I don't think a single reputation system is a particularly good idea, but I think having site member points of view, which are either edits or endorsements, and the ability for people to choose other views, would work well. Since the wikipedia content is all gfdl, other sites could represent their own points of view, and this content could be exchanged, and no content would need to be censored.
Browsing a site might consist of choosing which views you want to see by default, and accessing other versions/sites if you aren't happy with what you see.
Sounds like, as discussed below, your software is to blame. Sure, it's important medical / rocket lauching software, but its still squirrly.
There are other solutions, how about making control-shift a standard for caps-lock? Or how about software that uppercases text entered in a particular field.
Surely some people remember SCROLL LOCK, which disappeared some years ago despite being carried forward for years.
IBM bought Cloudscape, which years later they released as Derby. Eclipse is a well designed product, but in effect they bought the developers who designed it (OTI, years ago admittedly, and they seem to work as a separate unit).
In fact, IBM has bought most of their major products (Notes, etc) that I know of (I have no idea about the history of the mainframe stuff &c).
This is all probably better than the "not invented here" syndrome, I would except that focused start ups are more keen to innovate, particularly on vertical apps, than workers in a giant company like IBM.
First, I wish all the people who don't want a "smart" phone would just be quiet. We know. Go buy a basic phone. It's not like there aren't any. All smartphone postings should include this disclaimer.
Second, I'm wondering really how open the linux is that's installed on these phones. If proprietary interfaces and device drivers are used, it might as well be running symbian|windows|whatever. Could you develop an app for these phones as easily as you could for gnome/kde/etc, and release it 100% open source for use by others?
Why you were rated insightful for your rant, is beyond me. I'm using a mac now, and it's not that special. It just forgot my vpn settings. Networking is a pain - easy to get going for simple settings, but to get past anything basic, you're at the shell reading man pages (Windows provides GUI tools).
All operating systems have their advantages. The mac has nice hardware, but higher end toshiba, ibm, panasonic, etc is comparable. And there's stuff you can do with vi you just can't do with other editors.;)
Of course, it's best to buy local, but is there a comparison of the costs of eating shipped food (eg a city dweller who walks everywhere but must "import" their food) vs living in the country, driving everywhere, and eating more local food? (of course, country people still eat lots of non local food, unless you happen to be growing your own coffee &c). I'd also suspect a lot of country folk are buying whatever is cheapest at the local store, which may not be local.
It would all depend, but having some facts would help, otherwise its one generalization vs another.
As well, it's more than just food, services can also be concentrated in a city, that must be an overall benefit.
Re: Hiding the terminal; I don't think its really a utility in the first place as many people use it in a general purpose way, just like they'd use a file manager. So maybe it's just a failing to find the right category to store it under. Then again, I tend to take the view that people shouldn't be so afraid of the shell, and it's the best tool for some jobs.
Bizarre keystrokes, how about making a screen cap of the current window? Shift, command, 4? Add to that the confusing behavior around fn, option, and command using the cursor keys, when the average windows Laptop has pageup/pagedown, home and end keys, and that's five.;) These are keys that ordinary people use, and it's much more complicated than a Windows keyboard.
In fact I respect Apple for making more consistent use of their meta key, but it's just comical that the company that refuses to put more than one button on their mouse has so many interesting combinations.
As for the open source thing, I think there's a hint of oops, we're just a little bit different than everyone else. I am using Fink, but it's not nearly the breadth of packages I'd see under Debian, partially because of no real X integration (what is that, twm?), and the splitting between Mac Ports, fink, and the dmg formats, along with others I've heard about, really means its a mess compared to the system-wide management you get with a Debian system.
The Mac feels like the Amiga in its twilight years, they couldn't decide if it was a professional system or a consumer system, and it suffered and died. Regardless of what people say about Vista, it's probably going to be decent enough that people won't bother switching, and with the momentum of open source, where setup on a notebook is nearly perfect, it's going to be hard for Apple to find their niche. (if it has anything to do with Front Row, I know I'm trying the wrong OS).
