Java can specifiy standards for GUI, et cetera, because it only runs on one platform, the Sun-certified JVM of your choice. Doing the same for C++ would require a standard operating system and architecture. Hey, let's start an OS flame war...:-)
C++ could possibly include standard libraries for threading, but that would require too much cooperation between competing OS vendors, would require a shite-load of work, and in the end the hackers would end up using faster OS-native schemes anyway. They could also possibly add some standard ODBC stuff, but since ADO is now preferable on Microsoft platforms, it might not be worth the effort.
Lack of a standard C++ distributed object model sucks. Really bad. But to add something WRT that to the standard, they'd have to design their own, to avoid showing bias towards a vendor. So we'll continue to use CORBA on UNIX and DCOM on NT.
I feel that the committee needs to reevaluate its scope before going forward. If they add too much to the standard library, C++ will end up being just like Java, in that everyone always does things the same way, and that the control of entire industries will be in the hands of a single group of people. Some would see that as a good thing, but not me.
Windows is the "standard" operating system for most people, but on Slashdot, the use of alternative systems is encouraged. I feel this is a good thing because it adds variety and a Darwinian heterogeneity to life. It doesn't make developer's lives any easier -- do you think game developers are happy about the prospect that in the future they'll have to write for Linux in addition to Windows? The only solution is a standard cross-platform solution (why, I think Sun has one!), which puts us at the mercy of either a Evil Bad Corporation or a stagnant standards body.
Which is best? Freedom, choice, and the endless complexity associated with it? Or bondage, lack of choice, and the ability to relax and not worry? C++ has always seemed to be about the former -- it's not simple, but it lets you do whatever the hell you want. The latter is the domain of proprietary corporate languages such as Delphi, VB, and Java. There's not necessarily anything wrong with either camp, but I think that it's too late in the game for C++ to change direction.
Thanks for posting those links. I've about to evaluate some C++ auto-documentation software, and I'm definitely going to check those out.
I've often thought, however, that it would be really great to have a direct C++ port of Javadoc. I use Java as much as I use C++, and I've really come to like Javadoc.
Javadoc-umentation tends to be more accurate, because since the documentation is in the source code, programmers have less of an excuse to make undocumented source changes.
Javadoc shows you sub- and superclasses automatically, which makes both development and maintainence of others' code much faster.
Finally, it creates shiny PHB-friendly webpages for your department intranet with no extra work.:-)
I've heard that Javadoc can actually be coaxed to work with C++ code, but I've yet to play with this.
The latest issue of CUJ has an very interesting comparison of the standards-conformance of popular C++ compilers and libraries. Microsoft actually scored pretty high, which isn't bad considering that their compiler's base is three years old. VC++.net should solve most of these problems, while introducing twice as many more, no doubt.:-)
Wow, cool. This is an imporant first step for Linux: being finally recognized by someone -- anyone -- as a viable OS. Now don't get your hopes up... they didn't recognize it as a particularly good or useful system, but Linux has to start small if it ever wants to attain the level of mediocrity acheived by such successful open-source operating systems as NetBSD and Minix. Perhaps -- yes, perhaps! -- one day Linux will even be used by people who know what they're doing. But until that day, you must remain grateful for such small praise as this.
and I'll say it again: games, games, games. The GameCube will fail for many reasons, but the Number One reason is games. All of the big developers from the good ole' days -- Konami, Capcom, and especially SquareSoft -- have long since jumped ship for a superior platform, the Sony platform. Building upon their PSX megahits, those three companies are thriving and have already anchored themselves in PS2-land. Observe FF-anything, Onimusha Warlords, and the awe-inspiring, yet-to-be-released MGS2.
