the other is the creator of one of the most prevalent markup languages used
You mean XML? Bray didn't "create" it. He was a key member of the committee that designed it. Calling him the "creator" devalues the other members of the committee, especially Jon Bosak, who defined the need for a simplified SGML and drove the project to create it.
Sorry, you're wrong. What's there to sell? Like I said, the key people are gone. That leaves the source code, and unless you're willing to spend a lot of money on good people to figure it out, that's worthless. There isn't enough money to be made from this product to justify that kind of expense.
Selling the tools is just an executive fantasy. It was pretty near impossible when they first decided to do it. It will just get harder as time goes on.
No, they're not bringing back Turbo Pascal. They're just rebranding Delphi and Delphi-based products as "Turbo".
Hearken, ye, to a Borland survior. (I wrote a good chunk of the API documentation in Delphi, C++Builder, and Kylix.) Borland somehow has always been run by people who know jack about managing other people. They can't implement the most basic corporate policies, like making people work on the stuff they were actually assigned to work on. So they fall back on Stupid Executive Tricks that they picked up at some seminar somewhere. When I was there, management was in love with "lifecycle management" tools, and actually acquired two vendors of them, neither of which actually had a usable product. But most often, the SET consists of simple-minded rebranding. Usually, it's just pointless, like bringing back "Turbo". But sometimes, they really screw up, like when they renamed the company "Inprise".
Hate to say it, but Borland's pretty much irrelevent. Their last serious achievement was Kylix, which took too long to get out the door, and which targeted a market (Linux desktop developers) that turned out to be nonexistant. And that was 5 years ago! Since then, most of their key people have moved on, and their tools group has stagnated. The fact that management thinks they can sell it just shows how clueless they are.
Delphi is still my favorite development environment. Or rather it would be, if I could bear to use it. Which I can't — it's just too depressing.
That's like saying, "don't whine about the cost of gas — nobody made you buy that car". OK, being able to watch/view/listen to entertainment isn't as vital as owning a car to get to work. But more and more documents are being put under DRM. There are already electronic textbooks that stop being readable when the class is over. Or suppose you want to start a business repairing left-handed blivets, and the only repair manual available is a DRM ebook that you have to subscribe to if you want continued access.
But back to entertainment. Say there's a movie you really like. So you want to buy a copy on DVD so you can watch it whenever you want. Suprise! No more DVDs! All the good movies are now DRM files that you download. Of course, that's more convenient, but it means you can only watch the movie when the "owner" says you can. So you either give up on ever seeing the movie again, or you watch on their terms. That's a limitation of your freedom. It's not a major limitation, but it's not trivial either.
The libertarian answer to every problem is, "choose to do something else and stop whining". Life is not that simple.
I just don't see how the current state of play with IE is any different. Most of the time, HTML and basic CSS stuff does work.
I simply don't agree, at least with respect to CSS. (HTML is another discussion.) You can point to a large set of basic CSS that IE implements, but there are so many bugs and deviations from the spec that they're difficult to use at best. For example, suppose you want some text to be smaller than the surrounding text. CSS provides a simply way to specify that: font-size: smaller. But that's not implemented in IE! You have to give a percentage. God know why not — it's not exactly rocket science. One has to conclude that the IE team only implements as much CSS as they absolutely have to, and (given how much of their CSS implementation is buggy) even that they don't test carefully.
What I found really discouraging was a Microsoft statement that appeared on Slashdot some months back, to the effect that they hoped to respond to all the devlopers who were requesting CSS "features". That's all CSS is to them, a set of features. Not having these features makes IE less powerful, but doesn't impair any basic functionality. That's the attitude that's got to change.
Look, I'm not saying that a programmer ever codes strictly to a written specification. But that spec provides the basis for the work. Dealing with implementation issues has to come later.
Let's stop quibbling about exactly how good C++ implementations are, and get back to the point I was trying to make. When you design an application, whether it's in C++ or HTML, you need a coherent framework on which to build. You can get that from the big percentage of C++ (or Java, despite your sneering at that platform) that works according to spec. You can also get it if you only have to support browsers that do a reasonably decent job of implementing the HTML and CSS specs. You cannot get it if you have to navigate the murky world of whimsically implemented standards, undocumented proprietary features, and weird spyware-loving plugins that is IE 6.
