I admit to being somewhat of the loop on this. I used to Gnome, I ditched it when they dropped Sawfish in favor of Metacity.
But I was interested when they came to this conclusion that some sort of Application Development Framework, over and above what they could iron out of C(++) was needed. What I don't get is why.NET? And no, I wouldn't have gone Java.
Why not go with Objective-C? Want the memory manager, link with libgc. It works GREAT! And if you don't feel the need to play ever catch up with Apple, you can link the GNUstep stuff with libgc, and fork off in your own direction. It's amazing to me what the GNUstep guys are able to do with such a small amount of developers. And then you can start playing with the StepTalk stuff being done in GNUstep, which gives you a *really* fluid application toolset. You get the C, the objects, the messages, the elegance (i.e. no need for the language to bolt on another 20 features every rev because it somehow never really figured out what it wanted to be, nee Java), and the uber fluid Smalltalk stuff at the top. And you can pick and choose, so you don't have the religous flamewars.
Am I on Slashdot??!?! Oh. Sorry. You caught me on my soapbox in front of my mirror.
This is a very interesting comment indeed. I'm a big Smalltalk/Objective-C/C fan. And I'd use mod points to mod you up, but you've already hit 5, so I'll just add my thoughts.
One of my frustrations with GNUstep is the historical apathy about GC. Sure, it's an obscure configure/compile option you might find and use, but the community doesn't. I have been so greatful that Apple is attempting to break this long standing tradition.
After that, the real thing that will differentiate Smalltalk from Objective-C will be BlockClosures.
One wonders if Apple's next move will be to add a Smalltalk system to their development suite. Something like they guys at http://ambrai.com/> have put together, backed by Apple, would be the coolest.
I haven't seen the form factor of this thing yet... so I may be off base here. I think they're getting it wrong. I don't want to listen to or buy music with my phone. My phone sits in my pocket/holster, is hard to get at, and any day I "forget" it at home, I'm actually kind of happy.
But I love to borrow my daughter's iPod shuffle. I can wear it and listen to it for hours. Tile the bathroom floor with it, etc. The point is, its pleasent to be plugged into for long periods. But I've noticed that when I play the music loud (which is always), I don't hear the phone down the hall unless I manage to figure out how to hook up its ringer to the subwoofer and shake the house to its core.
So I was thinking... wouldn't it be cool if the iPod hooked into the phone network, and when someone called, the music dimms and gentle "pinging" is plexed in. The lanyard has one of those throat mikes on it. Through some action, I choose to answer the call (or not and the volume return and pinging goes away), the music cuts out completely, and now it's just like I'm using Skype with a headset.
YES!! I just knew it! Intel is gonna build a PowerPC variant. Steve couldn't let on, becuause, er, well, you know. I know the mighty Apple would prevail. World domination is near. The holy Mac is still the holy Mac. PowerPC is still the future. And now Intel's going to convert! I just know it!
Move along citizens, just having a little delusion here. But hey... rest of hell froze over, I just want a little ice cube, K?
Seriously. I know it seems like an odd mix. But C is the OS language. And in learning C, you learn how computers work. You can't escape it. The stack, the memory model, etc.
OTOH, any complex program may want a GC, a decent development environment, robust libraries, debuggers, etc. If you evolve a system from C, you'll just end up with Smalltalk, or something that still trying to be like Smalltalk Java. Smalltalk is a great language for getting out of the way, and letting programers worry about their problems, not all the arcane details of how it's implemented. A know a number of schools have run successful projects using Squeak and other Smalltalk flavors to educate from primary through college ages.
The IBM ThinkPads ARE nice, I've used at least 3 models for the company I work for. BUT, I wouldn't put them in the same realm as the PowerBook. My 1.5 17" PowerBook makes me laugh at any of the Thinkpads I've had the pleasure of using.
This is very interesting to me. I'm reading this as a novice kernel programmer, but an adept application level programmer with a variety of OO languages used (Smalltalk, C++, OCAML, Objective-C, CLOS). I have to say... C++ is by far the worst realization of the ideals behind OO that I am aware of. That's beside the point though, what I guess I find interesting, is why didn't Apple choose to inject some Objective-C into the kernel (a much better C-OO hybrid). I was not aware they used C++ in the kernel before your post.
Clarify something for me. You state that Linux is bloated (I may even agree with you btw). You then state that open source and Unix are the proper soil to cultivate the proper computing environment in. But... Linux is decidedly open source and Unix. I think you need differentiate a bit better than that.
Most people are not creative, and most hate to learn. This is a sad truth. The amount of people who like to learn new things throughout their life, or create things just for the sake of creating, is a thin sliver of the general population.
