I agree that they are not mutually exclusive. But at the same time they are not dependent either. As a added bonus InfoCard by itself solves a lot of issues. Including registration and use simplicity together with anonymity. OpenID IMHO fails miserably in these cases.
Why the need to choose between paper and computer? Why the need to choose between vi/emacs and IDE? This is all nonsense. First thing is to decide what knowledge is student expected to display. If the sudents needs to display good organizing skill, mental discipline, good memory and expert knowledge of problem domain, by all means push them to paper or vi/emacs. If you want the students to display the knowledge of grammar, whether in natural or synthetic language, then remove the obstacles that require so much more. You might not want to give students an IDE with RAD tools integrated, but any GUI text editor with syntax highlight should do, just like any word processor with spell-and-grammar checker will do for texts.
First step in school of writing is to master the grammar and style. This can only be achieved if the student doesn't have helpers (live or automated) that clean up his/her mistakes. The student must be able to proof-read own texts, spot mistakes and fix them. No need to to this on paper, but it certainly shouldn't be done with F9.
First step in school of programming is to master the grammar and style. This can only be achieved if the student doesn't have helpers (live or automated) that write plumbing code for him/her. The student must be able to read his own code, understand it and write it from first "public class", to the last "}". No need to do this with vi/emacs, as there is not context help, no language reference a single click away, no drop down context menus to insert class member names. However, there should be no magic Alt-Whatever key to create complete class construct all ready for inserting the code into members, let alone some magic RAD builder. These things hurt students, not help them.
Once the students are past the introductionary stage, you can start moulding them. Once you know your natural grammar and style, you can focus on what do you want to write. Once you know synthetic language grammar and constructs, you can focus on whole applications with GUI and all. Just like established columnist writes a column and presses that magic F9 button to catch anything he/she missed, the programmer clicks couple of buttons to write that plumbing that holdes the logic together. But stay away of tools that will do this for you when you don't master those things yet.
One thing is to lecture basics of programming. IDE can be used for all the help in writing the code, but it shouldn't be abused to write code constructs. When the students know how to write these basic construct by themselves, then comes the time to start lecturing the use of IDE and the tools that it provides. Students should obtain complete knowledge from the basics of how to write in plain editor, all the way to knowing the tools that will make them productive when they go out and start doing this for life.
It's similar with algebra. As a student, I had to display knowledge in three areas:
theory where I had to display the knowledge of axioms and theorems
practice where I had to display the knowledge of using the theory on short practical tasks
and Mathematica (Wolfram Research) where I had to display the knowledge of solving large problems in as efficient ways as possible
Catch was that you couldn't take tests 2 and 3, if you failed test 1, and you couldn't take test 3, if you failed test 2. It was simple bullshit filter, that worked perfectly.
Programming is just like that. You should first understand the syntax (statemets, operators, how do they fit together), only then you can start writing short snippets (reading, writing, calculating, sorting,...), and only after you know this, you can start thinking about writing complete application with GUI (using data binding, database access, designing usable GUI,...). Each step takes you further to the point of useful knowledge, but you just can't skip any of them. Lecturer just has to decide on the right tools for the right level and don't let the students skip steps that are needed for complete understanding.
If somebody would actualy know something about area of IPTV, one would know that we already have a nubumber of Linux based STBs. Amino being the most successful ones. Oh, I don't know... We have been deploying them from the start of 2004, when most of the people didn't even know what IPTV should mean. Swisscom on the other hand started testing Microsoft OS (Windows MCE) based STBs at the same time... and the still don't work properly. And those units cost more than ten times the cost of Amino 103 unit... BTW: Windows MCE is complete Windows XP with couple of applications. With W-MCE only SW licence without HW costs $200, with at least $200 for HW to run the beast. Amino on the other hand "Just works", costs in $30 a piece if you order in bulk. Thats SW and HW together!
Anyway, I know it's Slashdot, but not checking the facts is so 20th century journalism...
Not only that, but they sometimes actively prevent interested people from buying their products. I'm in a company that is placed three hour drive from Munchen and one hour from Venice, and they insist we do business with them through their Moscow office... Because they think Moscow is somehow closer to me. Three timezones of difference and the only link being 4 hour flight from Frankfurt/Main are somehow closer than 30 minute plane flight to Frankfurt/M. Strange though, that they didn't recommend Novosibirsk offce, that would be just lovely. I just love that place early in the winter. It is so romantic to be out in a snow at -40C. The irony is that their Darmstadt office is closer to Moscow, than my company is.
E-mail didn't help, fax didn't help, and phone didn't help to change their mind about it. I almost sat in the plane and spend an afternoon to visit them in Darmstadt to complain to them in person, but stopped thinking why should I do that. Why should I pay 100, just to tell them I'm interested in buying 60,000 worth of licenes for their products. If they don't want to sell to me, then I certainly won't be begging them to allow me to buy their products. At the end we have struck a sweet deal with VMware, and I'm so satisfied with attitude, support & community at VMware, that I never look back wondering, what if...
Not being one of their customers, I can't really comment on the level of their customer support, but with attitude like SW-Soft has, I don't think its much. If they dislike the paying custmers as much as you say, then I don't think they will have any more respect of free ones either. Personally, I wouldn't even think about touching anything of theirs again. They're arrogant, they can't take a hint, and, most of all, they don't want to spread knowledge. They just want a free stamp of approval & marketing tool (see, Linus or whoever endorsed us by including our code, and a "wink, wink" with an elbow nudge) for their proprietary product. Fortunately, we already have Xen with which we don't have to observe politics of single company being discriminatory to prospective customers and ignorant of existing ones. On the paying side we have VMware, which doens't play politics, but just trying hard to create best products possible. Well, thank you very much SW-Soft, but reform, or take your crap somewhere else. I neither want, nor like code from hipocrytes in my vanilla kernel. If you don't have & show ethics and professionalism towards paying customers, then you probably don't have ethics/professionalism at all.
Oh, and if somebody from SW-Soft would like to prove me wrong, my telephone number, fax & e-mail are all in your marketing department in HQ. If you don't know which are mine (i.e. you have more than one such prospective customer ignored), then you have a bit more of a problem than you think.
I have prepared the complete answer, but I found it overly offensive for the time being. I will send it to you personaly after a week and no sooner directly over an e-mail, if you will send me your e-mail address. You don't like me and my opinion, but I have couple of hard questions that would be right out sensless right now, but I would still like to see the answers.
Noticed, how Mr. Bush Jr. isn't particulary fond of certain Mr. Castro living on an island not too far. Hell, you could even catch the evening party at the club if you start attack around 9am.
I guess the question of revenge is about to be settled. The spiral of violence will now probably continue, as there are unverified reports coming from Kabul (Afghanistan) of explosions.
As Afghanistans could set them off themselves (let's just call it unbounded joy) this might be a duck, but is Tomohawks caused it, then it's another story. Then I would demand an answer from each and every intelegence agency how can define with such certainty who is responsible for these acts of violence in less than a day, and failed to notice the warning signs at the time when this was still in preparation. This wasn't some unaccountable madman having a bad day. This was essentialy preplaned and premedidated.
