In order to download DotNetNuke® Projects, you must register on the site.
I'm thinking you're getting no respect in the Open Source community because you don't get it. The community is not about how you license your software (you don't even have to be a developer to be a member of the OS community). It's about the spirit of community and openness from which springs the compulsion to use a particular license for your software.
The above statement from your site and your publication of an MS-only piece of software makes me assume that you accept Open Source because that's the way the world is and it is how one develops a resume these days, not because you like it. Is that necessarily true of you? I can't say for sure, but first impressions mean a lot, even your post somehow hits me as a little off - something about the whining or faulting others because you are not being accepted, like you need someone to bless your OS-ness, instead of just knowing you have it. I can't say exactly what all it is, but I'm guessing it's the same thing that has made others uneasy (perhaps some other poster will be more insightful in identifying the real causes).
Moreover, changing that one line on your site isn't going to do it. Faking it won't work - if you don't understand, people will see it in a million ways. OS developers will see it and continue to give you no cred. If I'm wrong, or if you're willing to learn more and understand why Open Source is a good thing, more power to you. But until you do, you're probably in for a fair amount of continued disenfranchisement.
The first one is easy to refute for the vast majority of the ID proponents; "Is the designer perfect?" If they're adherents of The God of Classical Theism, their answer has to be, "Yes."
Second, in some religions life is not supposed to be perfect. In such religions, life is a test. God gives us hardship and monitors how we react. The help with the "hardship" part of the test, things are often sloppy or faulty.
Here's the refutation for that piece: Tests are intended to prove worthiness in the eyes of God, right? And only things with souls can pass that test, right? So why would He inflict the same tests on soulless beasts?
An A/C comment at level 0. I guess it is fruitless to respond, but what the heck.
My company (and I personally) would never allow a product to be stamped 1.0 until all of those steps had been completed.
So you're one of those VC sucking vaporware companies, eh? You can't do all of those steps without real world results. How, precisely, do you intend to do performance optimization without real world usage? Or are you saying that you optimize your software to suit your imaginary beliefs about how it will be used in the real world?
It's not a question of whether you do those steps before the first public release. It's a question of whether you compromise the end result with shoddy simulations of those steps in order to make the false claim that you have performed those steps before release.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you shouldn't have solid fundamentals - you shouldn't use known-to-be-slow algorithms in heavily used sections of the code - but that's not performance optimization. Performance optimization is shifting the focus of a section of code from clarity to high performance. Doing that without knowing that the section in question is a problem is pure stupidity. Without real world usage data, you cannot know which sections are a problem.
Just to clarify for the "what's he trying to hide" people. What the finding states is that the FBI must have proof that a crime has been committed. That is, they can't just pick people that they think are dirty and start tracking them unless there is a crime. This seems like the fundamental basis of police protection - their job is to investigate crimes and prosecute the perps. Not to monitor people they don't like in case they commit a crime. The crime has to come before the surveillance.
Do you disagree? Do you think the FBI should act as our watchers before any crime is committed?
I don't. I think the FBI's job starts when a crime occurs.
Par for the course? (even "right"?)
on
OpenOffice Bloated?
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
To what extent is this just the proper natural evolution of a large scale application?
Step 1: Functional demo, very lacking in features and stability. This would be StarOffice up through the 5.x series, and the OpenOffice 0.x series.
Step 2: Dramatic increases in stability and completion of all the major technical functions, but with a somewhat clunky or non-intuitive interface. OpenOffice 1.x.
Step 3: More user friendly and natural interface, but performance is not yet up to par.
Step 4: Performance optimization.
Each step is the natural evolution from the prior state. The initial state is an idea, which leads to a functional demo. The functional demo gets poked at by a few outsiders who say, "This might be a good idea, but it doesn't support features X, Y, and Z, and it crashes all the time." That feedback leads to the incorporation of new features and advances in stability. Then a larger group of outsiders uses it and says, "Yeah, this is getting good - it does everything I need it to, but the interface is a little goofy, so I'm sticking with my current solution for now." That feedback leads to user interface improvements. Those improvements lead to a much larger group using the software, and more people using the software full-time, those people say, "Wow, this is really well done, but look at how much (CPU|RAM|disk space|bandwidth) it uses." Which should, inevitably, lead to performance optimization.
That sounds like the natural sequence to me. In fact, that whole process - release, listen, refactor, wait till the end to performance optimize - has always been a big part of successful projects and is now becoming a big part of standardized software development models like those that come under the Agile umbrella. It would be worse if there had been a lot of unnecessary performance optimization that had lead to an unmaintainable code base.
