Why lock yourself in to a closed system when Linux has not one but two excellent desktop environments?
Both GNOME and KDE have more software available than OSX.
With such low marketshare, the sea-change from OS9 to OSX will see many Apple users moving to Windows (or something else). My wife already has made the move after finding OS9 app support under OSX to be...severely lacking. And of course OS9 app support is critical because there is such a dearth of Cocoa code.
I applaud Apple trying to make a fight of it, but you can't make abrupt changes like this at the same time Microsoft is. For many Mac users, being forced to start over will make starting over with Windows XP that much more attractive.
Not sure how this conflicts/contrasts with the IBM patent.
Re:sorry, but you don't even get the issues
on
Five Years of KDE
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· Score: 2
Actually, in order to be efficient for programming in the large, efficiency for programming in the small doesn't matter that much, since you can still write tight inner loops in C if it is advantageous to do so.
I have a tool for automating this process, its called a compiler.
There are lots of possibilities for languages and runtimes: Java, C#, Eiffel, Oberon, Modula-3, ObjectPascal, even Scheme and OCAML.
Java??? You give up performance (fails your own test). C#? Not mature enough. Eiffel? Maybe, but the compilers are not as mature as C/C++ compilers. Oberon? Are you joking? The rest of the languages you mention are either dead or inapplicable, and you know it.
How would Sun communicate to its customers why its new desktop was 50% slower than anything released by themsevles and competing vendors in the last five years????
They would be practically handing the workstation market to IBM.
You get a toolkit that makes sense, is well designed, and well supported. With GNOME you get "major rewrites". GNOME developers are beholden only to themselves, while Troll is going to treat developers as customers.
I appreciate better plumbing, but better plumbing does not move code, apps and useability do. If solid code was the number one priority, we wouldn't be using KDE or GNOME, we'd be using an anally ICCM supporting WM like Blackbox.
As it stands, when you tell me to wait for GNOME 3.0, by that time KDE will be at 4.x or even 5.0 the rate they are both going, and will certainly have much more going for it then GNOMe will - KDE's rate of improvement is simply more accelerated than GNOME's. Added to which, the GNOME desktop will continue to have a fractured integration for some time to come - Nautilus and Evolution are going to be buggy for a very long time, Mozilla will continue to stand mostly on its own, and StarOffice will continue to also be an island unto itself.
But if you don't invoke GNOME, you don't incur the overhead, so webservers are not effected. Without knowing from direct experience I am sure that headless Solaris boxes can be configured to not invoke any X related code at boot time.
Hence there is no particular reason why bundling GNOME or any other environment necessarily hogs resources.
Re:sorry, but you don't even get the issues
on
Five Years of KDE
·
· Score: 2
The problem with C++ comes for programming in the large. C++'s lack of runtime safety means that you often need to use separate processes to isolate components from one another. And C++'s lack of reflection means that programmers often end up duplicating functionality and writing lots of adapter code.
So you are in essence bitching that C++ isn't Java, but in the same post you bitch about performance and memory consumption.
You cannot reconcile your arguments.
Why don't you tell us what language you would use??? Remember by your own arguments it must be as efficient as C and all the runtime facillities of Java. Good Luck!
Actually, Microsoft and other systems are increasingly going over to browser-like interfaces,
Excluding the obvious logic that browser interfaces are themsevles WIMP, Microsoft has backtracked from this by scaling back Channels and the Active Desktop.
Re:praise and criticism
on
Five Years of KDE
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· Score: 3, Insightful
C++ is deeply ingrained in the system; I don't believe that's where the future of application programming is going
Huh? C++ is the only popular standardized language that supports multi-paradigm, large scale, performant coding. C will always be there but for developing component architectures there are numerous reasons to go with C++.
KDE consumes huge amounts of resources and starts up lots of processes.
Blackbox is nice on starved boxes, but for anyone who has a PIII or higher, KDE sessions are quite useable.
The KDE/Qt licenses (GPL/commercial) restrict my ability
Wasn't QT GPL'd??
KDE is replicating an old paradigm--the Windows desktop; I don't think that's where the industry is going.
Huh? XP, OSX, Win2k, all are polishing up their WIMP interfaces. Even task-oriented systems like the PalmOS are being supplanted by general WIMP interfaces as people demand more functionality.
