C==vi, C++==emacs (the kitchen sink)
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I responded to the logical part in another post, but let me address that here, too. I didn't mean that OO programing wasn't logical, I was just trying to refer to the other paradigm of programing that isn't OO. Maybe it's action oriented programming? I used the silly example of a += b; rather than a->add(b); That was what I meant. I respect C++, btw, I didn't mean to imply otherwise. I just didn't phrase it well.
> If E and Gnome were written in intellegent C++, > they might actually work. Just like Netscape? Oh, and in what sense doesn't E work? I can't remember it crashing on me since the 13.3 days, and I use it exclusively. Gnome is just a massive project that's growing at an incredible rate. To expect a project of gnome's magnitude to go from nothing to perfect in a year by volunteer developers is insane.
I'm not saying that C++ might not be more appropriate for them, but they're doing quite well as they are. So is Linux. And the gimp.
I never meant to imply that C++ isn't good, just that it isn't simply all-around better. And saying that you can compile C with a C++ compiler isn't an argument for using C++, it's not an argument for much of anything than it's fine to invoke g++ instead of gcc on a.c file. C++ seems like a good language, but it's not clearly better than C++.
Lacking a real clear general superiority, there's no reason to condemn those who like C over C++, or to regard them as inferior. Frankly, while I like C, my favorite language is perl. C feels closer to the CPU, and in that way I like it better, but there's nothing like Perl for elegance of design.:-)
And you've got no credentials
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When you provide some credentials, I'll start accepting crap like "I can't possibly belive you have any programming experience" without some good proof.
I object to the streams because they exist, not because they are forced on you. They provide some benefits, but they don't do things like set errno, they give you less information on file opening failures than their libc equivalents. The types of errors that you can catch are just fewer and less informative. That's my gripe with them. They're less powerfull. They do have some nice qualities, like easy overloading.
Speaking of which, overloading is a nice feature of C++.
My point, though, was that there are reasons to not like C++, and there are no great reasons that C++ is better than C. It has some niceties (the STL, operator overloading, declaring variables anywhere in a program, etc.), but none of them are necessities by any means.
So simple preference is a valid reason to choose a language when there are no clear significant advantages to either. obj1 = obj2 + obj3 is nicer than add(obj1, obj2, obj3), but not by all that much.
Btw, the word logical was probably a bad choice of words. I was trying to refer to the opposite of OO programming, which I guess might be better termed action oriented? What is a good way to describe a += b instead of a->add(b); (using a silly and never-going-to-be-used example).
Did someone just steel your girlfriend, btw? You sound awfully hot tempered for someone responding to a simple post on language choices that said that C++ is not the one true way.
Linux coders are biased against C++, that's why
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· Score: 3
Frankly, C++ has its drawbacks too, like being more complex and further removed from the computer. C++ has a different feel to it. Bloated and Anal come to mind, but that's probably just partially from the way that it was tought to me. Possibly the other part is that I don't really trust any language that has those awful stream object. cin & cout are pathetic compared to their equivalents of printf and scanf.
And those try{} catch{} blocks just feel way too much like some sort of basic. I want to program, not play a game of baseball.
Part of it is also that most of the C++ OO programming that I've seen has made anything that it could find an object, which is the wrong way to go about things. I like OO programming in C better than in C++, partly, I think, because people are more likely to write the code that does the job most elegantly and not the code that does the job most abstractly/OOedly.
Of course, that has nothing to do with the language, but I have tended to dislike the way that people attack problems to attack them with an OO frame of mind rather than a logical frame of mind. This is just a generalization, btw, and I haven't seen all that much C++ code.
But the major thing about C rather than C++ is that C just doesn't have the "designed by theory" feel to it. Everything in C feels like it's been designed from experience and logic. That's why, I think, that it's been called portable assembly. Assembly tends to be elegant, efficient, and logical. Especially some of the RISC assembly languages.
C has that sort of feel to it. It has a minimalist appeal. C is quite convenient, as long as you're comfortable with computers, and while it has its faults, it doesn't really get in your way to do anything.
C++, by contrast, feels like it was designed with OO theory in mind. It has all sorts of contructs that just don't feel right on a computer. Like the public/protected/private declarations. That just feels like something that should be in a classroom, not a real programming language. Of course, that's a feeling, but it has its validity. public/protected/private isn't part of how a problem gets solved, it isn't part of the code, and it isn't something that helps the compiler figure out what you mean.