Then again, they've been here before.:) I do hope Apple goes much more open source as a strategy.
Anyway, it's fun to tour. Thanks for writing back.
I just switched from Linux to MacOS. So it's actually only +1 switch to Linux.
Actually I've been running Linux for over a decade and will be triple booting windows/macos/linux. The lack of a core package manager in MacOS, Apple's poor cousin attitude about open source, and my familiarity with Linux are going to prevent more than casual use of OS X. And I have to tell you I'm struck by how complicated OS X is, with the bizarre keystrokes to get everyday things done.
What I find funny in all this is people switching from MacOS to Gnome. Sorry, Gnome is as frustratingly bad as Windows or MacOS in dumbing things down. Any OS that hides the terminal (shell), which a lot of people use, in "utilities" is pretty much the same. I'd have a lot more understanding for these people if they'd switched to a closer to the metal window manager.
Nah, AJAX is a general description of the technique of using "asynchronous javascript and xml" (although it may be synchronous, doesn't have to use javascript, which should properly be called ecmascript, you shouldn't capitalize the 'a' in an acronym, and xml is optional as well, so maybe "discreet content updating" would be a better term but isn't very catchy) and is being widely used so it is in fact an identifible thing and by the amount of attention/adoption "hot."
Sorry, RoR is not nearly as "hot" as Ajax. RoR people may think it is, but Ajax applies equally to all different technologies and RoR's adoption, aside from a few notables, and many small projects and hobbyist tinkering, is very low. Some RoR led concepts have made it into other languages, but it's still by far a minority player in a vast field, and very likely to succumb to a variety of factors - not being possible to be "all that" and people getting turned off, an existing or new solution comes out that's even better, and so on.
I heard one speaker saying RoR invented MVC (when it at least originated with Smalltalk way back when), so you know there's a certain amount of hype at work here.
That's really too bad, otherwise he might be able to admit that open source is a better choice for the organizations he's working with, so they could be an equal partner in development, customize their apps as needed, and not constantly owe a big debt to a foreign company.
Ironically, most cloned IBM PCs didn't have that BASIC because it was a proprietary IBM ROM, and the only way to support it was to have pirated ROMS. So it's irrelevant. As well, very few if any significant applications of the time were written in BASIC. It is for sure how many people got their start in programming (myself included), but perhaps we would have been better off with something else.;)
Yes, but my point is that might have been GEOS, CP/M, Unix, or any other effort, including Microsoft. Microsoft certainly captialized on their opportunities, but the original poster seemed to be saying there would have been no progress without MS.
The IBM PC basically was the right product at the right time - small business discovered the PC, the IBM PC was identified as "the" business computer, and everyone jumped on it. MS was along for the ride, albeit with some good luck and planning.
As well, the reason MS came to dominance was the rampant piracy of DOS (and BASIC ROMs) on cheap clones (which actually weren't that cheap). I don't think that was intentional and can be intentionally attributed to Microsoft.;) The original factors were the bog-standard hardware selected by IBM, which was easy to clone, compared to the specialized chips used by Commodore &c, along with the business upswelling of the time.
None of this means MS was the only player who could have made the PC affordable, I believe that's just a product of the times but it's unproveable.
Why do you say that? Before MS came along, people could choose inexpensive computers from Atari, Apple, Commodore. There was healthy, competitive growth. Then IBM came along with the PC which ran DOS, clone vendors cloned that, and the rest is history. But I don't think MS was the factor in making computers inexpensive, it was competition and standards based gear (which IBM initiated with the PC, but before that there were Apple clones). MS has only excelled in making middle of the road software, and maintaining their virtual monopoly.
Thanks to Google for producing Google Earth for our amusement, and for bringing it to the Linux Platform for no particular reason other than that they felt like it.