If someone decided that person XY is guilty and the country he was last seen in should be bombed, where is at least a shred of evidence? You don't need one?
Ok, quiz question: Who was found guilty of Oklahoma City bombing?
Quiz quistion for bonus points: Is there evidence needed in order to commit outside agression on other country?
Related to response to my thoughts under different article:
Do you think that attacks (seen as random and FUD related) on different countries that COULD be responsible generate more friends or more enemies. I would think that something gets punished for something he didn't do he will just do it after being finished with. Whay waste the good punishment.
Hipothetical question on SAT might be: One country sponsored terrorist act. Three countries (including the perpetrator)get indiscriminately punished for this. How many countries will have more than 50% willingness of becoming your friends?
Now is time for the USA to stand with its friends and clearly identify its enemies
None
One
Two
Three
Put it on poll and think about the results of USA current foreign policy
You try to put out such a reasonable and intelligent image. But you are happy that we have been attacked by terrorists.
Go fuck yourself.
I agree with all you said. I am trying to put out reasonable face. I'm nobody special. I'm no bully. I have my own personal limitations.
The point you're missing is that I also read 0 and -1 comments. The point that I regret all victims of this mindless crime. The point that I'm not religeus for if I was I would probably be praying for them.
Bottom line is that I'm calm as it didn't happen to me. I've seen wars from much closer than you think and much closer than anyone would like to see them if he could take a choice. I've seen how the wars have begun and I don't see anything different here. Yes, I also find this to be poetic justice.
USA has been dealing wars, uncertainty, and fear throughout the world since the end of WW2. In all this time, there was nothimg to expose the population of continental USA to any of the horrors of the war in any way other than media and video games. I guess that war in Vietnam was doomed the day first maimed combatman started returning home.
For last decade USA had nobody to confront it with enough power on diplomatic levels so it started to take sides in more and more questionable ventures culminating in legaly (I'm not talking morals here, I have none - remember) unlawful and unprovoked bombing of Yugoslavia. What happened to continental USA today MIGHT be logical and imminent response to more and more arrogant stance USA takes in international stage.
Since you only replied to single sentence of my thoughts, I'll give you direct reply here. This time please at least read it in whole: People of USA had direct touch with everyday realities of war. I'm saddened since untold number of people (even one would be too many) died in this event. I'm happy since the lesson was delivered. If you think I'm an asshole, then just think about biological or chemical agents. There are many nastier ways to deliver a message to some country that bullied so many others. Now just wait for FUD to go away and think rationally. I challenge you that in 1 year you'll have movie and TV production all over USA collecting money on these peoples deaths. Who will be sensless then?
Now is time for the USA to stand with its friends and clearly identify its enemies.
Friends come and go, enemies accumulate. Let's just say this is the crust of the problem. Kings are lonely and court jesters are useless when assasins come. This time USA will get all the help needs. It will be deserved and needed. But where were the friends yesterday? Did they warn you. I guess bullying (echelon, spying, trade wars, unfounded bombings, threatening) doesn't bring you much of that. The fact is that USA stands alone today and court jesters are jumping around to make it smile again. I'm probably not considerate, but I'm no court jester either. Just remeber that you get to know your friends before the accident. Just hop to next article... Short lookup of the current known enemies.
I guess you should add me to the retaliation list: Ljubljana, Slovenia. 1MT nuke should do the trick if you can actually find the place (I guess Chinese embassy in Belgrade wasn't supposed to be there).
As for the US's retaliation, I think it should be swift and decisive. I think there should be a battery of cruise missles launched at every known, suspected or rumored terrorist hangout, EVERYWHERE in the world. There are arguments to this that we should wait until we are sure who it is, that we should not retaliate at all because this will just perpetuate the hostilities.
OK, here's the short checklist (in no particular order) on "Who do we bomb today?"
Palestina for being a mess in the first place
Izrael for the possibility that they want to escalate the war
Syria for being general trublemakers and helping Palestinians
Iraq for maybe Saddam did it
Lybia for Ghaddafi was in the plane business before
Japan for being general pain in the ass from WW2
Vietnam for someone just might not like the fact you killed his father
Kambodia for the same reason as Vietnam
Somalia for killing U.S. Marines over there
Iran for if they didn't like your shah, they didn't liked you
Afganistan for being in fundamentaly wrong religion
Yugoslavia/Serbia for threatening before and after the strikes you did there
Albania for being troublemakers in the two wars so far
Germany for demanding apology for bombing of their cities during WW2
Ireland since US didn't help them get rid of Brits
U.K. opposite from Ireland
North Korea for if they don't listen to our orders, they're capable of everything
Russia for they might just be proving what piece of crap NMD is
Bosnia and Herzegovina for they might still resent you not helping them 1992-1995
United States of America for knowingly allowing extremist groups to exist and thrive
Canada for someone over there might think you want them as a next federal state (and they're still with them Brits
P.R. of China for clearly opposing trading with renegade Taiwan R.O.C
Every other 1st world country for not locking up all suspected anti-globalisation activists
Every other 3rd world country for probably housing terrorist and generaly disliking USA
My position
I will write this in first person, as the thoughts and opinions here are expressed as mine only. When I say "you", I mean you personally, when I say USA, I mean the country as it exists in legal term. I strongly differentiate between the country that you live in and you personaly.
What do I see
I don't know who commited this crime, but I don't see them completely unprovoked. The choice of the day itself (international peace day) hints, that it might not be immediately connected to recent events on UN racism conference, but rather something that can be shown as direct result of USA policy of involving in every regional conflict in last decade. Playing the role of world police and trying to establish new world order isn't something that will go down lightly with vast majority of world population. Even if this resolves to be act of internal terrorism (like OC bombing was) it means that USA is growing more and more extremist by the day. Could you imagine something like this happening in the land of truly free?
What I think about it
For the most of the world I would say that it has it's feelings mixed. I, for one, am fed over my head with all of your freedom exports as of lately and think this might be clear signal that USA is trying to do what no country is (or ever should) be allowed to do. On the other hand I do not condone this way of acting in any way justifiable. World policing is something that UN was designed to do and internal freedoms and rights are something that USA seems to be failing in, but this kind of response is never justified.
What do I mean with mixed feelings
For one, I cheer, that civilians in USA are meeting the horror and uncertainty of war. UN general secretary Gali once said for Sarajevo, there's 13 places in the world were the have it worse. This time the civilians in USA for the first time in their history get the chance to experience the fact that there is no other place on Earth where it's worse. They are targeted to change the politics of their country. They are simply used as tools to achieve the goal. And at the end of the day, they are the only ones that could change the policy of the country as a whole. But before you cry that this is wrong and this will only achieve opposite effects, let me assure you, that you are right. This way of acting will never achieve the desired result unless the enemy is overhelmingly stronger. This time the enemy has showed it has weapon of FUD readily available and is capable of using it. Do you really think that you country (assuming your from the USA) really did something else when decided to bomb Yugoslavia? Can you honestly say you didn't target your war aginst civil population in order to destabilize the government? Can you really claim that power plants, car production lines, television station offices, bridges, and other things you managed to destroy or disable aren't civilian targets? In what way does USA justification of the way that it handled that war differ from justification that someone (be it international or internal) will use in its defence?
