Disclaimer: I've never used XP, only 95, 98, NT 4, and 2000.
I've been using Mac OS X since... NeXTSTEP 3.3. The eye candy that showed up in Mac OS X DP3 and has stuck with us doesn't distract the user, in my experience. It doesn't get in the way, and is aware when it should tone itself down. E.g., when I'm running an expensive job (CPU intensive for you kiddies who don't know what that means), and CPU is maxed at 100%, invoking some action that is filled with eye candy, like minimizing a window, the window just pops into the dock, rather than smoothly sucking into the dock, which is what it does when it has CPU time to afford that.
That's a lot more work than just throwing my mp3s in my shared directory. There are a lot of things I could do, but they're all more work than making a link from/Users/rev/Music to/Users/rev/Shared/Music and clicking the "Start Apache" button.
Goes both ways, I suppose. I have all the tools I need on Mac OS X (and Mac OS 9, for that matter). If you didn't have the tools, you'd be out of luck, you're right. I use Mac OS X a lot for programming, but I also use it for the other general computer stuff.
But with Mac OS X having all the tools I need, it is just a waste of my time to be screwing around trying to get Windows itself (let alone the apps) working, or configuring things under Linux. I ran Linux, exclusively, for 3 years, and one of the reasons I switched to a Mac was that the "cool" factor had worn off, and I just needed to get stuff done...
Why? For the same reason, many of my friends on Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux do: to share files in a cross-platform manner. Throw a bunch your mp3s in a directory, and turn on Apache. I knew quite a few people who did this in the dorms where I lived last year. It beats figuring out that I can't get a file from my friend because he's running Windows (barring getting, compiling, installing, and configuring SAMBA), or vice versa.
Who cares what your Athlon box costs? You still have to put up with the same old PC rubbish. Sure, it runs games hella faster than my G4/400, but that's irrelevant to me, because I use my computer primarily for work, not games. But that's fine if you play a lot of games. That's what you use it for. For me, I just want to get stuff done, and it's not worth my time to have to putz with Linux and/or (I pray not) Windows.
Heh. Silly AC. But s/he does have a point. This was a rather stupid Ask Slashdot. That's not to say most of the other Slashdot stories aren't stupid. *shrug*
Exactly. It's possible. Maybe not in the valley or some other all-around-incredibly-expensive place. I make about $11k/year (including school loans as simulated income- just humor me) and I pay for school + a new computer a year + all food + all rent (over priced place too). That's including school. Take that out of the equation, and I live pretty comfortably on $7k/year. If I was making $10/yr (no school included), i could also be paying for health insurance (if my pt job didn't offer it) and a fat retirement fund.
Just to append it to the list in the article. I interned at an insurance company which is using IBM's VisualAge for Smalltalk and GemStone/S to run all of their insurance production definition. Really interesting stuff, actually. Define it in a GUI, and gen code for the mainframe.
GemStone/S is still a commercial app, but pretty much all of the Smalltalk source is included. That's something particular to Smalltalk culture, not so much the product specifically. But, if you really wanted, you could make fundamental changes to any part of the system.
That is, it it worth working super-long hours, stressing yourself (and no doubt your family, if you have one)? To me, it seems silly to waste my life away, working 40-80 hours a week making money, for what?
For a new couch every year? For spoiled kids? For a 'l33t machine? A big house to show off to aquintances so that they know that you're smart, and make the bucks to prove it?
It just doesn't seem worth it to me.
Seems that so many people resign themselves to the fact, which they are fed since birth, that the only way to be a productive member of society is to work at least 40 hours a week. We wonder why we're an unhealthy (mentally and physically), unhappy society!
"I told myself in '27, If I can not dictate the conditions of my labor, I will henceforth cease to work... I learned when I was young that the only true life I had was the life of my brain., so what sense does it make to hand that brain to somebody for eight hours a day for their particular use under the presumption that at the end of the day they will give it back in an unmutilated condition?" -Utah Phillips quoting Frying Pan Jack
Not in Smalltalk. It's not some added on reflection library, but a core part of the system. #perform: is a primitive, not just some shorthand for that mess in the Java example.
I'm surprised that they chose to put that in their/. submission. Afterall, most slashdotties go after the GPL like a fat Klan member does a burger made by a fellow Aryan. To dis the GPL, or the Klanboy's burger is to anger and confuse him. After all, Slashdot tells me that the GPL is the only true hardcore license... Scheiße!
The GPL is all fine and dandy, but it causes problems. The point of the GPL is to spread it's ideology virually. That's great. But when it's not what you want, find something with a more liberal, tolerant license (LGPL included) or do your own implementation.
