My point is not that Smart Clothes are stupid, it's that the designs of most of the one featured in the article look horrendous (like the small-bubble). I wasn't griping about the functionality, but the look! Read more carefully next time.
Like most fashion shows, one has to ask: "Who in the hell would wear this stuff?!"
With the exception of the stylish and practical Burton Amp jacket (also mentioned on/. some time back), the rest of the stuff is gaudy at best. I'll stick with my low-tech jeans and T-shirts for now, thank you.
Do you have any idea what you're talking about? IE has supported the standards since 4.0+, and while Mozilla and IE don't always agree on presentation, they both have their "extensions". IE does a great job with behaviors and HTML+TIME, while Mozilla has many extensions for incorporating new CSS extensions for both standard HTML and XUL. Face the fact - every organization extends standards when they can because of special needs.
At least they were able to keep COM as the method of creating plug-ins. With Microsoft so invested in COM and, as such, most other companies writing for the MS platform, this was my biggest concern. It has come along way in years, and the interfaces required of ActiveX controls - as well as more secure sandboxing - are pushing the ActiveX guidelines to help developers write more secure code. It would've been a waste to have to drop it all, not to mention millions or billions in re-development costs.
Any developer (platform- or web-based) should put EOLAS at the top of their sh*t list! Drop the MS propaganda for a while and help fight back. As so many people are concerned, how will this affect Mozilla, Konqueror, Opera, etc.? Let's not find out.
As much as I like(d) Farscape, the upper-left design isn't new. It's actually been around a while, as well as a few variants (like the exact same thing with the wings not turned up). Some designs were bigger - presummably to hold far more cargo - and some were smaller - designed only to carry a few more people than currently possible.
With new pressure on NASA, news ideas are cropping up about using the old Saturn Vs or new variants to carry only cargo and then to taxi people into space using some of the designs here. It may be safer, but will it cost less? Taking a New York taxi a single mile is expensive enough! Imagine the fare on this taxi (and their "luggage" going in a separate one).
Oh, not this one again! Maybe if these record execs wouldn't take such a huge profit off sales, the 1 out of 10000 or so (probably bigger) won't have to eat at a 2 star and go to a 3 or 4 star.
Sheesh, starving? I mean, really. Compare the ratio of starving artists to starving normal people. I'd bet you anything regular people are going hungry around the world at a higher percentage than artists.
In addition, maybe if artists were creative (read, true artists) and came up with their own stuff, they wouldn't be "starving"! (?)
Don't kid yourself, there are plenty of others out there just like them who would like nothing more than to make the so called 'security community' an exclusive club open only to corporate types who see things their way.
So, I guess the MS.Blaster worm was only propagated by corporate - and most often firewalled - networks? It wasn't caused by the vast numbers of broadband customers with entirely open computers on countless networks? Hmm.
The remarks that this statement targets (it was a statement made against Symantec) are uderly rediculous. The way to get things done is not to remain hush hush. NTBugTraq often forced Microsoft (et. al.)'s hand to fix a bug that was proven in concept but, perhaps, not yet exploited. It was only a matter of time before the hole would be exploited. If Symantec is turning their efforts of keeping machines "safe" to the "corporate machine", they aren't getting my or my company's business anymore. We need someone that will push to get bugs fixed and viri stopped at all costs - even if it means putting pressure on the publisher.
Besides, almost any post-back news site and development community on the 'net would be liable if such a law was passed. My email address is obtainable from this site and many others (SPAM-proofing aside, which isn't always hard to break if the crawlers look for common patterns). They're sharing my email address and, perhaps, other information.
If it's community backlash they're merely trying to avoid, then it's community backlash they deserve.
On a morning when I'm receiving the latest windows virus in my inbox every five minutes I feel very comfortable with this.
I doubt very much that Outlook or any email app will be installed in an ATM. Be realistic here.
Besides, based on other posts and what I've even seen personally, many ATMs have problems from time to time. At a Wells Fargo bank some time ago, I say OS/2 Warp booting up after the 3270 emulator crapped out and forced a reboot - right there in front of me.
C# is NOT what's being tested
on
Does C# Measure Up?
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
When are people going to learn that languages that target the Common Language Runtime (CLR, only part of the.NET Framework) compile to the same thing (Intermediate Language - IL)? C# is not being tested here. The C# compiler optionally optimized and compiles source code into IL which is later JIT'd and executed. Because of this, it's the CLR and the base class library (BCL) that are being tested.