Since I'm so smart, what do you want us to do?
Can you honestly expect that harsh retaliation (while the bodies are still warm) will solve anything expect serve to prolong the conflict? If that someone will be taken to court, then things will have to be proven; exhibits A and B will be presented; judgement will be passed and sentence will be executed. This is the way things are done. This is the way that equality works. When taken to international stage, USA will probably act as sole judge, jury and executioner. What makes you think, that it morally can. If some country just did this and you're saying it's wrong, what makes you right? Rule of the mob?
And what would I do?
If I would be you (but I'm obviously not), I wouldn't be thinking about revenge (revenge for what exactly?), but I would rather be thinking abut helping those in need. I would be thinking about saying a pray for those dead. I would be thinking about correct course of action after taking care of this. If I would be president of USA, I wouldn't be talking about hunting down the enemy, I would be talking about helping those in need, I would be talking about rebuilding and healing. If I would have the power he has, I wouldn't want to help the thirst for blood, I would want to bring out the good in all the people. Only after that I would be looking to bring justice to whoever did this. Bring justice, not hunt down mind you. Headhunts and public lynch never helped anyone, but correctly executing the justice deterred other from getting help in commiting crimes.
And your point is?
Don't walk around, saying how good/bad this thing is, but the next time elections are around go to the voting booth and tell the country how do you want it to run the business. This will actualy mean that you will alter your behaviour based on some terrorist action, but think about the alternatives. Do you want to live in real FUD state (as in state of mind) or do you want to influence the politics to minimize the chances of this occuring again. The answer is yours. But bottom line is whether you would rather use this as an excuse to do something abou your whole society, or use this as the point of justifying more violence.
Don't go down the spiral of violence. Don't retaliate. Don't assume. Act with thought. Seek international involvement. Check and present all the facts. Take the road of justice.
If you want to know why I put this in bold, it simply because USA haven't shown much it lately. Sometimes the biggest bully on the block just needs to take the cold shower and admit that fists don't solve everything.
OK, we all know that code is expressive and here's my angle on this point.
Every non-trivial piece of code is expressive as it encompasses the authors experience, current mental state, and understanding of the issue, analytical approach, and many other things. It could be argued that code in any form be it on screen or paper can be considered an artwork. Even though I don't understand modern arts I believe that those who study them know what is authors expression and what is too much time on their hands. The same goes for code. Most people can't understand it, but those who are studying computer sciences immediately see the real value of the code.
Value of the code is twofold. As you can see the Golden Gate Bridge as work of art, you can also see it either as magnificent engineering achievement either form of getting from point A to point B. Nobody will argue these points. The problem with code is that it is not as easy to admire as other established expressive forms. The code has functional meaning of solving the problem author was confronted with (getting from state A to state B), you can also look at it as pure mathematical (analytical) definition of problem solution and you can look at it as author understanding of the problem and vision of the solution. Through any code you can see how deeply the author is dedicated to his work. You can see how did he envision the solution. You can see what steps has he taken or not taken. You can see his proficiency in controlling this state machine called computer. I personally believe even that you can see when his/hers best mate broke up and how did he recover from that. You can see authors goals he has in life. You can understand how the author sees the world around himself. You can see enough data through looking in the code that Freud would probably went gaga. This is the only bane of the programming. For any non-trivial task two programmers or even same programmer at different times produce different code examples. You can emotionally attach to some form of code. You can hate the code. You can hate the way it was done, because you would do it differently. You hate most of your old code because it tells you how you acted and thought years before.
To sum it all up. Something you can develop emotional state against is close to the real thing, but the reasons for this emotional states define whether something is art or not. I believe the code is expressive and thus I believe the code can even be considered art. Code expresses more about author than many of us are even aware of. It is not the fact that everything you code can be described in plain human language that makes it different, it is the fact that everything expressed in plain human language can be expressed with code. I think this is definition of expressive.
Computer is the paper. Programming languages are crayons and pencils. Minds control the picture. Psychologists debate around pictures and what mental states the authors were when they wrote them. Trust me, I've seen examples of paranoid code, overcautious code, reckless code, depressed code, useless code, optimistic code. Take a look at the open source movement. These people met each other through communicating with code. I'll probably never meet Linus T., but I know how he thinks and acts. I know because every piece of code he wrote is piece of his thoughts breaking out of his head. You know someone when you know how he thinks. For us the code is the tool. For others, different things can be used.
I can't really help myself, so here it comes: My 2 cents about preventing Columbine things from happening again.
Interviewer: " So, General Reinwald, what things are you going to teach these young boys when they visit your base?" General Reinwald: We're going to teach them climbing, canoeing, archery, and shooting." Interviewer: "Shooting! that's a bit irresponsible isn't it?" General Reinwald: "I don't see why, they'll be properly supervised on the rifle range." Interviewer: "Don't you admit that this is a terribly dangerous activity to be teaching children?" General Reinwald: "I don't see how,....we will be teaching them proper rifle discipline before they even touch a firearm." Interviewer: "But you're equipping them to become violent killers." General Reinwald: "Well, you're equipped to be a prostitute, but you're not one, are you?"
It's not mine, mind you... However I don't know the real author.
I've been on one side of the medal (dropped college level education) for 4 years now and the other side of the medal starts to show.
More I work more of the challenge the work proves to be and more I feel the lack of formal (mostly theoretical) education shows. If I gain it in time (self study) then it's OK, if I don't the project goes down the drain faster so fast you cant even say FUBAR. Most of the stuff I learn in this way is exactly the stuff I despised 4 years ago and skipped college because of.
Theoretical knowledge helps nothing or little when confronted with work that involves "hacking" in one form or another. In these cases only experience counts and more you work more you can solve in shorter time.
Once you get past that threshold between discovering how things work to the side that demands declaring how things will work you have to be extraordinary genius (Linus comes to my mind) to survive for extended period of time without making colossal mistakes. Some will hit the barrier sooner some later.
In general I agree with all the points, but especialy I agree with point no. 6.
6. The packaging format should be something like the.tgz package format *BSD's ports collection with automake/autoconf Makefiles for dependency checking and a way of automatically fullfilling these dependencies if needed á la the ports collection (It really works wonders - it is something we should adapt from our *BSD kinders)
Even if everything else doesn't get implemented in step 0 [I don't want another mozilla project out there], combinig the inner workings of RPM packaging (I don't know the debian apt packages, so I can't compare or use the knowledge) with strengts of autoconf/automake automatic script and dependency generating, we should have decent enough installation system on our hands. Everything else can be built on this core at a different stage in development.