On the other hand, classes do offer some convenience for having OO functions inherently know what data they are operating on. But it is just a convenience. It's not much of a hardship to do object->data instead of data.
Anyhow, I haven't seen any really good reasons for prefering one language over the other. I get more of a feeling of leaner, faster code from C, but that might be erroneous, it's possible that if you don't really use certain features of C++, they're not put in there because they theoretically belong in there. I haven't really looked through the various C++ compilers.
But please don't disparage C so much. There's nothing that you can do in C++ that you can't do in C (that isn't syntactical in nature), and setting up your own object model generally means a few extra pointers that would be handled for you in C++. For those who like the feel of C better, there aren't really any compelling reasons to switch to C++.
As far as your argument about gcc being abandoned goes, I doubt it. I don't think that Cygnus would let itself fall behind.
As far as "This will lose Compaq the main edge it currently has over its rivals in the Alpha supplier market." What are you talking about? Compaq supplies hardware. You're not going to reverse engineer Alphas and come up with Alpha clones from an optimized compiler. Especially not on any timeframe that matters.
Do you think that Compaq is in the business of selling compilers? They make the compiler to make their hardware faster, and nearly give it away so that they can sell more hardware. Are you going to tell them that 100 different optimized compilers are going to result in compaq selling less hardware?
> A source tarball was asked for. A binary is > available. If I show up to a race with the parts > to a car and a built car, why would you assume > the pre-built car was not there? There is validity to this argument. But let's say that the atmospheric content has changed from what the pre-built and welded-shut car comes with. The parts can be easily adjusted. The welded-shut car can't. It's close enough to have nothing when you have a car that won't count. (please give the analogy some leniency, I'm not a mechanical engineer to give a really dead-on technically correct example).
> > You are correct in that its proprietary nature > > is unrelated to its performance. However, I > > don't see how this gives your argument any > > credence.
> Your first sentence is correct. The second one > does not make sense. He was talking about > performance which you agreed with in the first > sentence. No, he wasn't making a performance argument, he was making a closed source/open source argument, and using performance as one justification of that argument. Shaw is attacking the open/closed argument, which is the real argument being made.
> He stated facts. You can argue the moon is made > of green cheese, but it does not change facts. No one disagreed with the fact that the digital compiler will probably be faster than current egcs/gcc compilers. Many people, myself included, might take issue with the idea that the digital (compaq) compilers are better. That's what the argument is about.
And my point was that performance isn't the only important issue. If the only response to him is some idea that having source lurking somewhere on the same hard drive is going to magically make a compiler faster, you've got to be kidding me.
Respond to this: The compiler can still be closed source and it won't affect the compiler's performance as a paperweight.
Big deal. Paperweight performance isn't the only issue for compilers. It's legitimate to point that out if I go about saying that it doesn't matter if a program is closed source because paperweight performance isn't affected.
Don't get me wrong, RedHat 5.2 installs like a dream, for the most part. I've rarely had any problems with it attributable to RedHat. On the other hand, their Xconfigurator is fairly primitive as far as Monitor Selection goes, and it could be legitimately improved. Not a great big deal, but it would be nice.
What I'm talking about is largely more for reporters than anyone else. If RedHat made their install process more newbi-friendly, it wouldn't generate reports that make the lives of tech-people more difficult.:-)
Does anyone know if there's any equity left in RedHat that belongs to RedHat?
Do they plan to spend any of this money that they're getting to improve the installation process, like a full pnp list of monitors for monitor-autodetection? Adding more "intelligent" installations options, that will automatically invoke fips and things like that? Maybe invoking X in lowest common denominator for their install (options: B&W Color Graphical, or something like that)? They sound like they should be able to beat down the installation difficulties of Linux with money, at this point.
Daryll, This is awesome news. Is the guy that you heard this from a reliable source? I.e. is he high up enough to be getting this info reliably, like as a first-hand source that doesn't change its mind much?
On the math lib note, try out libffm. Sometimes it's faster than the compaq portable math libraries, though it depends greatly on the application.
On a third note, is there any chance that you'll work on glide support for the Alpha?
Thanks for the info, this makes the future of Linux/Alpha look bright indeed.