Another reason that the GameCube will fail is the decline of the N64, which suffered from an outmoded media format (Why did Nintendo stick with the cartridge? The PSX, Jaguar, Saturn and others had already moved on to CD-ROM. Nintendo gambled and lost.) and lack of consistently good games. Nintendo shifted their focus to the Pokemon/GameBoy craze, and will never recover their console market. The decline of the N64 led to something even more important -- the decline of their household name. When I was growing up in the 80s, Nintendo was so popular and well-known that "Nintendo" was used to generically describe all gaming systems. (Like "Kleenex".) Today, Nintendo doesn't even enter the mind of serious gamers, who are mired in their PS2s, DCs, and tricked-out PCs. Nintendo is making a lot of money off that yellow rat, but no one is thinking "Nintendo" when buying Pokemon merchandise.
The PS2 is huge. Those not enthralled with the PS2 will likely buy Xboxen when (if) they are released this winter. If Nintendo can't be shipping the GameCube by Spring 2002, all hope will be lost, for they will have fallen into the dreaded "lull" between console generations, when gamers who have just bought a PS2 or Xbox are unable to justify a new system. Nintendo can't afford to wait until the end of the lull (probably mid-2003), because by then their name will be all but unknown to the current generation of young gamers, all developers will be firmly seated in the Sony or MS camps, et cetera. There are just so many reasons why Nintendo is doomed, and they can blame it all on the yellow rat. Nintendo has been talking about the GameCube in different forms for probably five years at least... it's just too late to matter.
This "lull" deserves more discussion. For years, Sega and Nintendo had competing systems of the same "generation", at least in the eyes of we young'ins. The NES and SMS; Super NES and Genesis; N64 and Saturn. The Saturn failed miserably but by then the PSX had started to take off, and Sony replaced Sega as Nintendo's nemesis. These were three easily definable "generations" of consoles, and the lull in between, while not barren of sales, lacked the initial hype associated with a product launch. The generations are less easily definable these days, but the PS2, Xbox, and now-defunct DC will for our intents and purposes be competing systems. For the GameCube to enter into this rough market where everyone else has a head start, they would have to have amazing next-generation tech to get attention. I seriously doubt that Nintendo has the engineering clout to produce a system superior to both the Xbox and the PS2 these days.
Please, stop being intentionally stupid about WindowsNT,
Please, stop being intentionally resistant to New Technology.
it has never been, and never will be, considered a serious alternative to Unix in the enterprise level.
That's just what the mainframe and Vax users used to say about UNIX. UNIX has been around for thirty years; NT hasn't even been around for ten. Don't write it off just yet.
Sorry, perhaps I should back up my argument a bit. AOL makes money off of AIM with ad placement, and if AOL can't guarantee that users have the official ad-enabled client, they can't sell ads. But regardless, it's their service and they can do what they want. I'm so tired of the attitude around here, "Rights apply only to OSS, force all non-OSS to share." Next you're going to be suggesting that we put all non-OSS in camps...
Exactly -- socialism is the dream, and communism is the reality. A true Marxist (socialist) state has never existed... instead, terrorists use Marx's ideals to obtain support, and then follow in Lenin's footsteps. As in "The whole 'military government' thing is only temporary until we get the nation under control, then we'll work on being socialist afterwards" and the "afterwards" never happens. Socialism will never work because it is unnatural; it goes against human nature. Once a man has power he will not give it up so easily.
With regards to China, I find it rather amusing that even after all these years, they still cling to the old faux-Marxist terminology. The hotdog fighter pilot was given the title of "Revolutionary Martyr!" Communists don't seem to understand that once you attain power, you are no longer revolutionary, you are the status quo! You're the establishment now! The left and the right switch sides, and the game begins anew. The most "revolutionary" thing the old men who run the PRC have done lately is evacuate their bowels.
True, the West doesn't respect China, and that isn't going to change any time soon. The PRC won't last another fifty years, though, and maybe the new establishment will do better.