This belongs in the WoW forums, or in your journal, not on Slashdot as a legitimate article.
He and the rest of the Slashdot crew built the single best tech news community on the web. Once in a while he editorializes, using the forum they built. He doesn't do it often (I can't remember the last time offhand). They have done more for the tech community than most people who earn 10X as much. While I completely agree that much or most of the value of Slashdot is created by the community, let's not forget who created the community. To say nothing of the fact that Blizz's heavy hand and WoW are frequent topics on this site, so it's not really offtopic at all.
Which is to say, give the man a little slack - he has clearly earned it.
Is it too much to ask for a simple and powerful software program...?
Yes, crotchety old man who is famous for having once understood technology, that is too much to ask. Next question?
Simple and powerful are virtually antonyms. Powerful is essentially synonymous with "many capabilities." Simple is essentially synonymous with "I can't understand things that have more than 7 icons."
Is it too much to ask for a high performance, easy to ride motorcycle? Yes.
Is it too much to ask for a rich, healthy dessert? Yes.
Is it too much to ask for a high paying job that requires no skill? Yes, unless you're John Dvorak.
This is significant because it completely circumvents the DMCA. For years we've been saying, "the DMCA has no teeth, because ultimately; if I can see it or hear it, I can record it." That is exactly what is happening here, but it avoids the DMCA because it does not break any encryption or other form of effective copyright protection.
So, who's placing bets on how long it will take for the volley of lobbyists to reach DC?
How many sets of country codes and date formats do we need?
Speaking as someone who has worked on a few large scale, interdepartment information systems, I think a good first step would be to get it down to one per application.
Flamebait?!? Informative?!? Correcting my definition of "Theory"?!? Wow. I am astonished. OK, I know 99% of you got it, but for that "special" 1%, umm, it's a joke. Laugh. If you can't laugh at Intelligent Falling, you're taking it waaaaaay too seriously.
And if you're actually serious about the flamebait mod, and you're now thinking, "but it is serious, ID as scientific theory is a serious subject," you're wrong. It is not a scientific theory. I'm not saying it isn't true(*) so don't get your panties in a bunch. I'm just saying it is not science. Science is the search for natural explanations to non-intuitive phenomena. Scientific theories make predictions that are disprovable(**). ID is a supernatural explanation to a non-intuitive phenomena which does not make predictions and is not disprovable. As such, ID is philosophy of religion, or mysticism, or faith, or whatever term you feel is appropriate for the study of supernatural explanations to non-intuitive phenomena. Not a better field, not a worse field, not more true, not less true, just a different field of study than science.
So get over it. Laugh. Or are you afraid that the shared behaviour of laughing will betray your common ancestry with the great apes? Yes, ferchrissakes, that's a joke too.
Sorry about the "ferchrissakes" thing - I didn't mean to blaspheme. The editors of that paragraph have been sacked.
* Typically supernatural explanations are inherently not disprovable, and this is the case with ID. Any scientist worth his salt will not say that something is false if it can't be disproven. Listen closely next time, you'll not hear a serious scientist say "ID is not true." The scientists aren't trying to kill God, they're just working in a different field than philosophy of religion.
** For a great example of hardcore science-like research that is not science, check out game theory. It is a fascinating area of economic research, but since it can only be used to analyze and not predict, it is not science. There's a very good article on the topic here.
Evolution is nothing but a theory, just as is gravity. Theory means "not true". The real basis for flight is God's divine will expressed through specific cases where He suspends Intelligent Falling. Flight is one of the most clear examples that proves Intelligent Falling, and that the "theory" of gravity is just bunk foisted on us by a bunch of scientists who want to destroy God.
The Copyright Office of the Library of Congress is preparing to conduct proceedings in accordance with section 1201(a)(1) of the Copyright Act, which was added by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and which provides that the Librarian of Congress may exempt certain classes of works from the prohibition against circumvention of technological measures that control access to copyrighted works. The purpose of this rulemaking proceeding is to determine whether there are particular classes of works as to which users are, or are likely to be, adversely affected in their ability to make noninfringing uses due to the prohibition on circumvention. This notice requests written comments from all interested parties, including representatives of copyright owners, educational institutions, libraries and archives, scholars, researchers and members of the public, in order to elicit evidence on whether noninfringing uses of certain classes of works are, or are likely to be, adversely affected by this prohibition on the circumvention of measures that control access to copyrighted works. DATES: Written comments are due by December 1, 2005. Reply comments are due by February 2, 2006.
