Check out your statistics sometime perlfag, you might be surprised. Most of the real world got sick of waiting for Perl 6 a long time ago and moved to languages like Ruby and, yes, Python.
Actually, I'm more of a Rubyfag. But thanks for the sentiment.
It is an issue though. PHP did exactly the same between version 4 and 5, and it crippled adoption of 5 because hosts refused to upgrade as it'd have broken too much code
Not a big issue for Python, methinks. Python is not generally used in hosted environments like PHP is. At least not in the same proportion. PHP's only real strength is its install base. You can get it on just about any host. To make a comparison outside of languages, PHP is like WIndows. The major selling point is its ubiquity. In which case, compatibility with the rest of the install base becomes first priority. Python's strength, on the other hand, is Python.
While both Perl and Python are in need of a fat trimming in terms of obsolete and redundant language features, I think Python has a small enough user base that they could actually pull it off.
While I'm not much of a Python programmer, it is refreshing to see projects are are not afraid to risk breaking compatibility in the name of progress and getting rid of legacy cruft. One thing I noticed about Python the few times I tried it was that there seemed to be a lot of ways (many of them officially "obsolete") of doing the same thing. One bit of confusion I recall is trying to call the "super" method of a parent class when you've overridden a method. In my research I found several long articles about the pros and cons of different ways of doing it and I just got more confused.
Compatibility is often overvalued and tends to add needless complexity and bloat. Just look at Windows.
Exchange has nowhere near a monopoly, there's Notes which has about the same number of seats as Exchange and there's Groupwise which still has a fairly large installed base.
Yeah, but anyone considering a new installation of either Notes or Groupwise is certifiably insane. Notes because it is... Notes. Last I checked that was a steaming pile of crap at least from a user's perspective. Everyone hates using Notes. And Groupwise because Novell is merely a zombie masquerading as a living company. The college I work for is currently exploring the best escape routes from the sinking ships that are Groupwise and Netware. Zimbra (Network Edition, not Open Souce Edition) WAS our top choice for the Groupwise part, but now I'm going to have to wait and see.
However zimbra the mailserver is open source maybe you could call your fork yimbra! in memory of it's one-time sponsor;)
The Network Edition has some very important features that make it a real Exchange compteitor such as Outlook integration. Also, I don't think you get the various migration tools when you use the open source edition. While it wouldn't be a total loss if Microsoft killed the Zimbra "services" company, it woudl certainly make me look elsewhere in my quest to replace Groupwise.
Oh My God. I just remembered that and felt a sinking feeling. Zimbra is our best hope at ditching Groupwise. If Microsoft owned it, I wouldn't risk investing in it.
Even if you had "appropriate security technology" the question becomes, why would a firm want or need each machine to be on the internet, primarily? I don't know about where this guy works, but where I work, the primary use of the network is to communicate *internally*. That is why we only have only need 3 Megabit to the internet and 1 Gigabit internally. It would be utterly pointless, not to mention problematic, to send all traffic to some regional hub and then BACK to our office.
Ok, maybe in this amazing new all wireless world you'd host your servers at the regional hub... thus reducing the amount of redundtant traffic, but still. Come on, what is the point? How hard is it to lay down some CAT6 cable in a building? You do it once (professionally) and it is good indefinitely.
And if you need wireless, how hard is it to install an AP? Geez. Just how lazy are people going to be 10 years from now!?
And 802.11n will only make things worse. Each user will be taking up 3 (or is it just 2?) wide channels! I know 5Ghz is part of the 802.11n spec, but I wonder if most people will unknowingly default to 2.4Ghz... What a nightmare.
We have a satellite building where I was able to detect 50... yeah, that's right, *50*, other 802.11b/g APs with iStumbler. Sometimes I just want to find the person who decided it woudl be a good idea to allocate 11 *overlapping* channels for 802.11b and punch them in the face.
If I have no incentive to buy the fries and neither do you, neither of us will eat. We only eat if 1 of us coughs up the cash, yet the person who does so is no better off than the freeloaders. hence we all just go hungry and are *all* worse off.
What would you make copies of french fries with? Potatoes, right? We won't go hungry because there are plenty of ways to consume potatoes besides making fry copies out of them. What, did you think I was just making copies of your fries out of thin air? Magic? It might have been a hypothetical situation, but it certainly wasn't meant to be unrealistic.
Worst case scenerio: Some corporation has their french fry patent infringed upon and they miss out on some french fry salse because people realized they can save money by making their own fry copies. Then again, maybe you don't really save money making your own fries due to economies of scale. Maybe it doesn't make sense to make my own fry copies because I can't get the materials at wholesale costs.
so if you are copying my fries, I will just wait till you get yours and copy yours. we will both get very very hungry waiting for someone else to actually buy the fries.
