It is indeed a troll but the funny thing is it suspiciously sounds like a VB programming book from 1997 I saw. Microsoft couldn't pay for better marketing. The opening chapter deals with what a great guy Bill Gates is and how, now that Microsoft has blessed us with Visual Basic, all of the tedium associated with programming simply vanishes.
There's even a little remark in there (veiled threat is more like it) about how, if you're a traditional C programmer, you won't enjoy the book and will hate VB, but you'd better read it anyway because you still want to have a job. It's classic stuff.
I'm sure that's what timothy knew, and was implying. Mesa is always pretty quick on the uptake when it comes to new features that OpenGL proper doesn't (yet) officially support.
The "Microsoft tax" historically referred to the cost of bundling Windows in with a computer. This is due to Microsoft's licensing Windows on a per-CPU basis rather than a per-copy basis, essentially making it more practical to bundle Windows with every machine rather than a competitor's OS. Consumers indirectly paid the price for an OEM copy of Windows, or they didn't use computers at all, whether they wanted to or not. The general exceptions to this rule were Mac users and people savvy enough to build their own machine from parts. These days things have changed but most computers still come with the cost of Windows bundled into the price tag. It's a "tax" because you didn't have a choice: it was a computer with Windows or no computer at all.
If.NET takes off, the implication is that in order to do business online, you will have to sign up (and pay) for a Microsoft Hailstorm account because that's what online business will "standardize" on. However, it's not entirely clear that that will happen, especially with this news...
That's what source is for! Download, compile, install, enjoy! I don't know if there is a Cocoa port but it should run in a console or X.
Re:The Emacs Zen...
on
GNU Emacs 21
·
· Score: 3, Informative
You also should drop your prejudice of lisp (keep an open mind for about 2 weeks). Lisp and schema are *great* languages. I just wish Emacs Lisp were clooser to common lisp or scheme.
RMS has expressed on the Guile ML that he wants to replace Emacs Lisp with Guile (a robust version of Scheme) with some sort of backward-compat mode for old elisp code. Don't know when that's gonna happen, though.:(
In that case doesn't it make more sense to use a 64-bit arch that was built to scale to this sort of application, like, I don't know, say, SPARC? Trying to shoehorn Wintel boxen (aimed squarely at the desktop market) into such a role seems a bit silly, though Beowulf managed to get a few things right.
That's one of the things that bug me about Microsoft: they try so hard to be All Things to All People. Gee, it's like they want to conquer the world or something.
Re:Special Projects Coordinator
on
Coder or Architect?
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
"Special Projects"?:) Didn't another poster mention that Special Projects is a euphemism for "We don't have the heart to fire you"?
This is not a slur against you or your skills, and that company could have used entirely different naming conventions, but I found it quite surprising that that term was used in two different contexts within a few days of each other on/.
The guy was a prophet. Who knows what strange visions from his novels have yet to materialize?
Big, evil corporations trying to conquer the world and maximize profits no matter what the human cost? Already got 'em!
As for the rest of his stuff it's rather naïve and dubious if fascinatingly surreal. Makes for great material on a long flight or on the john but I'd hardly call him a visionary prophet of TEH FUCHUR. Maybe when we really do have a matrix...
The line was, I believe, "It's a Unix book... Cool."
The character Garth is still Hollywood's most noble and most accurate attempt at portraying a hacker-type. (Not even AntiTrust could get that right, even though it was squarely aimed at the/. crowd.) This is doubtless because he was inspired by Dana Carvey's older brother Brad, the hardware engineer responsible for the high-end chips in Newtek's "Video Toaster". I've seen this fellow on TV... Honest to God, he really does talk in those hushed, tense-lipped tones, and goes around in the trademark flannel shirt.
My father was on the mechanical side of things, though. Anything Tim Allen joked about, he did (though a few years ago he hauled off his turbocharged lawnmower to the dump after many years of faithful service).
However, his skill for spotting and correcting problems in the manufacturing process that fly right over suits' heads earned him respect, and a position in upper-middle management at Xerox. All this without completing his college degree.
You can tell I admire the guy. I still turn to him frequently for advice even in my field where the nature of the work is different but the disciplines are the same. Quirky engineers are cool, especially when they can work with people and actually solve problems. There won't be any shortage of jobs for them to fill anytime soon, I think.
