of course neither Windows nor MacOS (although the latter can do quite a lot more out of the box than Windows) come with such a vast number of applications, so a 1:1 comparison doesn't really make sense.
Good point, that often gets missed. If you download software for Windows, and it turns out to be buggy, you don't blame it on Windows. But because a Linux distribution delivers a huge amount of software together, a bug in any one of them gets blamed on the distribution (in the gp case, Ubuntu).
I guess, though, if we are going to sell Linux as a better choice because of the wealth of OSS, we had better work hard to make sure it all works as bug free as possible. That's why the real heroes of OSS are the ones that toil in obscurity investigating and fixing reported bugs.
A DVD player that would only play Sony DVDs would indeed need a warning. Hmm. BetaMax didn't have a warning. Nor do HD-DVD or BluRay players warn that they don't play the competing formats. Again, buyer beware.
As to your car analogy, that's just stupid. They're both CARS, use the same gas, the same roads, and operate almost exactly the same. Linux and Windows are both OPERATING SYSTEMS, use the same electric from my wall, the same Internet, and operate much the same. I wasn't nearly as comfortable with my analogy until you helped to flesh it out.
See what happens when you comment at slashdot after midnight? Get some rest, dude! Good point, bad examples. You sound kind of pissy yourself.
Should an Apple PC have a warning that it does not use Windows? Should your cell phone, TV, Tivo, Microwave, vehicle diagnostic computer, DVD player? Should a Vista PC warn it's not really Windows compatible? That would be a little like a Mazda RX7 having a warning that this is not a Lamborghini. Buyer beware.
If people were lining up for this, they knew what it was. They read about it ahead of time. They didn't just line up for the fu...n of it.
I too had trouble enabling Automatic Updates in Windows. There's more to it than that. With Ubuntu, every single piece of software gets updated by the automatic updates. With Windows Automatic Updates, only the OS and some MS software gets updated. Every other piece of software has its own update technique. At best it is automatic when you run the software, and at worst it is entirely manual.
An Ubuntu desktop updates every piece of software once a day, from the kernel to the browser, from the email client to the network infrastructure.
I know I'll probably be modded flamebait or troll myself, but I can't leave your post alone.
There aren't enough hours in a day/night leftover for ploughing through howtos, or trawling usergroups, for the info necessary just to, say, get 7.10 or Mandriva 2008 to connect to the LAN.
Seriously? Are you telling me you don't spend even an hour a week doing something less meaningful like watching South Park?
Tell me where you find XP to save much time? I use Ubuntu instead of XP because I was tired of spending so much time removing/avoiding spyware, virii', among plenty of other issues.
Here's a typical time-sink scenario for me in XP: Today XP won't boot, but it booted fine yesterday. Without any useful logging, I guess I'll just rebuild, AGAIN!
Here's another wonderful XP time-sink: I've got 50 programs, and each has its own way of updating. If I want to run a secure system, I guess I'll spend an hour per week updating my software.
Have you actually tried Gutsy? Not to be rude, but I am a bit doubtful.
One thing I forgot to mention, if I started a project fresh today, I would seriously consider enunciate http://enunciate.codehaus.org/ or Axis2. Both seem to be a good way to easily produce a full REST stack (to fully handle get, post, put, and delete). I haven't had the chance to try either, but it's on my todo list.
I'm sorry, I got my X(insert natual element here) projects confused. I meant XStream http://xstream.codehaus.org/ not XFire. I use Castor, I just know others use XStream for the same thing I use Castor for.
Using Firebug, you should be able to see the types of REST responses we are using in the app. They are all produced with Castor, and consumed with Flex's built-in support for HTTP and XML.
As for compatibility, last figure I heard was 93% of browsers have Flash 9. Considering included in the remaining 7 percent are mobile devices, tinfoil-hat wearers, minimalists, etc, the 93% covers most of my target audience.
I disagree. I wouldn't use Flex Data Services even if they were free OSS. Flex has excellent built in support for using a REST backend. By building on top of FDS you are building yourself a middle tier that you can't reuse. By using REST you have a middle tier you can use with other technologies. If you are using Java, kick FDS to the curb and learn to build REST services using Castor or XFire.
and both are OSS, although OpenLaszlo is far more open.
Hmm, how so? Flex is open source. Flex Builder IDE is not open source. OpenLazlo doesn't have an IDE (at least nothing like FB). So how is OL far more open?
Certifications aren't worth the paper they're printed on. (The same, it seems, goes for degrees.)
True that. In hiring, I go mainly off the technical interview. A degree means so little. In an international market, there's no way to know the quality of the tens of thousands of schools offering computer science degrees, both in your country and abroad. The name of a degree may not even mean what you think it means.