This could just as easily been done with VB.NET (not that I condone anything resembling VB) or J#, although MC++ is a different monster because it can (but doesn't have to) use native code in mixed mode and, thus, is not verifiable).
The only differences besides language syntax is the specific language compiler and the optimizations it makes. The C# compiler does - as far as I've tested - a better job of optimizing. The VB.NET compiler, for instance, automatically adds an extra local var to support the syntax FunctionName = ReturnValue whether or not you use it!
So, let's get the facts straight. C# is not being tested here. The.NET CLR and BCL are.
There's nothing stopping you from modifying your XBox. You're right, it is yours - f' it up if you want.
However, when you connect to their XBox Live! service, you're on their turf now. Why is it so hard to understand that they don't want you screwing up their systems (those running XBox Live! servers), for whatever reasons (cheating or to protect their ownership). You can mod your automobile after you buy it, but you void your warranty because they can't support your mods since who knows what you did to your car. Why is this any different?
It's different because it's MS, right? You typical/.'ers are so full of anti-Microsoft propaganda that you don't even think for yourselves anymore. Immediately it's just "M$ is evil!". If PS/2 or GameCube did this, I'm sure you'd have no problem with it.
So, get over it! It's their service and they have a right to dictate what can access it. It's no different than any other business that knows how to make money, so don't be surprised!
This pretty interesting and his example drawings did look like they offered a fascinating view. My only question is if we people could handle it.
Take Fox's "24" for example. I don't know if they were the first, but I saw it there first so please excuse me if credit seems to be going to them.
Every so often, they'll show several frames of different perspectives at once - but each in its own box/frame (like a pictures frame). On occasion, especially when not too much is happening, it's not hard to watch them all. When something really starts happening, they focus on that particular frame and continue. If they were to do that through the whole show, I would think it would be too much to take in and you would miss things.
Now add this cubism approach. The frames are no longer isolated but morphed together. Looking at a single pictures like on his site still takes a little time to determine what exactly you're looking at. Adding motion would most likely complicate that. If that were done through the whole movie, I would think you would most definitely miss things...and would probably need a large bottle of asperin afterward.
Even take peripheral vision. Unless someone is purposefully trying not to look at something off in the "corner of their eye", the observant person will notice something in their peripheral vision and turn to it. This may not be the best example of how people like to focus on things, but it does add to the question...
That question being, like my subjects asks, can we people handle such imagery? What does the/. community think?
In the article, spokesperson Weiss (who cares if I spelled the demon's name wrong) claims that they didn't know the girl's age because they don't have private information on their victims (he didn't use word "victims", obviously).
So, we're obviously not people to them but mere money bags, and it's not like they don't have any money!
Anyone seen the MPAA commercial with the freeky looking set painter? He stated that millions of US$$$ lost isn't much to the executives, but to someone like him. If that is pocket change to them, then they have WAY TOO MUCH F***in' money! The RIAA - being of the same evil *AA nature - is no different. Artists get crap from CD sales - only the executives truly prosper.
This is an outrage, and any government that allows it is just as corrupt. But we already knew that not a single congressperson had good moral ethics.
Hopefully this tradgedy meets with heavy opposition. I know the government doesn't really care, but perhaps it'll force their hand because everyone is starting to take notice and will soon start pointing fingers at the government that allows this kind of terror. Besides, didn't Bush say that all terrorists would be killed or imprisoned the other night? Isn't the *AA's terrorizing the US citizens. Hey, there's something to consider.
I'm speaking from experience, too, and I can assure you that you don't have to buy MSDN. VS.NET, for example (and VS6 and 5, too) comes with all the MSDN documentation regarding the product and the technologies / languages it uses at that point. This documentation is exactly the same as their web site (topics, layout, style) so it's easy to find what you need if you don't want to stay up-to-date with the MSDN Library.
And while you think OSS documentation is better, and the help system that indexes and views them is better, than we have a disagreement of opinion. I prefer Help2 over any help system on any platform I've seen. Having developed collections and help topics (being one of the developers for NDoc and all), it offers a lot of significant gains. That's just my opinion, although I know that doesn't mean anything here on/. unless you opinion favors *nix.