I actually don't use a window manager at all on some occasions! Usually this is when I'm futzing with X settings (display, DRI, fonts, etc.); when I'm running Wine in DGA mode (the wm's keybindings may interfere with my StarCraft game); or when I'm playing Quake and want every CPU cycle and MB of RAM possible to go towards more gibbage. (This is less of an issue now that I have 256MB and a snappy Athlon.)
The beautiful thing about X is it can be what you want it to be.
I only use twm when I'm bootstrapping an X setup into viability on a different (non-Linux) OS, or when troubleshooting. twm is icko.
Gnome apps cannot seem to get off the ground. They lack orignality, sophistication that OSX brings to the table. Even the enlightenment develeper Raster apps run 15 times better and more efficiently, I might add, than Gnomr's rendering libraries. One wonders if the Gnome developers lack the know-how to build applications that work.
My experience with GNOME 1.x bears this out. I do not like the slow, bloated feeling that comes with GNOME. KDE is both easier on my eyes and snappier but I much prefer a basic WM with assorted xterms lying about to any sort of pointy-clicky "desktop".:)
IANA1AD (I Am Not A 1337 Analyst D00d) but here is my summary of what I, a humble little developer, see coming over the next several years:
It doesn't matter what you think of.NET. If you're a Java developer you're probably laughing it off. If you work with more robust languages like LISP or Smalltalk,.NET is probably something of a running joke to you, much like Daikatana is to the Penny Arcade guys.
But all that doesn't matter. Because.NET will win, and it will become the default programming environment for the 21st century, marginalizing everything else into niche markets.
The reason why is it will be built into Windows XP, and sooner or later, everyone will have to upgrade to XP (or later) to fit into Microsoft's new licensing plan. Suits will rub their chins and think, "Hmm, why waste so many hours of development time trying to integrate our software services over the network when Microsoft's.NET tools do all we need?" The result is near-instant domination of the network's infrastructure at the application level, on a scale so staggering as to make the browser wars seem like a limited skirmish.
Unfortunately, not even free software will solve this problem, as Miguel "Unix Sucks 'Cuz It Don't Work Like Windows" de Icaza has done a lot of crowing as of late about Mono. If Mono catches on it will effectively make the non-Microsoft free software world a tributary to the Microsoft-dominated infrastructure. We'll be forever chasing taillights.
The executive summary is that Microsoft has the power to force developers into using whatever they want, and it will affect programmers everywhere, even if they don't (currently) write for the Windows platform.
I can understand your confusion though. They really should have made this thing more like All-Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku; and less like Ashley (my evil cat).
heh... one time when Schwarzenegger was on Saturday Night Live they did a Terminator parody called "Tooncinator", featuring a robotic version of Toonces the Driving Cat. It looked just like those creatures.
The responsibility they have to their shareholders to make as much money as possible precludes any moral compunction they may have. Violating the latter gets them bitched at by a few Slashdotters. Violating the former gets them fired and possibly sued into the poor house.
If you encode at a high enough bitrate, you can't effectively tell the difference from CD, even if you're an arrogant audiophile who thinks he can. 128kbps is virtually indistinguishable from CD for some (provided it's a good rip and many aren't). For others it may be higher but the point of lossy compression is creating the same effective perception of sound as the original sample.
For XML applications I find that the easiest thing to do is write a translator that parses XML and converts it to a Scheme data structure that represents the various elements and character data, and perform any further operations on that. The code to do this is both small and fast, and really isn't too different from using a DOM (although it may be a bit more flexible).
That is, when I need to use XML. Ususally I just format data in a Scheme-type syntax for my own applications, when no boss is breathing down my neck. My comic site was constructed in this way.
Which carefully implies that Java doesn't do XML web services. When, in fact, it was the Java crowd that started the ball rolling on such things, and Java is currently the easiest and most powerful XML services solution, thanks to servlets, J2EE and JAXP (which is part of Java 1.4's core...)
