Yes, what with solaris taking market share away from all the other os's lately...
And then of course IBM, HP and all those others switching away from Linux to Solaris the tide has really turned. Even redhat is rumoured to be secretly thinking of proposing to drop Linux in favour of solaris;)
The only arena I think where Solaris currently can still claim significant marketshare is fortune 500 accounts.
The simple fact that SunW has been changed to 'java' should tell you what sun itself thinks of it's business and the direction they'll be taking it in.
I'm not aware of anybody actively selling/maintaining CP/M for customers but then again you never know.
However QnX seems to still have very active support and http://www.qnx.com/ is quite up to date (especially when contrasted with CP/M, which I would classify as 'mostly dead').
In the real time arena they are very well represented, and I think that without knowing it you probably use their products at least once or twice daily.
Think automotive, energy supply, industrial automation, medical equipment and such.
I remember from ages ago when I was programming mainframes that there was code by a certain programmer that will remain nameless where we had the same attitude. As soon as we saw his name in the authors list the project changed from 'small maintenance' to 'total rewrite' instantly:)
A good worker picks his tools carefully so he doesn't have to blame them. If you're forced to maintain a bunch of code and you can choose the language would you prefer to maintain a batch of perl code or a batch of python or C code ?
I've done all three and I really *much* prefer C over both python and perl and python over perl.
I'm sure that you can write very beautiful code in Perl the first time out, but that goes for any language, the real acid test is what you get after 10 coders have touched your poetry over the course of a few years maintaining a project and adding new functionality.
yes, but that's a false metric, how about "how many programmers wrote the code that supports them", and in most languages the answer is "a pretty good portion". In perl I doubt the author could even say what his/her code written a couple of months ago does without studying it for a while.
That's where the problem lies. Not in the corporate hierarchy.
the only use I can find for flash is to be able to use their audio/video codec, it's installed on so many clients and platforms that it's by far the easiest route.
Other than that it can't die out fast enough for me.
super post, that was well worth reading. And yes, the 'can't post without losing modpoints' really sucks, I think that should not be done for the whole article but on a per thread basis.
I know... my own proposal to the recording industry a few years back was a 'tipping jar' where the nice people on the planet could voluntarily chip in a fixed amount or a regular amount each month, a simple fingerprinting routine would take care of disbursing the tips to the artists that were listened to.
No go... They assumed nobody would pay (I certainly would, but I'm sure that indeed a certain percentage of the population would not pay at all).
I thought it was a pretty good plan because it ensured that artists that got played would get paid and those that don't would get zip.
That's spot on, it's really the only thing that would make any sense at all.
The reason why it won't be popular with the industry is exactly because of the multiplier involved in 'running the copies', that multiplier is not in the hundreds (like a large wedding) but in the tens of thousands to tens of millions.
Performing artists with a good income will be exactly that again, performing artists, not studio artists. We'll come full circle to lots of live music.
so, what happens when you subscribe for a bit, download a pile, then unsubscribe ? Does the music stay yours or do you lose your bits somehow magically ?
What if you pass it to your friends ?
I think the future for the gravy train of the music industry is pretty bleak, the window for a technical solution that gets worldwide acceptance is rapidly closing, if it hasn't closed already.
If the music industry would have gotten off it's collective ass in the mid 90's they would have stood a chance of making this happen, today I'm really not sure that it is still possible.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, what with solaris taking market share away from all the other os's lately...
And then of course IBM, HP and all those others switching away from Linux to Solaris the tide has really turned. Even redhat is rumoured to be secretly thinking of proposing to drop Linux in favour of solaris ;)
The only arena I think where Solaris currently can still claim significant marketshare is fortune 500 accounts.
This:
http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=JAVA#chart1:symbol=java;range=5y;indicator=volume;charttype=line;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=on;source=undefined
also tells a pretty bleak story.
The simple fact that SunW has been changed to 'java' should tell you what sun itself thinks of it's business and the direction they'll be taking it in.
I'm not aware of anybody actively selling/maintaining CP/M for customers but then again you never know.
However QnX seems to still have very active support and http://www.qnx.com/ is quite up to date (especially when contrasted with CP/M, which I would classify as 'mostly dead').
In the real time arena they are very well represented, and I think that without knowing it you probably use their products at least once or twice daily.