I have - quite a bit - and they are much easier to use, offer better integration and cross-language development (even without using the.NET Framework), and provide a much better help system than anything I've ever used on *nix (all the way from gcc/make to kdevelop). But what do you expect when Microsoft uses COM throughout every facit of their programming when *nix is a hodge-podge of proprietary APIs (besides the standard POSIX stuff) written by people who are bored and have nothing better to do than write free software all the time?
In the real world - where companies make money - time to develop in-house applications is greatly affected by your development tools, documentation system, and training. MS dev tools support far-better RAD (if used, but support good code as well since it's all based on the developers, people, not the tool or a faceless corporation) than anything on *nix and most of the information you need is in one integrated place - not hundreds of man pages googling for information across the endless user sites.
It would be great if it worked that way. Unfortunately, the US government is too deep in bed with large companies that give them a lot of money (and yet taxes keep going up!) to "sway" their campaigns. Unfortunately, the gov't is far too corrupt: greedy and power-hungry.
How does it change? By voting incumbants out of office. Hopefully a few fresh changes of the various branches will help things.
Ooh, so now we're down to name calling. Very mature.
So you can't modify their binaries. Get real! It's their program - they wrote it - and not yours. In the real world, companies that want to make money write software for people to buy. I know that's a different concept to OSS, but it's how legit companies make money.
Besides, there's plenty of ways to add value to MS products without binary changes, something else new to most OSS packages I've used. You have plenty of late-bound scripting and compiled environments to choose from, and changing the binaries isn't necessary. Those modifications you CAN redistribute and are encouraged to do so (yes, to get more companies to buy licenses...again, it's that whole money-making scheme).
Older versions usually CAN edit new files with basic editing. The compound document structure is quite a forward-compatible format, unlike what I've seen from OO (and yes, I have used it - and StarOffice versions). As long as the document don't contain new embedded objects that older versions don't know about (i.e., stick with "basic" formatting, which is all most people know anyway), older Office apps work fine. I can still open Word XP documents in Word 97 so long as I don't use new features in XP (and I usually don't need to; styles, tabs, and basic tables are really about all I need).
So you're expecting every document format to be 100% forward-compatible?! Get real. Office has done a lot better job with forward-compatibility than any other package on any platform I've seen. Their compound document structure makes it easy - but there's always things that will exist in the future because of advancements that older versions won't understand. It happens to every application on every platform eventually. Period.
No, I didn't miss the point - I didn't even read the article. I was responding to someone complaint about how Microsoft "always" changes their format, when in fact their applications are pretty forward-compatible - and that's not easy to accomplish. Technology advances and formats change on any platform. It's how we progress. The compound document structure that Office uses is fairly forward-compatible, but it can't predict every change because no one can predict what the future will hold. Take old versions of Netscape and IE, for example: they had no idea what nested tables or CSS was and so they don't support it.
I do agree with your analogy, though - it does suck. Some companies, though - as we've even seen here on/. - don't license software knowingly, and that is illegal. How much you like free software doesn't matter - if a company requires that you pay for software (otherwise the company has profit problems, and profit is why most companies exist), you better pay it or pay the concequences (and I don't necessarily mean with SCO, which is abusing the system).
As I've been explaining before, no application can be expected to be 100% forward-compatible. Not on any platform - no one can be expected to predict the future and what it provide. Changing formats is part of advancing technology - period. Hell, 95% forward-compatibility isn't too bad - at least MS has tried to make a format system (compound documents, that is) that will stand the test of time, but the applications won't always understand every object that is embedded in the compound document. No application on any platform can claim that they do.
And even if OSS is up-front about format changes, that still doesn't change the fact that they do change it and some times older versions aren't forward compatible - even with simple formatting (or rules, whatever).
I can feel your pain there, but most marketing people I know don't know how to use the advanced features of Office products, and therefore a lot of the formats are compatible with older versions (such as Word, which has been pretty good about compatibility) as long as they don't contained advanced features that older versions don't understand.
And lets face it, updating formats is necessary to advance technology, otherwise advancement becomes stagnent. One example I've been using was actually coerced by another poster, where he mentioned HTML. Take the old Netscape and IE browsers for example: they don't support CSS because they had no idea it existed. The basic HTML is understood, but things like CSS and nested tables were not because they didn't yet exist (and I'm talking about the really old versions, when Mosaic was still cool).