This is irrelevant in Redmond. Because a key feature of.NET is XML Web services, such services did not exist until.NET was invented, the fact that they've been implemented with Java,
Perl, and what else have you notwithstanding. Somebody didn't take their soma today.;^)
XML Comments? What are they smoking? They must be really intoxicated with XML hype over there. Pretty soon Ballmer'll start mandating that all meetings be conducted in an XML variant. Instead of "This meeting is adjourned" you'd hear "Open bracket slash meeting close bracket!"
Slashdot Mirror
It is indeed a troll but the funny thing is it suspiciously sounds like a VB programming book from 1997 I saw. Microsoft couldn't pay for better marketing. The opening chapter deals with what a great guy Bill Gates is and how, now that Microsoft has blessed us with Visual Basic, all of the tedium associated with programming simply vanishes.
There's even a little remark in there (veiled threat is more like it) about how, if you're a traditional C programmer, you won't enjoy the book and will hate VB, but you'd better read it anyway because you still want to have a job. It's classic stuff.
That's nice and all but you reported on this already last week.
:)
Oh, and first
I'm sure that's what timothy knew, and was implying. Mesa is always pretty quick on the uptake when it comes to new features that OpenGL proper doesn't (yet) officially support.
Or, better yet, do a "strings" on the driver and look for things like quake3.
The "Microsoft tax" historically referred to the cost of bundling Windows in with a computer. This is due to Microsoft's licensing Windows on a per-CPU basis rather than a per-copy basis, essentially making it more practical to bundle Windows with every machine rather than a competitor's OS. Consumers indirectly paid the price for an OEM copy of Windows, or they didn't use computers at all, whether they wanted to or not. The general exceptions to this rule were Mac users and people savvy enough to build their own machine from parts. These days things have changed but most computers still come with the cost of Windows bundled into the price tag. It's a "tax" because you didn't have a choice: it was a computer with Windows or no computer at all.
.NET takes off, the implication is that in order to do business online, you will have to sign up (and pay) for a Microsoft Hailstorm account because that's what online business will "standardize" on. However, it's not entirely clear that that will happen, especially with this news...
If
That's what source is for! Download, compile, install, enjoy! I don't know if there is a Cocoa port but it should run in a console or X.
RMS has expressed on the Guile ML that he wants to replace Emacs Lisp with Guile (a robust version of Scheme) with some sort of backward-compat mode for old elisp code. Don't know when that's gonna happen, though.
In that case doesn't it make more sense to use a 64-bit arch that was built to scale to this sort of application, like, I don't know, say, SPARC? Trying to shoehorn Wintel boxen (aimed squarely at the desktop market) into such a role seems a bit silly, though Beowulf managed to get a few things right.
That's one of the things that bug me about Microsoft: they try so hard to be All Things to All People. Gee, it's like they want to conquer the world or something.
"Special Projects"? :) Didn't another poster mention that Special Projects is a euphemism for "We don't have the heart to fire you"?
/.
This is not a slur against you or your skills, and that company could have used entirely different naming conventions, but I found it quite surprising that that term was used in two different contexts within a few days of each other on
Foosball is TEH DEBBIL!
Big, evil corporations trying to conquer the world and maximize profits no matter what the human cost? Already got 'em!
As for the rest of his stuff it's rather naïve and dubious if fascinatingly surreal. Makes for great material on a long flight or on the john but I'd hardly call him a visionary prophet of TEH FUCHUR. Maybe when we really do have a matrix...
The line was, I believe, "It's a Unix book... Cool."
/. crowd.) This is doubtless because he was inspired by Dana Carvey's older brother Brad, the hardware engineer responsible for the high-end chips in Newtek's "Video Toaster". I've seen this fellow on TV... Honest to God, he really does talk in those hushed, tense-lipped tones, and goes around in the trademark flannel shirt.
The character Garth is still Hollywood's most noble and most accurate attempt at portraying a hacker-type. (Not even AntiTrust could get that right, even though it was squarely aimed at the
"I like to drink Squirt." --Brad Carvey
My father was on the mechanical side of things, though. Anything Tim Allen joked about, he did (though a few years ago he hauled off his turbocharged lawnmower to the dump after many years of faithful service).
However, his skill for spotting and correcting problems in the manufacturing process that fly right over suits' heads earned him respect, and a position in upper-middle management at Xerox. All this without completing his college degree.