My thoughts exactly... Compaq killed NT Alpha in late 1999, but it definitely was cool. (Even though most UNIX guys choose to ignore its existence, because the thought of an object-oriented OS with a decent GUI running on Real Computers gives them cold sweats.) It was a testament to the fact that Redmond had overcome its DOS roots (Or so we thought -- I don't understand how Redmond can live with itself after selling 95, 98, and now ME. Well, I guess the billions of dollars help.) and was capable of producing a portable OS -- an OS that, I might add, would be running on PPC and SPARC if it weren't for the RISC/UNIX Conspiracy Factor. (McNeally keeps the NT/SPARC license under his pillow, and dry-humps it, giddily, when he's in the mood... for love.)
So while NT won't replace UNIX anytime soon, companies everywhere are discovering what the RISC/UNIX Conspiracy doesn't want you to know: it may take several dozen NT/IA boxes to equal the power of one enterprise-level UNIX/RISC box, but the Intel hardware is so fucking cheap that you end up saving money anyway. Even when you add Microsoft Hidden Costs ("$800 per server license? Are you out of your Vulcan mind, Spock?"), you pay less. And because IA is IA, you'll pay thousands of dollars for memory upgrades, as opposed for hundreds of thousands. (Last week I was watching our IT guys add some RS/6000 boxes to our cluster, and they let me hold $400k -- holy shit, $400k -- worth of RAM. It's a funny feeling, realizing that you could run for the door, sell the RAM, and buy a house with the profit.)
Anyhoo, I think that the NetBSD freaks should stop trying to port to dying architectures and instead implement SMP on a certain lamer NetBSD-ripoff, whose lack of SMP is the only thing keeping it from attaining a level of mediocrity comparable to say, Cheese-Wiz. But hey, these are the guys that port software to fucking toasters for the hell of it, so we can't expact them to contribute anything valuable to the world.
Okay, here's a mildly interesting piece of Slashdot history. Slashdot once (about a year and a half ago, I think) had one of their "interview" question-gathering articles for a lamer "web designer" named Linda Weinman. And I'm not just being a troll, she was really lame, her so-called websites were awful combinations of broken HTML and Macromedia Madness. Myself and several others who believe in W3C standards and the non-proliferation of Flash proceeded to flame her into oblivion, and it was so effective that Slashdot never even sent her the "questions" that were gathered, because the highest-modded posts were all aggressive insults. That was amusing.
If you're looking for entertainment of a different strain, try crapflooding my ring of 3l337 Geocites Slashdot-related wepages:
The latter is from before Hemos' wedding, which is a testament to how long porn can go undiscovered on GeoShitties. I encourage all to make their own anti-Slashdot webpages on GeoCities and send the URLs to the official Crapflooder mailing list for appropriate dispersal.
One thing I respect IBM for is their _ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC_ linux JDK 1.3.
I am a fan of IBM's software, actually, so don't get me wrong. I just don't like this astroturfing, which doesn't suit them at all. Also, while their JDK is decent, their JVM is complete shite. I'm also not impressed with their JDK 1.3 for AIX, which uses a completely non-standard setup that breaks a lot of JDK-enabled servers, et cetera. (For instance, JAVA_HOME/bin/javac should be the Java compiler. But IBM's JDK1.3 for AIX requires you to run JAVA_HOME/sh/javac, which is a shell script that loads several libraries and then calls the former. When some of my application servers try to run the former to compile JSPs, and fail because of the unloaded libraries. No other JDK vendor does this, and it is STUPID and BAD.) But stop trying to change the subject.
Jbuilder 4 is hosted on IBM jdk. Not just for LInux but in Windows & Solaris too!
IBM doesn't make a JDK for Solaris, retard. God, is this whole reply of yours just a troll? Anyhoo, I have JBuilder 4 Enterprise on this workstation. Let's go into "c:\jbuilder4\jdk1.3" and have a look around. Nope, the README says this is Sun's JDK and so does the -version argument of the compiler. Oooh, busted. Stop trying to change the subject.
On the side note, you have a 'billgates@evilmail.com' public email and have a link to SUN site?
Yes, I do. I find the email amusing for the same reason I find the Gates/pie movie amusing, even though I use many Microsoft products. I have a link to the Sun site because Solaris is my favorite UNIX implementation.
