Then most companies wouldn't run windows, where you have service packs coming out all the time. They wouldn't be using Java/.Net either, since its constantly changing. And they would still be running Office 95.
Who said Joe is scared by choices? Of course the average user doesn't care what sound server he has or what window manager he's running. When it comes to the applications they care about (wordprocessor, spreadsheet, accounting software, photo manipulation program, software synthesizer, whatever) they usually want to be able to change options.
The windows print dialog has a whole bunch of options and people can print just fine. MS Word has a million options but nobody is scared of using it, they only change the options if they actually need to.
BTW, Linux has options, it's not like every distribution puts/home in a different place or man is called nam. And really, I run openbox with no menus/pagers/panels/etc and I don't think i would find it hard to work on a computer with a pager at the bottom of the screen.
There is more money in the PC market than the mainframe market, more money in the home sound card market than professional sound card market, etc. (etc including the 3d video game market vs the cad market)
A more meaningful message would help, but other than installing/uninstalling software and configuration there is no reason to run as root on a desktop system. Even then, most of the configuration can be done without logging in as root.
Also, the more user friendly distros let the user access administration tools by providing the root password in a dialog box. I think a short description of the multiuser system and its virtues (makes it extremely hard for viruses to spread) would make most users happy to use the system in a safe way.
The best part, if there is more than one user (common in a family), each person can have his little sandbox to mess with. Although installing software in a user's home directory is more complicated (no package manager), a normal user can do pretty much every thing else he normally does without the possibility of screwing up the system for everyone else.
He's asking developers who want to write free software to help develop gcj and classpath and to remember that current implementations of java aren't free so their work isn't completely free.
If you aren't interested in the whole free software thing, the article was not directed towards you. It was actually a very conservative article compared to his other writings.
I find the more high level languages (functional or pure oo) have an easier syntax than lower level languages. I think if the first language someone learns is pure OO, or if they have some high school math pure functional, they will find it easier than procedural languages or hybrids like Java/C++.
BTW, I'm not sure how people came up with SGML/XML since it's hard for both humans and computers to parse. It's lisp syntax, only a lot more verbose.
First, perl is one of the reasons apache has control of the webserver 'market'
Second, most machines with a web browser don't have java on it because microsoft took the jvm out windows.
Third, I have seen maybe 2 websites at most with java applets in the last six months and no serious java programs (for the desktop) that provide something new or special.
What do you mean? All three use bytecode interpreters. Which makes them slow and they consume lots of memory. C++ is faster, more popular and bindings for other languages easier to have than with C#/Java.
So if anything were to replace C for the core libs, it would be C++. Honestly, performance on the desktop isn't that great with linux. I'll wait to see if Xorg can make the X server better before I start running everything under Java.
Considering most languages are written in C, i'd say C does support all of the features of Java or Eiffel. Only these languages do things at a much higher level.
Eventually everything gets compiled to assembler but nobody would want to go through the pain of programming in object oriented or functional style using assembly.
The kernel detects my devices fine without having to configure any files. I can set up my network connection automatically with dhcp. MPlayer is able to figure out which codecs to load when i open a file. Why shouldn't X be able to tell how many buttons my mouse has?
Now, I have no problem with config files and i can see how a wheel works like two buttons but why would i have a z axis if my screen is 2d?
"Ah yes, ZAxisMapping 4 5, i'm sure that's the proper way to enable a mouse wheel."
If anything, there should be a Wheel option that is equivalent to the zaxis one, unless there are mice that don't use buttons 4 and 5 for the wheel.
I don't know if it comes with 2K/XP but when I had Win98 I used something called ActiveX DirectShow Plugin or DirectShow ActiveX Plugin or something like that to play videos. It came with the OS, was extremely simple and had the lowest resource usage compared to everything else I tried.
Everyone I know uses winamp for music, maybe it's because the other popular players have such bizarre interfaces. They took the skinning idea from winamp and forgot all about the simplicity.
I'm sure OpenOffice, Abiword or LaTeX will provide all the features Appleworks does and they are free. My sister's new computer came with openoffice. Anyway, it doesn't really matter since I still haven't met anyone who paid for MS Office, I only know of big institutions licensing it.
The hardware platform is still proprietary and extremely overpriced. The powerbook is really nice but if I were to buy a laptop I would need a very good reason to spend so much money on one.
I haven't used the new 2.6 thing and I don't even know what a browser metaphor is, but I haven't found anything easier than a split window with a tree on one side and a single directory on the other (the windows explorer layout).
OTOH once you learn mv, cp and rm; bash + autocompletion becomes the best system.
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Then most companies wouldn't run windows, where you have service packs coming out all the time. They wouldn't be using Java/.Net either, since its constantly changing. And they would still be running Office 95.
Who said Joe is scared by choices? Of course the average user doesn't care what sound server he has or what window manager he's running. When it comes to the applications they care about (wordprocessor, spreadsheet, accounting software, photo manipulation program, software synthesizer, whatever) they usually want to be able to change options.