I think even this minor (as it seems, but then again, what is minor) combination of functionalities together with move away from packages as monolithic namespace in direction of actually checking the files, should give the developers and users alike the power usualy reserved for real into-the-things-linux-users to prepare and install things across distributions and know everything will eventually work.
The point in the article should be well taken, as it points out the right direction and it would enable even wider spread of free (as in speech) software among not-so-guru end users.
I started my first programming steps at 12 and what kept me around for long enough to start evolving was simply fun.
My first programs were made in Turbo Pascal and most (if not all) of them were drawing something on the screen.
If I would present myself as an example, then I would say you should go with the pascal language for many reasons, not least of them is strong typing. I would try to persuade them to use Borlands DOS IDE & DOS environment (don't bash me, but for beginner is much easier to say InitGraphics(gd, gm); than explaining all the stuff about device context, frame, window, handles, memory management, typing,... and so on.) 14 year old might find himself confused with all the stuff and drop it all together. Compared to todays GR programming Borlands BGI was simply a poetry of simplicity.
Don't try to teach 14 year old about algorithms, don't teach him about sorts and hello worlds. Don't even remotely try to explain him anything about the pointers:)... Give hime something to play with. Give him some code that draws ten horizontal boxes explain him what line does what and let him play around with it.
I would try to have kids learning programming as far away from *nix & Win* platforms for few simple reasons. *nix platforms don't have IDE environments (affordable that is...) readily available for beginners, Win* platforms put on programming so much overhead, you'll probably spend the whole summer just explaining what the framefork does instead of them (C++, Delphi) or why Variant can be 0, -1.5, "Foo", #3rd Maj 1892#, not to mention Nothing, Empty and Null values.
Whatever you do, you should stick to few basic rules: Easy-fast-stable-HELPFUL IDE, language close to English with as little as possible ambig. elements, no algorithms, lots of funny results on the screen.
These things kept me learning newer and newer stuff when I was 12, and probably should keep every kid around for long enough that he/she decides whether to take this way of life or not..
It really depends on what do you consider nature resource...
If taken in [extremely] broad view then you can view having TLD as a sort of 'nature' resource since it is obviously limited in one aspect of its nature. You get only one and that's it.
$50 mil seems like a lot of money, but for a country no matter how small this is only one-time injection and in this respect not much different that selling half the Indonesia rain forest to Japan. This years BDP might be doubled, but next years BDP will be more or less equal to last years. The smart move would be to lease it out or charge royalties for using it.
The only credit I can give is that nature itself is pretty much unhurt which is environment friendly, bud the whole thing just smells of cultural colonialism, this time performed by corporate influence instead of government one.
Paul Allen a major shareholder in Ticketmaster who was suing part of MS empire... Let me guess? He didn't get his christmas bonus and decided to cash in through different means.
It could be argued what is right and what is wrong way to do it. I (for nice example) used to be C/C++ freak programmer (I still prefer C for personal stuff, that I try to write cross platform) and hated all those VB/Delphi/Builder "babies". With time I was forced to use other programming environments and languages and I found out each and every one of them has distinct advantages and handicaps (you just don't get REAL caffeine by drinking de-caf, no matter if you're in NYC or in Calcuta).
At the moment I'm on project involving MS backends, MS tools, MS components,... basically all MS. It's just the policy of customer to use MS only stuff. I can't go to the customer and say that all his systems are piece of crap, since I've been working with them for some 8 years now, I can't tell him to trash all his existing solutions so I can bring in one open source solution, I can't make a product that won't interoperate with existing software. That is privilege of MSs, IBMs, Suns and others.
What I learned is that nothing can be done by hitting your head against the wall. Yes, it might be rotten publicity, but are we employing PR people to take care of our "faces" (used in japanese sense of the word) or are we trying to do something for ourselves! -- Exclamation, not question mark.
I think we're trying to do something for ourselves. KDE has it's licencing quirks, but it's still popular. It obviously didn't die of bad publicity. Gnome has no licencing quirks and it's popular. What's the catch... I can have Corba, I can have DCOM, I can have my own protocols running around wild... The point is that user doesn't care what does it run on as long it runs well. COM, DCOM, Corba,... are just tools to achieve that. Nothing more. No bad PR. If MS doesn't want to comunicate with other solutions, it's their problem. Right now it's my problem as well... If DCOM/Linux takes off, it won't be my problem any more [I still like MS DevStudio though... No Linux viable counterpart yet:(].
I don't know about ReiserFS and ext3 file systems, but jfs (if you're referring to IBM's jfs) is at such stage that it might appear in 2.5.x series, but probably not at the start of the cycle. Last time I checked the porting page, they were just able to read directories, no chances of even reading files in very-close-future.
It was even mentioned that jfs will cause some major changes deep in kernel and that will probably make it candidate for 2.7.x series more likely than 2.5.x.
I thought that was already done with oh-some-MS-supporting company (I can look up the name if somebody actualy cares), but not on open source basis:(.
As far as experimental goes, you should have seen the IE (hooked with MS implementation of COM/DCOM services) on some-NIX boxes chewing up resources faster than 1k memory leak in 1-ms timer code (and that's a lot).
I wasn't experimenting with any of the 2.3.x series kernels (last time I fiddled there was with 2.1.x series), but if you take open source definition of experimental (remember experimental ELF binary support) it will work on this kernel and not on next, and work again on next and so on... But the main point is that it WILL WORK! AND I LOVE IT!
It might be on anyones checklist (I don't care about IT drones anyway, since I'm freelancer), but it'll do magic for ME AS A PROGRAMMER. Like (probably, I hope I'm wrong) most ppl. I make my day to day buck with MS products (let's face it: MS sells no matter what you say or do -- fortunately same goes for linux/GNU/...:)). The way it'll help me because I will be able to propose more cost efficient business solutions to potential customers. If I can take their already bought MS transaction server and use it on business tier, put linux on presentation (Web) tier and connect them without much hassle (DCOM comes as a glue) that's what I LIKE. Options for this kind of close integration will be endless.
As far as dependencies go, linux already has orbit which provides component services and things depend on it. The point is no things depend on it. MS might like it a lot, people around me like it a lot (personally I hate it a lot), but if you take away (D)COM from WinNT platform you basically can't even send 'A' to ASCII printer (Win95 comes off beter by being built on top of DOS and gives you option of doing "echo A > LPT1:" but that's where it ends. You might find it a bit tricky [but not impossible] to send FF that would eject the page). I can strip linux (ANY linux) to core and put it on almost any CPU gifted with reasonable amount of RAM.
Bottom line is that this will give my kind of comunity (day to day people that happen to live off computers) power of choice and this is what's all about! GNU is about choice, Linux is about choice, open source is about choice. I like having choices, options, brain food and http://www.userfriendly.org/! If 2.4.x kernel will give me that or any other choise to think about, I'll be first in line to grab it from nearest mirror!