You can tell I admire the guy. I still turn to him frequently for advice even in my field where the nature of the work is different but the disciplines are the same. Quirky engineers are cool, especially when they can work with people and actually solve problems. There won't be any shortage of jobs for them to fill anytime soon, I think.
I actually don't use a window manager at all on some occasions! Usually this is when I'm futzing with X settings (display, DRI, fonts, etc.); when I'm running Wine in DGA mode (the wm's keybindings may interfere with my StarCraft game); or when I'm playing Quake and want every CPU cycle and MB of RAM possible to go towards more gibbage. (This is less of an issue now that I have 256MB and a snappy Athlon.)
The beautiful thing about X is it can be what you want it to be.
I only use twm when I'm bootstrapping an X setup into viability on a different (non-Linux) OS, or when troubleshooting. twm is icko.
Is that a... lawsuit I smell?
My experience with GNOME 1.x bears this out. I do not like the slow, bloated feeling that comes with GNOME. KDE is both easier on my eyes and snappier but I much prefer a basic WM with assorted xterms lying about to any sort of pointy-clicky "desktop".
IANA1AD (I Am Not A 1337 Analyst D00d) but here is my summary of what I, a humble little developer, see coming over the next several years:
.NET. If you're a Java developer you're probably laughing it off. If you work with more robust languages like LISP or Smalltalk, .NET is probably something of a running joke to you, much like Daikatana is to the Penny Arcade guys.
.NET will win, and it will become the default programming environment for the 21st century, marginalizing everything else into niche markets.
.NET tools do all we need?" The result is near-instant domination of the network's infrastructure at the application level, on a scale so staggering as to make the browser wars seem like a limited skirmish.
It doesn't matter what you think of
But all that doesn't matter. Because
The reason why is it will be built into Windows XP, and sooner or later, everyone will have to upgrade to XP (or later) to fit into Microsoft's new licensing plan. Suits will rub their chins and think, "Hmm, why waste so many hours of development time trying to integrate our software services over the network when Microsoft's
Unfortunately, not even free software will solve this problem, as Miguel "Unix Sucks 'Cuz It Don't Work Like Windows" de Icaza has done a lot of crowing as of late about Mono. If Mono catches on it will effectively make the non-Microsoft free software world a tributary to the Microsoft-dominated infrastructure. We'll be forever chasing taillights.
The executive summary is that Microsoft has the power to force developers into using whatever they want, and it will affect programmers everywhere, even if they don't (currently) write for the Windows platform.
I can understand your confusion though. They really should have made this thing more like All-Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku; and less like Ashley (my evil cat).
heh... one time when Schwarzenegger was on Saturday Night Live they did a Terminator parody called "Tooncinator", featuring a robotic version of Toonces the Driving Cat. It looked just like those creatures.
The responsibility they have to their shareholders to make as much money as possible precludes any moral compunction they may have. Violating the latter gets them bitched at by a few Slashdotters. Violating the former gets them fired and possibly sued into the poor house.
Duuuude, it's got an Intel Pentium IV processor (which is soooo nice!).
If you encode at a high enough bitrate, you can't effectively tell the difference from CD, even if you're an arrogant audiophile who thinks he can. 128kbps is virtually indistinguishable from CD for some (provided it's a good rip and many aren't). For others it may be higher but the point of lossy compression is creating the same effective perception of sound as the original sample.
For XML applications I find that the easiest thing to do is write a translator that parses XML and converts it to a Scheme data structure that represents the various elements and character data, and perform any further operations on that. The code to do this is both small and fast, and really isn't too different from using a DOM (although it may be a bit more flexible).
That is, when I need to use XML. Ususally I just format data in a Scheme-type syntax for my own applications, when no boss is breathing down my neck. My comic site was constructed in this way.
This is irrelevant in Redmond. Because a key feature of
Perl, and what else have you notwithstanding. Somebody didn't take their soma today.
XML Comments? What are they smoking? They must be really intoxicated with XML hype over there. Pretty soon Ballmer'll start mandating that all meetings be conducted in an XML variant. Instead of "This meeting is adjourned" you'd hear "Open bracket slash meeting close bracket!"