Re:Congrats and thanks to KDE
on
Five Years of KDE
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· Score: 5, Interesting
2) integrated voice activation
This is a lame feature and thank god KDE does not attempt it. There is nothing more moronic than a bunch of people talking to their computers (no offense to Star Trekkers).
If the only thing I can do with this is launch programs, its just a joke.
3) An easy way to script out application action (like AppleScript)
There are about a thousand ways to do this on linux that are better than anything Apple has come up with itself. Perl. Python. Bourne Shell for christs sake. Apple has caught up to linux with scripting, but only on the basis of porting the GNU tools through BSD support.
7) A proper user interface
Well, supposedly Apple had the ultimate UI before OSX, yet they felt the need to scrap it. You can find numerous articles where UI folks and Apple greybeards shit all over OSX's interface.
Personally I like the OSX UI, but its more or less eye candy. Functionally almost nothing has changed that isn't purely cosmetic (and resource hungry).
8) Lots of properly integrated apps
No. KDE has plenty of apps well integrated through KParts. Apple has Classic and Cocoa, and will have these two environments for a VERY VERY VERY VERY LONG TIME. Since few people are working on any Mac code these days, Apple is going to be supporting MacOS9 apps until doomsday. Already Apple users are being humilliated on the shelves at retailers by Windows 98 and soon XP will finish the job.
Sure, there is a lot of distance for KDE to go, but as cool as OSX is, Apple has killed itself on strategy. When your userbase is as low as Apple, doing a total presto changeo on the OS, development tools, and even thr fricking monitor connection is just more motivation for Apple users to buy a PC next time around. I commend the for the Apple store concept, but it won't help at this point.
Congrats and thanks to KDE
on
Five Years of KDE
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
KDE is an amazing set of products. I am using KDE 2.2 right now and compared to a product like OSX, it is competitive in terms of features and applications.
The QT libraries continue to evolve nicely, and thanks to Troll for GPL'ing the code.
Konqueror is an excellent browser product, and I consider it to be on par with the excellent Mozilla product.
KOffice is a competitve, well integrated product for people with moderate needs. I haven't had any problems yet I could not solve with KOffice.
KDevelop is the closest thing the Visual Studio on linux.
Other lesser-known product like Qunata, Kate and KXML are starting to show real promise. I would like Kate in particular to really catch fire like Emacs has over the years - its time for an editor that it totally integrated with its visual environment.
Its the integration that keeps me using KDE over GNOME, which I admit may have some stronger individual programs but just isn't stitched together like KDE is. Its amazing that this entire system is free and has source code available. I look forward to the next five years of this fantastic set of products.
Thus, I can't possibly see your 2% estimate being on the mark -- few may use OpenPGP-compliant crypto, but of those who do, nearly all use the keyservers.
I was referring to 2% of slashdot users having actually used PGP encrypted mail (not just downloaded the software and generated a key for fun)...and yes, you are right - 2% is not on the mark - probably closer to 0.5% (seriously).
Well, PGP had simply reached a level of age and maturity where one should expect a free replacement to come on the scene. My observations are that you have four to five years to squeeze revenues out of a software product before you can reasonably expect a free competitor.
This will simply become part of the arithmetic commercial developers will have to deal with.
PGP and its ilk are really only useful in the scope of a meaningful PKI infrastructure, which doesn't exist and never will, as there are insurmountable educational hurdles for home and even business users.
How many among even the savy group here maintains a valid PGP key that is available online? Of those, how many maintain their key in a searchable index? I presume the answer is less than 2%.
How many of you have received an email either signed or encrypted in such a fashion and then actually used the sender's public key to decrypt/verify?? Probably 10% of readers here or less.
And that folks, is why PKI and hence PGP are dead-ends.
If for no other reason than for driving home to (otherwise naively unsuspecting) people that they have no privacy and are being constantly observed. It is the governments duty to at least allow cicitzens the dignity of knowing they are being watched, data mined, profiled, and statistically reduced on a daily basis.
Its been over two years since most of the major sites went with redundant colos, load balancing switches, and content cache networks.
In fact, the key benefit of Akamai and other content caches is to help flatten out spikes (they don't generally improve static content requests when traffic is normal).
1: Internet - everything print can do, but faster and more featureful.