And thanks to the parent poster for playing. Please let us know when the free map toy that you create works better.
Google produced as part of their competitive strategy/because so many people asked for it, and the original poster is doing them a favour by trying and commenting on it (though one can always try harder to be constructive, it does warn some people that the release doesn't work that well).
I get a little sick of people saying "Take the half working gesture and be happy about it," as if there weren't any point to it in the first place.
People are going to think of ms office as much more than a set of standalone desktop applications, and more of an end to end system.
This makes sense in this day, and is a very effective way for MS to retain traction. The fact is that while the diversity of non-MS and particularly open source solutions is great, it's also a huge detraction since many people may choose an almost as good, almost as open solution over a confusing array of alternatives.
The last time I dabbled in the MS world, it wasn't particularly cohesive, but I have to wonder if MS is making strides with everything less "hack-y" under the covers. I notice more cohesion in the open source world as well, and am looking forward to what the future may bring in terms of rich content editing and collaboration, which will surely be exciting as long as the milieu remains open and competitive.
What about people who use screen readers and such? Taking are of those people also means your site can be used for government and will probably work well with various other devices.
Besides XMLHttpRequest, there is a way to transfer data between Java and Javascript. An embedded Java applet can communicate with the server which passes values to Javascript. I was using this technique back in ~ 1997 to populate a select box based on input from an input box. I'm in a rush so can't track references to this down, but it should be considered in this history - the AJAX concept has been around for a while. Anyway, I'm only mentioning this because many people don't know about it and the original article is about Java.:)
I like Java because of the synergy with IDEs such as Eclipse. I don't use code generation or any other "magic" facilities, I just like the IDE's comprehension of my code and the resulting ability to "work with me," for example when browsing code or refactoring.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't think a single reputation system is a particularly good idea, but I think having site member points of view, which are either edits or endorsements, and the ability for people to choose other views, would work well. Since the wikipedia content is all gfdl, other sites could represent their own points of view, and this content could be exchanged, and no content would need to be censored.
Browsing a site might consist of choosing which views you want to see by default, and accessing other versions/sites if you aren't happy with what you see.
d'oh.. that's what too many years of laptop use does.
Do have to wonder why this rant is against caps and not scroll lock.
OK, but you might as well use the "Any key" for that purpose.
Sounds like, as discussed below, your software is to blame. Sure, it's important medical / rocket lauching software, but its still squirrly.
There are other solutions, how about making control-shift a standard for caps-lock? Or how about software that uppercases text entered in a particular field.
Surely some people remember SCROLL LOCK, which disappeared some years ago despite being carried forward for years.
IBM bought Cloudscape, which years later they released as Derby. Eclipse is a well designed product, but in effect they bought the developers who designed it (OTI, years ago admittedly, and they seem to work as a separate unit).
In fact, IBM has bought most of their major products (Notes, etc) that I know of (I have no idea about the history of the mainframe stuff &c).
This is all probably better than the "not invented here" syndrome, I would except that focused start ups are more keen to innovate, particularly on vertical apps, than workers in a giant company like IBM.
> Furthermore, the people that take part in these things generally do so because they are in desperate need of money
Or they are dying of a disease that the trial may provide a solution to.
You're in luck then, you can buy an old phone off ebay.
First, I wish all the people who don't want a "smart" phone would just be quiet. We know. Go buy a basic phone. It's not like there aren't any. All smartphone postings should include this disclaimer.
Second, I'm wondering really how open the linux is that's installed on these phones. If proprietary interfaces and device drivers are used, it might as well be running symbian|windows|whatever. Could you develop an app for these phones as easily as you could for gnome/kde/etc, and release it 100% open source for use by others?
Are you trying to say that professors are unbiased? (particularly judging by the choice of words)
To make things worse, an avid Slashdot user. sheesh.
Ha ha. "We," meaning I assume anonymous cowards and finely accoutred fashinitas, rejoice!