SUN is equally (if no more) evil as MS.
I happen to think they're all equally evil, and that's just because all companies are. However, this article is about IBM astroturfing. Don't change the subject.
Out of ten possible troll points, I give this article a three. Next time, perhaps use facts which aren't so obviously bogus.
Ok folks, once again: RMS is NOT against capitalism. He's NOT against people making money from software.
Yes he is, in my mind. He's against the sale of shrinkwrap binaries, which is how software companies (defined as "companies that make money making software" as in Microsoft, Oracle, innumerable others) make money. RMS has stated that in his future, programmers will make their living doing custodial non-development, tech support, et cetera. That's not the kind of world I want to program in, sorry.
I supposed that IBM always counted on the fact that most Linux users are newbies who weren't even alive in the 80's, when they were considered more evil and monopolistic than Microsoft is today. They contribute a little bit of code, mention Linux on their website, and all of a sudden they're the good guys?
I'll tell you one thing -- anyone that applauds this can NEVER diss Microsoft for astroturfing again. IBM dresses up a guy in tie-die and a wig, paints banner-ads on the streets, and many of you are now ecstatic about the "grass roots" support IBM is showing for Linux?
But, as always, if you're dumb enough to be fooled than you deserve what's coming to you.
I've never used LinDVD, but I use WinDVD, which is produced by the same company. I've been very impressed with its performance, so much in fact that I ditched by RealMagic MPEG decoder card because WinDVD produces much better results, assuming that your CPU is fast enough. I was plagued with visual "noise" and shaky video with the RealMagic, which are not present in WinDVD. So if LinDVD is based on the same codebase, I expect that the DVD playback quality should be pretty good.
IIRC WinDVD is only $30, so LinDVD should be similar in price. I was unaware that the product had even gone gold... perhaps I should pick up a copy for my Debian laptop.
I'm sure I'll be modded down for siding with a Big Bad Corporation, but isn't Apple required to go after ripoff artists like this to prevent other Big Bad Corporations from stealing their "trademark" (yeah, not really) look and feel for their own profitable software?
Stealing is okay if it's not for profit? Bah.
Or is turnabout always fair play in the GUI world? After all, GNOME stole from Windows stole from MacOS stole from PARC, maybe that's just the way things are supposed to be... but Apple puts a lot of work into its slick UI, and to have some themes lusers rip it off?? That sucks. (And it's called the "Mac Themes Project" for God's sake, they aren't even pretending to not rip Apple off.) You guys always bitch about how everyone should respect Linus's IP by not violating his product's license, why not show the same respect for Apple? Oops, I forgot, IP rights only apply to GPLed material...
I don't believe for one fucking second that you haven't a Windows box somewhere, Jeff. And even if you didn't, Taco does, unless Loki has ported Diablo II and The Sims to GNU/Linux when I wasn't looking.
The only thing worse than a GNU/Linux weenie is a GNU/Linux weenie who pretends that he doesn't use the good ole' Win32 every so often. Taco does this all the time, making the type of comments in one article that you just made ("too bad I can't run this app because I'm a l337 lun1x lu53r! h4w h4w, w1nd0ze 5uck5.") and then talking about how he participates in Windows/Mac activities next ("I just love watching crappy anime DVDs and playing the hottest new games on my PC!"). LOL...
This site would be so much better if you would drop the fassad, drop the Gates/Borg icon, and drop the anti-Microsoft bullshit. Slashdot has never had a very pro-Microsoft attitude, but in the past year it's just become a place to flame Microsoft and four-letter gov't media organizations.
One could write a web server that used separate threads versus new processes . . . globalization/unicode support . . . development cycle time/tools
Java, Java, Java. Servlets, JSP, and EJBs, running on application servers from BEA, Allaire, and iPlanet, running on Solaris, AIX, and NT. Oh, but wait, we're talking about Microsoft here... they aren't allowed to sell Java anymore, so there's no way they'll advertise for it by using it on Hotmail.