Slashdot Mirror
I agree that they are not mutually exclusive. But at the same time they are not dependent either. As a added bonus InfoCard by itself solves a lot of issues. Including registration and use simplicity together with anonymity. OpenID IMHO fails miserably in these cases.
Why the need to choose between paper and computer? Why the need to choose between vi/emacs and IDE? This is all nonsense. First thing is to decide what knowledge is student expected to display. If the sudents needs to display good organizing skill, mental discipline, good memory and expert knowledge of problem domain, by all means push them to paper or vi/emacs. If you want the students to display the knowledge of grammar, whether in natural or synthetic language, then remove the obstacles that require so much more. You might not want to give students an IDE with RAD tools integrated, but any GUI text editor with syntax highlight should do, just like any word processor with spell-and-grammar checker will do for texts.
First step in school of writing is to master the grammar and style. This can only be achieved if the student doesn't have helpers (live or automated) that clean up his/her mistakes. The student must be able to proof-read own texts, spot mistakes and fix them. No need to to this on paper, but it certainly shouldn't be done with F9.
First step in school of programming is to master the grammar and style. This can only be achieved if the student doesn't have helpers (live or automated) that write plumbing code for him/her. The student must be able to read his own code, understand it and write it from first "public class", to the last "}". No need to do this with vi/emacs, as there is not context help, no language reference a single click away, no drop down context menus to insert class member names. However, there should be no magic Alt-Whatever key to create complete class construct all ready for inserting the code into members, let alone some magic RAD builder. These things hurt students, not help them.
Once the students are past the introductionary stage, you can start moulding them. Once you know your natural grammar and style, you can focus on what do you want to write. Once you know synthetic language grammar and constructs, you can focus on whole applications with GUI and all. Just like established columnist writes a column and presses that magic F9 button to catch anything he/she missed, the programmer clicks couple of buttons to write that plumbing that holdes the logic together. But stay away of tools that will do this for you when you don't master those things yet.
One thing is to lecture basics of programming. IDE can be used for all the help in writing the code, but it shouldn't be abused to write code constructs. When the students know how to write these basic construct by themselves, then comes the time to start lecturing the use of IDE and the tools that it provides. Students should obtain complete knowledge from the basics of how to write in plain editor, all the way to knowing the tools that will make them productive when they go out and start doing this for life.
It's similar with algebra. As a student, I had to display knowledge in three areas:
where I had to display the knowledge of axioms and theorems
where I had to display the knowledge of using the theory on short practical tasks
where I had to display the knowledge of solving large problems in as efficient ways as possible
Catch was that you couldn't take tests 2 and 3, if you failed test 1, and you couldn't take test 3, if you failed test 2. It was simple bullshit filter, that worked perfectly.
Programming is just like that. You should first understand the syntax (statemets, operators, how do they fit together), only then you can start writing short snippets (reading, writing, calculating, sorting, ...), and only after you know this, you can start thinking about writing complete application with GUI (using data binding, database access, designing usable GUI, ...). Each step takes you further to the point of useful knowledge, but you just can't skip any of them. Lecturer just has to decide on the right tools for the right level and don't let the students skip steps that are needed for complete understanding.
If somebody would actualy know something about area of IPTV, one would know that we already have a nubumber of Linux based STBs. Amino being the most successful ones. Oh, I don't know... We have been deploying them from the start of 2004, when most of the people didn't even know what IPTV should mean. Swisscom on the other hand started testing Microsoft OS (Windows MCE) based STBs at the same time... and the still don't work properly. And those units cost more than ten times the cost of Amino 103 unit... BTW: Windows MCE is complete Windows XP with couple of applications. With W-MCE only SW licence without HW costs $200, with at least $200 for HW to run the beast. Amino on the other hand "Just works", costs in $30 a piece if you order in bulk. Thats SW and HW together!
Anyway, I know it's Slashdot, but not checking the facts is so 20th century journalism...
Not only that, but they sometimes actively prevent interested people from buying their products. I'm in a company that is placed three hour drive from Munchen and one hour from Venice, and they insist we do business with them through their Moscow office... Because they think Moscow is somehow closer to me. Three timezones of difference and the only link being 4 hour flight from Frankfurt/Main are somehow closer than 30 minute plane flight to Frankfurt/M. Strange though, that they didn't recommend Novosibirsk offce, that would be just lovely. I just love that place early in the winter. It is so romantic to be out in a snow at -40C. The irony is that their Darmstadt office is closer to Moscow, than my company is.
E-mail didn't help, fax didn't help, and phone didn't help to change their mind about it. I almost sat in the plane and spend an afternoon to visit them in Darmstadt to complain to them in person, but stopped thinking why should I do that. Why should I pay 100, just to tell them I'm interested in buying 60,000 worth of licenes for their products. If they don't want to sell to me, then I certainly won't be begging them to allow me to buy their products. At the end we have struck a sweet deal with VMware, and I'm so satisfied with attitude, support & community at VMware, that I never look back wondering, what if...
Not being one of their customers, I can't really comment on the level of their customer support, but with attitude like SW-Soft has, I don't think its much. If they dislike the paying custmers as much as you say, then I don't think they will have any more respect of free ones either. Personally, I wouldn't even think about touching anything of theirs again. They're arrogant, they can't take a hint, and, most of all, they don't want to spread knowledge. They just want a free stamp of approval & marketing tool (see, Linus or whoever endorsed us by including our code, and a "wink, wink" with an elbow nudge) for their proprietary product. Fortunately, we already have Xen with which we don't have to observe politics of single company being discriminatory to prospective customers and ignorant of existing ones. On the paying side we have VMware, which doens't play politics, but just trying hard to create best products possible. Well, thank you very much SW-Soft, but reform, or take your crap somewhere else. I neither want, nor like code from hipocrytes in my vanilla kernel. If you don't have & show ethics and professionalism towards paying customers, then you probably don't have ethics/professionalism at all.
Oh, and if somebody from SW-Soft would like to prove me wrong, my telephone number, fax & e-mail are all in your marketing department in HQ. If you don't know which are mine (i.e. you have more than one such prospective customer ignored), then you have a bit more of a problem than you think.
I have prepared the complete answer, but I found it overly offensive for the time being. I will send it to you personaly after a week and no sooner directly over an e-mail, if you will send me your e-mail address. You don't like me and my opinion, but I have couple of hard questions that would be right out sensless right now, but I would still like to see the answers.
Did I miss someone?
Yup... I missed someone.
Noticed, how Mr. Bush Jr. isn't particulary fond of certain Mr. Castro living on an island not too far. Hell, you could even catch the evening party at the club if you start attack around 9am.
This is completely unverified
I guess the question of revenge is about to be settled. The spiral of violence will now probably continue, as there are unverified reports coming from Kabul (Afghanistan) of explosions.
As Afghanistans could set them off themselves (let's just call it unbounded joy) this might be a duck, but is Tomohawks caused it, then it's another story. Then I would demand an answer from each and every intelegence agency how can define with such certainty who is responsible for these acts of violence in less than a day, and failed to notice the warning signs at the time when this was still in preparation. This wasn't some unaccountable madman having a bad day. This was essentialy preplaned and premedidated.