At the end of the day, the only thing that matters is what the person is capable of doing and the quality of their work. The best way to determine that is with a good technical interview.
I think this is part of the reason consulting is so popular in the IT world. The employer gets a chance to test drive, kick the tires, and go back for another one if the first wasn't quite up to snuff.
Surviving an accredited engineering bachelor? I attended an engineering school. I know hundreds of accredited engineers. Most of them are adept at drinking alcohol, but can't hold a candle to the amount of knowledge a passionate computer hacker has.
Most good computer "engineers" were hacking on computers before they were 10, and spent 15-20 years learning what they were doing before becoming a professional computer "engineer". The passionate ones focused themselves on computers during that time, with many late-night Mountain-Dew laden hacking sessions. Why should rich institutions have the lock on naming people engineers after four years of non-exclusive training with questionable practical value. With much personal experience, I can tell you without question that people who had no prior computer experience, then received one of these degrees are terrible engineers.
Insult? Perhaps. But the insult is not exclusive to the non-accredited engineers.
I totally agree with you. Google doesn't direct traffic. People request things from them, and they provide it. Yes, Google is working on knowing more and more about the people that use them, but their 99% use case is still anonymous user traffic.
How about Red Hat? They make a Linux distribution, so certainly they must be good at distribution. How about Starbucks? They are used to distributing energy to people, so this should translate to hybrid cars. What about McDonalds? They...oh just stfu slugo.
Why does every Slashdot story contributor wander off into his own little world of conjecture? Can't we just stick to the story? If you want to comment on the subject, just put it as a reply. Oh yeah, because no one would see it after it got modded down.
It is valid because the original kernel and all additional contributions were made under that license. Whether Linus said so, his drunk uncle snuck into his room and added that clause behind his back, monkeys typing on keyboards, magnetic interference, time-traveling hippies...it doesn't matter how it got there. It is there, and everyone contributing knew it was there.
Having worked in the "web industry" for years, and viewed access reports of several major websites, I can tell you that the majority of surfing, even of the 2/3 that do have Internet access, does occur at work.
Unless most people are somewhere other than work from 8-6, Monday through Friday.
Agreed. This is not news. Richard Dawkins, a scientist and author on subjects related to evolution and a prominent atheist, devoted an entire chapter to this subject in his 2006 book "The God Delusion". While discussing it, he covers many theories that, as far as I can tell from the tone of the book, have been around for some time. So, this subject can't be new.
One theory is the group-selection theory. This theory says that ancient tribes of religious people would have advantages in simple loyalty, as well as an advantage in tribal warfare. As the theory goes, the man fighting for his God would be more aggresive in obliterating non-regligious competitors, and more capable of overcoming the fears associated with risking ones life.
Another theory, and the favorite of Dawkins, is that of genetic benefit causes a related (but not necessarily helpful) by-product. He gives the example of a moth flying to the flame and killing itself. The reason for this is that the moth guides itself at night by moonlight, a definite evolutionary benefit. Moth "eyes" cannot differentiate the historically-recent, man-made flames from the moon. So the theory goes, children who listen blindly listen to the adults they trust have an evolutionary advantage. The adult has wisdom (don't go out of the cave when the tigers are running about) that the child does not yet possess. So believing everything the adult says is a distinct evolutionary advantage. The related side effect is that when an adult tells a child that God exists, the child does not question. The child believes. And he often continues to believe, no matter how irrational, for the rest of his life. Dawkins is clear in saying that this may be just one example of the by-product theory, and that there are probably others we haven't thought of.
Overally it's an interesting subject, but one that both sides seem easily capable of explaining to satisfy their own point of view.
I see your point, but it's not that simple. Like it or not, Gnome is the first thing that many people see on their way to using the software Linus does care about, which is the Linux kernel.
There is a reason most people see Gnome. Because Gnome is the most successful desktop project for Linux.
I've dedicated my life to the internals of this hotel, they're aswesome, but once people see the filthy lobby, they run away without even noticing the good stuff!"
If the approach that KDE takes was superior, distributions would be using it. That's simple survival-of-the-fittest. If a KDE-based distribution was kicking butt and taking names, then other distributions would switch. But it isn't happening.
If Linux wanted a better desktop, the best way to prove it would be to fork Gnome, implement the things he wants, and see if Linome became a more successful project.
I totally agree. I've been gaming for a long time, but just started using a headset for the first time two weeks ago. I've never heard more offensive, foul, cruel language in my life. I'm no prude, and cussing doesn't bother me that much. But when it's all I hear, it's sad.
And the racist comments! I can't believe how much offensive racist crap I've heard in the past two weeks. Today's gaming youth in America is an embarrassment.
