They are showing you visual features that people react to.
They don't show "features." They make vague, meaningless claims about working "better" and "securely".
Linuxies should take a tip about that and maybe use the install screen to show where certain features are and how they work.
Sure. Something like, "Did you know you could open program X and install packages." Useful stuff. Maybe MS could take the same hint. Or maybe just a status bar? Maybe a game like tetris? It isn't like most people haven't already reinstalled Windows several times on their computer. Heck, my mom must have reinstalled XP like 6 times over the past few years.
It is only brainwashing if you are a paranoid Linux zealot.
That's Mac Zealot to you, bud! An OS X install is all business. No congratulations on my choice of comptuers. No marketing garbage. Just "About 10 minutes left." Apple doesn't need to tell ME they've got a quality product. The proof is in the pudding, as they say.
The question remains: What kind of project can one do that would help one learn ASM if one doesn't have embedded systems handy to work with? It is one thing to say "every programmer should be faimilar with assembler," but is that realistic?
It is wierd how they don't stop pushing the propaganda even once you've already begun the install. Every install of Windows is like sitting through a Powerpoint presentation telling you how great Windows is. Like they are still trying to convince you... as if it wasn't something you'd notice otherwise. Brainwashing?
The problem with learning assembler is that there seems to be very little you can do these days that has any usefulness. I'm one to learn a language by starting a project and just learning as I go. But what kind of project can you do with assembler? I'd actually like to know because I skipped ASM long ago because I just couldn't find a use for it.. especially in these days of protected memory and total hardware abstraction.
That said, C is probably a good start. If only so you realize just how much time high level languages can save you.:-)
Finally, if anybody can explain it's popularity to me, should I learn it? I'm currently doing freelance web dev mostly in PHP, would it be useful? How? In my spare time I'm writing a AJAX web app with PHP back-end at the moment and it's mostly for my personal use (task tracking from anywhere), is Ruby good here with the limited audience the site'll have?
All I can say is that after doing PHP on and off for a few years and then learning Ruby, I never want to touch another line of PHP shite again. Sorry, if this sounds like I'm trying to start a flame war, but PHP is just a dumb language. Sure, it works, it is easy to learn, can find hosting for it anywhere, but it is just braindead. That and the gawd aweful function naming problem. Things I can do with 2 or 3 lines of Ruby used to take me 10 lines in PHP. PHP is one of those languages where, if there is no fucntion to do exactly what you want, you can expect to take a fair amount of time implementing it youself. I have similar reaction to Perl after learning Ruby... although for different reasons. Perl is just plain ugly. Ruby's just so... pretty.:-)
So yeah, I thnk you shuld give Ruby (particularly Rails) a try. I'm not normally one to go for trends (I'm a "Web 2.0" skeptic, for example). Ruby and Rails are the real deal. As long as you are willing to accept one fact up front: Ruby isn't as fast as other languages. It is a tradeoff. Save yourself weeks of dev time and let the computer do the heavy lifting.
Actually I think users do care about portability. If there is a MS Windows program you need to run, and you have a Mac, then you care about portability.
This isn't nearly as common as you think. Like I said, Java addressed this a long time ago, and the reality is that users are not clamoring for portable Java apps to bridge the gap. There are enough native OS X apps such that portability between OS X and WIndows remains a special case... and generally not worth the sacrifices in usability and integration. Bottom line is this: Give me two applications that do roughly the same thing, one using Java/SWT and the other pure Cocoa, and I'm going to take the native Cocoa app. Java is a handicap. And NetI/O even more so because of the server dependency.
Being able to write one app for the entire user base instead of one small segment of computer users has to be of some value.
It does have value, but the value is for developers, not users. Lets be clear on who benefits from portability. In many ways portability works out to be a bad thing for users because of sacrafices made trying to make an app work the same on all platforms. Fact is that different platforms behave differently. Trying to deny that or gloss over it for the sake of portability is not going to win you users.
