Re:The PS2 is very interesting
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LinuxWorld Summary
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· Score: 3, Interesting
Just remember the days of DEC (now Compaq) Alpha. A 300MHz Alpha could beat the heck out of any 600-800MHZ Pentium (AFAIK).
Yes, but the performance of the PlayStation 2 CPU isn't anywhere near an Alpha (which still 0wnz in the pure number crunching power metric). For conventional CPU-type stuff what I've heard is that it turns in decent but not stellar performance: its primary mission in life is to churn out geometry for the GS chip to render.:)
Re:What about GNOME and .NET
on
LinuxWorld Summary
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· Score: 3, Insightful
With both Kaffe and Wonka out there, I don't think Java is being ignored by the open source community. Remember, Ximian != opensource community; FSF != open source community. The OSS community is us, and if we want to see Java (or whatever) being embraced, we have to embrace it.
The Mono FAQ points out that GNU started out as a project to take the best operating system of the time, and clone it. That's what he's doing with Mono, and.NET.
I dunno what drugs he's on either, but Miguel is under the impression that Windows is the best operating system out there, period. Since no other OS is as "user friendly" as Windows, in order for open source to Succeed we must clone Windows in every way.
Microsoft is essentially one big marketing department, that happens to write software on the side. These features are probably dreamed up or at least heavily pushed by marketroids, with an aim of keeping everyone in lockstep on the upgrade treadmill.
You can reverse engineer something that's patented to discover its inner workings. Having the patent itself will help you; that's the idea behind disclosure of patents. The trick is to build something similar or interoperable without violating the patent.
They bought nonexclusive licenses to some key SGI patents related to OpenGL. Not the patents themselves. I only found this out recently; it's a relief because OpenGL is "safe".
Or what happens when Microsoft updates their EULA to read: "this program must run on an officially licensed Microsoft Operating System" or starts requiring vendors who want to use the XP logo on their boxes to start including that wording also?
I have seen EULAs that do something like this. The wording they use is "approved operating system", and then go on to state that -- you guessed it -- the only approved OS is Windows.
Incidentally, "testa rossa" is Italian for "redhead" -- I believe it was a reference to the fact that at least some of these had red valve covers (or something like that -- anyone know?) in the engine. Most are red to go with the meaning of the name.
Whatever the case, I've taken to calling them Testosteronas for reasons which should be obvious.
With OpenGL 2.0 having amazing support for pixel and fragment shaders and a entire reworking of the transformation pipeline, OpenGL will be able to PORTABLY do absolutley everything D3D can do now, and will be able to do for the next 5 years.
Not if Microsoft owns and refuses to license the patents!
Microsoft has had its heart set on migrating the 3D market -- all of it, not just games -- to Direct3D. The Fahrenheit project was a collaboration with SGI to do precisely this: it essentially swallowed up OpenGL as a "legacy layer" on top of a New, Improved Direct3D. Microsoft has the money, the business clout, and now that SGI has bowed out of the partnership and gotten cozy with the Linux crowd, the motive to take the market by force on its own if need be. Must be nice to be a monopoly.
Considering the relative success of other software that was released under this and similar license agreements (AFAIK some of the DOS versions of AutoCAD bore a similar plain-English license, that is after they got rid of the damn dongles), I'd say that this bizarre licensing fiasco was more of a CYA maneuver than an attempt to squeeze for profits.
It looks like it should be hovering around Robin Williams' head in a Disney movie. A really cool case design would be something that is so sleek it kind of fades into the background. Not jumps out at you screaming "Look at me, I'm cute!" like Dot Warner.
I really wish Jobs would say a permanent sayonara to the Hello Kitty school of design. The modern Apple machines are not only eyesores, but the end user pays for such obnoxious artsy l33tness. It's this kind of thinking that pushed the Macintosh into a niche market.
Of course. For use, as you point out, in Java applications (and not applets). To be honest, though, while I have seen many an attempt to create cross-platform apps with Java, I have yet to see a major success. [Huge disclaimer: I am not a Java guy, I work with C++]
LimeWire. I had my doubts about cross-platform Java apps, but LimeWire looks sweet and does its job (too bad it's one of the ricketier Gnutella clients in terms of connection stability). It is open source, too, and will continue to improve.
