> Macs make it easy. Want to plug in a CD burner? Don't worry, you don't have to open up your case!
> Just plug in the firewire cord and the power, and off you go. New hard drive? Digital video
> camera? USB camera? Don't worry about drivers. OS X is nice stuff
USB and 1394 devices are all devices that are pretty much just a easy to get going on Win2K. So far you've extolled the virtues of USB and 1394, not the Mac. Come USB2, and the Mac user WILL have to crack open that stylish case and WILL have to install new drivers. Sure you don't need drivers for many devices--if they get serviced by class drivers, or Apple packed drivers in the box. But for many other devices, don't tell me the Mac just magically "knows" how to talk to them. And also don't tell me that there are absolutely NO crappy USB devices that can foul up even a Mac installation.
Anyway, what I'm objecting to is the hardware platform, not the OS. In the past I've had nothing but contempt for the Mac OS (I was there and sure didn't like it, from a programmer perspective), but OS X seems to be a very different beast indeed. I'm just not willing to expose myself to Apple's temperamental hardware antics.
buying into a hardware platform that is less flexible than the current x86 standard, is single-sourced, and thus considerably more expensive. If OS X ever makes it to the x86, it will be hard to resist.
> [...] here in the United States secondary education produces nothing but idiots [...]
That's precisely why I think the secondary school system here in the US needs a major overhaul. After graduating high school a student should only require specialization, not introduction to writing and critical thinking. University degrees could then easily be obtained within two years for most professions.
> The point of a CS degree is not to produce programmers; it is produce well rounded students
I can almost agree with you, except that I think it's the role of secondary education to produce a well rounded person. The point of higher education is to produce well rounded professionals. If secondary education doesn't fulfill that role, the over 50% of high school graduates that never go on to college end up poorly rounded, contributing to an ignorant population.
Regarding the role of a CS degree, it should give you a broad education in that field, something mere work experience and self teaching usually doesn't. The difference between an educated and a self taught professional often becomes apparent in more difficult problem domains.
For example, if you've never encountered the concept of graph algorithms, you're liable to get rather stuck when confronted with say a difficult routing algorithm. There are apparently trivial solutions, until they need to scale by orders of magnitude. The CS graduate will recognize the problem domain and know where to start reading (because he most likely won't remember much beyond basic concepts), while the other guy likely will not. If he's smart, he'll search deja and find pointers to graph algorithms, eventually hopefully getting him to the same place as the CS guy. But he would still have the disadvantage of extra lost time. That extra education can often make the difference between naive and solid problem solving.
Ok, so show me a good source of third party components for building a complete generic Mac, including cases, motherboards, etc. Because, after all, tinkerers are still the crowd that frequents Slashdot and would object to the Mac mostly for its lack of third party components.
I've always liked the PPC architecture (I was pining for IBM to release their OS/2 for PPC stuff, but alas), and I was dragged to the PC kicking and screaming from the Amiga. But let's face it, I'll be damned before I switch from building my own high-end generic PCs to buying Apple's legendarily high-priced hardware.
> FYI, I do use Comcast Broadband, I do run servers, I do use VPN.
> They don't enforce those rules at all.
I'll second that. While their TOS might sound evil, as long as they stay on paper, who cares? Let's get real--in most markets you don't exactly have choice. You either get broadband and bend the rules, or "live by your principles" on 42kbps. Around here I do have a choice between Comcast and Bellsouth DSL, but on cable I can pull down Mandrake ISOs from UTK at sustained 330KBytes/s, and I doubt DSL comes close to that.
> Why waste your time with VPN???? Use Term Server or Citrix
As if those are a quick drop-in solution--run the install and you're set. Using Terminal Services etc implies a fundamental architectural change in the way IS deploys applications. It's not something you do on a whim. OTOH, VPN access is pretty much a no-brainer add-on. IS installs the equipment, does the requisite security etc testing, and then employees simply access the same LAN resources that have always been there, just from home.
That's something solved by language such as "VPN access not supported", not by expressly forbidding it. Not supporting a certain service is a sign of limited human resources, whereas not allowing smacks of money grubbig.
people might be willing to accept license compliance as reasonable. However, at nearly the cost of a new box, it's pure greed. Only the self-righteous will walk out of the store with an armload of WinXP boxes for home and crow about it on Slashdot. The rest of us morally flaccid mortals bow our heads in acknowledgement of the fact that we sometimes commit acts of greed and convenience--such as installing that Windows CD that came with the laptop on other machines, or taping a CD for the car, or photocopying a chapter of a book for a friend--all in the name of saving a bob, and because we can.