The only exception I can think of where portability is desireable for users is gaming. If a game comes out for WIndows I might really want to play it on my Mac. Denying the differences in platforms works in this case because most games just switch into fullscreen mode and don't use any system features beyond whatever it take ti display the graphics and sound and take input from the user.
Someone can write a Cocoa app that might be beautiful, but being able to write a Cocoa app is a very specific skill (Objective C) for a relativley small market.
Well, you can use Java to write Cocoa app. You'll just lose a lot of portability, but you can do it an users probably won't know the difference. You can also write Cocoa apps in Python. And even Ruby. I've written a few RubyCocoa ultilities, actually.
On the other hand if you write a NewI\O app you write it once for a huge user base (all users). NewI\O apps are way easier to write than Cocoa apps. Furthere there is no reason that NewI\O applications have to be hideously ugly. In fact, native widgets are not out of the question.
Again, you're making the Java Mistake of assuming that what is good for developers is good for users. Are you talking to me as a developer or a user? Because my two personalities have different priorities.
Like it or not Internet apps are here, and are here to stay.
So are the dozen native local apps that I use every day.;-)
The promise of portability has been fulfilled by Java for the most part. But as it turn out, the average user just doesn't care. The only people that seem to care about portability are developers. Users are generally only on a single platform. The fact that their favorite app just happens to run on another platform is meaningless. This is one of the reasons why Java really hasn't taken off on the desktop. The only people who really USE Java apps seem to be Java developers (Eclipse, Netbeans, InteliJ, etc). For everyone else, native apps that integrate well with the OS are preferable.
The other type of portability, which NetIO seems to emulate to a large degree, is X Windows. And even that has shown to have a rather limited usefulness. X also suffers from the problem of lack of integration with the Host. As an OS X user, the only thing I avoid more than Java apps are X apps. I will always prefer a native Cocoa app over a Java or X11 app. I don't care if I can run them over the network. I don't care if they're "portable" in the sense that I can display them on any platform with an X server, they're hideous next to native Cocoa apps which integrate with my system.
Don't get me wrong, NetI/O seems like an interesting evolution of X11, but I don't really see how it fits into the scheme of things. What application could you possibly come up with that uses NetI/O that I wouldn't prefer to have as native Cocoa running locally?
Really, there's no shortage of native apps for OS X. Gaining a few non-Cocoa apps via NetI/O seems insignificant to me. I mean, if you can really make an unique apps that doesn't exist in any other form, then yea, I'll use it. But my eyes will always been pealed for a native alternative. What I'm saying is that any developer who write for something like NetI/O is starting off with a pretty big handicap.
Don't laugh. I'm typing this on a machine built around a pirated AMD chip. I downloaded blueprints (or whatever they're called for chips) and programmed my FPGA! It is the future. Everything will come down to intellectual property... in the future. Even the FPGA's will come from a replicator that materializes an item based on someone else's intellectual property. Before you know it, we'll be licensing food blueprints... and people will pirate them!
Sun still uses SPARC, but for the x86 systems they are using AMD last I checked. But that's not a huge part of the market. I mean, that's mostly servers. Desktops are where it is at.
Ok, it seems to me that the single biggest draw for these online desktop-like apps is to have access to your files from anywhere. Assuming that is correct, they why aren't we seeing more traditional apps that are capable of drawing from a common network data store such as Amazone S3? I know Amazon provides an API. Seem like you could extend OpenOffice to talk to S3 (or similar) directly and you'd have your "documents just about anywhere" feature that everyone (on Slashdot) seems to think is so useful. Really, it is such a relatively simple solution considering compared to trying to coerce a web browser into doing things God never meant it to do.
Fortunately the company that is doing this "OpenOffice port" is not going to use the browser. Sounds like they're using something more like X11. So I suppose it could work. Although it is still of limited usefulness. You STILL need to download and install something. I'd almost rather have regular OpenOffice (or perhaps something more stripped down) that runs locally and (optionally) talks to a common data store like Amazon S3. No, it most likely wouldn't run on mobile devices, but who wants to compose a document on a mobile device anyway? And is having 'the latest version always available' really that important in the case of an office product? I mean, how often does a major new release come out anyway? Is it really so inconvenient to run an updater every now and then? Windows Update covers Office, doesn't it? Most of OS X application have updater built in and it works just great. Start the app up in the morning and it detects a newer version, downloads, and installs. Done in 30 seconds or less.