I've been using Pandora for about a month, and am very pleased with it. It does a great job of picking apparently unrelated artists that fit into the genre of the station you create. The best example I noticed was a station created from Lords of Acid and Chemical Brothers playing a track by Garbage. I don't know Garbage's music well enough to say if all their music fits, but the one track that Pandora picked fit in seemlessly. I listen to it most of the day at work, and maybe an hour or two at night. I've set up half a dozen stations and shared another half dozen from friends of mine. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
Just go easy on it Slashdot, I'm listening right now and don't want the beat to drop.:)
This is the kind of fight I can respect. The wholesale purchase of legislation results in massive collateral damage and unintended consequences. This kind of fight leads to advances in information science. Regardless of how you feel about the copyright expansion and enforcement battle, you've got to love a spirited fight.
It supports most of SQL syntax,... Instead you should learn and use a bunch of MySQLisms that aren't found anywhere else and do the same thing, much better (faster, safer, bug-free).
AFAIK, the closest thing to pure ANSI SQL compliance is SQL Server, which is pretty limited as far as very large databases go. How is the above different from, say, Oracle? Orachle uses non-standard CLOBs, sequences, connect by, doesn't do "join" syntax (or was join recently added?), etc.
There is no rational person who would question the fact that the GPL hurts Linux. Just like proprietary licenses hurt proprietary software and the BSD license hurts BSD licensed software. Likewise, the GPL is responsible for the success Linux has found in the way it has found it. Just like proprietary licenses and the BSD license are responsible for the success of those products that use them. Each license is a tradeoff. The BSD trades control for participation. Proprietary licenses trade participation for control. The GPL trades profit for liberty (liberty in the sense of "you are forbidden to remove this freedom").
Is it a good trade? Well, GPL software has a very small, but increasing, share of the desktop OS market. GPL software has a very large and increasing share of the small server OS market. GPL software has a small and increasing share of the large server OS market. I'd say that implies it is doing pretty well.
BSD software is also doing well, but not in the same spaces. GPL software is doing very well at the kernel and system level, but BSD software is (at least arguably) beating it at the applications level (OOo, Apache, Tomcat, etc).
Every license is inherently a tradeoff. Every license hurts and helps the software to which it is applied. You give up some rights and impose some requirements. Which bundle of rights and requirements you choose is a matter of what your goals are. The GPL is the right license if your goal is the imposition of liberty, and maybe the right license if your goal is participation. Which is the right license if your goal is market share? Pretty tough to say; BSD dominates the HTTPD market, GPL dominates the cluster kernel market, proprietary dominates the desktop market, but is losing share. If someone claims to have the one true answer to which is the best license for desktop market penetration, that person is either a fool, a zealot, or a liar.
By your criteria, IIOP and RMI are not "distributed objects" protocols, which I think is rather pedantic.
RMI and IIOP can and have been used for distributed objects. So can any remote technology. If the client stub acts only as a proxy which passes every method call over the bus, then it is a distributed object. I am not trying to be pedantic about the definition of "distributed objects", I am trying to be pedantic about the definition of "objects".
The mindset that coarse grained method calls are just a different kind of distributed object is the whole thing that makes coarse grained method calls so hard for people who are not as skilled as you or I to implement. Seeing fine grained method calls and coarse grained method calls as concepts that live at different ends of the same spectrum is what causes many coarse grained method call systems to fail. The ambiguity of how-fine-is-too-fine leads to tight coupling between the client and server.
SOA breaks the link with objects. The first mindset shift in using SOA is that every service call involves sending and receiving documents. It is natural to think of documents as inherently temporal - their truth value is inversely proportional to their age. This means less arguing about things like, "Is an optimistic lock required?" Of course it is required, we're dealing with documents, which are inherently temporal. Calling coarse grained method calls "distributed objects" gives the less skilled practitioner the false hope that some magic system is going to ensure that state is synchronized. SOA puts it right on the table; there is no magic synchronization. You send a document, and if it lines up with the other side's view of reality, all will work as planned. If not, it will say, "I'm sorry, your document does not match my view of reality."
Not a panacea, not a magic solution for state management, just a mindset shift that makes it harder to confuse the noobs.
What is the definition of an object? It is a struct with associated logic and an identity. Suppose two threads each have a reference to the same object, what does thread A see when thread B mutates the object? It sees the same mutated object. You cannot pass an object by value. There is no such thing as pass by value in OO (regardless of the fact that many pseudo-OO languages allow pass by value). You can clone an object, but then you have two objects with the same state, not one object with two identities. OO is the representation of the world in objects. Can you pass a car by value? Can you pass a planet by value? No? Then you can't pass an object by value.