My information tells me that corporate control over Japan is stronger and much more explicit even than it is here. The Japanese government basically makes policy that's compatible with what the corporations and bureaucrats want.
That said, I love the Japanese people, and I still want to go there... I hear the women are mighty fine..:)
So does Java. Java provides sufficient introspection into the structure of its own classes, such that any language wishing to integrate on the object level with Java would have no trouble doing so using standard APIs. It's pretty much a matter of how well you code the environment for the target language. It's not like Perl and Python integrate instantly with CLR out-of-the-box, the language implementations had to be rewritten with CLR in mind. Java is no different.
For a good Java implementation of Scheme with the ability to integrate with classes and objects written in Java, check out: http://www.cygnus.com/~bothner/kawa.htm
It already exists. It's called POSIX. I think that the purpose of the.NET initiative is to undermine POSIX, upon which modern Unix variants are based. Unix constitutes the single biggest threat to Microsoft in the server space. Circumventing the entrenched POSIX "monopoly", and attempting to cajole everybody into making themselves dependent on Microsoft's own platform (look, we're hardware-independent too, and we have a single standard GUI!), would give them the leverage they need to uproot Unix and make Windows (NT, XP, whatever) the leading server operating system.
[/wacko-conspiracy-theory]
I find the window-top menus easier myself, because they let me map application functions with a particular visual workspace on the screen, and I thus have to remember less state (what application am I inside of now?). Maybe my brain is a bit more "object oriented" than most.:)
It seems like FFXI will be a "Generic MMORPG" if The GIA's review is any indication. The Japanese gamers even complained about it seeming "too American!" I do not have real high hopes for this one. FFXII is supposed to go back to being offline, yippee:)
As a CS guy I've snidely referred to MIS programs as "majoring in Word and Excel". My experience has been that CS curricula teach you "how computers work" (which isn't just programming) whereas MIS curricula teach "how to use computers to get TEH MONEYS." Which you choose depends on what you want to do but CS people usually have much deeper knowledge of the technology involved. (There are CS guys with strong business skills also.)
4) Microsoft programmers are inept. Microsoft attracts greedy and underqualified programmers with the lure of stock options. Good programmers either work for themselves or for a company that puts pride in their work. Good programmers seldom do it for the money - witness the wonderfull security of the shoestring-budget OpenBSD versus the 1.2 billion USD Windows XP that had to be pathced within a month of it's consumer release.
Microsoft lures greedy good programmers with the stock options carrot-and-stick too. It is well known that among Microsoft's tactics for ruining competitors during the nineties was simply hiring their best programmers away. Their shitty software is usually a result of shitty management decisions, not necessarily their engineers.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, but the performance of the PlayStation 2 CPU isn't anywhere near an Alpha (which still 0wnz in the pure number crunching power metric). For conventional CPU-type stuff what I've heard is that it turns in decent but not stellar performance: its primary mission in life is to churn out geometry for the GS chip to render.
With both Kaffe and Wonka out there, I don't think Java is being ignored by the open source community. Remember, Ximian != opensource community; FSF != open source community. The OSS community is us, and if we want to see Java (or whatever) being embraced, we have to embrace it.
I dunno what drugs he's on either, but Miguel is under the impression that Windows is the best operating system out there, period. Since no other OS is as "user friendly" as Windows, in order for open source to Succeed we must clone Windows in every way.
"Better to be the devil's right hand than in his path." --Beni, from "The Mummy"
Microsoft is essentially one big marketing department, that happens to write software on the side. These features are probably dreamed up or at least heavily pushed by marketroids, with an aim of keeping everyone in lockstep on the upgrade treadmill.
Hey, Big Media is as protected by fair use as anyone else is.
It reminds me a bit of the attorneys who file crooked patents and then go after IBM or Intel because "that's where the money is".
... not like that matters to Big Media. They have ways of getting around anything that interrupts their cash flow.
Oh, and FR1ST PS0T!!!
You can reverse engineer something that's patented to discover its inner workings. Having the patent itself will help you; that's the idea behind disclosure of patents. The trick is to build something similar or interoperable without violating the patent.
They bought nonexclusive licenses to some key SGI patents related to OpenGL. Not the patents themselves. I only found this out recently; it's a relief because OpenGL is "safe".