I always wondered just how effective IT testing of patches really is and how often it finds stuff that breaks. What do you do, sit there and run through every menu of every single application that the business runs? Is there some kind of automated test suite you can run? Sounds like a huge, tedious pain in the ass to me. I'm glad I've never had to work anywhere that is so paranoid.
There's a bit of an evolutionary war that's continuing. It's not enough to get your bot client installed. It's facing selection pressure from smarter users, better anti-virus/rootkit detection, firewalls making it harder to propagate, and more aggressive opponent bots.
So if there is an intelligent designer behind the changes in the bots in response to selective pressure, is that evolution or intelligent design?
There are a lot of different costs associated with developing a product. There's paying the programmers, lease on the facilities, equipment, insurance, management, lawyers, advertising, etc. It is just plain naive to think that the only thing that your purchase money should be going towards are the people who actually write the software. Why not talk about the "advertising tax" or the "insurance tax." Fact is that there is a lot of overhead in doing just about any kind of business. Managing patent issues just happens to be one of them. Yeah, maybe too much money goes to lawyers, but that's just the way it is.
The LAST thing this world needs is an even more available Access-like product. It is amazing what kidn of abominations "laypeople" can come up with given these kinds of tools. And then they start relying on them. And then you have to support them... and perhaps try to export their hideous data structures into something else more sane later. That is IF you can manage to pry the tool from their cold, dead hands. No way, man. Lets keep some things difficult. There are just some things that should be left to professionals. Database design is one of them.
Sounds like something is seriously wrong with your computer. That just isn't right. Possibly bad sectors on the disk. You should make sure you get a backup ASAP and run some diagnostics. Take a look at the Console.app and look for any disk read/write errors.
I know what I mainly need from an "office suite" is just a good word processor, one that doesnt lag 10 keystrokes behind me typing a simple letter.
WTF!? Computers haven't lagged behind keystrokes in like 15 years (although browser based apps chock full of Javascript aim to change that). What are you running, a Mac Classic or something?
Slashdot Mirror
They don't show "features." They make vague, meaningless claims about working "better" and "securely".
Sure. Something like, "Did you know you could open program X and install packages." Useful stuff. Maybe MS could take the same hint. Or maybe just a status bar? Maybe a game like tetris? It isn't like most people haven't already reinstalled Windows several times on their computer. Heck, my mom must have reinstalled XP like 6 times over the past few years.
That's Mac Zealot to you, bud! An OS X install is all business. No congratulations on my choice of comptuers. No marketing garbage. Just "About 10 minutes left." Apple doesn't need to tell ME they've got a quality product. The proof is in the pudding, as they say.
-matthew
Nothing's wrong with it. It is just kinda tacky. Just that much more marketing bullshit that one has to filter out.
Tetris? Solitaire? Maybe some useful, specific tips as opposed to the marketing garbage?
-matthew
The question remains: What kind of project can one do that would help one learn ASM if one doesn't have embedded systems handy to work with? It is one thing to say "every programmer should be faimilar with assembler," but is that realistic?
-matthew
It is wierd how they don't stop pushing the propaganda even once you've already begun the install. Every install of Windows is like sitting through a Powerpoint presentation telling you how great Windows is. Like they are still trying to convince you... as if it wasn't something you'd notice otherwise. Brainwashing?
The problem with learning assembler is that there seems to be very little you can do these days that has any usefulness. I'm one to learn a language by starting a project and just learning as I go. But what kind of project can you do with assembler? I'd actually like to know because I skipped ASM long ago because I just couldn't find a use for it.. especially in these days of protected memory and total hardware abstraction.
:-)
That said, C is probably a good start. If only so you realize just how much time high level languages can save you.