> The OSS people are foolish to think they have any chance of competing.
Good thoughts except for this last one. Who exactly is competing? Disregarding vociferous fools ranting on about KDE/Gnome/etc "kicking Windows' ass", Linux isn't exactly competing with Windows. In order to have a competition, you eventually must have a winner and a loser. Windows losing would be easy enough to recognize, but how exactly does Linux lose? By RedHat or SuSE etc going out of business? Linux is where it is today primarily due to motivated individuals driven by things other than money. The only way Linux can lose is if the entire developer community loses interest and moves on to something else--and not by Windows somehow "beating" it. To sum up: Linux can really only lose this non-existent battle due to factors mostly outside of the influence of Microsoft.
Sounds a bit like the Fawlty Towers set I just got. The packaging could definitely improve: there's no apparent way of telling which episode is on what disc. Well, there are four episodes per disc, and on the back liner there's an (apparently) ordered list of episodes, so you do a mod 4 on that list and can figure it out, but come on. Plus, there's an inteview with everyone and the dead pigeon in the water tank--except for Connie Booth. Considering she was one of the two writers, that's a bit of a no-no. Still, the quality is great, so I guess who cares.
Hey, thanks for the price tip. That's half the reason I quoted the Amazon price, to elicit better suggestions.
That's true about Win32 calls, but that's not as big a problem as it might appear. Especially for business-type apps that don't need exotic hardware access, the VLC wrapps the OS quite nicely. And chances are that someone wrote a component to do what you need, and that this component will show up in Kylix sooner or later. I'm pretty sure many of the Delphi serial port components will be available under Kylix, if they're not already. The socket components already are.
The biggest argument against Kylix would be that it compiles only x86 executables. Rumors are that other platforms will be supported in the future (esp. MacOS X), but Borland doesn't comment on rumors. If however x86 Linux is all you need, you should very seriously consider Delphi/Kylix.
> A serial bus used for products like mice and modems won't even touch the throughput on a
> FireWire drive.
While I agree with your opinion, you have to be careful with that statement. Both busses are serial, and both can be used for "mice and modems". The fact that there are no 1394 mice has more to do with the (lack of) availability of ultra-cheap chipsets than with its poor suitability for that task. In fact, if anything, USB should be commended for incorporating a low-speed mode that can be bit banged by micros, while still allowing high-speed devices on the same bus. The fact that USB 1.x was 12Mb has more to do with it being designed for a price point, rather than with inherent problems in the USB protocol or topology. I like both USB and Firewire, they're both very elegant technologies that are helping us eliminate the mess that was before. Just because their respective corporate parents are squabbling doesn't mean we as consumers shouldn't love both.
> I don't know what model Amiga you had, but if you define decent as "sounding like a robot that
> forgot what intonation was but could alter its voice half an octave to simulate slight masculine
> or slight feminine undertones" then I'll agree with you.
Well, that was if you fed text to the translation device, which did its best to generate the required phonetic output--also in ASCII--that was fed to the speak device. This translation could be pretty rough, and could be much improved upon if you generated your own raw phonetic output. You could smooth out, lengthen, shorten, or intonate individual phonemes that way, making the output sound much better. Basically, the translation device needed a good rewrite.
I'm not saying the Borland products are without warts, but they should be kept in perspective. Regarding g++, it seems Borland currently has the best C++ compiler on (x86) Linux. I think even the OS community hasn't found much to knock about it except the fact that it comes from a for-profit company.
That's funny in a way. KDevelop is trying hard to emulate Visual Studio, which itself has done its damndest to incorporate any Delphi features it could pilfer (esp. ever since Heijlsberg got on-board), while also introducing a slew of new languages and a new component model. Yet Delphi is still considered the black sheep, because it uses Object Pascal. Well, happy C# coding--never mind that it's a veritable semantic OP clone.
Slashdot Mirror
> The Euro is an undemocratic currency. Period.
Good thing you're not joining the Euro then. Go to the pub tonight and get pissed in celebration.
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> Unlike the USA, where one gathers that "conservative" is normal and "liberal" is a
> term of abuse.
Depends entirely on your circle of friends. Within my social radius "conservative" is a lethal word, topped only by the Lethal Joke.
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> The control of this currency rests with the German Government.
You should really stop reading those British rags, they're bad for your mind.
> The UK is the most powerful economy in Europe
Which cereal box did you read this on? The UK doesn't even have the second-largest GNP in Europe.