No, no compiler actually meets the C++ standard, at least not completely. But, unlike IE and CSS, they make a decent effort. Just think about what life would be like if there were no basic rules in writing a C++ program. When you claim that defacto standards are worth more than formal specifications, you're ignoring how much of programming comes from specifications. You don't know them, because you've never read them — they're just something you take for granted. Imagine what would happen if compiler writers didn't read the spec before implemnting a for loop, or decided to get creative with the way output strings are formatted.
Rules are necessary for any game. The fact that you can't get 100% compliance is beside the point.
"Hoping" is the wrong word. They know that they're guaranteed 85% of the user base, and don't see any reason they should care about any standards except their own.
And before somebody says, "OK, IE is the de-facto standard, we can all just code our pages to use it." Ask yourself this: when you write code in C++ or Java or Perl, do you blindly guess what might work? No, you look up the language features and APIs that are documented to do what you need done, and you use them. But when it comes to coding web pages there is no documentation. Yeah, there's the Microsoft documentation, but it's badly written, and it reflects an implementation that nobody outside of Microsoft really understands, and that could change at any time.
Standard compliance is important. Not to make your web pages work on everybody's browser. But to make them work at all.
Very cute. Actually, Cameroon is an oil exporter, with an effective GDP of $40 billion. Of course, very little of this wealth has trickled down to the masses, but the country as a whole is hardly poor.
You could have it only filtered completely if it's suspect rating is high enough and then otherwise just tag it if the rating is below a certain point.
Same question: do non-spams ever get high suspect ratings? My guess is yes.
That said... white lists are your friends.
Only if you never trade email with strangers. As a freelancer, I often do. And not seeing a "cold" email from a stranger can cost me money.
Funny thing though... someone forwarded me some "funny" e-mail and usually they are not that humorous. I was so damned pleased when it was filtered out.
Technology is not a solution for your social problems.
Go patronize somebody else. I'm not looking for "zero risk". I just want to know that if some stranger sees my resume online and offers me a job they have the same probability of getting through as any other email.
My point being that geeks are in love with mail filters, but they don't fucking work. Which is why I'm careful about distributing my address, and am willing to put up with the odd spam that gets through anyway. And indeed, the odd one will get through, because spam filters also have false negatives. Indeed, spammers seem to be winning the arms race between obfuscation and filtering.
Is there any filter that doesn't give false positives? I don't mean "almost none", I mean zero . It isn't a matter of "holding out for perfect". Some of us simply can't afford to have a key email discarded as "spam".
"Trivial" is relative. The sort of string processing you do with String.indexOf and other simple matching functions is trivial compared to what you do with regular expressions. Besides, once you've started using lexers and parsers, you've graduated from "string handling" to artificial linguistics.
Yeah, it's OK to nuke a Brigadier General. So fuck him.
On the other hand, the NORAD commander is a always a four-star officer. (The current dude is an full admiral.) He doesn't have his offices at Cheyene Mountain, but I don't imagine he'd be happy about his main ops center being at risk.
Don't bother replying, this conversation has gotten way past silly.
Actually, I should have blamed Steven Levy. I could have sworn that his title didn't have "hard" in it, but it does. So I'm guilty of sloppy reading!
As for sloppy research — hey, I didn't research what I wrote, I simply repeated something I'd read many times. If it turns out I'm wrong, well then, I've learned something. It wouldn't be the first time somebody on Slashdot corrected something I was sure was true. Slashdotters should be here to learn, not just to pontificate.
In this particular case, I'm a little sceptical. I mean, this dude also claims to have invented the LP record and an improved form of viagra. Also, priority of invention is often as much about patriotism as technology. Any Brazilian will tell you that the first airplane was flown by Alberto Santos-Dumont, not the Wright brothers. I happen to think Senhor S-D's claim is rather weak — but then, I'm not Brazilian. Or Japanese!