.NET (the application platform, not the privacy invasion) sounds very interesting, and I feel that it would allow Hotmail to be migrated completely to NT, as opposed to their current "NT migration" (migrating the presentation server to NT for Netcraft's sake and letting FreeBSD keep on running the backend). But it won't happen, because of the hardware:
.NET on NT5 would be really awesome if it ran on the kind of hardcore RISC systems that IBM, HP, and Sun make, but their pussy^H^H^H^H^Hunimpressive x86 boxes won't be able to do much. FreeBSD is workable on x86 because it isn't technically featureful; NT has an integreated GUI, distributed object model, et cetera, et cetera. The end result is that if they migrate completely to NT they'll need four times as much hardware -- not that monetary resources are a problem for the Redmond boys.
But hey, Microsoft doesn't need to totally migrate. They run much more UNIX than they admit to, but it's all on the inside so no one but their select admin drones know. Now that the presentation is migrated and every schmoe who can type "netcraft.com" is under the impression that NT5 on Intel is an "enterprise class" system, they won't make unnecessary work for themselves.
Just because Sun hasn't burned their old marketing material doesn't mean you shouldn't change your sig. The dotcom root server has been running RS/6000 for over a year now. I'm a Sun guy myself, but IMNSHO if they had spent less money on marketing and more on hardware development, perhaps the UltraSPARC III boxes would've been out earlier and they wouldn't be getting burned by Big Blue. My employer has spent the last year migrating from Sun to IBM, so this issue hits close to home.
I would guess at that stage of the cold war, they wouldnt exactly be advertising failures.
I don't see why not, if the proper spin were applied. As in: "in addition the atomic bomb, the Russians now have a top-secret 'spacekiller' device! Details are sketchy, but rumour has it that no man they've tested it on has lived to tell the tale..." So in addition to growing up terrified of dying in an atomic inferno, KoldwarKids would also have had to fear being sent into space by the Russians.
That's right -- Slashdot is now so incredibly lame that even the trolls are migrating elsewhere. (You know how preppies tie sweaters around their necks? Slashdot is even lamer than that!)
The next logical question is, why are you still here?
Slashdot Mirror
C++ could possibly include standard libraries for threading, but that would require too much cooperation between competing OS vendors, would require a shite-load of work, and in the end the hackers would end up using faster OS-native schemes anyway. They could also possibly add some standard ODBC stuff, but since ADO is now preferable on Microsoft platforms, it might not be worth the effort.
Lack of a standard C++ distributed object model sucks. Really bad. But to add something WRT that to the standard, they'd have to design their own, to avoid showing bias towards a vendor. So we'll continue to use CORBA on UNIX and DCOM on NT.
I feel that the committee needs to reevaluate its scope before going forward. If they add too much to the standard library, C++ will end up being just like Java, in that everyone always does things the same way, and that the control of entire industries will be in the hands of a single group of people. Some would see that as a good thing, but not me.
Windows is the "standard" operating system for most people, but on Slashdot, the use of alternative systems is encouraged. I feel this is a good thing because it adds variety and a Darwinian heterogeneity to life. It doesn't make developer's lives any easier -- do you think game developers are happy about the prospect that in the future they'll have to write for Linux in addition to Windows? The only solution is a standard cross-platform solution (why, I think Sun has one!), which puts us at the mercy of either a Evil Bad Corporation or a stagnant standards body.
Which is best? Freedom, choice, and the endless complexity associated with it? Or bondage, lack of choice, and the ability to relax and not worry? C++ has always seemed to be about the former -- it's not simple, but it lets you do whatever the hell you want. The latter is the domain of proprietary corporate languages such as Delphi, VB, and Java. There's not necessarily anything wrong with either camp, but I think that it's too late in the game for C++ to change direction.
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I've often thought, however, that it would be really great to have a direct C++ port of Javadoc. I use Java as much as I use C++, and I've really come to like Javadoc.