The fact is, the Office formats - especially Word (which I know a lot about from a development perspective), us a compound document and most of the objects that are embedded are the same as they were before. If they are changed, they are changed in such a way that it won't break older versions. New features, however, are new embedded objects and older versions won't understand those (but will understand that they're there). It's a pretty good system, but it is bound to have problems just like any application on any platform when it comes to forward-compatibility. No one can predict the future or account for everything that it will provide.
Yes, you're right, but how often does that happen? If companies aren't upgrading their software, there's probably not going to be much (albeit, some more) upgrading of hardware.
Besides, more corporate networks I'm aware of don't buy such software (such as office productivity suites) on an OEM license - they buy site licenses (or smaller ones buy volume licenses). No ghosting of any kind is needed. Sure, you have to pay for the OS upgrade if the OS was OEM-installed (this is also not always true), but paying for software in the real world is something profitable companies require, and something that corporations buying such products do.
What the hell are you talking about? When did I even mention that office productivity suites save config files? I was merely stating that several *nix projects I've used have changed their formats a couple times and are not backward compatible. You all were bitching that document formats change "all the time", so I was merely stating that your precious config files change too, and no one bitches about that.
As I've said in previous posts - changing formats is practically necessary when technology is advanced. Office has been backward compatible and most of the office formats are even forward-compatible - but no one with an ounce of intelligence can expect any format for any application to be forward-compatible because no one can predict what the future will hold. Heck, older versions of Netscape and IE had no idea that CSS would one day exist, so they don't support it. Get the point, or are you saying that technology should be stagnent?
So what, you're saying that applications should be written to be 100% forward-compatible with future versions and that such future versions shouldn't advance their technology! What the f* are you thinking! Practically every application on every platform is guilty of this at some point - it's just because technology advances.
As one person pointed out in a different derivative thread, OpenOffice 1.0 can't open OpenOffice 1.1 formats - even with basic formatting! Technology advances and older versions of applications can't expect to know what the future holds. Office and practically every other app on every platform has thus far been pretty good about backward-compatibility, either updating the file as it's opened or saved, or leaving it untouched. Office even lets you decide if you want to convert the file or leave it alone. I can't say that for too many other applications I've tried on various platforms.
To be fair, though, every application introduces new technologies at some point, and applications can't be written to be "universally" forward-compatible. It's just a by-product - or perhaps a desired effect - of evolving technology. Your analogy of HTML is a perfect setup - how could've very early Netscape or IE been made to work with CSS is it wasn't even drafted yet?
Slashdot Mirror
My point is not that Smart Clothes are stupid, it's that the designs of most of the one featured in the article look horrendous (like the small-bubble). I wasn't griping about the functionality, but the look! Read more carefully next time.
Like most fashion shows, one has to ask: "Who in the hell would wear this stuff?!"
With the exception of the stylish and practical Burton Amp jacket (also mentioned on /. some time back), the rest of the stuff is gaudy at best. I'll stick with my low-tech jeans and T-shirts for now, thank you.
Do you have any idea what you're talking about? IE has supported the standards since 4.0+, and while Mozilla and IE don't always agree on presentation, they both have their "extensions". IE does a great job with behaviors and HTML+TIME, while Mozilla has many extensions for incorporating new CSS extensions for both standard HTML and XUL. Face the fact - every organization extends standards when they can because of special needs.
At least they were able to keep COM as the method of creating plug-ins. With Microsoft so invested in COM and, as such, most other companies writing for the MS platform, this was my biggest concern. It has come along way in years, and the interfaces required of ActiveX controls - as well as more secure sandboxing - are pushing the ActiveX guidelines to help developers write more secure code. It would've been a waste to have to drop it all, not to mention millions or billions in re-development costs.
Any developer (platform- or web-based) should put EOLAS at the top of their sh*t list! Drop the MS propaganda for a while and help fight back. As so many people are concerned, how will this affect Mozilla, Konqueror, Opera, etc.? Let's not find out.
As much as I like(d) Farscape, the upper-left design isn't new. It's actually been around a while, as well as a few variants (like the exact same thing with the wings not turned up). Some designs were bigger - presummably to hold far more cargo - and some were smaller - designed only to carry a few more people than currently possible.
With new pressure on NASA, news ideas are cropping up about using the old Saturn Vs or new variants to carry only cargo and then to taxi people into space using some of the designs here. It may be safer, but will it cost less? Taking a New York taxi a single mile is expensive enough! Imagine the fare on this taxi (and their "luggage" going in a separate one).