-matthew
All I can say is that after doing PHP on and off for a few years and then learning Ruby, I never want to touch another line of PHP shite again. Sorry, if this sounds like I'm trying to start a flame war, but PHP is just a dumb language. Sure, it works, it is easy to learn, can find hosting for it anywhere, but it is just braindead. That and the gawd aweful function naming problem. Things I can do with 2 or 3 lines of Ruby used to take me 10 lines in PHP. PHP is one of those languages where, if there is no fucntion to do exactly what you want, you can expect to take a fair amount of time implementing it youself. I have similar reaction to Perl after learning Ruby... although for different reasons. Perl is just plain ugly. Ruby's just so... pretty.
So yeah, I thnk you shuld give Ruby (particularly Rails) a try. I'm not normally one to go for trends (I'm a "Web 2.0" skeptic, for example). Ruby and Rails are the real deal. As long as you are willing to accept one fact up front: Ruby isn't as fast as other languages. It is a tradeoff. Save yourself weeks of dev time and let the computer do the heavy lifting.
-matthew
This isn't nearly as common as you think. Like I said, Java addressed this a long time ago, and the reality is that users are not clamoring for portable Java apps to bridge the gap. There are enough native OS X apps such that portability between OS X and WIndows remains a special case... and generally not worth the sacrifices in usability and integration. Bottom line is this: Give me two applications that do roughly the same thing, one using Java/SWT and the other pure Cocoa, and I'm going to take the native Cocoa app. Java is a handicap. And NetI/O even more so because of the server dependency.
It does have value, but the value is for developers, not users. Lets be clear on who benefits from portability. In many ways portability works out to be a bad thing for users because of sacrafices made trying to make an app work the same on all platforms. Fact is that different platforms behave differently. Trying to deny that or gloss over it for the sake of portability is not going to win you users.
The only exception I can think of where portability is desireable for users is gaming. If a game comes out for WIndows I might really want to play it on my Mac. Denying the differences in platforms works in this case because most games just switch into fullscreen mode and don't use any system features beyond whatever it take ti display the graphics and sound and take input from the user.
Well, you can use Java to write Cocoa app. You'll just lose a lot of portability, but you can do it an users probably won't know the difference. You can also write Cocoa apps in Python. And even Ruby. I've written a few RubyCocoa ultilities, actually.
Again, you're making the Java Mistake of assuming that what is good for developers is good for users. Are you talking to me as a developer or a user? Because my two personalities have different priorities.
So are the dozen native local apps that I use every day.
-matthew
The promise of portability has been fulfilled by Java for the most part. But as it turn out, the average user just doesn't care. The only people that seem to care about portability are developers. Users are generally only on a single platform. The fact that their favorite app just happens to run on another platform is meaningless. This is one of the reasons why Java really hasn't taken off on the desktop. The only people who really USE Java apps seem to be Java developers (Eclipse, Netbeans, InteliJ, etc). For everyone else, native apps that integrate well with the OS are preferable.
The other type of portability, which NetIO seems to emulate to a large degree, is X Windows. And even that has shown to have a rather limited usefulness. X also suffers from the problem of lack of integration with the Host. As an OS X user, the only thing I avoid more than Java apps are X apps. I will always prefer a native Cocoa app over a Java or X11 app. I don't care if I can run them over the network. I don't care if they're "portable" in the sense that I can display them on any platform with an X server, they're hideous next to native Cocoa apps which integrate with my system.
Don't get me wrong, NetI/O seems like an interesting evolution of X11, but I don't really see how it fits into the scheme of things. What application could you possibly come up with that uses NetI/O that I wouldn't prefer to have as native Cocoa running locally?
Really, there's no shortage of native apps for OS X. Gaining a few non-Cocoa apps via NetI/O seems insignificant to me. I mean, if you can really make an unique apps that doesn't exist in any other form, then yea, I'll use it. But my eyes will always been pealed for a native alternative. What I'm saying is that any developer who write for something like NetI/O is starting off with a pretty big handicap.