As to the "discarded as unworkable" statement: Over-the-wire client server apps (and what else could we be talking about when discussing SOA?) in most any real world case fail at the network level if they incorporate true distributed objects. Fine grained method calls - pure OO - will saturate gigabit ethernet with a miniscule CPU load in all but edge cases.
Not that you should not use pass by value; it is quite practical in real-world programming, which is why it is a prominent feature of most "OO" languages. Furthermore, the entire concept of SOA is that in situations where you desire a decoupled client and server, pass-by-value is a practical solution (not *the* practical solution, not *the one true path*, just a practical solution). But pass by value is inherently not OO. There may be OO programs on each side of the bus, and the system as a whole might be generally describable as an OO system, but if the programs on each side of the bus are not sharing single identity structs with associated logic, it is a hybrid system.
As to your straw man that I am saying SOA is a panacea; I am not. If the goal is a loosely coupled client server system, SOA is a good solution, that's all.
It's a clever way for the folks who brought us distributed objects to resell "new" solutions and consulting. What you have is basically distributed objects, with the design patterns that anyone who had half a brain would have already implemented if they were using distributed objects.
Distributed objects were discarded years ago as unworkable. The first EJB designs used distributed objects, where every method call goes over the wire. Since then, J2EE has moved towards coarse grained method calls, but many practicioners still see it as a distributed object. SOA is more document oriented, or data transfer object oriented. The entire mindset shifts towards serialized structs. This results in server and client logic being more cleanly encapsulated.
Much as the core technical processes of OO can be simulated in most any language, the techniques used in SOA can be applied to most any client server architecture. However, most OO client server architectures (CORBA, RMI, J2EE, XML-RPC) either have distributed objects as their guiding principle or have no guiding principle.
In short, stating that distributed objects and SOA are synonymous betrays a lack of understanding of the core objective of SOA, which is minimal coupling between server and client. Distributed objects are inherently more coupled than is the goal of SOA.
Obviously you are right that poor programmers (who are the majority) will still write highly coupled, fragile software. SOA isn't a magic solution to failing to hire skilled practitioners. But to the skilled practitioner, the core principle of decoupling the client and server is a useful guide.
I just emailed the following to a friend of mine who works at Apple.
I've been avoiding buying an iPod because it means I'd have to turn on my Windows machine (something I've avoided entirely in the 3 months since it was handed down to me). However, I'd like to make a pledge, and hope you can pass it up the chain to someone who can get it to the appropriate hands:
The labels have not earned a share of iPod profits, and they fought digital music tooth and nail. Apple put in the time, research, and manpower to make iTunes work, and negotiated a price with the labels that is fair to the fans, the musicians, Apple, and the labels. Now the labels are using their fiat monopoly to try to steal the wealth Apple is creating.
If Apple refuses to knuckle under, and any of the four big labels pulls out, I will buy a 60 gig iPod, and turn on my Windows machine (that last part should show how serious I am).
people who swear by Linux's reliability and uptime. When I look at their load usage, it's alway like "0.01, 0.01, 0.02" or some such low usage box.
Two dual proc hyperthreaded Xeons in production for the past year. Rebooted twice (once was unintentional, when the sysadmin clicked the wrong button on the remote system control panel). Load average during business hours is 1.5 - 2.5. Handling roughly 50 service calls per second during peak load, a few per second typical, each service call comprising at least one external LDAP call and at least one external database call. And that's running RedHat, which is the best marketed but not the most stable Linux.
I say simply "FreeBSD". By that I qualify my package management, my system boot scripts, where my conf files are, how the system works. "Linux", on the other hand,
Linux is similar in scope to BSD, by which you can mean FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Mac OS-X, etc. The scope equivalent to FreeBSD in the Linux world is Debian, Slackware, Ubuntu, Gentoo, etc. Was that an intentional troll, or did you really not know that? If the latter, you really aren't qualified to make comparisons about which is better. If you are interested in making a meaningful comparison with FreeBSD, check out Debian Stable - similar freshness and breadth of packages, similar security and stability.
Slashdot Mirror
From your site:
In order to download DotNetNuke® Projects, you must register on the site.
I'm thinking you're getting no respect in the Open Source community because you don't get it. The community is not about how you license your software (you don't even have to be a developer to be a member of the OS community). It's about the spirit of community and openness from which springs the compulsion to use a particular license for your software.