And what about bugs introduced into my code from bugs in the compiler? At least with Open Source compilers, I can fix that myself, if I need to. And if you don't believe me, you obviously haven't read enough changelogs. I've seen plenty of entries scattered all over the place to the effect of "added a work around for the [compiler] [version] bug on [platform]." What do we do with their closed source compilers? Never have them fixed?
As far as journaling file systems, it's my understnading that that's on its way, but it definitely isn't here yet.
As far as SMP systems, ask VA research how their 8-CPU Xeon system runs. Care to comment, Chris?
As for terabyte files, try an Alpha, or any other 64-bit platform. I'm fairly sure that my Alpha could do terrabyte files, if I only had the hard drive for it...:-) I know that I don't have the year 2038 problem, nor do I have the 2(4?)Gig RAM limit on my Alpha.
Now, can NT do 6-8 CPUs worth a damn? I'm fairly certain that NT can't do 64+ CPUs worth anything. And does it have a journaling file system worth mentioning? I've never really dealt with journaling file systems. Does anyone know (btw, worth a damn/worth mentioning means on the same sort of caliber as Solaris/Irix/Aix/etc. can do it)?
It's true that Linux doesn't scale like Solaris on the Big Iron to 128+ processors. On the other hand, neither does NT, and NT was ranked in front of Linux. I know that VA research demoed an 8 CPU Xeon system at Linux Expo, and I've heard about someone running linux on a 12 CPU Sun system. Can NT even do that? Why on earth would NT be grouped with the Big Iron OSes like Solaris, Irix, Aix, etc?
As for the journaling file system, I think that that's on its way, though I don't know for sure.
try using lynx. The thing isn't slashdotted so much as the pictures take a lot of bandwith. Lynx got through like the pages were on my local web server.
I've had Linux installs that went through blindly clicking. Getting it working on my Alpha took work. I've had windows installs that wend through blindly clicking. I've had windows installs that plain out don't work. Small sample sizes mean nothing. Windows doesn't always work, Linux doesn't always work. Nothing always works. Nothing in life always works. Giving one example of a difficult Linux install doesn't prove anything at all, just as giving one example of a difficult windows install doesn't prove anything either.
Has it ever occured to you that software writers don't like answering technical questions? that's hwy documentation gets written, and that's why things will get more "user friendly". Dealing with those who need it is a pain, so the "user friendly" stuff will be written. Installation will be easier. Have you noticed autoconf lately? Who do you think came up with that?
Actually, while Linux certainly can't do the 128+ CPUs, it has been tested and worked on a 12 CPU sun box, I think. I don't have a link though, so I wouldn't go with this. I thought that VA research had an 8 Xeon system running Linux at Linux Expo.
Anyhow, NT can't do 8+ processors any more than Linux can.
The journaling file system is a real fault that doesn't affect all that many people, but I suspect a good portion of the intended recipient of that article. I think that this is in the works, so it is a real problem, but isn't being ignored.
While what you're saying is true, the complexity of something tends to go up with the amount of control that you have. More control means more variables that you control, more variables is the definition of complexity.
Now, one can make things more complex than the inherent complexity of a given level of control fairly easily, but you will never be able to make things simpler than the inherent level of complexity of a certain level of control.
That's why computers will never be appliances. Appliances have one function, sometimes two. A computer can do almost anything that you can imagine (using computer-oriented imagination on a reasonable scale:-)). Making them simpler than their inherent complexity, which is fairly complex, only means that you can't do all the stuff that you imagine. Of course, you can have levels of complexity, and as long as your top level of complexity has all of the inherent complexity of the tool, that's fine. It's just that when most people say simple, they usually seem to mean simpler than the inherent level of complexity.
> Superior is a strong word. Windows9x and Windows > NT are extremely developer friendly. If you can > get past the bloat of MFC (which Windows > developers seem to have no problem doing), it is > an extremely complete GUI API.
Out of curiosity, in this "complete" GUI API, how does a user change the look of the widgets by changing themes (like Gtk+), and from the programmer's perspective, how does one to remote displays to other computers?
I've heard lots about how convenient Dvorak is for typing, but I get the impression that this is mostly for typing prose. Does anyone know how dvorak does for typing code? (C & perl, specifically)
It's fairly simple: information is meant to be shared. Knowledge should be universal. Free Software isn't an ends in itself, it's a means to freedom. The idea is that noone can force you into their own paradigm. Software is inherently sticky. Once you start, it's very hard to get out.