Well, either the Goa'uld are just paying a courtesy call, in which case they'll want to slaughter as many key Tau'ri military leaders as they can manage. Or else, they're the pathfinders for a planetary invasion, in which case they'll certainly want to take over NORAD first thing, since most of their troops would be coming in by Flying Pyramid.
But never mind Goa'uld psychology. If I were the CO of NORAD, and somebody told me there was a portal just below my command post through which very nasty aliens were constantly attempting to travel, I'd have very strong views about its immediate relocation.
Slashdot Mirror
Grace Hopper's main achievement was inventing COBOL. "Groundbreaking" is not the word I'd use....
Edison is supposed to have invented the electric chair in order to prove how dangerous AC was.
Sorry, you're wrong. What's there to sell? Like I said, the key people are gone. That leaves the source code, and unless you're willing to spend a lot of money on good people to figure it out, that's worthless. There isn't enough money to be made from this product to justify that kind of expense.
Selling the tools is just an executive fantasy. It was pretty near impossible when they first decided to do it. It will just get harder as time goes on.
No, they're not bringing back Turbo Pascal. They're just rebranding Delphi and Delphi-based products as "Turbo".
Hearken, ye, to a Borland survior. (I wrote a good chunk of the API documentation in Delphi, C++Builder, and Kylix.) Borland somehow has always been run by people who know jack about managing other people. They can't implement the most basic corporate policies, like making people work on the stuff they were actually assigned to work on. So they fall back on Stupid Executive Tricks that they picked up at some seminar somewhere. When I was there, management was in love with "lifecycle management" tools, and actually acquired two vendors of them, neither of which actually had a usable product. But most often, the SET consists of simple-minded rebranding. Usually, it's just pointless, like bringing back "Turbo". But sometimes, they really screw up, like when they renamed the company "Inprise".
Hate to say it, but Borland's pretty much irrelevent. Their last serious achievement was Kylix, which took too long to get out the door, and which targeted a market (Linux desktop developers) that turned out to be nonexistant. And that was 5 years ago! Since then, most of their key people have moved on, and their tools group has stagnated. The fact that management thinks they can sell it just shows how clueless they are.
Delphi is still my favorite development environment. Or rather it would be, if I could bear to use it. Which I can't — it's just too depressing.
If you go to the web site, and read the white paper, you'll see that they're mainly thinking in terms of LAN usage.
Sure, if you ignore the rules, you have all the freedom anybody could want — until you get busted.
That's like saying, "don't whine about the cost of gas — nobody made you buy that car". OK, being able to watch/view/listen to entertainment isn't as vital as owning a car to get to work. But more and more documents are being put under DRM. There are already electronic textbooks that stop being readable when the class is over. Or suppose you want to start a business repairing left-handed blivets, and the only repair manual available is a DRM ebook that you have to subscribe to if you want continued access.
But back to entertainment. Say there's a movie you really like. So you want to buy a copy on DVD so you can watch it whenever you want. Suprise! No more DVDs! All the good movies are now DRM files that you download. Of course, that's more convenient, but it means you can only watch the movie when the "owner" says you can. So you either give up on ever seeing the movie again, or you watch on their terms. That's a limitation of your freedom. It's not a major limitation, but it's not trivial either.
The libertarian answer to every problem is, "choose to do something else and stop whining". Life is not that simple.
I simply don't agree, at least with respect to CSS. (HTML is another discussion.) You can point to a large set of basic CSS that IE implements, but there are so many bugs and deviations from the spec that they're difficult to use at best. For example, suppose you want some text to be smaller than the surrounding text. CSS provides a simply way to specify that: font-size: smaller. But that's not implemented in IE! You have to give a percentage. God know why not — it's not exactly rocket science. One has to conclude that the IE team only implements as much CSS as they absolutely have to, and (given how much of their CSS implementation is buggy) even that they don't test carefully.