Oh, not this one again! Maybe if these record execs wouldn't take such a huge profit off sales, the 1 out of 10000 or so (probably bigger) won't have to eat at a 2 star and go to a 3 or 4 star.
Sheesh, starving? I mean, really. Compare the ratio of starving artists to starving normal people. I'd bet you anything regular people are going hungry around the world at a higher percentage than artists.
In addition, maybe if artists were creative (read, true artists) and came up with their own stuff, they wouldn't be "starving"! (?)
So, I guess the MS.Blaster worm was only propagated by corporate - and most often firewalled - networks? It wasn't caused by the vast numbers of broadband customers with entirely open computers on countless networks? Hmm.
The remarks that this statement targets (it was a statement made against Symantec) are uderly rediculous. The way to get things done is not to remain hush hush. NTBugTraq often forced Microsoft (et. al.)'s hand to fix a bug that was proven in concept but, perhaps, not yet exploited. It was only a matter of time before the hole would be exploited. If Symantec is turning their efforts of keeping machines "safe" to the "corporate machine", they aren't getting my or my company's business anymore. We need someone that will push to get bugs fixed and viri stopped at all costs - even if it means putting pressure on the publisher.
Besides, almost any post-back news site and development community on the 'net would be liable if such a law was passed. My email address is obtainable from this site and many others (SPAM-proofing aside, which isn't always hard to break if the crawlers look for common patterns). They're sharing my email address and, perhaps, other information.
If it's community backlash they're merely trying to avoid, then it's community backlash they deserve.
I doubt very much that Outlook or any email app will be installed in an ATM. Be realistic here.
Besides, based on other posts and what I've even seen personally, many ATMs have problems from time to time. At a Wells Fargo bank some time ago, I say OS/2 Warp booting up after the 3270 emulator crapped out and forced a reboot - right there in front of me.
When are people going to learn that languages that target the Common Language Runtime (CLR, only part of the .NET Framework) compile to the same thing (Intermediate Language - IL)? C# is not being tested here. The C# compiler optionally optimized and compiles source code into IL which is later JIT'd and executed. Because of this, it's the CLR and the base class library (BCL) that are being tested.
This could just as easily been done with VB.NET (not that I condone anything resembling VB) or J#, although MC++ is a different monster because it can (but doesn't have to) use native code in mixed mode and, thus, is not verifiable).
The only differences besides language syntax is the specific language compiler and the optimizations it makes. The C# compiler does - as far as I've tested - a better job of optimizing. The VB.NET compiler, for instance, automatically adds an extra local var to support the syntax FunctionName = ReturnValue whether or not you use it!
So, let's get the facts straight. C# is not being tested here. The .NET CLR and BCL are.
There's nothing stopping you from modifying your XBox. You're right, it is yours - f' it up if you want.
However, when you connect to their XBox Live! service, you're on their turf now. Why is it so hard to understand that they don't want you screwing up their systems (those running XBox Live! servers), for whatever reasons (cheating or to protect their ownership). You can mod your automobile after you buy it, but you void your warranty because they can't support your mods since who knows what you did to your car. Why is this any different?
It's different because it's MS, right? You typical /.'ers are so full of anti-Microsoft propaganda that you don't even think for yourselves anymore. Immediately it's just "M$ is evil!". If PS/2 or GameCube did this, I'm sure you'd have no problem with it.
So, get over it! It's their service and they have a right to dictate what can access it. It's no different than any other business that knows how to make money, so don't be surprised!
This pretty interesting and his example drawings did look like they offered a fascinating view. My only question is if we people could handle it.
Take Fox's "24" for example. I don't know if they were the first, but I saw it there first so please excuse me if credit seems to be going to them.
Every so often, they'll show several frames of different perspectives at once - but each in its own box/frame (like a pictures frame). On occasion, especially when not too much is happening, it's not hard to watch them all. When something really starts happening, they focus on that particular frame and continue. If they were to do that through the whole show, I would think it would be too much to take in and you would miss things.
Now add this cubism approach. The frames are no longer isolated but morphed together. Looking at a single pictures like on his site still takes a little time to determine what exactly you're looking at. Adding motion would most likely complicate that. If that were done through the whole movie, I would think you would most definitely miss things...and would probably need a large bottle of asperin afterward.
Even take peripheral vision. Unless someone is purposefully trying not to look at something off in the "corner of their eye", the observant person will notice something in their peripheral vision and turn to it. This may not be the best example of how people like to focus on things, but it does add to the question...