Why you were rated insightful for your rant, is beyond me. I'm using a mac now, and it's not that special. It just forgot my vpn settings. Networking is a pain - easy to get going for simple settings, but to get past anything basic, you're at the shell reading man pages (Windows provides GUI tools).
;)
All operating systems have their advantages. The mac has nice hardware, but higher end toshiba, ibm, panasonic, etc is comparable. And there's stuff you can do with vi you just can't do with other editors.
Sounds like you've got your own agenda there. ;)
Of course, it's best to buy local, but is there a comparison of the costs of eating shipped food (eg a city dweller who walks everywhere but must "import" their food) vs living in the country, driving everywhere, and eating more local food? (of course, country people still eat lots of non local food, unless you happen to be growing your own coffee &c). I'd also suspect a lot of country folk are buying whatever is cheapest at the local store, which may not be local.
It would all depend, but having some facts would help, otherwise its one generalization vs another.
As well, it's more than just food, services can also be concentrated in a city, that must be an overall benefit.
Re: Hiding the terminal; I don't think its really a utility in the first place as many people use it in a general purpose way, just like they'd use a file manager. So maybe it's just a failing to find the right category to store it under. Then again, I tend to take the view that people shouldn't be so afraid of the shell, and it's the best tool for some jobs.
;) These are keys that ordinary people use, and it's much more complicated than a Windows keyboard.
:) I do hope Apple goes much more open source as a strategy.
Bizarre keystrokes, how about making a screen cap of the current window? Shift, command, 4? Add to that the confusing behavior around fn, option, and command using the cursor keys, when the average windows Laptop has pageup/pagedown, home and end keys, and that's five.
In fact I respect Apple for making more consistent use of their meta key, but it's just comical that the company that refuses to put more than one button on their mouse has so many interesting combinations.
As for the open source thing, I think there's a hint of oops, we're just a little bit different than everyone else. I am using Fink, but it's not nearly the breadth of packages I'd see under Debian, partially because of no real X integration (what is that, twm?), and the splitting between Mac Ports, fink, and the dmg formats, along with others I've heard about, really means its a mess compared to the system-wide management you get with a Debian system.
The Mac feels like the Amiga in its twilight years, they couldn't decide if it was a professional system or a consumer system, and it suffered and died. Regardless of what people say about Vista, it's probably going to be decent enough that people won't bother switching, and with the momentum of open source, where setup on a notebook is nearly perfect, it's going to be hard for Apple to find their niche. (if it has anything to do with Front Row, I know I'm trying the wrong OS).
Then again, they've been here before.
Anyway, it's fun to tour. Thanks for writing back.
I just switched from Linux to MacOS. So it's actually only +1 switch to Linux.
Actually I've been running Linux for over a decade and will be triple booting windows/macos/linux. The lack of a core package manager in MacOS, Apple's poor cousin attitude about open source, and my familiarity with Linux are going to prevent more than casual use of OS X. And I have to tell you I'm struck by how complicated OS X is, with the bizarre keystrokes to get everyday things done.
What I find funny in all this is people switching from MacOS to Gnome. Sorry, Gnome is as frustratingly bad as Windows or MacOS in dumbing things down. Any OS that hides the terminal (shell), which a lot of people use, in "utilities" is pretty much the same. I'd have a lot more understanding for these people if they'd switched to a closer to the metal window manager.
Nah, AJAX is a general description of the technique of using "asynchronous javascript and xml" (although it may be synchronous, doesn't have to use javascript, which should properly be called ecmascript, you shouldn't capitalize the 'a' in an acronym, and xml is optional as well, so maybe "discreet content updating" would be a better term but isn't very catchy) and is being widely used so it is in fact an identifible thing and by the amount of attention/adoption "hot."