The bloody GPL always causing problems. If you don't like Python's license, don't use it. If RMS and his clan of Gnuzis don't like it, they shouldn't bitch, they should just get over it, and not use it. Or, if it really mattered, make a new implementation of Python covered under the GPL. Or, if you don't like the GPL, boycott code written under it when it effects your life adversely.
If ST is such a great system for throwing up code in a day or less, why doesn't anything like that ever come out?
There is a company working on windows GUI bindings. Lesser Software. The Squeak list is a valuable resource . (whodda thunk?) Otherwise, people who want it should do it. Isn't that what this whole open source thing is about? Not bitching about the lack of features or bugs, but doing ir yourself, or convincing someone else to do it for you?
BTW IBM did write much of their Java in ST, but they have replaced it with something else since.
Last I heard, VA/Java was still written largely in Smalltalk. They started replacing it with Java, as Java has matured a little since the last release. VA/J still has a fair amount of Smalltalk in it, AFAIK.
Smalltalk could probably interface to Obj-C pretty transparently if someone wrote a bridge. (I don't know how hard it would be; ask the TipTop guys.)
I know that Marcel Weither (sp?) wrote a simple hack for a Squeak -> Objective-C bridge for the Mac OS X (+ Server) version of Squeak. I think it was only one way, as a proof of concept.
Particular instances where I know personally Smalltalk is used:
Progressive Insurance: Smalltalk is behind a *huge* amount of their operation. I interned there. VisualAge for Smalltalk as client as well as GemStone/Smalltalk (OODBMS in Smalltalk) and IBM DB2 on the backend. Mission critical, enterprise wide, blah blah blah. Medtronic: You ever heard of Pacemakers? Smalltalk is used to prototype the GUI for the "programmers" (devices which speak with the Pacemakers and other in-your-chest devices to, well, prorgam them). Prototyping in a very complex way- there are medical doctors, psychologists, and human-computer interface experts all over it. The department decided that Smalltalk was the best tool, being dynamic and fluid enough (where as most languages and IDEs are not).
And I get to use it for "real world" (?) plant population and hydrological data analysis and visualization at the NRRI this summer.:)
Slashdot Mirror
I've been using Mac OS X since... NeXTSTEP 3.3. The eye candy that showed up in Mac OS X DP3 and has stuck with us doesn't distract the user, in my experience. It doesn't get in the way, and is aware when it should tone itself down. E.g., when I'm running an expensive job (CPU intensive for you kiddies who don't know what that means), and CPU is maxed at 100%, invoking some action that is filled with eye candy, like minimizing a window, the window just pops into the dock, rather than smoothly sucking into the dock, which is what it does when it has CPU time to afford that.
So, no, you're not correct. :)
That's a lot more work than just throwing my mp3s in my shared directory. There are a lot of things I could do, but they're all more work than making a link from /Users/rev/Music to /Users/rev/Shared/Music and clicking the "Start Apache" button.
But with Mac OS X having all the tools I need, it is just a waste of my time to be screwing around trying to get Windows itself (let alone the apps) working, or configuring things under Linux. I ran Linux, exclusively, for 3 years, and one of the reasons I switched to a Mac was that the "cool" factor had worn off, and I just needed to get stuff done...
Why? For the same reason, many of my friends on Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux do: to share files in a cross-platform manner. Throw a bunch your mp3s in a directory, and turn on Apache. I knew quite a few people who did this in the dorms where I lived last year. It beats figuring out that I can't get a file from my friend because he's running Windows (barring getting, compiling, installing, and configuring SAMBA), or vice versa.
Who cares what your Athlon box costs? You still have to put up with the same old PC rubbish. Sure, it runs games hella faster than my G4/400, but that's irrelevant to me, because I use my computer primarily for work, not games. But that's fine if you play a lot of games. That's what you use it for. For me, I just want to get stuff done, and it's not worth my time to have to putz with Linux and/or (I pray not) Windows.
heheh! Wish I had mod points today... HILLARIOUS.
And Squeak, of course. Some days, I just have emacs or Squeak go full screen, and I never leave it... Email, coding, irc, you name it.
Heh. Silly AC. But s/he does have a point. This was a rather stupid Ask Slashdot. That's not to say most of the other Slashdot stories aren't stupid. *shrug*
There was an OpenStep 4.0 (and 4.1, 4.2), as well as Rhapsody DR1, Rhapsody DR2, *and* Mac OS X Server. Way beyond 4 man.