That question being, like my subjects asks, can we people handle such imagery? What does the /. community think?
In the article, spokesperson Weiss (who cares if I spelled the demon's name wrong) claims that they didn't know the girl's age because they don't have private information on their victims (he didn't use word "victims", obviously).
So, we're obviously not people to them but mere money bags, and it's not like they don't have any money!
Anyone seen the MPAA commercial with the freeky looking set painter? He stated that millions of US$$$ lost isn't much to the executives, but to someone like him. If that is pocket change to them, then they have WAY TOO MUCH F***in' money! The RIAA - being of the same evil *AA nature - is no different. Artists get crap from CD sales - only the executives truly prosper.
This is an outrage, and any government that allows it is just as corrupt. But we already knew that not a single congressperson had good moral ethics.
Hopefully this tradgedy meets with heavy opposition. I know the government doesn't really care, but perhaps it'll force their hand because everyone is starting to take notice and will soon start pointing fingers at the government that allows this kind of terror. Besides, didn't Bush say that all terrorists would be killed or imprisoned the other night? Isn't the *AA's terrorizing the US citizens. Hey, there's something to consider.
I'm speaking from experience, too, and I can assure you that you don't have to buy MSDN. VS.NET, for example (and VS6 and 5, too) comes with all the MSDN documentation regarding the product and the technologies / languages it uses at that point. This documentation is exactly the same as their web site (topics, layout, style) so it's easy to find what you need if you don't want to stay up-to-date with the MSDN Library.
And while you think OSS documentation is better, and the help system that indexes and views them is better, than we have a disagreement of opinion. I prefer Help2 over any help system on any platform I've seen. Having developed collections and help topics (being one of the developers for NDoc and all), it offers a lot of significant gains. That's just my opinion, although I know that doesn't mean anything here on /. unless you opinion favors *nix.
I have - quite a bit - and they are much easier to use, offer better integration and cross-language development (even without using the .NET Framework), and provide a much better help system than anything I've ever used on *nix (all the way from gcc/make to kdevelop). But what do you expect when Microsoft uses COM throughout every facit of their programming when *nix is a hodge-podge of proprietary APIs (besides the standard POSIX stuff) written by people who are bored and have nothing better to do than write free software all the time?
In the real world - where companies make money - time to develop in-house applications is greatly affected by your development tools, documentation system, and training. MS dev tools support far-better RAD (if used, but support good code as well since it's all based on the developers, people, not the tool or a faceless corporation) than anything on *nix and most of the information you need is in one integrated place - not hundreds of man pages googling for information across the endless user sites.
It would be great if it worked that way. Unfortunately, the US government is too deep in bed with large companies that give them a lot of money (and yet taxes keep going up!) to "sway" their campaigns. Unfortunately, the gov't is far too corrupt: greedy and power-hungry.
How does it change? By voting incumbants out of office. Hopefully a few fresh changes of the various branches will help things.
Ooh, so now we're down to name calling. Very mature.
So you can't modify their binaries. Get real! It's their program - they wrote it - and not yours. In the real world, companies that want to make money write software for people to buy. I know that's a different concept to OSS, but it's how legit companies make money.
Besides, there's plenty of ways to add value to MS products without binary changes, something else new to most OSS packages I've used. You have plenty of late-bound scripting and compiled environments to choose from, and changing the binaries isn't necessary. Those modifications you CAN redistribute and are encouraged to do so (yes, to get more companies to buy licenses...again, it's that whole money-making scheme).
Older versions usually CAN edit new files with basic editing. The compound document structure is quite a forward-compatible format, unlike what I've seen from OO (and yes, I have used it - and StarOffice versions). As long as the document don't contain new embedded objects that older versions don't know about (i.e., stick with "basic" formatting, which is all most people know anyway), older Office apps work fine. I can still open Word XP documents in Word 97 so long as I don't use new features in XP (and I usually don't need to; styles, tabs, and basic tables are really about all I need).
So you're expecting every document format to be 100% forward-compatible?! Get real. Office has done a lot better job with forward-compatibility than any other package on any platform I've seen. Their compound document structure makes it easy - but there's always things that will exist in the future because of advancements that older versions won't understand. It happens to every application on every platform eventually. Period.