- Javadoc-umentation tends to be more accurate, because since the documentation is in the source code, programmers have less of an excuse to make undocumented source changes.
- Javadoc shows you sub- and superclasses automatically, which makes both development and maintainence of others' code much faster.
- Finally, it creates shiny PHB-friendly webpages for your department intranet with no extra work.
:-)
I've heard that Javadoc can actually be coaxed to work with C++ code, but I've yet to play with this.--
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If you had trouble understanding that, let me run the sentence though Altavista's TacoFish:
English to Malda:
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Amen.
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Another reason that the GameCube will fail is the decline of the N64, which suffered from an outmoded media format (Why did Nintendo stick with the cartridge? The PSX, Jaguar, Saturn and others had already moved on to CD-ROM. Nintendo gambled and lost.) and lack of consistently good games. Nintendo shifted their focus to the Pokemon/GameBoy craze, and will never recover their console market. The decline of the N64 led to something even more important -- the decline of their household name. When I was growing up in the 80s, Nintendo was so popular and well-known that "Nintendo" was used to generically describe all gaming systems. (Like "Kleenex".) Today, Nintendo doesn't even enter the mind of serious gamers, who are mired in their PS2s, DCs, and tricked-out PCs. Nintendo is making a lot of money off that yellow rat, but no one is thinking "Nintendo" when buying Pokemon merchandise.
The PS2 is huge. Those not enthralled with the PS2 will likely buy Xboxen when (if) they are released this winter. If Nintendo can't be shipping the GameCube by Spring 2002, all hope will be lost, for they will have fallen into the dreaded "lull" between console generations, when gamers who have just bought a PS2 or Xbox are unable to justify a new system. Nintendo can't afford to wait until the end of the lull (probably mid-2003), because by then their name will be all but unknown to the current generation of young gamers, all developers will be firmly seated in the Sony or MS camps, et cetera. There are just so many reasons why Nintendo is doomed, and they can blame it all on the yellow rat. Nintendo has been talking about the GameCube in different forms for probably five years at least... it's just too late to matter.
This "lull" deserves more discussion. For years, Sega and Nintendo had competing systems of the same "generation", at least in the eyes of we young'ins. The NES and SMS; Super NES and Genesis; N64 and Saturn. The Saturn failed miserably but by then the PSX had started to take off, and Sony replaced Sega as Nintendo's nemesis. These were three easily definable "generations" of consoles, and the lull in between, while not barren of sales, lacked the initial hype associated with a product launch. The generations are less easily definable these days, but the PS2, Xbox, and now-defunct DC will for our intents and purposes be competing systems. For the GameCube to enter into this rough market where everyone else has a head start, they would have to have amazing next-generation tech to get attention. I seriously doubt that Nintendo has the engineering clout to produce a system superior to both the Xbox and the PS2 these days.
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With regards to China, I find it rather amusing that even after all these years, they still cling to the old faux-Marxist terminology. The hotdog fighter pilot was given the title of "Revolutionary Martyr!" Communists don't seem to understand that once you attain power, you are no longer revolutionary, you are the status quo! You're the establishment now! The left and the right switch sides, and the game begins anew. The most "revolutionary" thing the old men who run the PRC have done lately is evacuate their bowels.
True, the West doesn't respect China, and that isn't going to change any time soon. The PRC won't last another fifty years, though, and maybe the new establishment will do better.
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So while NT won't replace UNIX anytime soon, companies everywhere are discovering what the RISC/UNIX Conspiracy doesn't want you to know: it may take several dozen NT/IA boxes to equal the power of one enterprise-level UNIX/RISC box, but the Intel hardware is so fucking cheap that you end up saving money anyway. Even when you add Microsoft Hidden Costs ("$800 per server license? Are you out of your Vulcan mind, Spock?"), you pay less. And because IA is IA, you'll pay thousands of dollars for memory upgrades, as opposed for hundreds of thousands. (Last week I was watching our IT guys add some RS/6000 boxes to our cluster, and they let me hold $400k -- holy shit, $400k -- worth of RAM. It's a funny feeling, realizing that you could run for the door, sell the RAM, and buy a house with the profit.)