What I found really discouraging was a Microsoft statement that appeared on Slashdot some months back, to the effect that they hoped to respond to all the devlopers who were requesting CSS "features". That's all CSS is to them, a set of features. Not having these features makes IE less powerful, but doesn't impair any basic functionality. That's the attitude that's got to change.
Let's stop quibbling about exactly how good C++ implementations are, and get back to the point I was trying to make. When you design an application, whether it's in C++ or HTML, you need a coherent framework on which to build. You can get that from the big percentage of C++ (or Java, despite your sneering at that platform) that works according to spec. You can also get it if you only have to support browsers that do a reasonably decent job of implementing the HTML and CSS specs. You cannot get it if you have to navigate the murky world of whimsically implemented standards, undocumented proprietary features, and weird spyware-loving plugins that is IE 6.
Rules are necessary for any game. The fact that you can't get 100% compliance is beside the point.
I've actually run across one or two web sites that detected I was using IE, and told me to go away. But you're right, that's not a viable strategy.
"Hoping" is the wrong word. They know that they're guaranteed 85% of the user base, and don't see any reason they should care about any standards except their own.
And before somebody says, "OK, IE is the de-facto standard, we can all just code our pages to use it." Ask yourself this: when you write code in C++ or Java or Perl, do you blindly guess what might work? No, you look up the language features and APIs that are documented to do what you need done, and you use them. But when it comes to coding web pages there is no documentation. Yeah, there's the Microsoft documentation, but it's badly written, and it reflects an implementation that nobody outside of Microsoft really understands, and that could change at any time.
Standard compliance is important. Not to make your web pages work on everybody's browser. But to make them work at all.
Very cute. Actually, Cameroon is an oil exporter, with an effective GDP of $40 billion. Of course, very little of this wealth has trickled down to the masses, but the country as a whole is hardly poor.
What's my premise? Or maybe the correct question is, What do you think my premise is?
Sounds nice. Pity it only works with Microsoft email software.
My point being that geeks are in love with mail filters, but they don't fucking work. Which is why I'm careful about distributing my address, and am willing to put up with the odd spam that gets through anyway. And indeed, the odd one will get through, because spam filters also have false negatives. Indeed, spammers seem to be winning the arms race between obfuscation and filtering.
Is there any filter that doesn't give false positives? I don't mean "almost none", I mean zero . It isn't a matter of "holding out for perfect". Some of us simply can't afford to have a key email discarded as "spam".
"Trivial" is relative. The sort of string processing you do with String.indexOf and other simple matching functions is trivial compared to what you do with regular expressions. Besides, once you've started using lexers and parsers, you've graduated from "string handling" to artificial linguistics.
On the other hand, the NORAD commander is a always a four-star officer. (The current dude is an full admiral.) He doesn't have his offices at Cheyene Mountain, but I don't imagine he'd be happy about his main ops center being at risk.
Don't bother replying, this conversation has gotten way past silly.
As for sloppy research — hey, I didn't research what I wrote, I simply repeated something I'd read many times. If it turns out I'm wrong, well then, I've learned something. It wouldn't be the first time somebody on Slashdot corrected something I was sure was true. Slashdotters should be here to learn, not just to pontificate.
In this particular case, I'm a little sceptical. I mean, this dude also claims to have invented the LP record and an improved form of viagra. Also, priority of invention is often as much about patriotism as technology. Any Brazilian will tell you that the first airplane was flown by Alberto Santos-Dumont, not the Wright brothers. I happen to think Senhor S-D's claim is rather weak — but then, I'm not Brazilian. Or Japanese!
Well, either the Goa'uld are just paying a courtesy call, in which case they'll want to slaughter as many key Tau'ri military leaders as they can manage. Or else, they're the pathfinders for a planetary invasion, in which case they'll certainly want to take over NORAD first thing, since most of their troops would be coming in by Flying Pyramid.
But never mind Goa'uld psychology. If I were the CO of NORAD, and somebody told me there was a portal just below my command post through which very nasty aliens were constantly attempting to travel, I'd have very strong views about its immediate relocation.
OK, downgrade "airtight" to "dustproof".
And destroys a key military command post. Wouldn't a n abandoned salt mine make more sense?