I use mutella. Open source, no spyware, doesn't randomly drop connections like LimeWire.
So what needs to be done, of course, is what has been done all along: force Windows on the desktop.
I have seen EULAs that do something like this. The wording they use is "approved operating system", and then go on to state that -- you guessed it -- the only approved OS is Windows.
Whatever the case, I've taken to calling them Testosteronas for reasons which should be obvious.
"Moichandising! Moichandising! Where de REAL money from de movie is made!"
Hehe, we can learn a lot from Yogurt.
Not if Microsoft owns and refuses to license the patents!
Microsoft has had its heart set on migrating the 3D market -- all of it, not just games -- to Direct3D. The Fahrenheit project was a collaboration with SGI to do precisely this: it essentially swallowed up OpenGL as a "legacy layer" on top of a New, Improved Direct3D. Microsoft has the money, the business clout, and now that SGI has bowed out of the partnership and gotten cozy with the Linux crowd, the motive to take the market by force on its own if need be. Must be nice to be a monopoly.
Considering the relative success of other software that was released under this and similar license agreements (AFAIK some of the DOS versions of AutoCAD bore a similar plain-English license, that is after they got rid of the damn dongles), I'd say that this bizarre licensing fiasco was more of a CYA maneuver than an attempt to squeeze for profits.
It looks like it should be hovering around Robin Williams' head in a Disney movie. A really cool case design would be something that is so sleek it kind of fades into the background. Not jumps out at you screaming "Look at me, I'm cute!" like Dot Warner.
I really wish Jobs would say a permanent sayonara to the Hello Kitty school of design. The modern Apple machines are not only eyesores, but the end user pays for such obnoxious artsy l33tness. It's this kind of thinking that pushed the Macintosh into a niche market.
LimeWire. I had my doubts about cross-platform Java apps, but LimeWire looks sweet and does its job (too bad it's one of the ricketier Gnutella clients in terms of connection stability). It is open source, too, and will continue to improve.
My information tells me that corporate control over Japan is stronger and much more explicit even than it is here. The Japanese government basically makes policy that's compatible with what the corporations and bureaucrats want.
:)
That said, I love the Japanese people, and I still want to go there... I hear the women are mighty fine..
http://www.cygnus.com/~bothner/kawa.htm
So does Java. Java provides sufficient introspection into the structure of its own classes, such that any language wishing to integrate on the object level with Java would have no trouble doing so using standard APIs. It's pretty much a matter of how well you code the environment for the target language. It's not like Perl and Python integrate instantly with CLR out-of-the-box, the language implementations had to be rewritten with CLR in mind. Java is no different.
For a good Java implementation of Scheme with the ability to integrate with classes and objects written in Java, check out: http://www.cygnus.com/~bothner/kawa.htm
It already exists. It's called POSIX. I think that the purpose of the .NET initiative is to undermine POSIX, upon which modern Unix variants are based. Unix constitutes the single biggest threat to Microsoft in the server space. Circumventing the entrenched POSIX "monopoly", and attempting to cajole everybody into making themselves dependent on Microsoft's own platform (look, we're hardware-independent too, and we have a single standard GUI!), would give them the leverage they need to uproot Unix and make Windows (NT, XP, whatever) the leading server operating system.
[/wacko-conspiracy-theory]
I find the window-top menus easier myself, because they let me map application functions with a particular visual workspace on the screen, and I thus have to remember less state (what application am I inside of now?). Maybe my brain is a bit more "object oriented" than most. :)
It seems like FFXI will be a "Generic MMORPG" if The GIA's review is any indication. The Japanese gamers even complained about it seeming "too American!" I do not have real high hopes for this one. FFXII is supposed to go back to being offline, yippee :)
As a CS guy I've snidely referred to MIS programs as "majoring in Word and Excel". My experience has been that CS curricula teach you "how computers work" (which isn't just programming) whereas MIS curricula teach "how to use computers to get TEH MONEYS." Which you choose depends on what you want to do but CS people usually have much deeper knowledge of the technology involved. (There are CS guys with strong business skills also.)
Microsoft lures greedy good programmers with the stock options carrot-and-stick too. It is well known that among Microsoft's tactics for ruining competitors during the nineties was simply hiring their best programmers away. Their shitty software is usually a result of shitty management decisions, not necessarily their engineers.