The really sad thing is that these are the people that are promoted to management.
Spending the years of effort it takes to develop something like this OR the time it'll take a couple balistics perks to design and get approval for the use of bigger badder bullets that'll blow the crap out of anyone wearing this wet armor?
I'm holding out for a personal force field personally.
No, I disagree. I love Macs. I own the latest and greatest iLamp at home. I have purchased quite a few iTunes songs with it. But it just absolutely frosts me that I cannot use those songs on my Linux boxes at work. That is the one thing I'm thrilled with FairPlay about. If xmms could play my iTunes songs, I'd not of ever given it a second look.
(PS: It also pisses me off that I cannot view Quicktime movies on my Linux box at work either).
So when can I get a team of these to write our company's mission critical software for me? Then I wouldn't have to pay these pesky overpaid engineers at all. They're so unpredictable.
What I'm really looking forward to is when I can get a team of Indian made robots to write the code for me. Then it'll be predictable AND cheap.
Unfortunately, if that happens it will only bring the age of gov't mandated hardware DRM even closer - and then you can say goodbye to actually owning your own computer.
And when that happens, it will only accelerate the age of the black markert DRM free computer produced off shore on some tiny island somewhere. After all, dongle's, code wheels, etc.... they were hardware solutions.
My iTunes "purchased music" folder shows 43 songs. My Limewire Shared folder has 21 songs in it. I've been using iTunes for about 5 months now.
What your point misses, at least as far as iTunes goes is: a) there are still tons of songs I want to download and can't find on iTunes--these are not super hip songs that the artists are keeping "exclusive", they're mid 80's pop songs that were popular enough in their day, b) though the AAC quality is pretty good relatively speaking, its only 128, and I'm usually able to find someone that has the song I want at 256+, and I CAN hear the difference definitely, c) 30 seconds of intro is often not enough for me to decide whether I want the whole song.
Until Apple fixes these things, I'll keep sharing to get around these shortcomings.
Of course, if someone hadn't so royally screwed up copyright laws in the first place, most of the stuff I'd be downloading would have expired be now.:O
The network becomes a more heterogenous environment. It's how eco systems (macro and micro) protect themselves. And they can communicate "information" relatively quickly.
...the slow and huge Swing (that Smalltalkers foisted on Java)...
Do your homework dude. Swing may be a pig, but making it sound like it was Smalltalk at fault is flamebait. Sun went looking for just such a thing and found an irate team of people who thought they could try the ParcPlace emulated x-platform widget game for Java. Didn't matter that they were Smalltalkers or anything else.
I suppose every time you use windows, icons, your mouse, or pointers, it just pisses you off that a bunch of Smalltalkers at Parc years ago foisted that on us! And damn that MVC concept too. And the whole messaging thing, and first class objects, and, well all that other OO stuff, bunch of stuff Smalltalkers foisted on us. I guess they foisted garbage collection onto Java too, huh?
There are multiple Smalltalk incarnations out there. Of at least 7 Smalltalk environments (VisualWorks, VisualAge, ObjectStudio, Squeak, Smalltalk/X, #Smalltalk, GNU/Smalltalk) I have written applications with... only two do the emulated widget thing, the other all do the native thing.
So what I want to know is this. Every time I see a dumb idea or a crappy implementation, do I get to blame it on the language?
Oh, and BTW, that other response, the one about IBM's java widget set (SWT)... that was designed by a bunch of Smalltalkers too, the OTI crowd that IBM bought for IBM Smalltalk. I wish they'd just go away and quit foisting stuff on us.
May I suggest you look at Smalltalk too, which has been running on MacOSX for, well, pretty much since it came out, and didn't seem to warrant an anouncement on slashdot.
Both VisualWorks Smalltalk and Squeak have wicked cool environments, lots of neat stuff, public code repositories with lots of stuff, good friendly communities, run quickly, are objects thru-n-thru and of course do the xplatform thing at the binary level.
That language, Objective-C, which makes much of the cool stuff that is OSX possible, was after all inspired by Smalltalk.
...was mentioned. This fascinated me. I thought it was below most's radar. Too bad UserLinux doesn't go with that. True GNUstep may not be as caught up as the other two, but it's vastly superior IMO. If they ever wanted to build anything that approximated OS X, GNUstep is the place not to start, not with the bloated Windows Knock Off known as KDE or the "we're all free, but we have no Human Factors direction" Gnome.
Slashdot Mirror
I admit to being somewhat of the loop on this. I used to Gnome, I ditched it when they dropped Sawfish in favor of Metacity.
.NET? And no, I wouldn't have gone Java.