The idea is that with GPL'd software, user's can control their software. They aren't strapped into a car with no steering wheel.
And more important, when I write some code, what right do you have to take that code, add something to it, then start selling it without the code?
I don't owe you a damn thing. I wrote XAmixer. I gave it away. To say that I'm taking away someone's freedom by granting them the right to do whatever they want with my code except to give it away to other people with fewer rights than I gave them is absurd. Yes, I'm not giving away full license to something, but you never had any right to XAmixer to begin with. I gave it to you, or I sold it to you. Either way, you are getting something from me that I don't owe you. To say that I'm doing anything but giving you more than you had is absurd.
And on the other token, if you have a right to my source code, why don't I have a right to yours? If you should be able to take my code and do anything that you want with it, why shouldn't I be able to take your code and do anything that I want with it?
Btw, if you're really willing to get locked in to Oracle software because it adds some value, that's your business. If you wanted to sell yourself into slavery because you'd have a guaranteed roof over your head, or it was the most convenient way to get rid of your debts, that's your business too. If you're willing to sacrifice your freedom (i.e. the ability to do what you want with that database product) for some gain (i.e. more functionality on that product), that's your business.
But in general, using proprietary products is viral in nature. As soon as you use one, your entire system is limited. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.
Oh, and people should give out the blueprints to the cars that we buy. It's quite wrong for companies to put in black boxes that only they can fix for whatever fees they choose.
While the statistics were probably true, they were done very poorly. First off, the % was for FSF code, not GNU code. Next, it was done by bytecount. At which point Linux is something like.2% of the total Linux distribution. Using that sort of metric, the last thing that a Linux dist should be called is Linux. Especially since Linux is named after Linus, and his contribution is only about 10% of the code, if even that. So going by bytecount, Linu shouldn't even appear in the name.
All that stuff was nonsense. More importantly, one can argue that anyone who uses the GPL for their application is implicitly making it a part of the GNU project (A Free UNIX, +-). Now, if you figure out the %s even by bytecount, GPL'd software makes up a really big portion of distributions.
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I responded to the logical part in another post, but let me address that here, too. I didn't mean that OO programing wasn't logical, I was just trying to refer to the other paradigm of programing that isn't OO. Maybe it's action oriented programming? I used the silly example of a += b; rather than a->add(b); That was what I meant. I respect C++, btw, I didn't mean to imply otherwise. I just didn't phrase it well.
.c file. C++ seems like a good language, but it's not clearly better than C++.
:-)
> If E and Gnome were written in intellegent C++,
> they might actually work.
Just like Netscape?
Oh, and in what sense doesn't E work? I can't remember it crashing on me since the 13.3 days, and I use it exclusively. Gnome is just a massive project that's growing at an incredible rate. To expect a project of gnome's magnitude to go from nothing to perfect in a year by volunteer developers is insane.
I'm not saying that C++ might not be more appropriate for them, but they're doing quite well as they are. So is Linux. And the gimp.
I never meant to imply that C++ isn't good, just that it isn't simply all-around better. And saying that you can compile C with a C++ compiler isn't an argument for using C++, it's not an argument for much of anything than it's fine to invoke g++ instead of gcc on a
Lacking a real clear general superiority, there's no reason to condemn those who like C over C++, or to regard them as inferior. Frankly, while I like C, my favorite language is perl. C feels closer to the CPU, and in that way I like it better, but there's nothing like Perl for elegance of design.
When you provide some credentials, I'll start accepting crap like "I can't possibly belive you
have any programming experience" without some good proof.
I object to the streams because they exist, not because they are forced on you. They provide some benefits, but they don't do things like set errno, they give you less information on file opening failures than their libc equivalents. The types of errors that you can catch are just fewer and less informative. That's my gripe with them. They're less powerfull. They do have some nice qualities, like easy overloading.
Speaking of which, overloading is a nice feature of C++.
My point, though, was that there are reasons to not like C++, and there are no great reasons that C++ is better than C. It has some niceties (the STL, operator overloading, declaring variables anywhere in a program, etc.), but none of them are necessities by any means.
So simple preference is a valid reason to choose a language when there are no clear significant advantages to either. obj1 = obj2 + obj3 is nicer than add(obj1, obj2, obj3), but not by all that much.