But you've already bought the fries in my hypothetical situation. We both eat. Nobody is victimized. Where's the problem? Is the problem that you feel like a sucker for paying a premium for "geniune" fries?
oh sorry, in your wondrous new world, its dumb bastards like me that have to go out and buy the fries, presumably with my hard earned money so you can sit on your ass waiting and ready to copy them.
If you like, we could all chip (no pun intended) in and buy an original and make copies of that. Would that make you feel better? Hell, we don't even have to buy an original physical item. A recipe will do.
tell me, who gets to be in the 'we get free fries' gang, and who is forced to be the honest ones who actually pay the chip-frier to do his job? Oh, that's a new one! Now I'm not only cheating YOU but I'm also cheating the chip-fryer by denying him/her the opportunity to make fries for me? Is that like like cheating a carpenter by doing my own home improvements/construction? Since when am I morally obligated to pay someone to do work for me that I could just as easily do myself?
See how ridiculous the argument against "piracy" becomes when you apply it to physical objects and personal services? It doesn't work. And it only works as an economic (as opposed to moral) argument when you apply it to intellectual property. In other words, we enforce copyright and patents because they serve an economic purpose... not because there is some moral obligation to honor intellectual property. You can't steal an idea. It just can't be done unless you take the extra step of denying the creator access to the idea somehow. And I know of no common 'piracy' practice that actually deletes the hard drives of the creators.
If you meet me for lunch and I have a side order of fries, and tell you to help yourself, that's sharing.
But what if I made an exact copy of your fries using my own materials without altering the original in any way? And I ate the copy. What's that? Theft? Ha! If you cried theft and called the cops, the cops would come over and point out that your fries are getting cold.
Bottom line is that there is a fundamental difference between "intellectual" property and real tangible property. And until you recognize that, there can be no sensible discussion on this subject.
No...but, her ass is getting a little wider last few episodes, and she is showing a bit of a pot belly....I like my chicks to have flat stomachs...especially when that young, and no kids. No..I don't need to see the ribs, but, I also don't like them flabby. She isn't bad fat...I didn't say that. I said she could stand to drop a few lbs...5-10 lbs is all.
But 5-10 lbs is so trivial. It wouldn't even make much of a difference.
I think it is too late for that. There's just too much Win32 shite out there for MS to do what Apple did with OS X. Apple was pretty desparate before OS X. They didn't have much to lose. But that made the solution clear: Get the few major players (i.e. Adobe and Quark) on board with OS X and everyone else would (and did) follow.
Hell, look at Windows XP. It is almost 7 years old now and many people are STILL clinging to it.. refusing to buy into Vista. Even if you could get users of some vastly different Windows 7 to run Win32 stuff in a VM, developers would want to cater all those stragglers who have no motivation to upgrade. Win32 would be the lowest common denominator, and hence, the default target for Windows software. With OS X, on the other hand, there was a no doubt about where Apple was going. You either ported your OS 9 applications to OS X, or you were going to be left in the dust. It would be the exact opposite situation with a new Windows platform. Developers would be at a disadvantage by targetting a a vastely different Windows.
What worked for Apple will NOT work for Microsoft.
Drop some weight?? What? Did she gain a lot of weight lately and I just haven't seen recent episodes? Because I don't think I've ever seen her and thought "wow, if only she'd lose a few pounds." Or are you one of those guys that has to be able to count the ribs on a girl before she's considered hot? Ick.
What do you expect? This isn't necessarily greed on Microsoft's part. It is damage control. They are trying to save the Windows lineage. If too many people keep running XP, Windows as a platform will shrivel up and die. If nothing else, Vista keeps up the illusion of progress and innovation. And Microsoft needs people to buy into that illusion. Hell, I don't even think they really need to buy it. I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft started giving it away like IE and other products.
I may be showing my age now, but I wish they would stop releasing new stuff and simply improve the existing stuff. The time and effort they've spent re-implementing Java could have made Vista into a kick-ass super OS that was easy to develop for and would run so efficiently I needn't have bought another 2 gig of RAM and a dual core CPU!!
Given the roots and legacy of Windows, there's really not a whole lot MS could have done with Vista to make it a kick-ass super OS short of writing it from scratch (ditch Win32) and force all existing apps to run in a sandbox the way Apple did with OS 9. There's just too much legacy stuff tying Microsoft's hands. Here's a great article comparing what Windows is now with what dBase once was: http://garywiz.typepad.com/trial_by_fire/2006/03/windows_vista_p.html Windows seems to be following a similar demise for similar reasons. What is comes down to is that Microsoft is getting to the point where the best they can offer in a new product is backwards computability with their previous products. Few people care about what NEW software they can run on Vista. Most just want it to run the same software they've always run with a little more flair and perhaps with a little more security.
A laptop that is easy to upgrade is worth more to the consumer, so you could sell it for more by pointing out you won't need to buy another laptop.