Exactly. It's possible. Maybe not in the valley or some other all-around-incredibly-expensive place. I make about $11k/year (including school loans as simulated income- just humor me) and I pay for school + a new computer a year + all food + all rent (over priced place too). That's including school. Take that out of the equation, and I live pretty comfortably on $7k/year. If I was making $10/yr (no school included), i could also be paying for health insurance (if my pt job didn't offer it) and a fat retirement fund.
Update was released last week. Schmuck.
Hah. You were trained very well.
Just to append it to the list in the article. I interned at an insurance company which is using IBM's VisualAge for Smalltalk and GemStone/S to run all of their insurance production definition. Really interesting stuff, actually. Define it in a GUI, and gen code for the mainframe.
GemStone/S is still a commercial app, but pretty much all of the Smalltalk source is included. That's something particular to Smalltalk culture, not so much the product specifically. But, if you really wanted, you could make fundamental changes to any part of the system.
That's not the case with every OODBMS. With GemStone/S, for example, you don't ever do anything remotely like that.
For a new couch every year? For spoiled kids? For a 'l33t machine? A big house to show off to aquintances so that they know that you're smart, and make the bucks to prove it?
It just doesn't seem worth it to me. Seems that so many people resign themselves to the fact, which they are fed since birth, that the only way to be a productive member of society is to work at least 40 hours a week. We wonder why we're an unhealthy (mentally and physically), unhappy society!
"I told myself in '27, If I can not dictate the conditions of my labor, I will henceforth cease to work... I learned when I was young that the only true life I had was the life of my brain., so what sense does it make to hand that brain to somebody for eight hours a day for their particular use under the presumption that at the end of the day they will give it back in an unmutilated condition?" -Utah Phillips quoting Frying Pan Jack
Not in Smalltalk. It's not some added on reflection library, but a core part of the system. #perform: is a primitive, not just some shorthand for that mess in the Java example.
The ugliness of Java never ceases to amaze me.
In Smalltalk:
Transcript show: (Object new perform: #hash).
I'm surprised that they chose to put that in their /. submission. Afterall, most slashdotties go after the GPL like a fat Klan member does a burger made by a fellow Aryan. To dis the GPL, or the Klanboy's burger is to anger and confuse him. After all, Slashdot tells me that the GPL is the only true hardcore license... Scheiße!
Before this get's labeled a troll...
The GPL is all fine and dandy, but it causes problems. The point of the GPL is to spread it's ideology virually. That's great. But when it's not what you want, find something with a more liberal, tolerant license (LGPL included) or do your own implementation.
The bloody GPL always causing problems. If you don't like Python's license, don't use it. If RMS and his clan of Gnuzis don't like it, they shouldn't bitch, they should just get over it, and not use it. Or, if it really mattered, make a new implementation of Python covered under the GPL. Or, if you don't like the GPL, boycott code written under it when it effects your life adversely.
If ST is such a great system for throwing up code in a day or less, why doesn't anything like that ever come out?
There is a company working on windows GUI bindings. Lesser Software. The Squeak list is a valuable resource . (whodda thunk?) Otherwise, people who want it should do it. Isn't that what this whole open source thing is about? Not bitching about the lack of features or bugs, but doing ir yourself, or convincing someone else to do it for you?
BTW IBM did write much of their Java in ST, but they have replaced it with something else since.
Last I heard, VA/Java was still written largely in Smalltalk. They started replacing it with Java, as Java has matured a little since the last release. VA/J still has a fair amount of Smalltalk in it, AFAIK.
Smalltalk could probably interface to Obj-C pretty transparently if someone wrote a bridge. (I don't know how hard it would be; ask the TipTop guys.)
I know that Marcel Weither (sp?) wrote a simple hack for a Squeak -> Objective-C bridge for the Mac OS X (+ Server) version of Squeak. I think it was only one way, as a proof of concept.
Particular instances where I know personally Smalltalk is used:
:)
Progressive Insurance: Smalltalk is behind a *huge* amount of their operation. I interned there. VisualAge for Smalltalk as client as well as GemStone/Smalltalk (OODBMS in Smalltalk) and IBM DB2 on the backend. Mission critical, enterprise wide, blah blah blah.
Medtronic: You ever heard of Pacemakers? Smalltalk is used to prototype the GUI for the "programmers" (devices which speak with the Pacemakers and other in-your-chest devices to, well, prorgam them). Prototyping in a very complex way- there are medical doctors, psychologists, and human-computer interface experts all over it. The department decided that Smalltalk was the best tool, being dynamic and fluid enough (where as most languages and IDEs are not).
And I get to use it for "real world" (?) plant population and hydrological data analysis and visualization at the NRRI this summer.
Yup, EZBoard is in VisualWorks Smalltalk, using a modified VisualWave.