Sorry, RoR is not nearly as "hot" as Ajax. RoR people may think it is, but Ajax applies equally to all different technologies and RoR's adoption, aside from a few notables, and many small projects and hobbyist tinkering, is very low. Some RoR led concepts have made it into other languages, but it's still by far a minority player in a vast field, and very likely to succumb to a variety of factors - not being possible to be "all that" and people getting turned off, an existing or new solution comes out that's even better, and so on.
I heard one speaker saying RoR invented MVC (when it at least originated with Smalltalk way back when), so you know there's a certain amount of hype at work here.
That's really too bad, otherwise he might be able to admit that open source is a better choice for the organizations he's working with, so they could be an equal partner in development, customize their apps as needed, and not constantly owe a big debt to a foreign company.
Ironically, most cloned IBM PCs didn't have that BASIC because it was a proprietary IBM ROM, and the only way to support it was to have pirated ROMS. So it's irrelevant. As well, very few if any significant applications of the time were written in BASIC. It is for sure how many people got their start in programming (myself included), but perhaps we would have been better off with something else. ;)
Yes, but my point is that might have been GEOS, CP/M, Unix, or any other effort, including Microsoft. Microsoft certainly captialized on their opportunities, but the original poster seemed to be saying there would have been no progress without MS.
;) The original factors were the bog-standard hardware selected by IBM, which was easy to clone, compared to the specialized chips used by Commodore &c, along with the business upswelling of the time.
The IBM PC basically was the right product at the right time - small business discovered the PC, the IBM PC was identified as "the" business computer, and everyone jumped on it. MS was along for the ride, albeit with some good luck and planning.
As well, the reason MS came to dominance was the rampant piracy of DOS (and BASIC ROMs) on cheap clones (which actually weren't that cheap). I don't think that was intentional and can be intentionally attributed to Microsoft.
None of this means MS was the only player who could have made the PC affordable, I believe that's just a product of the times but it's unproveable.
Why do you say that? Before MS came along, people could choose inexpensive computers from Atari, Apple, Commodore. There was healthy, competitive growth. Then IBM came along with the PC which ran DOS, clone vendors cloned that, and the rest is history. But I don't think MS was the factor in making computers inexpensive, it was competition and standards based gear (which IBM initiated with the PC, but before that there were Apple clones). MS has only excelled in making middle of the road software, and maintaining their virtual monopoly.
Google produced as part of their competitive strategy/because so many people asked for it, and the original poster is doing them a favour by trying and commenting on it (though one can always try harder to be constructive, it does warn some people that the release doesn't work that well).
I get a little sick of people saying "Take the half working gesture and be happy about it," as if there weren't any point to it in the first place.
People are going to think of ms office as much more than a set of standalone desktop applications, and more of an end to end system.
This makes sense in this day, and is a very effective way for MS to retain traction. The fact is that while the diversity of non-MS and particularly open source solutions is great, it's also a huge detraction since many people may choose an almost as good, almost as open solution over a confusing array of alternatives.
The last time I dabbled in the MS world, it wasn't particularly cohesive, but I have to wonder if MS is making strides with everything less "hack-y" under the covers. I notice more cohesion in the open source world as well, and am looking forward to what the future may bring in terms of rich content editing and collaboration, which will surely be exciting as long as the milieu remains open and competitive.
What about people who use screen readers and such? Taking are of those people also means your site can be used for government and will probably work well with various other devices.
Besides XMLHttpRequest, there is a way to transfer data between Java and Javascript. An embedded Java applet can communicate with the server which passes values to Javascript. I was using this technique back in ~ 1997 to populate a select box based on input from an input box. I'm in a rush so can't track references to this down, but it should be considered in this history - the AJAX concept has been around for a while. Anyway, I'm only mentioning this because many people don't know about it and the original article is about Java. :)
Minor nit: You can use "foo".length(); in Java.
I like Java because of the synergy with IDEs such as Eclipse. I don't use code generation or any other "magic" facilities, I just like the IDE's comprehension of my code and the resulting ability to "work with me," for example when browsing code or refactoring.