Btw, the word logical was probably a bad choice of words. I was trying to refer to the opposite of OO programming, which I guess might be better termed action oriented? What is a good way to describe a += b instead of a->add(b); (using a silly and never-going-to-be-used example).
Did someone just steel your girlfriend, btw? You sound awfully hot tempered for someone responding to a simple post on language choices that said that C++ is not the one true way.
Frankly, C++ has its drawbacks too, like being more complex and further removed from the computer. C++ has a different feel to it. Bloated and Anal come to mind, but that's probably just partially from the way that it was tought to me. Possibly the other part is that I don't really trust any language that has those awful stream object. cin & cout are pathetic compared to their equivalents of printf and scanf.
And those try{} catch{} blocks just feel way too much like some sort of basic. I want to program, not play a game of baseball.
Part of it is also that most of the C++ OO programming that I've seen has made anything that it could find an object, which is the wrong way to go about things. I like OO programming in C better than in C++, partly, I think, because people are more likely to write the code that does the job most elegantly and not the code that does the job most abstractly/OOedly.
Of course, that has nothing to do with the language, but I have tended to dislike the way that people attack problems to attack them with an OO frame of mind rather than a logical frame of mind. This is just a generalization, btw, and I haven't seen all that much C++ code.
But the major thing about C rather than C++ is that C just doesn't have the "designed by theory" feel to it. Everything in C feels like it's been designed from experience and logic. That's why, I think, that it's been called portable assembly. Assembly tends to be elegant, efficient, and logical. Especially some of the RISC assembly languages.
C has that sort of feel to it. It has a minimalist appeal. C is quite convenient, as long as you're comfortable with computers, and while it has its faults, it doesn't really get in your way to do anything.
C++, by contrast, feels like it was designed with OO theory in mind. It has all sorts of contructs that just don't feel right on a computer. Like the public/protected/private declarations. That just feels like something that should be in a classroom, not a real programming language. Of course, that's a feeling, but it has its validity. public/protected/private isn't part of how a problem gets solved, it isn't part of the code, and it isn't something that helps the compiler figure out what you mean.
On the other hand, classes do offer some convenience for having OO functions inherently know what data they are operating on. But it is just a convenience. It's not much of a hardship to do object->data instead of data.
Anyhow, I haven't seen any really good reasons for prefering one language over the other. I get more of a feeling of leaner, faster code from C, but that might be erroneous, it's possible that if you don't really use certain features of C++, they're not put in there because they theoretically belong in there. I haven't really looked through the various C++ compilers.
But please don't disparage C so much. There's nothing that you can do in C++ that you can't do in C (that isn't syntactical in nature), and setting up your own object model generally means a few extra pointers that would be handled for you in C++. For those who like the feel of C better, there aren't really any compelling reasons to switch to C++.
As far as your argument about gcc being abandoned goes, I doubt it. I don't think that Cygnus would let itself fall behind.
As far as "This will lose Compaq the main edge it currently has over its rivals in the Alpha supplier market." What are you talking about? Compaq supplies hardware. You're not going to reverse engineer Alphas and come up with Alpha clones from an optimized compiler. Especially not on any timeframe that matters.
Do you think that Compaq is in the business of selling compilers? They make the compiler to make their hardware faster, and nearly give it away so that they can sell more hardware. Are you going to tell them that 100 different optimized compilers are going to result in compaq selling less hardware?
> A source tarball was asked for. A binary is
> available. If I show up to a race with the parts
> to a car and a built car, why would you assume
> the pre-built car was not there?
There is validity to this argument. But let's say that the atmospheric content has changed from what the pre-built and welded-shut car comes with. The parts can be easily adjusted. The welded-shut car can't. It's close enough to have nothing when you have a car that won't count. (please give the analogy some leniency, I'm not a mechanical engineer to give a really dead-on technically correct example).
> > You are correct in that its proprietary nature
> > is unrelated to its performance. However, I
> > don't see how this gives your argument any
> > credence.
> Your first sentence is correct. The second one
> does not make sense. He was talking about
> performance which you agreed with in the first
> sentence.
No, he wasn't making a performance argument, he was making a closed source/open source argument, and using performance as one justification of that argument. Shaw is attacking the open/closed argument, which is the real argument being made.
> He stated facts. You can argue the moon is made
> of green cheese, but it does not change facts.