My headset experience only lasted two weeks, because I'm back to playing without it.
However, if you were to do any type of alteration to the original photo that wasn't totally automatic, even something like color correction, I could see an argument for protection on the grounds that it was a creative act.
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In context, I find that comment strangely ironic. I work for MasterCard, and MasterCard uses Lotus Notes.
Hahaha. 640K is enough for anyone. HAHAH. All your base are belong to us. heehee
Doesn't anyone around here have an original bone in their body? If I don't hear the Gentoo compiling joke ever again, it'll be too soon.
Good point, that often gets missed. If you download software for Windows, and it turns out to be buggy, you don't blame it on Windows. But because a Linux distribution delivers a huge amount of software together, a bug in any one of them gets blamed on the distribution (in the gp case, Ubuntu).
I guess, though, if we are going to sell Linux as a better choice because of the wealth of OSS, we had better work hard to make sure it all works as bug free as possible. That's why the real heroes of OSS are the ones that toil in obscurity investigating and fixing reported bugs.
A DVD player that would only play Sony DVDs would indeed need a warning.
Hmm. BetaMax didn't have a warning. Nor do HD-DVD or BluRay players warn that they don't play the competing formats. Again, buyer beware.
As to your car analogy, that's just stupid. They're both CARS, use the same gas, the same roads, and operate almost exactly the same.
Linux and Windows are both OPERATING SYSTEMS, use the same electric from my wall, the same Internet, and operate much the same. I wasn't nearly as comfortable with my analogy until you helped to flesh it out.
See what happens when you comment at slashdot after midnight? Get some rest, dude! Good point, bad examples.
You sound kind of pissy yourself.
Good point. I didn't intend to imply that Windows was a Lamborghini, trust me.
Should an Apple PC have a warning that it does not use Windows? Should your cell phone, TV, Tivo, Microwave, vehicle diagnostic computer, DVD player? Should a Vista PC warn it's not really Windows compatible? That would be a little like a Mazda RX7 having a warning that this is not a Lamborghini. Buyer beware.
If people were lining up for this, they knew what it was. They read about it ahead of time. They didn't just line up for the fu...n of it.
and a regularly updated app called "Faqly"
I'm betting I'm not the only one who did a double take the first time I read that.
I too had trouble enabling Automatic Updates in Windows.
There's more to it than that. With Ubuntu, every single piece of software gets updated by the automatic updates. With Windows Automatic Updates, only the OS and some MS software gets updated. Every other piece of software has its own update technique. At best it is automatic when you run the software, and at worst it is entirely manual.
An Ubuntu desktop updates every piece of software once a day, from the kernel to the browser, from the email client to the network infrastructure.
Tell me where you find XP to save much time? I use Ubuntu instead of XP because I was tired of spending so much time removing/avoiding spyware, virii', among plenty of other issues.
Here's a typical time-sink scenario for me in XP: Today XP won't boot, but it booted fine yesterday. Without any useful logging, I guess I'll just rebuild, AGAIN!
Here's another wonderful XP time-sink: I've got 50 programs, and each has its own way of updating. If I want to run a secure system, I guess I'll spend an hour per week updating my software.
Have you actually tried Gutsy? Not to be rude, but I am a bit doubtful.
One thing I forgot to mention, if I started a project fresh today, I would seriously consider enunciate http://enunciate.codehaus.org/ or Axis2. Both seem to be a good way to easily produce a full REST stack (to fully handle get, post, put, and delete). I haven't had the chance to try either, but it's on my todo list.
I'm sorry, I got my X(insert natual element here) projects confused. I meant XStream http://xstream.codehaus.org/ not XFire. I use Castor, I just know others use XStream for the same thing I use Castor for.
Basically, if you use Castor/XStream to produce XML documents for your objects, it's dirt simple to pull in the document and use it in Flex. An example of a project where we've done exactly that is this product: http://www.mastercard.com/us/business/en/smallbiz/specialoffers/index.html
Using Firebug, you should be able to see the types of REST responses we are using in the app. They are all produced with Castor, and consumed with Flex's built-in support for HTTP and XML.
As for compatibility, last figure I heard was 93% of browsers have Flash 9. Considering included in the remaining 7 percent are mobile devices, tinfoil-hat wearers, minimalists, etc, the 93% covers most of my target audience.
I disagree. I wouldn't use Flex Data Services even if they were free OSS. Flex has excellent built in support for using a REST backend. By building on top of FDS you are building yourself a middle tier that you can't reuse. By using REST you have a middle tier you can use with other technologies. If you are using Java, kick FDS to the curb and learn to build REST services using Castor or XFire.