> If anyone should be running the Euro [...] its the Bank of England, and NOT the Bundesbank.
Oh, so you're really just upset that it's not England then? Never mind that they're not even adopting the Euro.
Good thing you're posting as AC, because you're just a clueless tart.
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> Macs make it easy. Want to plug in a CD burner? Don't worry, you don't have to open up your case!
> Just plug in the firewire cord and the power, and off you go. New hard drive? Digital video
> camera? USB camera? Don't worry about drivers. OS X is nice stuff
USB and 1394 devices are all devices that are pretty much just a easy to get going on Win2K. So far you've extolled the virtues of USB and 1394, not the Mac. Come USB2, and the Mac user WILL have to crack open that stylish case and WILL have to install new drivers. Sure you don't need drivers for many devices--if they get serviced by class drivers, or Apple packed drivers in the box. But for many other devices, don't tell me the Mac just magically "knows" how to talk to them. And also don't tell me that there are absolutely NO crappy USB devices that can foul up even a Mac installation.
Anyway, what I'm objecting to is the hardware platform, not the OS. In the past I've had nothing but contempt for the Mac OS (I was there and sure didn't like it, from a programmer perspective), but OS X seems to be a very different beast indeed. I'm just not willing to expose myself to Apple's temperamental hardware antics.
-
buying into a hardware platform that is less flexible than the current x86 standard, is single-sourced, and thus considerably more expensive. If OS X ever makes it to the x86, it will be hard to resist.
-
> [...] here in the United States secondary education produces nothing but idiots [...]
That's precisely why I think the secondary school system here in the US needs a major overhaul. After graduating high school a student should only require specialization, not introduction to writing and critical thinking. University degrees could then easily be obtained within two years for most professions.
-
> The point of a CS degree is not to produce programmers; it is produce well rounded students
I can almost agree with you, except that I think it's the role of secondary education to produce a well rounded person. The point of higher education is to produce well rounded professionals. If secondary education doesn't fulfill that role, the over 50% of high school graduates that never go on to college end up poorly rounded, contributing to an ignorant population.
Regarding the role of a CS degree, it should give you a broad education in that field, something mere work experience and self teaching usually doesn't. The difference between an educated and a self taught professional often becomes apparent in more difficult problem domains.
For example, if you've never encountered the concept of graph algorithms, you're liable to get rather stuck when confronted with say a difficult routing algorithm. There are apparently trivial solutions, until they need to scale by orders of magnitude. The CS graduate will recognize the problem domain and know where to start reading (because he most likely won't remember much beyond basic concepts), while the other guy likely will not. If he's smart, he'll search deja and find pointers to graph algorithms, eventually hopefully getting him to the same place as the CS guy. But he would still have the disadvantage of extra lost time. That extra education can often make the difference between naive and solid problem solving.
-
Ok, so show me a good source of third party components for building a complete generic Mac, including cases, motherboards, etc. Because, after all, tinkerers are still the crowd that frequents Slashdot and would object to the Mac mostly for its lack of third party components.
I've always liked the PPC architecture (I was pining for IBM to release their OS/2 for PPC stuff, but alas), and I was dragged to the PC kicking and screaming from the Amiga. But let's face it, I'll be damned before I switch from building my own high-end generic PCs to buying Apple's legendarily high-priced hardware.
-
> FYI, I do use Comcast Broadband, I do run servers, I do use VPN.
> They don't enforce those rules at all.
I'll second that. While their TOS might sound evil, as long as they stay on paper, who cares? Let's get real--in most markets you don't exactly have choice. You either get broadband and bend the rules, or "live by your principles" on 42kbps. Around here I do have a choice between Comcast and Bellsouth DSL, but on cable I can pull down Mandrake ISOs from UTK at sustained 330KBytes/s, and I doubt DSL comes close to that.
-
> Why waste your time with VPN???? Use Term Server or Citrix
As if those are a quick drop-in solution--run the install and you're set. Using Terminal Services etc implies a fundamental architectural change in the way IS deploys applications. It's not something you do on a whim. OTOH, VPN access is pretty much a no-brainer add-on. IS installs the equipment, does the requisite security etc testing, and then employees simply access the same LAN resources that have always been there, just from home.
-
That's something solved by language such as "VPN access not supported", not by expressly forbidding it. Not supporting a certain service is a sign of limited human resources, whereas not allowing smacks of money grubbig.
-
> Does it take antenna input?
Yes, it does.