Think automotive, energy supply, industrial automation, medical equipment and such.
oh, don't worry, they'll be brief, this is perl, right ?
Whether you'll be able to read them though, that's a different matter altogether ;)
thank you, that really made me laugh :)
I remember from ages ago when I was programming mainframes that there was code by a certain programmer that will remain nameless where we had the same attitude. As soon as we saw his name in the authors list the project changed from 'small maintenance' to 'total rewrite' instantly :)
true enough!
It's just that the projects maintainers seem to have more or less given up.
The fact that they are doing a total rewrite with the aim of removing scoop speaks volumes about the maintainability though.
amen.
That's one I'll never get over.
A good worker picks his tools carefully so he doesn't have to blame them. If you're forced to maintain a bunch of code and you can choose the language would you prefer to maintain a batch of perl code or a batch of python or C code ?
I've done all three and I really *much* prefer C over both python and perl and python over perl.
I'm sure that you can write very beautiful code in Perl the first time out, but that goes for any language, the real acid test is what you get after 10 coders have touched your poetry over the course of a few years maintaining a project and adding new functionality.
Arguably ./ is one of the reasons perl was so popular.
The funny thing is that that other /code clone (scoop) has just about died.
no need to *whoosh* me :)
yes, but that's a false metric, how about "how many programmers wrote the code that supports them", and in most languages the answer is "a pretty good portion". In perl I doubt the author could even say what his/her code written a couple of months ago does without studying it for a while.
That's where the problem lies. Not in the corporate hierarchy.
I think you lost the UID wars.
I've tried to 'repair' a broken perl app and indeed it was much quicker to toss it and rewrite.
Perl is worse than 'mumps' and that's saying something.
(mumps anecdote: What, you've reset that string ? Oh, great that was the systemwide editor...)
to me the biggest issue is maintainability, some languages help you in that department, some hinder.
Perl makes it easier than even C to write obfuscated bits of code that even the author has a hard time understanding a few months later.
I've seen perl used to create job security for it's coders, in that respect it is the new assembly language.
these guys are going to get a lot of heat :) :
Registrant:
Evil Empire Endeavors
ATTN: EVIL.COM
c/o Network Solutions
P.O. Box 447
Herndon, VA. 20172-0447
Talk about selling your soul to the devil :)
No need to post it AC though, we won't tell. Promise.
the only use I can find for flash is to be able to use their audio/video codec, it's installed on so many clients and platforms that it's by far the easiest route.
Other than that it can't die out fast enough for me.
makes you wonder what else is lurking in there ...
Worked here as well. One more point against flash, what on *earth* were they thinking when they put that 'feature' in there ?
I must have been hallucinating all those Challenges and Origins then :)
super post, that was well worth reading. And yes, the 'can't post without losing modpoints' really sucks, I think that should not be done for the whole article but on a per thread basis.
I know... my own proposal to the recording industry a few years back was a 'tipping jar' where the nice people on the planet could voluntarily chip in a fixed amount or a regular amount each month, a simple fingerprinting routine would take care of disbursing the tips to the artists that were listened to.
No go... They assumed nobody would pay (I certainly would, but I'm sure that indeed a certain percentage of the population would not pay at all).
I thought it was a pretty good plan because it ensured that artists that got played would get paid and those that don't would get zip.
QnX is far from a corpse, it is very much alive and kicking especially in the embedded market.
That's spot on, it's really the only thing that would make any sense at all.
The reason why it won't be popular with the industry is exactly because of the multiplier involved in 'running the copies', that multiplier is not in the hundreds (like a large wedding) but in the tens of thousands to tens of millions.
Performing artists with a good income will be exactly that again, performing artists, not studio artists. We'll come full circle to lots of live music.
so, what happens when you subscribe for a bit, download a pile, then unsubscribe ? Does the music stay yours or do you lose your bits somehow magically ?
What if you pass it to your friends ?
I think the future for the gravy train of the music industry is pretty bleak, the window for a technical solution that gets worldwide acceptance is rapidly closing, if it hasn't closed already.
If the music industry would have gotten off it's collective ass in the mid 90's they would have stood a chance of making this happen, today I'm really not sure that it is still possible.
> The big difference is that I have to have a body.
not necessarily...
*whoosh*...