If someone decided that person XY is guilty and the country he was last seen in should be bombed, where is at least a shred of evidence? You don't need one?
Ok, quiz question: Who was found guilty of Oklahoma City bombing?
Quiz quistion for bonus points: Is there evidence needed in order to commit outside agression on other country?
Related to response to my thoughts under different article:
Do you think that attacks (seen as random and FUD related) on different countries that COULD be responsible generate more friends or more enemies. I would think that something gets punished for something he didn't do he will just do it after being finished with. Whay waste the good punishment.
Hipothetical question on SAT might be: One country sponsored terrorist act. Three countries (including the perpetrator)get indiscriminately punished for this. How many countries will have more than 50% willingness of becoming your friends?
Put it on poll and think about the results of USA current foreign policy
What makes you so special you could question me being special?
Call me stupid, but when I cut my finger I don't think about "punishing" the knife but rather about finding the first aid kit.
You try to put out such a reasonable and intelligent image. But you are happy that we have been attacked by terrorists.
Go fuck yourself.
I agree with all you said. I am trying to put out reasonable face. I'm nobody special. I'm no bully. I have my own personal limitations.
The point you're missing is that I also read 0 and -1 comments. The point that I regret all victims of this mindless crime. The point that I'm not religeus for if I was I would probably be praying for them.
Bottom line is that I'm calm as it didn't happen to me. I've seen wars from much closer than you think and much closer than anyone would like to see them if he could take a choice. I've seen how the wars have begun and I don't see anything different here. Yes, I also find this to be poetic justice.
USA has been dealing wars, uncertainty, and fear throughout the world since the end of WW2. In all this time, there was nothimg to expose the population of continental USA to any of the horrors of the war in any way other than media and video games. I guess that war in Vietnam was doomed the day first maimed combatman started returning home.
For last decade USA had nobody to confront it with enough power on diplomatic levels so it started to take sides in more and more questionable ventures culminating in legaly (I'm not talking morals here, I have none - remember) unlawful and unprovoked bombing of Yugoslavia. What happened to continental USA today MIGHT be logical and imminent response to more and more arrogant stance USA takes in international stage.
Since you only replied to single sentence of my thoughts, I'll give you direct reply here. This time please at least read it in whole:
People of USA had direct touch with everyday realities of war. I'm saddened since untold number of people (even one would be too many) died in this event. I'm happy since the lesson was delivered. If you think I'm an asshole, then just think about biological or chemical agents. There are many nastier ways to deliver a message to some country that bullied so many others. Now just wait for FUD to go away and think rationally. I challenge you that in 1 year you'll have movie and TV production all over USA collecting money on these peoples deaths. Who will be sensless then?
Now is time for the USA to stand with its friends and clearly identify its enemies.
Friends come and go, enemies accumulate. Let's just say this is the crust of the problem. Kings are lonely and court jesters are useless when assasins come. This time USA will get all the help needs. It will be deserved and needed. But where were the friends yesterday? Did they warn you. I guess bullying (echelon, spying, trade wars, unfounded bombings, threatening) doesn't bring you much of that. The fact is that USA stands alone today and court jesters are jumping around to make it smile again. I'm probably not considerate, but I'm no court jester either. Just remeber that you get to know your friends before the accident. Just hop to next article... Short lookup of the current known enemies.
I guess you should add me to the retaliation list: Ljubljana, Slovenia. 1MT nuke should do the trick if you can actually find the place (I guess Chinese embassy in Belgrade wasn't supposed to be there).
As for the US's retaliation, I think it should be swift and decisive. I think there should be a battery of cruise missles launched at every known, suspected or rumored terrorist hangout, EVERYWHERE in the world. There are arguments to this that we should wait until we are sure who it is, that we should not retaliate at all because this will just perpetuate the hostilities.
OK, here's the short checklist (in no particular order) on "Who do we bomb today?"
for being a mess in the first place
for the possibility that they want to escalate the war
for being general trublemakers and helping Palestinians
for maybe Saddam did it
for Ghaddafi was in the plane business before
for being general pain in the ass from WW2
for someone just might not like the fact you killed his father
for the same reason as Vietnam
for killing U.S. Marines over there
for if they didn't like your shah, they didn't liked you
for being in fundamentaly wrong religion
for threatening before and after the strikes you did there
for being troublemakers in the two wars so far
for demanding apology for bombing of their cities during WW2
since US didn't help them get rid of Brits
opposite from Ireland
for if they don't listen to our orders, they're capable of everything
for they might just be proving what piece of crap NMD is
for they might still resent you not helping them 1992-1995
for knowingly allowing extremist groups to exist and thrive
for someone over there might think you want them as a next federal state (and they're still with them Brits
for clearly opposing trading with renegade Taiwan R.O.C
for not locking up all suspected anti-globalisation activists
for probably housing terrorist and generaly disliking USA
Did I miss someone?
My position
I will write this in first person, as the thoughts and opinions here are expressed as mine only. When I say "you", I mean you personally, when I say USA, I mean the country as it exists in legal term. I strongly differentiate between the country that you live in and you personaly.
What do I see
I don't know who commited this crime, but I don't see them completely unprovoked. The choice of the day itself (international peace day) hints, that it might not be immediately connected to recent events on UN racism conference, but rather something that can be shown as direct result of USA policy of involving in every regional conflict in last decade. Playing the role of world police and trying to establish new world order isn't something that will go down lightly with vast majority of world population. Even if this resolves to be act of internal terrorism (like OC bombing was) it means that USA is growing more and more extremist by the day. Could you imagine something like this happening in the land of truly free?
What I think about it
For the most of the world I would say that it has it's feelings mixed. I, for one, am fed over my head with all of your freedom exports as of lately and think this might be clear signal that USA is trying to do what no country is (or ever should) be allowed to do. On the other hand I do not condone this way of acting in any way justifiable. World policing is something that UN was designed to do and internal freedoms and rights are something that USA seems to be failing in, but this kind of response is never justified.
What do I mean with mixed feelings
For one, I cheer, that civilians in USA are meeting the horror and uncertainty of war. UN general secretary Gali once said for Sarajevo, there's 13 places in the world were the have it worse. This time the civilians in USA for the first time in their history get the chance to experience the fact that there is no other place on Earth where it's worse. They are targeted to change the politics of their country. They are simply used as tools to achieve the goal. And at the end of the day, they are the only ones that could change the policy of the country as a whole. But before you cry that this is wrong and this will only achieve opposite effects, let me assure you, that you are right. This way of acting will never achieve the desired result unless the enemy is overhelmingly stronger. This time the enemy has showed it has weapon of FUD readily available and is capable of using it. Do you really think that you country (assuming your from the USA) really did something else when decided to bomb Yugoslavia? Can you honestly say you didn't target your war aginst civil population in order to destabilize the government? Can you really claim that power plants, car production lines, television station offices, bridges, and other things you managed to destroy or disable aren't civilian targets? In what way does USA justification of the way that it handled that war differ from justification that someone (be it international or internal) will use in its defence?