Most laptops are relatively easy to upgrade. That is, for the things that are important: HD and RAM. Some even allow you to upgrade the optical drive without too much trouble. Might have to have someone with some skill do the work, but it isn't impossible. Beyond that, what would you upgrade? CPU? Yeah right, CPU sockets change on a weekly basis. Even on a desktop, your motherboard is probably going to be obsolete by the time you want to make an upgrade. You'll need a new one. And with that, all new RAM. So what on a laptop is really good long term? The GPU? I suppose you could have a standard slot for that, but it would add to the bulk. The display? The keyboard? Certainly not the battery.
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It isn't often that I get the urge to call someone retarded.
Actually, I'm more of a Rubyfag. But thanks for the sentiment.
-matthew
Yes.
Not a big issue for Python, methinks. Python is not generally used in hosted environments like PHP is. At least not in the same proportion. PHP's only real strength is its install base. You can get it on just about any host. To make a comparison outside of languages, PHP is like WIndows. The major selling point is its ubiquity. In which case, compatibility with the rest of the install base becomes first priority. Python's strength, on the other hand, is Python.
-matthew
While both Perl and Python are in need of a fat trimming in terms of obsolete and redundant language features, I think Python has a small enough user base that they could actually pull it off.
While I'm not much of a Python programmer, it is refreshing to see projects are are not afraid to risk breaking compatibility in the name of progress and getting rid of legacy cruft. One thing I noticed about Python the few times I tried it was that there seemed to be a lot of ways (many of them officially "obsolete") of doing the same thing. One bit of confusion I recall is trying to call the "super" method of a parent class when you've overridden a method. In my research I found several long articles about the pros and cons of different ways of doing it and I just got more confused.
Compatibility is often overvalued and tends to add needless complexity and bloat. Just look at Windows.
Yeah, but anyone considering a new installation of either Notes or Groupwise is certifiably insane. Notes because it is... Notes. Last I checked that was a steaming pile of crap at least from a user's perspective. Everyone hates using Notes. And Groupwise because Novell is merely a zombie masquerading as a living company. The college I work for is currently exploring the best escape routes from the sinking ships that are Groupwise and Netware. Zimbra (Network Edition, not Open Souce Edition) WAS our top choice for the Groupwise part, but now I'm going to have to wait and see.
-matthew
Sadly, they already are. Just thinking about that fact makes me want to pop a Prozac.
-matthew
The Network Edition has some very important features that make it a real Exchange compteitor such as Outlook integration. Also, I don't think you get the various migration tools when you use the open source edition. While it wouldn't be a total loss if Microsoft killed the Zimbra "services" company, it woudl certainly make me look elsewhere in my quest to replace Groupwise.
-matthew
Oh My God. I just remembered that and felt a sinking feeling. Zimbra is our best hope at ditching Groupwise. If Microsoft owned it, I wouldn't risk investing in it.
Even if you had "appropriate security technology" the question becomes, why would a firm want or need each machine to be on the internet, primarily? I don't know about where this guy works, but where I work, the primary use of the network is to communicate *internally*. That is why we only have only need 3 Megabit to the internet and 1 Gigabit internally. It would be utterly pointless, not to mention problematic, to send all traffic to some regional hub and then BACK to our office.
Ok, maybe in this amazing new all wireless world you'd host your servers at the regional hub... thus reducing the amount of redundtant traffic, but still. Come on, what is the point? How hard is it to lay down some CAT6 cable in a building? You do it once (professionally) and it is good indefinitely.
And if you need wireless, how hard is it to install an AP? Geez. Just how lazy are people going to be 10 years from now!?
-matthew
And 802.11n will only make things worse. Each user will be taking up 3 (or is it just 2?) wide channels! I know 5Ghz is part of the 802.11n spec, but I wonder if most people will unknowingly default to 2.4Ghz... What a nightmare.
We have a satellite building where I was able to detect 50... yeah, that's right, *50*, other 802.11b/g APs with iStumbler. Sometimes I just want to find the person who decided it woudl be a good idea to allocate 11 *overlapping* channels for 802.11b and punch them in the face.
-matthew
But they are upgradable. So what's the problem?
What would you make copies of french fries with? Potatoes, right? We won't go hungry because there are plenty of ways to consume potatoes besides making fry copies out of them. What, did you think I was just making copies of your fries out of thin air? Magic? It might have been a hypothetical situation, but it certainly wasn't meant to be unrealistic.
Worst case scenerio: Some corporation has their french fry patent infringed upon and they miss out on some french fry salse because people realized they can save money by making their own fry copies. Then again, maybe you don't really save money making your own fries due to economies of scale. Maybe it doesn't make sense to make my own fry copies because I can't get the materials at wholesale costs.