The above statement from your site and your publication of an MS-only piece of software makes me assume that you accept Open Source because that's the way the world is and it is how one develops a resume these days, not because you like it. Is that necessarily true of you? I can't say for sure, but first impressions mean a lot, even your post somehow hits me as a little off - something about the whining or faulting others because you are not being accepted, like you need someone to bless your OS-ness, instead of just knowing you have it. I can't say exactly what all it is, but I'm guessing it's the same thing that has made others uneasy (perhaps some other poster will be more insightful in identifying the real causes).
Moreover, changing that one line on your site isn't going to do it. Faking it won't work - if you don't understand, people will see it in a million ways. OS developers will see it and continue to give you no cred. If I'm wrong, or if you're willing to learn more and understand why Open Source is a good thing, more power to you. But until you do, you're probably in for a fair amount of continued disenfranchisement.
The first one is easy to refute for the vast majority of the ID proponents; "Is the designer perfect?" If they're adherents of The God of Classical Theism, their answer has to be, "Yes."
Second, in some religions life is not supposed to be perfect. In such religions, life is a test. God gives us hardship and monitors how we react. The help with the "hardship" part of the test, things are often sloppy or faulty.
Here's the refutation for that piece: Tests are intended to prove worthiness in the eyes of God, right? And only things with souls can pass that test, right? So why would He inflict the same tests on soulless beasts?
An A/C comment at level 0. I guess it is fruitless to respond, but what the heck.
My company (and I personally) would never allow a product to be stamped 1.0 until all of those steps had been completed.
So you're one of those VC sucking vaporware companies, eh? You can't do all of those steps without real world results. How, precisely, do you intend to do performance optimization without real world usage? Or are you saying that you optimize your software to suit your imaginary beliefs about how it will be used in the real world?
It's not a question of whether you do those steps before the first public release. It's a question of whether you compromise the end result with shoddy simulations of those steps in order to make the false claim that you have performed those steps before release.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you shouldn't have solid fundamentals - you shouldn't use known-to-be-slow algorithms in heavily used sections of the code - but that's not performance optimization. Performance optimization is shifting the focus of a section of code from clarity to high performance. Doing that without knowing that the section in question is a problem is pure stupidity. Without real world usage data, you cannot know which sections are a problem.
Wow, very well said and informative! I wish I had mod points. Thanks for the insight!
Just to clarify for the "what's he trying to hide" people. What the finding states is that the FBI must have proof that a crime has been committed. That is, they can't just pick people that they think are dirty and start tracking them unless there is a crime. This seems like the fundamental basis of police protection - their job is to investigate crimes and prosecute the perps. Not to monitor people they don't like in case they commit a crime. The crime has to come before the surveillance.
Do you disagree? Do you think the FBI should act as our watchers before any crime is committed?
I don't. I think the FBI's job starts when a crime occurs.
To what extent is this just the proper natural evolution of a large scale application?
Step 1: Functional demo, very lacking in features and stability. This would be StarOffice up through the 5.x series, and the OpenOffice 0.x series.
Step 2: Dramatic increases in stability and completion of all the major technical functions, but with a somewhat clunky or non-intuitive interface. OpenOffice 1.x.
Step 3: More user friendly and natural interface, but performance is not yet up to par.
Step 4: Performance optimization.
Each step is the natural evolution from the prior state. The initial state is an idea, which leads to a functional demo. The functional demo gets poked at by a few outsiders who say, "This might be a good idea, but it doesn't support features X, Y, and Z, and it crashes all the time." That feedback leads to the incorporation of new features and advances in stability. Then a larger group of outsiders uses it and says, "Yeah, this is getting good - it does everything I need it to, but the interface is a little goofy, so I'm sticking with my current solution for now." That feedback leads to user interface improvements. Those improvements lead to a much larger group using the software, and more people using the software full-time, those people say, "Wow, this is really well done, but look at how much (CPU|RAM|disk space|bandwidth) it uses." Which should, inevitably, lead to performance optimization.
That sounds like the natural sequence to me. In fact, that whole process - release, listen, refactor, wait till the end to performance optimize - has always been a big part of successful projects and is now becoming a big part of standardized software development models like those that come under the Agile umbrella. It would be worse if there had been a lot of unnecessary performance optimization that had lead to an unmaintainable code base.
This belongs in the WoW forums, or in your journal, not on Slashdot as a legitimate article.