Since I'm so smart, what do you want us to do?
Can you honestly expect that harsh retaliation (while the bodies are still warm) will solve anything expect serve to prolong the conflict? If that someone will be taken to court, then things will have to be proven; exhibits A and B will be presented; judgement will be passed and sentence will be executed. This is the way things are done. This is the way that equality works. When taken to international stage, USA will probably act as sole judge, jury and executioner. What makes you think, that it morally can. If some country just did this and you're saying it's wrong, what makes you right? Rule of the mob?
And what would I do?
If I would be you (but I'm obviously not), I wouldn't be thinking about revenge (revenge for what exactly?), but I would rather be thinking abut helping those in need. I would be thinking about saying a pray for those dead. I would be thinking about correct course of action after taking care of this. If I would be president of USA, I wouldn't be talking about hunting down the enemy, I would be talking about helping those in need, I would be talking about rebuilding and healing. If I would have the power he has, I wouldn't want to help the thirst for blood, I would want to bring out the good in all the people. Only after that I would be looking to bring justice to whoever did this. Bring justice, not hunt down mind you. Headhunts and public lynch never helped anyone, but correctly executing the justice deterred other from getting help in commiting crimes.
And your point is?
Don't walk around, saying how good/bad this thing is, but the next time elections are around go to the voting booth and tell the country how do you want it to run the business. This will actualy mean that you will alter your behaviour based on some terrorist action, but think about the alternatives. Do you want to live in real FUD state (as in state of mind) or do you want to influence the politics to minimize the chances of this occuring again. The answer is yours. But bottom line is whether you would rather use this as an excuse to do something abou your whole society, or use this as the point of justifying more violence.
Don't go down the spiral of violence. Don't retaliate. Don't assume.
Act with thought. Seek international involvement. Check and present all the facts. Take the road of justice.
If you want to know why I put this in bold, it simply because USA haven't shown much it lately. Sometimes the biggest bully on the block just needs to take the cold shower and admit that fists don't solve everything.
OK, we all know that code is expressive and here's my angle on this point.
Every non-trivial piece of code is expressive as it encompasses the authors experience, current mental state, and understanding of the issue, analytical approach, and many other things. It could be argued that code in any form be it on screen or paper can be considered an artwork. Even though I don't understand modern arts I believe that those who study them know what is authors expression and what is too much time on their hands. The same goes for code. Most people can't understand it, but those who are studying computer sciences immediately see the real value of the code.
Value of the code is twofold. As you can see the Golden Gate Bridge as work of art, you can also see it either as magnificent engineering achievement either form of getting from point A to point B. Nobody will argue these points. The problem with code is that it is not as easy to admire as other established expressive forms. The code has functional meaning of solving the problem author was confronted with (getting from state A to state B), you can also look at it as pure mathematical (analytical) definition of problem solution and you can look at it as author understanding of the problem and vision of the solution. Through any code you can see how deeply the author is dedicated to his work. You can see how did he envision the solution. You can see what steps has he taken or not taken. You can see his proficiency in controlling this state machine called computer. I personally believe even that you can see when his/hers best mate broke up and how did he recover from that. You can see authors goals he has in life. You can understand how the author sees the world around himself. You can see enough data through looking in the code that Freud would probably went gaga. This is the only bane of the programming. For any non-trivial task two programmers or even same programmer at different times produce different code examples. You can emotionally attach to some form of code. You can hate the code. You can hate the way it was done, because you would do it differently. You hate most of your old code because it tells you how you acted and thought years before.
To sum it all up. Something you can develop emotional state against is close to the real thing, but the reasons for this emotional states define whether something is art or not. I believe the code is expressive and thus I believe the code can even be considered art. Code expresses more about author than many of us are even aware of. It is not the fact that everything you code can be described in plain human language that makes it different, it is the fact that everything expressed in plain human language can be expressed with code. I think this is definition of expressive.
Computer is the paper. Programming languages are crayons and pencils. Minds control the picture. Psychologists debate around pictures and what mental states the authors were when they wrote them. Trust me, I've seen examples of paranoid code, overcautious code, reckless code, depressed code, useless code, optimistic code. Take a look at the open source movement. These people met each other through communicating with code. I'll probably never meet Linus T., but I know how he thinks and acts. I know because every piece of code he wrote is piece of his thoughts breaking out of his head. You know someone when you know how he thinks. For us the code is the tool. For others, different things can be used.
Don't tell me that code is not expressive.
I can't really help myself, so here it comes: My 2 cents about preventing Columbine things from happening again.
Interviewer: " So, General Reinwald, what things are you going to teach these young boys when they visit your base?" ....we will be teaching them proper rifle discipline before they even touch a firearm."
General Reinwald: We're going to teach them climbing, canoeing, archery, and shooting."
Interviewer: "Shooting! that's a bit irresponsible isn't it?"
General Reinwald: "I don't see why, they'll be properly supervised on the rifle range."
Interviewer: "Don't you admit that this is a terribly dangerous activity to be teaching children?"
General Reinwald: "I don't see how,
Interviewer: "But you're equipping them to become violent killers."
General Reinwald: "Well, you're equipped to be a prostitute, but you're not one, are you?"
It's not mine, mind you... However I don't know the real author.
Hi!
I've been on one side of the medal (dropped college level education) for 4 years now and the other side of the medal starts to show.
More I work more of the challenge the work proves to be and more I feel the lack of formal (mostly theoretical) education shows. If I gain it in time (self study) then it's OK, if I don't the project goes down the drain faster so fast you cant even say FUBAR. Most of the stuff I learn in this way is exactly the stuff I despised 4 years ago and skipped college because of.
Theoretical knowledge helps nothing or little when confronted with work that involves "hacking" in one form or another. In these cases only experience counts and more you work more you can solve in shorter time.
Once you get past that threshold between discovering how things work to the side that demands declaring how things will work you have to be extraordinary genius (Linus comes to my mind) to survive for extended period of time without making colossal mistakes. Some will hit the barrier sooner some later.
I would personally advise everyone to read recent interview with Brian Kerninghan co-author of the C language and Kernel Traffic #85, topic no. 4.
In general I agree with all the points, but especialy I agree with point no. 6.
6. The packaging format should be something like the .tgz package format *BSD's ports collection with automake/autoconf Makefiles for dependency checking and a way of automatically fullfilling these dependencies if needed á la the ports collection (It really works wonders - it is something we should adapt from our *BSD kinders)
Even if everything else doesn't get implemented in step 0 [I don't want another mozilla project out there], combinig the inner workings of RPM packaging (I don't know the debian apt packages, so I can't compare or use the knowledge) with strengts of autoconf/automake automatic script and dependency generating, we should have decent enough installation system on our hands. Everything else can be built on this core at a different stage in development.