-matthew
Because there's no telling the military what that can and cannot do. You think fighting city hall is hard.... :-)
-matthew
Don't laugh. I'm typing this on a machine built around a pirated AMD chip. I downloaded blueprints (or whatever they're called for chips) and programmed my FPGA! It is the future. Everything will come down to intellectual property... in the future. Even the FPGA's will come from a replicator that materializes an item based on someone else's intellectual property. Before you know it, we'll be licensing food blueprints... and people will pirate them!
-matthew
Sun still uses SPARC, but for the x86 systems they are using AMD last I checked. But that's not a huge part of the market. I mean, that's mostly servers. Desktops are where it is at.
-matthew
Ok, it seems to me that the single biggest draw for these online desktop-like apps is to have access to your files from anywhere. Assuming that is correct, they why aren't we seeing more traditional apps that are capable of drawing from a common network data store such as Amazone S3? I know Amazon provides an API. Seem like you could extend OpenOffice to talk to S3 (or similar) directly and you'd have your "documents just about anywhere" feature that everyone (on Slashdot) seems to think is so useful. Really, it is such a relatively simple solution considering compared to trying to coerce a web browser into doing things God never meant it to do.
-matthew
Fortunately the company that is doing this "OpenOffice port" is not going to use the browser. Sounds like they're using something more like X11. So I suppose it could work. Although it is still of limited usefulness. You STILL need to download and install something. I'd almost rather have regular OpenOffice (or perhaps something more stripped down) that runs locally and (optionally) talks to a common data store like Amazon S3. No, it most likely wouldn't run on mobile devices, but who wants to compose a document on a mobile device anyway? And is having 'the latest version always available' really that important in the case of an office product? I mean, how often does a major new release come out anyway? Is it really so inconvenient to run an updater every now and then? Windows Update covers Office, doesn't it? Most of OS X application have updater built in and it works just great. Start the app up in the morning and it detects a newer version, downloads, and installs. Done in 30 seconds or less.
-matthew
scp?
-matthew
I always wondered just how effective IT testing of patches really is and how often it finds stuff that breaks. What do you do, sit there and run through every menu of every single application that the business runs? Is there some kind of automated test suite you can run? Sounds like a huge, tedious pain in the ass to me. I'm glad I've never had to work anywhere that is so paranoid.
-matthew
So if there is an intelligent designer behind the changes in the bots in response to selective pressure, is that evolution or intelligent design?
-matthew
There are a lot of different costs associated with developing a product. There's paying the programmers, lease on the facilities, equipment, insurance, management, lawyers, advertising, etc. It is just plain naive to think that the only thing that your purchase money should be going towards are the people who actually write the software. Why not talk about the "advertising tax" or the "insurance tax." Fact is that there is a lot of overhead in doing just about any kind of business. Managing patent issues just happens to be one of them. Yeah, maybe too much money goes to lawyers, but that's just the way it is.
-matthew
I don't know about "scare" but it does surprise me a bit. Just as I was surprised to find that I, a peace loving geek, like to shoot guns.
-matthew
Indeed. I'd be pretty happy if I got 244 Chinese people to purchase an operating system that I wrote.
Well that's just stupid.
The LAST thing this world needs is an even more available Access-like product. It is amazing what kidn of abominations "laypeople" can come up with given these kinds of tools. And then they start relying on them. And then you have to support them... and perhaps try to export their hideous data structures into something else more sane later. That is IF you can manage to pry the tool from their cold, dead hands. No way, man. Lets keep some things difficult. There are just some things that should be left to professionals. Database design is one of them.
-matthew
That doesn't seem right at all. What's your RAM situation? I wonder if Pages has memory issues.
-matthew
Sounds like something is seriously wrong with your computer. That just isn't right. Possibly bad sectors on the disk. You should make sure you get a backup ASAP and run some diagnostics. Take a look at the Console.app and look for any disk read/write errors.
-matthew
WTF!? Computers haven't lagged behind keystrokes in like 15 years (although browser based apps chock full of Javascript aim to change that). What are you running, a Mac Classic or something?
-matthew