He and the rest of the Slashdot crew built the single best tech news community on the web. Once in a while he editorializes, using the forum they built. He doesn't do it often (I can't remember the last time offhand). They have done more for the tech community than most people who earn 10X as much. While I completely agree that much or most of the value of Slashdot is created by the community, let's not forget who created the community. To say nothing of the fact that Blizz's heavy hand and WoW are frequent topics on this site, so it's not really offtopic at all.
Which is to say, give the man a little slack - he has clearly earned it.
Is it too much to ask for a simple and powerful software program...?
Yes, crotchety old man who is famous for having once understood technology, that is too much to ask. Next question?
Simple and powerful are virtually antonyms. Powerful is essentially synonymous with "many capabilities." Simple is essentially synonymous with "I can't understand things that have more than 7 icons."
Is it too much to ask for a high performance, easy to ride motorcycle? Yes.
Is it too much to ask for a rich, healthy dessert? Yes.
Is it too much to ask for a high paying job that requires no skill? Yes, unless you're John Dvorak.
This is significant because it completely circumvents the DMCA. For years we've been saying, "the DMCA has no teeth, because ultimately; if I can see it or hear it, I can record it." That is exactly what is happening here, but it avoids the DMCA because it does not break any encryption or other form of effective copyright protection.
So, who's placing bets on how long it will take for the volley of lobbyists to reach DC?
How many sets of country codes and date formats do we need?
Speaking as someone who has worked on a few large scale, interdepartment information systems, I think a good first step would be to get it down to one per application.
Btw, according to your definition, the SETI project is unscientific.
That is correct. Until and unless ETI is observed, it will remain a hypothesis, just like ID.
Flamebait?!? Informative?!? Correcting my definition of "Theory"?!? Wow. I am astonished. OK, I know 99% of you got it, but for that "special" 1%, umm, it's a joke. Laugh. If you can't laugh at Intelligent Falling, you're taking it waaaaaay too seriously.
And if you're actually serious about the flamebait mod, and you're now thinking, "but it is serious, ID as scientific theory is a serious subject," you're wrong. It is not a scientific theory. I'm not saying it isn't true(*) so don't get your panties in a bunch. I'm just saying it is not science. Science is the search for natural explanations to non-intuitive phenomena. Scientific theories make predictions that are disprovable(**). ID is a supernatural explanation to a non-intuitive phenomena which does not make predictions and is not disprovable. As such, ID is philosophy of religion, or mysticism, or faith, or whatever term you feel is appropriate for the study of supernatural explanations to non-intuitive phenomena. Not a better field, not a worse field, not more true, not less true, just a different field of study than science.
So get over it. Laugh. Or are you afraid that the shared behaviour of laughing will betray your common ancestry with the great apes? Yes, ferchrissakes, that's a joke too.
Sorry about the "ferchrissakes" thing - I didn't mean to blaspheme. The editors of that paragraph have been sacked.
* Typically supernatural explanations are inherently not disprovable, and this is the case with ID. Any scientist worth his salt will not say that something is false if it can't be disproven. Listen closely next time, you'll not hear a serious scientist say "ID is not true." The scientists aren't trying to kill God, they're just working in a different field than philosophy of religion.
** For a great example of hardcore science-like research that is not science, check out game theory. It is a fascinating area of economic research, but since it can only be used to analyze and not predict, it is not science. There's a very good article on the topic here.
Evolution is nothing but a theory, just as is gravity. Theory means "not true". The real basis for flight is God's divine will expressed through specific cases where He suspends Intelligent Falling. Flight is one of the most clear examples that proves Intelligent Falling, and that the "theory" of gravity is just bunk foisted on us by a bunch of scientists who want to destroy God.
http://www.copyright.gov/fedreg/2005/70fr57526.htm l
SUMMARY:
The Copyright Office of the Library of Congress is preparing to conduct proceedings in accordance with section 1201(a)(1) of the Copyright Act, which was added by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and which provides that the Librarian of Congress may exempt certain classes of works from the prohibition against circumvention of technological measures that control access to copyrighted works. The purpose of this rulemaking proceeding is to determine whether there are particular classes of works as to which users are, or are likely to be, adversely affected in their ability to make noninfringing uses due to the prohibition on circumvention. This notice requests written comments from all interested parties, including representatives of copyright owners, educational institutions, libraries and archives, scholars, researchers and members of the public, in order to elicit evidence on whether noninfringing uses of certain classes of works are, or are likely to be, adversely affected by this prohibition on the circumvention of measures that control access to copyrighted works. DATES: Written comments are due by December 1, 2005. Reply comments are due by February 2, 2006.