-matthew
Oh, i think Vista got the flair part covered. Not sure about the security part yet, but it has flair.
-matthew
But you've already bought the fries in my hypothetical situation. We both eat. Nobody is victimized. Where's the problem? Is the problem that you feel like a sucker for paying a premium for "geniune" fries?
If you like, we could all chip (no pun intended) in and buy an original and make copies of that. Would that make you feel better? Hell, we don't even have to buy an original physical item. A recipe will do. tell me, who gets to be in the 'we get free fries' gang, and who is forced to be the honest ones who actually pay the chip-frier to do his job? Oh, that's a new one! Now I'm not only cheating YOU but I'm also cheating the chip-fryer by denying him/her the opportunity to make fries for me? Is that like like cheating a carpenter by doing my own home improvements/construction? Since when am I morally obligated to pay someone to do work for me that I could just as easily do myself?
See how ridiculous the argument against "piracy" becomes when you apply it to physical objects and personal services? It doesn't work. And it only works as an economic (as opposed to moral) argument when you apply it to intellectual property. In other words, we enforce copyright and patents because they serve an economic purpose... not because there is some moral obligation to honor intellectual property. You can't steal an idea. It just can't be done unless you take the extra step of denying the creator access to the idea somehow. And I know of no common 'piracy' practice that actually deletes the hard drives of the creators.
-matthew
But what if I made an exact copy of your fries using my own materials without altering the original in any way? And I ate the copy. What's that? Theft? Ha! If you cried theft and called the cops, the cops would come over and point out that your fries are getting cold.
Bottom line is that there is a fundamental difference between "intellectual" property and real tangible property. And until you recognize that, there can be no sensible discussion on this subject.
-matthew
But 5-10 lbs is so trivial. It wouldn't even make much of a difference.
I think it is too late for that. There's just too much Win32 shite out there for MS to do what Apple did with OS X. Apple was pretty desparate before OS X. They didn't have much to lose. But that made the solution clear: Get the few major players (i.e. Adobe and Quark) on board with OS X and everyone else would (and did) follow.
Hell, look at Windows XP. It is almost 7 years old now and many people are STILL clinging to it.. refusing to buy into Vista. Even if you could get users of some vastly different Windows 7 to run Win32 stuff in a VM, developers would want to cater all those stragglers who have no motivation to upgrade. Win32 would be the lowest common denominator, and hence, the default target for Windows software. With OS X, on the other hand, there was a no doubt about where Apple was going. You either ported your OS 9 applications to OS X, or you were going to be left in the dust. It would be the exact opposite situation with a new Windows platform. Developers would be at a disadvantage by targetting a a vastely different Windows.
What worked for Apple will NOT work for Microsoft.
Drop some weight?? What? Did she gain a lot of weight lately and I just haven't seen recent episodes? Because I don't think I've ever seen her and thought "wow, if only she'd lose a few pounds." Or are you one of those guys that has to be able to count the ribs on a girl before she's considered hot? Ick.
What do you expect? This isn't necessarily greed on Microsoft's part. It is damage control. They are trying to save the Windows lineage. If too many people keep running XP, Windows as a platform will shrivel up and die. If nothing else, Vista keeps up the illusion of progress and innovation. And Microsoft needs people to buy into that illusion. Hell, I don't even think they really need to buy it. I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft started giving it away like IE and other products.
Given the roots and legacy of Windows, there's really not a whole lot MS could have done with Vista to make it a kick-ass super OS short of writing it from scratch (ditch Win32) and force all existing apps to run in a sandbox the way Apple did with OS 9. There's just too much legacy stuff tying Microsoft's hands. Here's a great article comparing what Windows is now with what dBase once was: http://garywiz.typepad.com/trial_by_fire/2006/03/windows_vista_p.html Windows seems to be following a similar demise for similar reasons. What is comes down to is that Microsoft is getting to the point where the best they can offer in a new product is backwards computability with their previous products. Few people care about what NEW software they can run on Vista. Most just want it to run the same software they've always run with a little more flair and perhaps with a little more security.
-matthew
Do you really have a point-to-point between each location or just a hub and spoke?
Not only is she hot, but she's hot in a very approachable way. Oh, and long red hair is HOT. Short red hair, not so much.
Most laptops are relatively easy to upgrade. That is, for the things that are important: HD and RAM. Some even allow you to upgrade the optical drive without too much trouble. Might have to have someone with some skill do the work, but it isn't impossible. Beyond that, what would you upgrade? CPU? Yeah right, CPU sockets change on a weekly basis. Even on a desktop, your motherboard is probably going to be obsolete by the time you want to make an upgrade. You'll need a new one. And with that, all new RAM. So what on a laptop is really good long term? The GPU? I suppose you could have a standard slot for that, but it would add to the bulk. The display? The keyboard? Certainly not the battery.
-matthew