At the end of the day, the only thing that matters is what the person is capable of doing and the quality of their work. The best way to determine that is with a good technical interview.
I think this is part of the reason consulting is so popular in the IT world. The employer gets a chance to test drive, kick the tires, and go back for another one if the first wasn't quite up to snuff.
Hmm, by that definition every cracker is a researcher.
Surviving an accredited engineering bachelor? I attended an engineering school. I know hundreds of accredited engineers. Most of them are adept at drinking alcohol, but can't hold a candle to the amount of knowledge a passionate computer hacker has.
Most good computer "engineers" were hacking on computers before they were 10, and spent 15-20 years learning what they were doing before becoming a professional computer "engineer". The passionate ones focused themselves on computers during that time, with many late-night Mountain-Dew laden hacking sessions. Why should rich institutions have the lock on naming people engineers after four years of non-exclusive training with questionable practical value. With much personal experience, I can tell you without question that people who had no prior computer experience, then received one of these degrees are terrible engineers.
Insult? Perhaps. But the insult is not exclusive to the non-accredited engineers.
I totally agree with you. Google doesn't direct traffic. People request things from them, and they provide it. Yes, Google is working on knowing more and more about the people that use them, but their 99% use case is still anonymous user traffic.
How about Red Hat? They make a Linux distribution, so certainly they must be good at distribution. How about Starbucks? They are used to distributing energy to people, so this should translate to hybrid cars. What about McDonalds? They...oh just stfu slugo.
Why does every Slashdot story contributor wander off into his own little world of conjecture? Can't we just stick to the story? If you want to comment on the subject, just put it as a reply. Oh yeah, because no one would see it after it got modded down.
It is valid because the original kernel and all additional contributions were made under that license. Whether Linus said so, his drunk uncle snuck into his room and added that clause behind his back, monkeys typing on keyboards, magnetic interference, time-traveling hippies...it doesn't matter how it got there. It is there, and everyone contributing knew it was there.
Having worked in the "web industry" for years, and viewed access reports of several major websites, I can tell you that the majority of surfing, even of the 2/3 that do have Internet access, does occur at work.
Unless most people are somewhere other than work from 8-6, Monday through Friday.
Oh, wait, they went on to make dozens of other great products. My bad.
Agreed. This is not news. Richard Dawkins, a scientist and author on subjects related to evolution and a prominent atheist, devoted an entire chapter to this subject in his 2006 book "The God Delusion". While discussing it, he covers many theories that, as far as I can tell from the tone of the book, have been around for some time. So, this subject can't be new.
One theory is the group-selection theory. This theory says that ancient tribes of religious people would have advantages in simple loyalty, as well as an advantage in tribal warfare. As the theory goes, the man fighting for his God would be more aggresive in obliterating non-regligious competitors, and more capable of overcoming the fears associated with risking ones life.
Another theory, and the favorite of Dawkins, is that of genetic benefit causes a related (but not necessarily helpful) by-product. He gives the example of a moth flying to the flame and killing itself. The reason for this is that the moth guides itself at night by moonlight, a definite evolutionary benefit. Moth "eyes" cannot differentiate the historically-recent, man-made flames from the moon. So the theory goes, children who listen blindly listen to the adults they trust have an evolutionary advantage. The adult has wisdom (don't go out of the cave when the tigers are running about) that the child does not yet possess. So believing everything the adult says is a distinct evolutionary advantage. The related side effect is that when an adult tells a child that God exists, the child does not question. The child believes. And he often continues to believe, no matter how irrational, for the rest of his life. Dawkins is clear in saying that this may be just one example of the by-product theory, and that there are probably others we haven't thought of.
Overally it's an interesting subject, but one that both sides seem easily capable of explaining to satisfy their own point of view.
There is a reason most people see Gnome. Because Gnome is the most successful desktop project for Linux.
If the approach that KDE takes was superior, distributions would be using it. That's simple survival-of-the-fittest. If a KDE-based distribution was kicking butt and taking names, then other distributions would switch. But it isn't happening.
If Linux wanted a better desktop, the best way to prove it would be to fork Gnome, implement the things he wants, and see if Linome became a more successful project.
I totally agree. I've been gaming for a long time, but just started using a headset for the first time two weeks ago. I've never heard more offensive, foul, cruel language in my life. I'm no prude, and cussing doesn't bother me that much. But when it's all I hear, it's sad.
And the racist comments! I can't believe how much offensive racist crap I've heard in the past two weeks. Today's gaming youth in America is an embarrassment.
My headset experience only lasted two weeks, because I'm back to playing without it.
Wrong, sorry. The rules for Copyright Registration for Derivative Works says specifically: