it interesting that we're being asked to accept a license agreement BEFORE we can even access it to read it.
Hell, why not? They don't give a damn about us. They care about the green in our pockets.
Sigh, yet another obstacle in the path of Linux bliss.
Toshiba laptops are bad for Linux anyways?!?
on
Toshiba and EULA
·
· Score: 1
Naw. I got a toshiba p75 laptop that works like a charm. (I cant remember the model at the moment tho.) It actually works much better than when I got it (it had w95 on it). I just wanna replace that toshiba logo with a linux logo.:-)
You must not have a lot to do where you live. I'd rather go out and do something a little more entertaining then shopping for food. (Not that I think connecting your trashcan to the net is normal, mind you.)
Thats still really not good. What if you have a processor failier and have to have a new one next day air mailed to you? So after you get that processor, that machine's software is still until you can do this "de-authorise"-"re-authorise" process. Great, thats another week or so. --Dast
Slashdot Mirror
Chris Amaru
Pavlovs humans
A man walks into the doctor's office and says, "Doctor, when I walk
this way it hurts." The doctor responds, "Well, then don't walk that
way!"This joke reminds me of how we adapt to using software. I used to
think that as time went by the software that I use became more stable.
A buggy Windows 3.0 was upgraded to a less buggy Windows 3.1.
The same thing happened with Windows NT. The first version, 3.1, had
more bugs than Joe's Apartment. They were crawling all over the place.
Then, as time went by, the bugs went away. Or so I thought.
I have been using the Windows NT 5.0-I mean Windows 2000-beta since it
was released. The first beta of the product was so bug ridden that I
de-installed post haste. When beta 2 was released, I gave it another
chance. It was still buggy, but not so much that I couldn't use it,
and I did so on a daily basis. Now, five months later, I can honestly
say that Windows 2000 beta 2 is a very stable product.
What's that you say? Windows 2000 beta 2 is the same product I
installed five months ago? Can't be. There must have been a service
pack since then that fixed the bugs. Right? Wrong!
Windows 2000 beta 2 is the same product I installed five months ago.
It is I who have changed.
You'll have to bear with me, because my theory is kind of strange and
I'm frazzled after enduring a weeklong move to a new building. I have
come to believe that computer software does not become more stable
over time-people become more stable over time.
It appears that, like Pavlov's dogs, I have been trained by my
computer not to do the things that cause me pain. This, of course,
means that my subconscious screams at me to use the delete button on
the Outlook button bar, not the delete key, because every time I use
the delete key, my system freaks out and goes berserk. After a few
times, the randomly generated mouse clicks, which depending on where
my mouse pointer is pointing may or may not be disastrous, get more
than a bit annoying. So, as a defense mechanism, I don't do that
anymore.
This is not just a theory that applies to beta software. I have
noticed that many released software packages are unstable until they
train me to use them properly. At this point, I think I could teach a
class in "Bug Avoidance 101," or write the book The Complete Moron's
Guide to Bug Avoidance.
What I really need is a new function in all of my software that gives
me a treat every time I avoid a bug. Press the delete button, get a
nilla wafer! Of course, any freshman psychology student can tell you
that a combination of positive and negative reinforcement works best.
I guess that means that every time I use the delete key, a hand should
come out of my screen and slap me in the face!
As wonderful as these new functions might be, I think that people
might object to being slapped in the face every time the software
hiccups, and who could afford the nilla wafer refills that most
software would entail.
I have a better idea. Software manufacturers should be required to
ship a component as part of their software that e-mail's a nasty
message to the developer who wrote the code each time a bug occurs.
Imagine how much e-mail these developers would receive every day.
They'd clean up their act mighty quick.
Our initial reaction to bug-ridden code is to accept that there is
nothing we can do about it and try to avoid the bug in the future.
This is the wrong attitude. When bugs occur, report them. If it is
beta software, send in the bug incident report. If it is release
software, complain. You pay good money for software and software
companies should be held accountable for software that doesn't work.
Until the complaints of IS managers everywhere lead to more stable
software, I guess I will just have to take it on the chin and refill
my computer's nilla wafer dispenser.
Chris Amaru is Technical Director of BackOffice CTO Magazine.
Franco Vitaliano
.com-ming the world?" proudly trumpets a recent ad from Sun .con-ning the world?" For once again, Sun seems to have
".con-ning" of us all
"Who's
Microsystems. It must have been a typo. The ad should have obviously
read: "Who's
pulled off a linguistic slight of hand with Java that would even give
a legalistic rush to the Prevaricator-in-Chief.
At the heart of the new Java jive is Sun's decision to follow in the
footsteps of LINUX. For Java, Sun has embraced the "open source" model
and will make Java source code available to one and all. Hey, "Open"
is Sun's middle name, right? Well, it's sort of open. It's just that
like a neurotic grasping mama, Sun can't quite let its Java baby go
into the world without a few apron strings attached.
Unlike open-source LINUX, if you want to make a commercial derivative
from anything that you build out of Sun's Java Open Source, you will
have to pay royalties to Sun. Is this cute or what? Sun "cons"
thousands of programmers around the world to slave away for nothing
and then charges them for the privilege of using their own work!
You've just got to love the sheer chutzpah of Scott McNealy. Even
Stonewall Bill Gates would have to blush under the Justice
Department's video cameras, if he had dared to try this stunt. But
wait, Sun's not-so-open Source scheme gets even better.
Before you can let your Java masterpiece loose in the world, your Java
application will have to be "certified" by Sun as being 100% Java
compliant. Ostensibly, this is so Sun can make sure there aren't
thousands of Java derivatives out there clobbering each other. Sun is
far too smart to let any set of proprietary advances vitiate the Sun
Java code license. What's more, this scheme also gives Sun a good look
at all the free work it just ".con-ned" out the ISV community.
So how is it that LINUX, which has none of this big mama nonsense,
hasn't splintered apart? Granted Linus Torvalds keeps a tight rein on
kernel development, but that's about it. You can buy an open-source
LINUX system from the likes of Red Hat or S.u.S.E. for your PC, and
each will install the same core system, in the same way, and with the
same machine-interaction behavior. This open-source point seems lost
on Sun. Or perhaps the point isn't lost on Sun at all.
After all, the big move is now under way to get Sun's Java into DTVs,
set-top boxes, and whatever else in the consumer home-electronics
market sports a microprocessor. But really, just what would a 100%
Aryan-Nation-Pure Java world provide for the typical "@home" consumer?
In theory, a consumer could instantly move any Java applet, such as a
TV or music-programming menu for example, from a Sony
home-entertainment center over to a competitive unit from the likes of
Hitachi, Panasonic, or Toshiba.
In practice, however, the user interface and controls for each of
these devices will be quite different. What good is hitting a Sony
CD-R rewrite button on a portable Java menu if no such function exists
on a Panasonic CD player? Then, there is the other matter that in all
likelihood the internal data structures for these competing devices
will be wildly different.
In a world where most consumers still haven't figured out that they
can change their Netscape browser's home-page default to another of
their own choosing, how likely is this Java-on-the-move scenario? For
consumer electronics, the "write once, run everywhere" is an even
bigger ".con" Sun marketing sham than the Java "open source"
programming scheme.
It certainly helps Sun. It probably helps consumer-electronics
vendors. Better yet, it clearly hurts Bill Gates. Nonetheless, it does
precious little when it comes to rescuing consumers lost in a sea of
unnecessary device complexity. Yet the media and the market keep on
buying into this Java story. P.T. Barnum was right after all.
When it comes to ".con-ning" the world, however, McNealy is just in
catch-up mode. Few, if any, have learned the lessons of P.T. as well
as Bill G.
Legend has it that when crowds lingered too long and slowed the take,
Ol' P. T. cleared the tent with a sign: "This way to the egress."
Quite a story, but Ol' Bill G. has done Barnum one better. The lead
government lawyer, David Boies, pressured him to comment on a
statement by Russel Siegelman, an Microsoft executive, who said of the
Windows [dialog] box, "it's our one unique and valuable asset." When
the trust buster then somewhat ambiguously asked Mr. Gates about this
tremendously valuable "box" of his, Bill replied with a straight face,
"The Windows box is a piece of cardboard."