No, I didn't miss the point - I didn't even read the article. I was responding to someone complaint about how Microsoft "always" changes their format, when in fact their applications are pretty forward-compatible - and that's not easy to accomplish. Technology advances and formats change on any platform. It's how we progress. The compound document structure that Office uses is fairly forward-compatible, but it can't predict every change because no one can predict what the future will hold. Take old versions of Netscape and IE, for example: they had no idea what nested tables or CSS was and so they don't support it.
I do agree with your analogy, though - it does suck. Some companies, though - as we've even seen here on /. - don't license software knowingly, and that is illegal. How much you like free software doesn't matter - if a company requires that you pay for software (otherwise the company has profit problems, and profit is why most companies exist), you better pay it or pay the concequences (and I don't necessarily mean with SCO, which is abusing the system).
As I've been explaining before, no application can be expected to be 100% forward-compatible. Not on any platform - no one can be expected to predict the future and what it provide. Changing formats is part of advancing technology - period. Hell, 95% forward-compatibility isn't too bad - at least MS has tried to make a format system (compound documents, that is) that will stand the test of time, but the applications won't always understand every object that is embedded in the compound document. No application on any platform can claim that they do.
And even if OSS is up-front about format changes, that still doesn't change the fact that they do change it and some times older versions aren't forward compatible - even with simple formatting (or rules, whatever).
I can feel your pain there, but most marketing people I know don't know how to use the advanced features of Office products, and therefore a lot of the formats are compatible with older versions (such as Word, which has been pretty good about compatibility) as long as they don't contained advanced features that older versions don't understand.
And lets face it, updating formats is necessary to advance technology, otherwise advancement becomes stagnent. One example I've been using was actually coerced by another poster, where he mentioned HTML. Take the old Netscape and IE browsers for example: they don't support CSS because they had no idea it existed. The basic HTML is understood, but things like CSS and nested tables were not because they didn't yet exist (and I'm talking about the really old versions, when Mosaic was still cool).
The fact is, the Office formats - especially Word (which I know a lot about from a development perspective), us a compound document and most of the objects that are embedded are the same as they were before. If they are changed, they are changed in such a way that it won't break older versions. New features, however, are new embedded objects and older versions won't understand those (but will understand that they're there). It's a pretty good system, but it is bound to have problems just like any application on any platform when it comes to forward-compatibility. No one can predict the future or account for everything that it will provide.
Yes, you're right, but how often does that happen? If companies aren't upgrading their software, there's probably not going to be much (albeit, some more) upgrading of hardware.
Besides, more corporate networks I'm aware of don't buy such software (such as office productivity suites) on an OEM license - they buy site licenses (or smaller ones buy volume licenses). No ghosting of any kind is needed. Sure, you have to pay for the OS upgrade if the OS was OEM-installed (this is also not always true), but paying for software in the real world is something profitable companies require, and something that corporations buying such products do.
What the hell are you talking about? When did I even mention that office productivity suites save config files? I was merely stating that several *nix projects I've used have changed their formats a couple times and are not backward compatible. You all were bitching that document formats change "all the time", so I was merely stating that your precious config files change too, and no one bitches about that.
As I've said in previous posts - changing formats is practically necessary when technology is advanced. Office has been backward compatible and most of the office formats are even forward-compatible - but no one with an ounce of intelligence can expect any format for any application to be forward-compatible because no one can predict what the future will hold. Heck, older versions of Netscape and IE had no idea that CSS would one day exist, so they don't support it. Get the point, or are you saying that technology should be stagnent?
So what, you're saying that applications should be written to be 100% forward-compatible with future versions and that such future versions shouldn't advance their technology! What the f* are you thinking! Practically every application on every platform is guilty of this at some point - it's just because technology advances.
As one person pointed out in a different derivative thread, OpenOffice 1.0 can't open OpenOffice 1.1 formats - even with basic formatting! Technology advances and older versions of applications can't expect to know what the future holds. Office and practically every other app on every platform has thus far been pretty good about backward-compatibility, either updating the file as it's opened or saved, or leaving it untouched. Office even lets you decide if you want to convert the file or leave it alone. I can't say that for too many other applications I've tried on various platforms.
To be fair, though, every application introduces new technologies at some point, and applications can't be written to be "universally" forward-compatible. It's just a by-product - or perhaps a desired effect - of evolving technology. Your analogy of HTML is a perfect setup - how could've very early Netscape or IE been made to work with CSS is it wasn't even drafted yet?