No one disagreed with the fact that the digital compiler will probably be faster than current egcs/gcc compilers. Many people, myself included, might take issue with the idea that the digital (compaq) compilers are better. That's what the argument is about.
And my point was that performance isn't the only important issue. If the only response to him is some idea that having source lurking somewhere on the same hard drive is going to magically make a compiler faster, you've got to be kidding me.
Respond to this: The compiler can still be closed source and it won't affect the compiler's performance as a paperweight.
Big deal. Paperweight performance isn't the only issue for compilers. It's legitimate to point that out if I go about saying that it doesn't matter if a program is closed source because paperweight performance isn't affected.
Don't get me wrong, RedHat 5.2 installs like a dream, for the most part. I've rarely had any problems with it attributable to RedHat. On the other hand, their Xconfigurator is fairly primitive as far as Monitor Selection goes, and it could be legitimately improved. Not a great big deal, but it would be nice.
:-)
What I'm talking about is largely more for reporters than anyone else. If RedHat made their install process more newbi-friendly, it wouldn't generate reports that make the lives of tech-people more difficult.
Isn't egcs currently the market leader in ANSI C++ compilers?
Does anyone know if there's any equity left in RedHat that belongs to RedHat?
Do they plan to spend any of this money that they're getting to improve the installation process, like a full pnp list of monitors for monitor-autodetection? Adding more "intelligent" installations options, that will automatically invoke fips and things like that? Maybe invoking X in lowest common denominator for their install (options: B&W Color Graphical, or something like that)? They sound like they should be able to beat down the installation difficulties of Linux with money, at this point.
Daryll,
This is awesome news. Is the guy that you heard this from a reliable source? I.e. is he high up enough to be getting this info reliably, like as a first-hand source that doesn't change its mind much?
On the math lib note, try out libffm. Sometimes it's faster than the compaq portable math libraries, though it depends greatly on the application.
On a third note, is there any chance that you'll work on glide support for the Alpha?
Thanks for the info, this makes the future of Linux/Alpha look bright indeed.
And what about bugs introduced into my code from bugs in the compiler? At least with Open Source compilers, I can fix that myself, if I need to. And if you don't believe me, you obviously haven't read enough changelogs. I've seen plenty of entries scattered all over the place to the effect of "added a work around for the [compiler] [version] bug on [platform]." What do we do with their closed source compilers? Never have them fixed?
As far as journaling file systems, it's my understnading that that's on its way, but it definitely isn't here yet.
:-) I know that I don't have the year 2038 problem, nor do I have the 2(4?)Gig RAM limit on my Alpha.
As far as SMP systems, ask VA research how their 8-CPU Xeon system runs. Care to comment, Chris?
As for terabyte files, try an Alpha, or any other 64-bit platform. I'm fairly sure that my Alpha could do terrabyte files, if I only had the hard drive for it...
Now, can NT do 6-8 CPUs worth a damn? I'm fairly certain that NT can't do 64+ CPUs worth anything. And does it have a journaling file system worth mentioning? I've never really dealt with journaling file systems. Does anyone know (btw, worth a damn/worth mentioning means on the same sort of caliber as Solaris/Irix/Aix/etc. can do it)?
It's true that Linux doesn't scale like Solaris on the Big Iron to 128+ processors. On the other hand, neither does NT, and NT was ranked in front of Linux. I know that VA research demoed an 8 CPU Xeon system at Linux Expo, and I've heard about someone running linux on a 12 CPU Sun system. Can NT even do that? Why on earth would NT be grouped with the Big Iron OSes like Solaris, Irix, Aix, etc?
As for the journaling file system, I think that that's on its way, though I don't know for sure.
What is the full menu path to that tool? I can't find it off of the footprint menu for some reason. Thanks.
try using lynx. The thing isn't slashdotted so much as the pictures take a lot of bandwith. Lynx got through like the pages were on my local web server.
I've had Linux installs that went through blindly clicking. Getting it working on my Alpha took work. I've had windows installs that wend through blindly clicking. I've had windows installs that plain out don't work. Small sample sizes mean nothing. Windows doesn't always work, Linux doesn't always work. Nothing always works. Nothing in life always works. Giving one example of a difficult Linux install doesn't prove anything at all, just as giving one example of a difficult windows install doesn't prove anything either.