Hoo-hah! Talk about ".con-ning" the Justice Department.
We did see an article on a guy who made the spinning world record. *shrug*
We'll either get the page or trash the server.
I love it.
A lot of those think pads come with a DVD drive.
Maybe this will increase Linux support for DVD?
*drools*
Heh. Doubt it. Now, don't get me wrong. I like and use the Gimp every day. But I don't think it is in any position to be a threat to Photoshop.
And besides, even tho Corel is porting apps to linux, this doensn't mean that they are supporting the Gimp. In fact, their Draw apps would be much more of a threat to Photoshop.
My opinion anyway.
Right on the mark!
This is a linux page, don't point out MS flaws
What? Where does it say "Slashdot: Linux news for nerds?"
We are not pointing out the "flaws" of MS, but their lies. If you don't like it, ignore it. If you can't stand it, leave.
Yep. You would be jailed. But that is because you are not a multi-million dollar monopoly with tons of lawyers at your disposal.
A brainless bastard. He is the one hurting our children, not purple smurfs with tv's on their stomachs. 'nuff said about that.
Can we dispel the myth that geeks tend to be conservative republicans?
Where did this come from? Did I miss something? Most geeks I know are pretty apolitical, areligious, etc. I know *two* Christian geeks, and a few that are religious but not Christian (myself included). I don't know of very many geeks that even give a flop about politics (although I do).
Just my personal experience. Perhaps it is different in other places.
It is the job of the parents to control what children see, not the government.
Glad to hear you've come to our side.
:-)
Were that inventor's estate still operating, I would be glad to pay them a reasonable fee for the use of their intellectual property.
Okay. Point well taken. However, if you had been riding around for quite some time in a car with wheels before the wheel was patented, would you still want to shell out some hard earned cash to pay him when you buy a new car? If so, you are a fool.
For how many tens of thousands of years did the human race lack the wheel? Should the inventor therefore have been sacrificed on the alter of the collectivist mob because they "could have thought of that"? Absolutely not. Was the inventor so sacrificed? Almost certainly. We need not enshrine and repeat the mistakes of the past.
Are you paying the inventor of the wheel everytime you buy a car? Nope.
I think the problem here is not "they could have thought of that," but that they did think of that.
This company in *no way* came up with technology
I like it. I think I might do it. :-) I still have checks that have the 19__ date on them, maybe a good use for them.
I find it interesting that we're being asked to accept a license agreement BEFORE we can even access it to read it.
Hell, why not? They don't give a damn about us. They care about the green in our pockets.
Sigh, yet another obstacle in the path of Linux bliss.
Naw. I got a toshiba p75 laptop that works like a charm. (I cant remember the model at the moment tho.) It actually works much better than when I got it (it had w95 on it). I just wanna replace that toshiba logo with a linux logo. :-)
>The only way it can be sent without our
>permission is if the software is re-written
>specifically to do so. I can't imagine Microsoft
>doing that.
Nothing has stopped them from silently over-writting things and requesting a reboot before. Bah. Having an ID on a cpu is just a bad idea.
You must not have a lot to do where you live. I'd rather go out and do something a little more entertaining then shopping for food. (Not that I think connecting your trashcan to the net is normal, mind you.)
sounds like a good idea to me! :-) let's theme the kernel!!! lemme see, where can we start? any ideas?
Where can one get gecko? I'm stuck at work with a crappy browser...
Thats still really not good. What if you have a processor failier and have to have a new one next day air mailed to you? So after you get that processor, that machine's software is still until you can do this "de-authorise"-"re-authorise" process. Great, thats another week or so.
--Dast
I think he is talking about the BSOD and reboot features built in to every copy of M$Windows 9x/NT that don't exist in Wine.
--Dast
I want to have my brain implanted into the *computer*. Still haven't found a way to surgically remove my body tho. *sigh*
--Dast
New Survey: 85% of MS Developers think that making the OS slower would be beneficial bc users are so stupid. ;-)