But I was interested when they came to this conclusion that some sort of Application Development Framework, over and above what they could iron out of C(++) was needed. What I don't get is why
Why not go with Objective-C? Want the memory manager, link with libgc. It works GREAT! And if you don't feel the need to play ever catch up with Apple, you can link the GNUstep stuff with libgc, and fork off in your own direction. It's amazing to me what the GNUstep guys are able to do with such a small amount of developers. And then you can start playing with the StepTalk stuff being done in GNUstep, which gives you a *really* fluid application toolset. You get the C, the objects, the messages, the elegance (i.e. no need for the language to bolt on another 20 features every rev because it somehow never really figured out what it wanted to be, nee Java), and the uber fluid Smalltalk stuff at the top. And you can pick and choose, so you don't have the religous flamewars.
Am I on Slashdot??!?! Oh. Sorry. You caught me on my soapbox in front of my mirror.
This is a very interesting comment indeed. I'm a big Smalltalk/Objective-C/C fan. And I'd use mod points to mod you up, but you've already hit 5, so I'll just add my thoughts.
One of my frustrations with GNUstep is the historical apathy about GC. Sure, it's an obscure configure/compile option you might find and use, but the community doesn't. I have been so greatful that Apple is attempting to break this long standing tradition.
After that, the real thing that will differentiate Smalltalk from Objective-C will be BlockClosures.
One wonders if Apple's next move will be to add a Smalltalk system to their development suite. Something like they guys at http://ambrai.com/> have put together, backed by Apple, would be the coolest.
I haven't seen the form factor of this thing yet... so I may be off base here. I think they're getting it wrong. I don't want to listen to or buy music with my phone. My phone sits in my pocket/holster, is hard to get at, and any day I "forget" it at home, I'm actually kind of happy.
But I love to borrow my daughter's iPod shuffle. I can wear it and listen to it for hours. Tile the bathroom floor with it, etc. The point is, its pleasent to be plugged into for long periods. But I've noticed that when I play the music loud (which is always), I don't hear the phone down the hall unless I manage to figure out how to hook up its ringer to the subwoofer and shake the house to its core.
So I was thinking... wouldn't it be cool if the iPod hooked into the phone network, and when someone called, the music dimms and gentle "pinging" is plexed in. The lanyard has one of those throat mikes on it. Through some action, I choose to answer the call (or not and the volume return and pinging goes away), the music cuts out completely, and now it's just like I'm using Skype with a headset.
YES!! I just knew it! Intel is gonna build a PowerPC variant. Steve couldn't let on, becuause, er, well, you know. I know the mighty Apple would prevail. World domination is near. The holy Mac is still the holy Mac. PowerPC is still the future. And now Intel's going to convert! I just know it!
Move along citizens, just having a little delusion here. But hey... rest of hell froze over, I just want a little ice cube, K?
Seriously. I know it seems like an odd mix. But C is the OS language. And in learning C, you learn how computers work. You can't escape it. The stack, the memory model, etc.
OTOH, any complex program may want a GC, a decent development environment, robust libraries, debuggers, etc. If you evolve a system from C, you'll just end up with Smalltalk, or something that still trying to be like Smalltalk Java. Smalltalk is a great language for getting out of the way, and letting programers worry about their problems, not all the arcane details of how it's implemented. A know a number of schools have run successful projects using Squeak and other Smalltalk flavors to educate from primary through college ages.
From what I've read/seen about Spotlight, it sounds like an integrated version of the addon "Quicksilver". Is this the case?
The IBM ThinkPads ARE nice, I've used at least 3 models for the company I work for. BUT, I wouldn't put them in the same realm as the PowerBook. My 1.5 17" PowerBook makes me laugh at any of the Thinkpads I've had the pleasure of using.
This is very interesting to me. I'm reading this as a novice kernel programmer, but an adept application level programmer with a variety of OO languages used (Smalltalk, C++, OCAML, Objective-C, CLOS). I have to say... C++ is by far the worst realization of the ideals behind OO that I am aware of. That's beside the point though, what I guess I find interesting, is why didn't Apple choose to inject some Objective-C into the kernel (a much better C-OO hybrid). I was not aware they used C++ in the kernel before your post.
Clarify something for me. You state that Linux is bloated (I may even agree with you btw). You then state that open source and Unix are the proper soil to cultivate the proper computing environment in. But... Linux is decidedly open source and Unix. I think you need differentiate a bit better than that.
Just my $(1/50)
The really sad thing is that these are the people that are promoted to management.
Spending the years of effort it takes to develop something like this OR the time it'll take a couple balistics perks to design and get approval for the use of bigger badder bullets that'll blow the crap out of anyone wearing this wet armor?