/home in a different place or man is called nam. And really, I run openbox with no menus/pagers/panels/etc and I don't think i would find it hard to work on a computer with a pager at the bottom of the screen.
The windows print dialog has a whole bunch of options and people can print just fine. MS Word has a million options but nobody is scared of using it, they only change the options if they actually need to.
BTW, Linux has options, it's not like every distribution puts
There is more money in the PC market than the mainframe market, more money in the home sound card market than professional sound card market, etc. (etc including the 3d video game market vs the cad market)
A more meaningful message would help, but other than installing/uninstalling software and configuration there is no reason to run as root on a desktop system. Even then, most of the configuration can be done without logging in as root.
Also, the more user friendly distros let the user access administration tools by providing the root password in a dialog box. I think a short description of the multiuser system and its virtues (makes it extremely hard for viruses to spread) would make most users happy to use the system in a safe way.
The best part, if there is more than one user (common in a family), each person can have his little sandbox to mess with. Although installing software in a user's home directory is more complicated (no package manager), a normal user can do pretty much every thing else he normally does without the possibility of screwing up the system for everyone else.
He's asking developers who want to write free software to help develop gcj and classpath and to remember that current implementations of java aren't free so their work isn't completely free.
If you aren't interested in the whole free software thing, the article was not directed towards you. It was actually a very conservative article compared to his other writings.
I find the more high level languages (functional or pure oo) have an easier syntax than lower level languages. I think if the first language someone learns is pure OO, or if they have some high school math pure functional, they will find it easier than procedural languages or hybrids like Java/C++.
BTW, I'm not sure how people came up with SGML/XML since it's hard for both humans and computers to parse. It's lisp syntax, only a lot more verbose.
First, perl is one of the reasons apache has control of the webserver 'market'
Second, most machines with a web browser don't have java on it because microsoft took the jvm out windows.
Third, I have seen maybe 2 websites at most with java applets in the last six months and no serious java programs (for the desktop) that provide something new or special.
What do you mean? All three use bytecode interpreters. Which makes them slow and they consume lots of memory. C++ is faster, more popular and bindings for other languages easier to have than with C#/Java.
So if anything were to replace C for the core libs, it would be C++. Honestly, performance on the desktop isn't that great with linux. I'll wait to see if Xorg can make the X server better before I start running everything under Java.
If you install everything from source you need extra packages. Since most people use binaries, they won't need any extra packages.
Considering most languages are written in C, i'd say C does support all of the features of Java or Eiffel. Only these languages do things at a much higher level.
Eventually everything gets compiled to assembler but nobody would want to go through the pain of programming in object oriented or functional style using assembly.
That would leave C#/Java out of the picture as well.
We'll genetically modify ourselves to digest cellulose. Maybe get a few extra stomachs for better digestion.
A large amount of the developers work for companies involved with Linux (all of them?). I don't see why they would want to change the license.
These vendors have also worked on the linux kernel and gcc. Those projects seem to be doing fine, much better than xfree86 at least.
The kernel detects my devices fine without having to configure any files. I can set up my network connection automatically with dhcp. MPlayer is able to figure out which codecs to load when i open a file. Why shouldn't X be able to tell how many buttons my mouse has?
Now, I have no problem with config files and i can see how a wheel works like two buttons but why would i have a z axis if my screen is 2d?
"Ah yes, ZAxisMapping 4 5, i'm sure that's the proper way to enable a mouse wheel."
If anything, there should be a Wheel option that is equivalent to the zaxis one, unless there are mice that don't use buttons 4 and 5 for the wheel.
I don't know if it comes with 2K/XP but when I had Win98 I used something called ActiveX DirectShow Plugin or DirectShow ActiveX Plugin or something like that to play videos. It came with the OS, was extremely simple and had the lowest resource usage compared to everything else I tried.
Everyone I know uses winamp for music, maybe it's because the other popular players have such bizarre interfaces. They took the skinning idea from winamp and forgot all about the simplicity.
What is the purpose of a media library? I tried one once and it seemed kind of useless, maybe it was a bad implementation.
Or is it just for people who put all their mp3s in one directory?
The webpage is nice but there aren't any screenshots.
Nobody uses sh anymore, it's all ksh, bash, tcsh or zsh.
The popularity of an artist does not make her good. You don't hear anyone saying Britney is talented because she has sold lots of CDs.
You're forgetting about arcade car games like Initial D.
I'm sure OpenOffice, Abiword or LaTeX will provide all the features Appleworks does and they are free. My sister's new computer came with openoffice. Anyway, it doesn't really matter since I still haven't met anyone who paid for MS Office, I only know of big institutions licensing it.
So, inferior hardware should be more expensive because people don't really need so much speed?
The hardware platform is still proprietary and extremely overpriced. The powerbook is really nice but if I were to buy a laptop I would need a very good reason to spend so much money on one.
I haven't used the new 2.6 thing and I don't even know what a browser metaphor is, but I haven't found anything easier than a split window with a tree on one side and a single directory on the other (the windows explorer layout).
OTOH once you learn mv, cp and rm; bash + autocompletion becomes the best system.