Has it ever occured to you that software writers don't like answering technical questions? that's hwy documentation gets written, and that's why things will get more "user friendly". Dealing with those who need it is a pain, so the "user friendly" stuff will be written. Installation will be easier. Have you noticed autoconf lately? Who do you think came up with that?
Actually, while Linux certainly can't do the 128+ CPUs, it has been tested and worked on a 12 CPU sun box, I think. I don't have a link though, so I wouldn't go with this. I thought that VA research had an 8 Xeon system running Linux at Linux Expo.
Anyhow, NT can't do 8+ processors any more than Linux can.
The journaling file system is a real fault that doesn't affect all that many people, but I suspect a good portion of the intended recipient of that article. I think that this is in the works, so it is a real problem, but isn't being ignored.
While what you're saying is true, the complexity of something tends to go up with the amount of control that you have. More control means more variables that you control, more variables is the definition of complexity.
:-)). Making them simpler than their inherent complexity, which is fairly complex, only means that you can't do all the stuff that you imagine. Of course, you can have levels of complexity, and as long as your top level of complexity has all of the inherent complexity of the tool, that's fine. It's just that when most people say simple, they usually seem to mean simpler than the inherent level of complexity.
Now, one can make things more complex than the inherent complexity of a given level of control fairly easily, but you will never be able to make things simpler than the inherent level of complexity of a certain level of control.
That's why computers will never be appliances. Appliances have one function, sometimes two. A computer can do almost anything that you can imagine (using computer-oriented imagination on a reasonable scale
> Superior is a strong word. Windows9x and Windows
> NT are extremely developer friendly. If you can
> get past the bloat of MFC (which Windows
> developers seem to have no problem doing), it is
> an extremely complete GUI API.
Out of curiosity, in this "complete" GUI API, how does a user change the look of the widgets by changing themes (like Gtk+), and from the programmer's perspective, how does one to remote displays to other computers?
I've heard lots about how convenient Dvorak is for typing, but I get the impression that this is mostly for typing prose. Does anyone know how dvorak does for typing code? (C & perl, specifically)
It's good to know that Cygnus Solutions isn't making any money off of gcc/egcs, which they've largely written and which is GPL'd.
What ways?
It's fairly simple: information is meant to be shared. Knowledge should be universal. Free Software isn't an ends in itself, it's a means to freedom. The idea is that noone can force you into their own paradigm. Software is inherently sticky. Once you start, it's very hard to get out.
The idea is that with GPL'd software, user's can control their software. They aren't strapped into a car with no steering wheel.
And more important, when I write some code, what right do you have to take that code, add something to it, then start selling it without the code?
I don't owe you a damn thing. I wrote XAmixer. I gave it away. To say that I'm taking away someone's freedom by granting them the right to do whatever they want with my code except to give it away to other people with fewer rights than I gave them is absurd. Yes, I'm not giving away full license to something, but you never had any right to XAmixer to begin with. I gave it to you, or I sold it to you. Either way, you are getting something from me that I don't owe you. To say that I'm doing anything but giving you more than you had is absurd.
And on the other token, if you have a right to my source code, why don't I have a right to yours? If you should be able to take my code and do anything that you want with it, why shouldn't I be able to take your code and do anything that I want with it?
Btw, if you're really willing to get locked in to Oracle software because it adds some value, that's your business. If you wanted to sell yourself into slavery because you'd have a guaranteed roof over your head, or it was the most convenient way to get rid of your debts, that's your business too. If you're willing to sacrifice your freedom (i.e. the ability to do what you want with that database product) for some gain (i.e. more functionality on that product), that's your business.
But in general, using proprietary products is viral in nature. As soon as you use one, your entire system is limited. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.
Oh, and people should give out the blueprints to the cars that we buy. It's quite wrong for companies to put in black boxes that only they can fix for whatever fees they choose.
While the statistics were probably true, they were done very poorly. First off, the % was for FSF code, not GNU code. Next, it was done by bytecount. At which point Linux is something like .2% of the total Linux distribution. Using that sort of metric, the last thing that a Linux dist should be called is Linux. Especially since Linux is named after Linus, and his contribution is only about 10% of the code, if even that. So going by bytecount, Linu shouldn't even appear in the name.
All that stuff was nonsense. More importantly, one can argue that anyone who uses the GPL for their application is implicitly making it a part of the GNU project (A Free UNIX, +-). Now, if you figure out the %s even by bytecount, GPL'd software makes up a really big portion of distributions.