I've been using Pandora for about a month, and am very pleased with it. It does a great job of picking apparently unrelated artists that fit into the genre of the station you create. The best example I noticed was a station created from Lords of Acid and Chemical Brothers playing a track by Garbage. I don't know Garbage's music well enough to say if all their music fits, but the one track that Pandora picked fit in seemlessly. I listen to it most of the day at work, and maybe an hour or two at night. I've set up half a dozen stations and shared another half dozen from friends of mine. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
:)
Just go easy on it Slashdot, I'm listening right now and don't want the beat to drop.
This is the kind of fight I can respect. The wholesale purchase of legislation results in massive collateral damage and unintended consequences. This kind of fight leads to advances in information science. Regardless of how you feel about the copyright expansion and enforcement battle, you've got to love a spirited fight.
Really? I love [equation editor]. It's one of the things I miss most in OpenOffice.
Missing it because you don't like the one in OOo, or because you didn't know it was there? If the latter, click File >> New >> Formula.
Here's a screenshot.
Enjoy!
It supports most of SQL syntax, ... Instead you should learn and use a bunch of MySQLisms that aren't found anywhere else and do the same thing, much better (faster, safer, bug-free).
AFAIK, the closest thing to pure ANSI SQL compliance is SQL Server, which is pretty limited as far as very large databases go. How is the above different from, say, Oracle? Orachle uses non-standard CLOBs, sequences, connect by, doesn't do "join" syntax (or was join recently added?), etc.
There is no rational person who would question the fact that the GPL hurts Linux. Just like proprietary licenses hurt proprietary software and the BSD license hurts BSD licensed software. Likewise, the GPL is responsible for the success Linux has found in the way it has found it. Just like proprietary licenses and the BSD license are responsible for the success of those products that use them. Each license is a tradeoff. The BSD trades control for participation. Proprietary licenses trade participation for control. The GPL trades profit for liberty (liberty in the sense of "you are forbidden to remove this freedom").
Is it a good trade? Well, GPL software has a very small, but increasing, share of the desktop OS market. GPL software has a very large and increasing share of the small server OS market. GPL software has a small and increasing share of the large server OS market. I'd say that implies it is doing pretty well.
BSD software is also doing well, but not in the same spaces. GPL software is doing very well at the kernel and system level, but BSD software is (at least arguably) beating it at the applications level (OOo, Apache, Tomcat, etc).
Every license is inherently a tradeoff. Every license hurts and helps the software to which it is applied. You give up some rights and impose some requirements. Which bundle of rights and requirements you choose is a matter of what your goals are. The GPL is the right license if your goal is the imposition of liberty, and maybe the right license if your goal is participation. Which is the right license if your goal is market share? Pretty tough to say; BSD dominates the HTTPD market, GPL dominates the cluster kernel market, proprietary dominates the desktop market, but is losing share. If someone claims to have the one true answer to which is the best license for desktop market penetration, that person is either a fool, a zealot, or a liar.
By your criteria, IIOP and RMI are not "distributed objects" protocols, which I think is rather pedantic.
RMI and IIOP can and have been used for distributed objects. So can any remote technology. If the client stub acts only as a proxy which passes every method call over the bus, then it is a distributed object. I am not trying to be pedantic about the definition of "distributed objects", I am trying to be pedantic about the definition of "objects".
The mindset that coarse grained method calls are just a different kind of distributed object is the whole thing that makes coarse grained method calls so hard for people who are not as skilled as you or I to implement. Seeing fine grained method calls and coarse grained method calls as concepts that live at different ends of the same spectrum is what causes many coarse grained method call systems to fail. The ambiguity of how-fine-is-too-fine leads to tight coupling between the client and server.
SOA breaks the link with objects. The first mindset shift in using SOA is that every service call involves sending and receiving documents. It is natural to think of documents as inherently temporal - their truth value is inversely proportional to their age. This means less arguing about things like, "Is an optimistic lock required?" Of course it is required, we're dealing with documents, which are inherently temporal. Calling coarse grained method calls "distributed objects" gives the less skilled practitioner the false hope that some magic system is going to ensure that state is synchronized. SOA puts it right on the table; there is no magic synchronization. You send a document, and if it lines up with the other side's view of reality, all will work as planned. If not, it will say, "I'm sorry, your document does not match my view of reality."
Not a panacea, not a magic solution for state management, just a mindset shift that makes it harder to confuse the noobs.