-
people might be willing to accept license compliance as reasonable. However, at nearly the cost of a new box, it's pure greed. Only the self-righteous will walk out of the store with an armload of WinXP boxes for home and crow about it on Slashdot. The rest of us morally flaccid mortals bow our heads in acknowledgement of the fact that we sometimes commit acts of greed and convenience--such as installing that Windows CD that came with the laptop on other machines, or taping a CD for the car, or photocopying a chapter of a book for a friend--all in the name of saving a bob, and because we can.
-
> anti-American operating system
He, he, gotta love Bill.
-
> The OSS people are foolish to think they have any chance of competing.
Good thoughts except for this last one. Who exactly is competing? Disregarding vociferous fools ranting on about KDE/Gnome/etc "kicking Windows' ass", Linux isn't exactly competing with Windows. In order to have a competition, you eventually must have a winner and a loser. Windows losing would be easy enough to recognize, but how exactly does Linux lose? By RedHat or SuSE etc going out of business? Linux is where it is today primarily due to motivated individuals driven by things other than money. The only way Linux can lose is if the entire developer community loses interest and moves on to something else--and not by Windows somehow "beating" it. To sum up: Linux can really only lose this non-existent battle due to factors mostly outside of the influence of Microsoft.
-
Sounds a bit like the Fawlty Towers set I just got. The packaging could definitely improve: there's no apparent way of telling which episode is on what disc. Well, there are four episodes per disc, and on the back liner there's an (apparently) ordered list of episodes, so you do a mod 4 on that list and can figure it out, but come on. Plus, there's an inteview with everyone and the dead pigeon in the water tank--except for Connie Booth. Considering she was one of the two writers, that's a bit of a no-no. Still, the quality is great, so I guess who cares.
Hey, thanks for the price tip. That's half the reason I quoted the Amazon price, to elicit better suggestions.
-
$159 at Amazon
-
That's true about Win32 calls, but that's not as big a problem as it might appear. Especially for business-type apps that don't need exotic hardware access, the VLC wrapps the OS quite nicely. And chances are that someone wrote a component to do what you need, and that this component will show up in Kylix sooner or later. I'm pretty sure many of the Delphi serial port components will be available under Kylix, if they're not already. The socket components already are.
The biggest argument against Kylix would be that it compiles only x86 executables. Rumors are that other platforms will be supported in the future (esp. MacOS X), but Borland doesn't comment on rumors. If however x86 Linux is all you need, you should very seriously consider Delphi/Kylix.
-
> A serial bus used for products like mice and modems won't even touch the throughput on a
> FireWire drive.
While I agree with your opinion, you have to be careful with that statement. Both busses are serial, and both can be used for "mice and modems". The fact that there are no 1394 mice has more to do with the (lack of) availability of ultra-cheap chipsets than with its poor suitability for that task. In fact, if anything, USB should be commended for incorporating a low-speed mode that can be bit banged by micros, while still allowing high-speed devices on the same bus. The fact that USB 1.x was 12Mb has more to do with it being designed for a price point, rather than with inherent problems in the USB protocol or topology. I like both USB and Firewire, they're both very elegant technologies that are helping us eliminate the mess that was before. Just because their respective corporate parents are squabbling doesn't mean we as consumers shouldn't love both.
but if its real purpose is spying, would they really let on about its true bandwidth capabilities? Methinks not.
AOL-Time-Warner-Microsoft, a.k.a. The Company.
> I don't know what model Amiga you had, but if you define decent as "sounding like a robot that
> forgot what intonation was but could alter its voice half an octave to simulate slight masculine
> or slight feminine undertones" then I'll agree with you.
Well, that was if you fed text to the translation device, which did its best to generate the required phonetic output--also in ASCII--that was fed to the speak device. This translation could be pretty rough, and could be much improved upon if you generated your own raw phonetic output. You could smooth out, lengthen, shorten, or intonate individual phonemes that way, making the output sound much better. Basically, the translation device needed a good rewrite.
> Contradiction here?
.Net and mono are not language dependent.
Explain.
>
Where was that implied?
I'm not saying the Borland products are without warts, but they should be kept in perspective. Regarding g++, it seems Borland currently has the best C++ compiler on (x86) Linux. I think even the OS community hasn't found much to knock about it except the fact that it comes from a for-profit company.
That's funny in a way. KDevelop is trying hard to emulate Visual Studio, which itself has done its damndest to incorporate any Delphi features it could pilfer (esp. ever since Heijlsberg got on-board), while also introducing a slew of new languages and a new component model. Yet Delphi is still considered the black sheep, because it uses Object Pascal. Well, happy C# coding--never mind that it's a veritable semantic OP clone.