I'm holding out for a personal force field personally.
Now they can outsource the jobs to some country overseas, and slowly shut them down.. uh, oh, wait a minute.
No, I disagree. I love Macs. I own the latest and greatest iLamp at home. I have purchased quite a few iTunes songs with it. But it just absolutely frosts me that I cannot use those songs on my Linux boxes at work. That is the one thing I'm thrilled with FairPlay about. If xmms could play my iTunes songs, I'd not of ever given it a second look.
(PS: It also pisses me off that I cannot view Quicktime movies on my Linux box at work either).
So when can I get a team of these to write our company's mission critical software for me? Then I wouldn't have to pay these pesky overpaid engineers at all. They're so unpredictable.
What I'm really looking forward to is when I can get a team of Indian made robots to write the code for me. Then it'll be predictable AND cheap.
Unfortunately, if that happens it will only bring the age of gov't mandated hardware DRM even closer - and then you can say goodbye to actually owning your own computer.
And when that happens, it will only accelerate the age of the black markert DRM free computer produced off shore on some tiny island somewhere. After all, dongle's, code wheels, etc.... they were hardware solutions.
My iTunes "purchased music" folder shows 43 songs. My Limewire Shared folder has 21 songs in it. I've been using iTunes for about 5 months now.
:O
What your point misses, at least as far as iTunes goes is: a) there are still tons of songs I want to download and can't find on iTunes--these are not super hip songs that the artists are keeping "exclusive", they're mid 80's pop songs that were popular enough in their day, b) though the AAC quality is pretty good relatively speaking, its only 128, and I'm usually able to find someone that has the song I want at 256+, and I CAN hear the difference definitely, c) 30 seconds of intro is often not enough for me to decide whether I want the whole song.
Until Apple fixes these things, I'll keep sharing to get around these shortcomings.
Of course, if someone hadn't so royally screwed up copyright laws in the first place, most of the stuff I'd be downloading would have expired be now.
The network becomes a more heterogenous environment. It's how eco systems (macro and micro) protect themselves. And they can communicate "information" relatively quickly.
I've done a little Gnustep programming... is there anyone who's done both who can give a comparison? Would I be happier doing Qt?
Well, excepting the wind tunnel known as the G5 XServe, that is.
Do your homework dude. Swing may be a pig, but making it sound like it was Smalltalk at fault is flamebait. Sun went looking for just such a thing and found an irate team of people who thought they could try the ParcPlace emulated x-platform widget game for Java. Didn't matter that they were Smalltalkers or anything else.
I suppose every time you use windows, icons, your mouse, or pointers, it just pisses you off that a bunch of Smalltalkers at Parc years ago foisted that on us! And damn that MVC concept too. And the whole messaging thing, and first class objects, and, well all that other OO stuff, bunch of stuff Smalltalkers foisted on us. I guess they foisted garbage collection onto Java too, huh?
There are multiple Smalltalk incarnations out there. Of at least 7 Smalltalk environments (VisualWorks, VisualAge, ObjectStudio, Squeak, Smalltalk/X, #Smalltalk, GNU/Smalltalk) I have written applications with... only two do the emulated widget thing, the other all do the native thing.
So what I want to know is this. Every time I see a dumb idea or a crappy implementation, do I get to blame it on the language?
Oh, and BTW, that other response, the one about IBM's java widget set (SWT)... that was designed by a bunch of Smalltalkers too, the OTI crowd that IBM bought for IBM Smalltalk. I wish they'd just go away and quit foisting stuff on us.
Does anyone know a repository one can point at to get regular up to date debian packages of Firebird, now named Firefox?
...but has had the back button removed too.
May I suggest you look at Smalltalk too, which has been running on MacOSX for, well, pretty much since it came out, and didn't seem to warrant an anouncement on slashdot.
Both VisualWorks Smalltalk and Squeak have wicked cool environments, lots of neat stuff, public code repositories with lots of stuff, good friendly communities, run quickly, are objects thru-n-thru and of course do the xplatform thing at the binary level.
That language, Objective-C, which makes much of the cool stuff that is OSX possible, was after all inspired by Smalltalk.
Figures I'd find out from the results of someone's game show.
...was mentioned. This fascinated me. I thought it was below most's radar. Too bad UserLinux doesn't go with that. True GNUstep may not be as caught up as the other two, but it's vastly superior IMO. If they ever wanted to build anything that approximated OS X, GNUstep is the place not to start, not with the bloated Windows Knock Off known as KDE or the "we're all free, but we have no Human Factors direction" Gnome.