What is the definition of an object? It is a struct with associated logic and an identity. Suppose two threads each have a reference to the same object, what does thread A see when thread B mutates the object? It sees the same mutated object. You cannot pass an object by value. There is no such thing as pass by value in OO (regardless of the fact that many pseudo-OO languages allow pass by value). You can clone an object, but then you have two objects with the same state, not one object with two identities. OO is the representation of the world in objects. Can you pass a car by value? Can you pass a planet by value? No? Then you can't pass an object by value.
As to the "discarded as unworkable" statement: Over-the-wire client server apps (and what else could we be talking about when discussing SOA?) in most any real world case fail at the network level if they incorporate true distributed objects. Fine grained method calls - pure OO - will saturate gigabit ethernet with a miniscule CPU load in all but edge cases.
Not that you should not use pass by value; it is quite practical in real-world programming, which is why it is a prominent feature of most "OO" languages. Furthermore, the entire concept of SOA is that in situations where you desire a decoupled client and server, pass-by-value is a practical solution (not *the* practical solution, not *the one true path*, just a practical solution). But pass by value is inherently not OO. There may be OO programs on each side of the bus, and the system as a whole might be generally describable as an OO system, but if the programs on each side of the bus are not sharing single identity structs with associated logic, it is a hybrid system.
As to your straw man that I am saying SOA is a panacea; I am not. If the goal is a loosely coupled client server system, SOA is a good solution, that's all.
It's a clever way for the folks who brought us distributed objects to resell "new" solutions and consulting. What you have is basically distributed objects, with the design patterns that anyone who had half a brain would have already implemented if they were using distributed objects.
Distributed objects were discarded years ago as unworkable. The first EJB designs used distributed objects, where every method call goes over the wire. Since then, J2EE has moved towards coarse grained method calls, but many practicioners still see it as a distributed object. SOA is more document oriented, or data transfer object oriented. The entire mindset shifts towards serialized structs. This results in server and client logic being more cleanly encapsulated.
Much as the core technical processes of OO can be simulated in most any language, the techniques used in SOA can be applied to most any client server architecture. However, most OO client server architectures (CORBA, RMI, J2EE, XML-RPC) either have distributed objects as their guiding principle or have no guiding principle.
In short, stating that distributed objects and SOA are synonymous betrays a lack of understanding of the core objective of SOA, which is minimal coupling between server and client. Distributed objects are inherently more coupled than is the goal of SOA.
Obviously you are right that poor programmers (who are the majority) will still write highly coupled, fragile software. SOA isn't a magic solution to failing to hire skilled practitioners. But to the skilled practitioner, the core principle of decoupling the client and server is a useful guide.
I just emailed the following to a friend of mine who works at Apple.
I've been avoiding buying an iPod because it means I'd have to turn on my Windows machine (something I've avoided entirely in the 3 months since it was handed down to me). However, I'd like to make a pledge, and hope you can pass it up the chain to someone who can get it to the appropriate hands:
The labels have not earned a share of iPod profits, and they fought digital music tooth and nail. Apple put in the time, research, and manpower to make iTunes work, and negotiated a price with the labels that is fair to the fans, the musicians, Apple, and the labels. Now the labels are using their fiat monopoly to try to steal the wealth Apple is creating.
If Apple refuses to knuckle under, and any of the four big labels pulls out, I will buy a 60 gig iPod, and turn on my Windows machine (that last part should show how serious I am).
people who swear by Linux's reliability and uptime. When I look at their load usage, it's alway like "0.01, 0.01, 0.02" or some such low usage box.
Two dual proc hyperthreaded Xeons in production for the past year. Rebooted twice (once was unintentional, when the sysadmin clicked the wrong button on the remote system control panel). Load average during business hours is 1.5 - 2.5. Handling roughly 50 service calls per second during peak load, a few per second typical, each service call comprising at least one external LDAP call and at least one external database call. And that's running RedHat, which is the best marketed but not the most stable Linux.
I say simply "FreeBSD". By that I qualify my package management, my system boot scripts, where my conf files are, how the system works. "Linux", on the other hand,
Linux is similar in scope to BSD, by which you can mean FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Mac OS-X, etc. The scope equivalent to FreeBSD in the Linux world is Debian, Slackware, Ubuntu, Gentoo, etc. Was that an intentional troll, or did you really not know that? If the latter, you really aren't qualified to make comparisons about which is better. If you are interested in making a meaningful comparison with FreeBSD, check out Debian Stable - similar freshness and breadth of packages, similar security and stability.