Anyhoo, I think that the NetBSD freaks should stop trying to port to dying architectures and instead implement SMP on a certain lamer NetBSD-ripoff, whose lack of SMP is the only thing keeping it from attaining a level of mediocrity comparable to say, Cheese-Wiz. But hey, these are the guys that port software to fucking toasters for the hell of it, so we can't expact them to contribute anything valuable to the world.
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If you're looking for entertainment of a different strain, try crapflooding my ring of 3l337 Geocites Slashdot-related wepages:
The latter is from before Hemos' wedding, which is a testament to how long porn can go undiscovered on GeoShitties. I encourage all to make their own anti-Slashdot webpages on GeoCities and send the URLs to the official Crapflooder mailing list for appropriate dispersal.--
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Out of ten possible troll points, I give this article a three. Next time, perhaps use facts which aren't so obviously bogus.
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I'll tell you one thing -- anyone that applauds this can NEVER diss Microsoft for astroturfing again. IBM dresses up a guy in tie-die and a wig, paints banner-ads on the streets, and many of you are now ecstatic about the "grass roots" support IBM is showing for Linux?
But, as always, if you're dumb enough to be fooled than you deserve what's coming to you.
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IIRC WinDVD is only $30, so LinDVD should be similar in price. I was unaware that the product had even gone gold... perhaps I should pick up a copy for my Debian laptop.
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Stealing is okay if it's not for profit? Bah.
Or is turnabout always fair play in the GUI world? After all, GNOME stole from Windows stole from MacOS stole from PARC, maybe that's just the way things are supposed to be... but Apple puts a lot of work into its slick UI, and to have some themes lusers rip it off?? That sucks. (And it's called the "Mac Themes Project" for God's sake, they aren't even pretending to not rip Apple off.) You guys always bitch about how everyone should respect Linus's IP by not violating his product's license, why not show the same respect for Apple? Oops, I forgot, IP rights only apply to GPLed material...
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The only thing worse than a GNU/Linux weenie is a GNU/Linux weenie who pretends that he doesn't use the good ole' Win32 every so often. Taco does this all the time, making the type of comments in one article that you just made ("too bad I can't run this app because I'm a l337 lun1x lu53r! h4w h4w, w1nd0ze 5uck5.") and then talking about how he participates in Windows/Mac activities next ("I just love watching crappy anime DVDs and playing the hottest new games on my PC!"). LOL...
This site would be so much better if you would drop the fassad, drop the Gates/Borg icon, and drop the anti-Microsoft bullshit. Slashdot has never had a very pro-Microsoft attitude, but in the past year it's just become a place to flame Microsoft and four-letter gov't media organizations.
Remember, kids, Windows: 17 0wn5 j00!
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.NET (the application platform, not the privacy invasion) sounds very interesting, and I feel that it would allow Hotmail to be migrated completely to NT, as opposed to their current "NT migration" (migrating the presentation server to NT for Netcraft's sake and letting FreeBSD keep on running the backend). But it won't happen, because of the hardware:
.NET on NT5 would be really awesome if it ran on the kind of hardcore RISC systems that IBM, HP, and Sun make, but their pussy^H^H^H^H^Hunimpressive x86 boxes won't be able to do much. FreeBSD is workable on x86 because it isn't technically featureful; NT has an integreated GUI, distributed object model, et cetera, et cetera. The end result is that if they migrate completely to NT they'll need four times as much hardware -- not that monetary resources are a problem for the Redmond boys.
But hey, Microsoft doesn't need to totally migrate. They run much more UNIX than they admit to, but it's all on the inside so no one but their select admin drones know. Now that the presentation is migrated and every schmoe who can type "netcraft.com" is under the impression that NT5 on Intel is an "enterprise class" system, they won't make unnecessary work for themselves.
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The next logical question is, why are you still here?
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