I think even this minor (as it seems, but then again, what is minor) combination of functionalities together with move away from packages as monolithic namespace in direction of actually checking the files, should give the developers and users alike the power usualy reserved for real into-the-things-linux-users to prepare and install things across distributions and know everything will eventually work.
The point in the article should be well taken, as it points out the right direction and it would enable even wider spread of free (as in speech) software among not-so-guru end users.
My 2 cents
I started my first programming steps at 12 and what kept me around for long enough to start evolving was simply fun.
... and so on.) 14 year old might find himself confused with all the stuff and drop it all together. Compared to todays GR programming Borlands BGI was simply a poetry of simplicity.
:)... Give hime something to play with. Give him some code that draws ten horizontal boxes explain him what line does what and let him play around with it.
My first programs were made in Turbo Pascal and most (if not all) of them were drawing something on the screen.
If I would present myself as an example, then I would say you should go with the pascal language for many reasons, not least of them is strong typing. I would try to persuade them to use Borlands DOS IDE & DOS environment (don't bash me, but for beginner is much easier to say InitGraphics(gd, gm); than explaining all the stuff about device context, frame, window, handles, memory management, typing,
Don't try to teach 14 year old about algorithms, don't teach him about sorts and hello worlds. Don't even remotely try to explain him anything about the pointers
I would try to have kids learning programming as far away from *nix & Win* platforms for few simple reasons. *nix platforms don't have IDE environments (affordable that is...) readily available for beginners, Win* platforms put on programming so much overhead, you'll probably spend the whole summer just explaining what the framefork does instead of them (C++, Delphi) or why Variant can be 0, -1.5, "Foo", #3rd Maj 1892#, not to mention Nothing, Empty and Null values.
Whatever you do, you should stick to few basic rules: Easy-fast-stable-HELPFUL IDE, language close to English with as little as possible ambig. elements, no algorithms, lots of funny results on the screen.
These things kept me learning newer and newer stuff when I was 12, and probably should keep every kid around for long enough that he/she decides whether to take this way of life or not..
I hope we'll have some feedback in the autumn.
It really depends on what do you consider nature resource...
If taken in [extremely] broad view then you can view having TLD as a sort of 'nature' resource since it is obviously limited in one aspect of its nature. You get only one and that's it.
$50 mil seems like a lot of money, but for a country no matter how small this is only one-time injection and in this respect not much different that selling half the Indonesia rain forest to Japan. This years BDP might be doubled, but next years BDP will be more or less equal to last years. The smart move would be to lease it out or charge royalties for using it.
The only credit I can give is that nature itself is pretty much unhurt which is environment friendly, bud the whole thing just smells of cultural colonialism, this time performed by corporate influence instead of government one.
Paul Allen a major shareholder in Ticketmaster who was suing part of MS empire... Let me guess? He didn't get his christmas bonus and decided to cash in through different means.
It could be argued what is right and what is wrong way to do it. I (for nice example) used to be C/C++ freak programmer (I still prefer C for personal stuff, that I try to write cross platform) and hated all those VB/Delphi/Builder "babies". With time I was forced to use other programming environments and languages and I found out each and every one of them has distinct advantages and handicaps (you just don't get REAL caffeine by drinking de-caf, no matter if you're in NYC or in Calcuta).
... basically all MS. It's just the policy of customer to use MS only stuff. I can't go to the customer and say that all his systems are piece of crap, since I've been working with them for some 8 years now, I can't tell him to trash all his existing solutions so I can bring in one open source solution, I can't make a product that won't interoperate with existing software. That is privilege of MSs, IBMs, Suns and others.
... are just tools to achieve that. Nothing more. No bad PR. If MS doesn't want to comunicate with other solutions, it's their problem. Right now it's my problem as well... If DCOM/Linux takes off, it won't be my problem any more [I still like MS DevStudio though... No Linux viable counterpart yet :(].
At the moment I'm on project involving MS backends, MS tools, MS components,
What I learned is that nothing can be done by hitting your head against the wall. Yes, it might be rotten publicity, but are we employing PR people to take care of our "faces" (used in japanese sense of the word) or are we trying to do something for ourselves! -- Exclamation, not question mark.
I think we're trying to do something for ourselves. KDE has it's licencing quirks, but it's still popular. It obviously didn't die of bad publicity. Gnome has no licencing quirks and it's popular. What's the catch... I can have Corba, I can have DCOM, I can have my own protocols running around wild... The point is that user doesn't care what does it run on as long it runs well. COM, DCOM, Corba,
I don't know about ReiserFS and ext3 file systems, but jfs (if you're referring to IBM's jfs) is at such stage that it might appear in 2.5.x series, but probably not at the start of the cycle. Last time I checked the porting page, they were just able to read directories, no chances of even reading files in very-close-future.
It was even mentioned that jfs will cause some major changes deep in kernel and that will probably make it candidate for 2.7.x series more likely than 2.5.x.
I thought that was already done with oh-some-MS-supporting company (I can look up the name if somebody actualy cares), but not on open source basis :(.
:)). The way it'll help me because I will be able to propose more cost efficient business solutions to potential customers. If I can take their already bought MS transaction server and use it on business tier, put linux on presentation (Web) tier and connect them without much hassle (DCOM comes as a glue) that's what I LIKE. Options for this kind of close integration will be endless.
As far as experimental goes, you should have seen the IE (hooked with MS implementation of COM/DCOM services) on some-NIX boxes chewing up resources faster than 1k memory leak in 1-ms timer code (and that's a lot).
I wasn't experimenting with any of the 2.3.x series kernels (last time I fiddled there was with 2.1.x series), but if you take open source definition of experimental (remember experimental ELF binary support) it will work on this kernel and not on next, and work again on next and so on... But the main point is that it WILL WORK! AND I LOVE IT!
It might be on anyones checklist (I don't care about IT drones anyway, since I'm freelancer), but it'll do magic for ME AS A PROGRAMMER. Like (probably, I hope I'm wrong) most ppl. I make my day to day buck with MS products (let's face it: MS sells no matter what you say or do -- fortunately same goes for linux/GNU/...
As far as dependencies go, linux already has orbit which provides component services and things depend on it. The point is no things depend on it. MS might like it a lot, people around me like it a lot (personally I hate it a lot), but if you take away (D)COM from WinNT platform you basically can't even send 'A' to ASCII printer (Win95 comes off beter by being built on top of DOS and gives you option of doing "echo A > LPT1:" but that's where it ends. You might find it a bit tricky [but not impossible] to send FF that would eject the page). I can strip linux (ANY linux) to core and put it on almost any CPU gifted with reasonable amount of RAM.
Bottom line is that this will give my kind of comunity (day to day people that happen to live off computers) power of choice and this is what's all about! GNU is about choice, Linux is about choice, open source is about choice. I like having choices, options, brain food and http://www.userfriendly.org/! If 2.4.x kernel will give me that or any other choise to think about, I'll be first in line to grab it from nearest mirror!