2: Print - the best researched and most respected news is still carried out by folks like the WSJ, Washington Post, etc.
3: Radio - radio continues to feature in-depth reporting, although much more dumbed down than in print sources.
DEAD LAST: TV - the boob tube continues to be the news source for the illiterate, with the maximum amount of information transmitted to be contained in a two minute blurb. Everything Chomsky says about TV news is true. This is the gutter of information and news.
I want to like what I perceive as innovatiive programming tools, but I simply don't have a problem that is solved by.Net, and yes I do wide-scale distributed web programming.
No matter what tools come on the scene, C/C++ will be my mainstay for performance-intensive code. Perl will be my tool of choice for glue and scripts. A SQL database or DB files solve my data storage problems. XML, HTTP, and HTML solve my interchange problems. I am not interested in giving up any of these as they have all proven to work.
How long will posters here continue to believe they have any privacy to protect???
The only place you have privacy is in a room in your house with no windows. Otherwise assume you are being observed.
If you have a credit card, your entire purchase history is in a database.
If you have a drivers license or ssn which you use to identify yourself, your activities can be traced.
You phone can be trivially tapped.
You are being videotaped in most public buildings whether you know it or not.
Your internet connection is the most trivial of all to tap and trace.
Use TiVo? You viewing habits are in a database.
Where oh where is this privacy you are trying to protect? At least a national ID card would make everyone aware of the fact that they have ZERO privacy.
Obviously there will always be great value in being on campus and mingling in the throngs of students and staff. Consider your experience at MIT to be the "premium" version of the MIT product.
for people who cannot afford the premium version, or who somehow missed out on college for various reasons, this is a great boon to them without diminishing your experience.
Slashdot Mirror
Both GNOME and KDE have more software available than OSX.
With such low marketshare, the sea-change from OS9 to OSX will see many Apple users moving to Windows (or something else). My wife already has made the move after finding OS9 app support under OSX to be...severely lacking. And of course OS9 app support is critical because there is such a dearth of Cocoa code.
I applaud Apple trying to make a fight of it, but you can't make abrupt changes like this at the same time Microsoft is. For many Mac users, being forced to start over will make starting over with Windows XP that much more attractive.
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PT O2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=/netahtml/search-adv.htm&r=2&p=1 &f=G&l=50&d=ft00&S1=nazem.INZZ.&OS=in/nazem&RS=IN/ nazem
Not sure how this conflicts/contrasts with the IBM patent.
I have a tool for automating this process, its called a compiler.
There are lots of possibilities for languages and runtimes: Java, C#, Eiffel, Oberon, Modula-3, ObjectPascal, even Scheme and OCAML.
Java??? You give up performance (fails your own test). C#? Not mature enough. Eiffel? Maybe, but the compilers are not as mature as C/C++ compilers. Oberon? Are you joking? The rest of the languages you mention are either dead or inapplicable, and you know it.
Want karma? Just disavow it in the first ten lines of your post!
P.S., I know I'm going to lose karma for this!
They would be practically handing the workstation market to IBM.
There is a place for Java, and this isn't it.
You get a toolkit that makes sense, is well designed, and well supported. With GNOME you get "major rewrites". GNOME developers are beholden only to themselves, while Troll is going to treat developers as customers.
As it stands, when you tell me to wait for GNOME 3.0, by that time KDE will be at 4.x or even 5.0 the rate they are both going, and will certainly have much more going for it then GNOMe will - KDE's rate of improvement is simply more accelerated than GNOME's. Added to which, the GNOME desktop will continue to have a fractured integration for some time to come - Nautilus and Evolution are going to be buggy for a very long time, Mozilla will continue to stand mostly on its own, and StarOffice will continue to also be an island unto itself.
Hence there is no particular reason why bundling GNOME or any other environment necessarily hogs resources.
So you are in essence bitching that C++ isn't Java, but in the same post you bitch about performance and memory consumption.
You cannot reconcile your arguments.
Why don't you tell us what language you would use??? Remember by your own arguments it must be as efficient as C and all the runtime facillities of Java. Good Luck!
Excluding the obvious logic that browser interfaces are themsevles WIMP, Microsoft has backtracked from this by scaling back Channels and the Active Desktop.
Huh? C++ is the only popular standardized language that supports multi-paradigm, large scale, performant coding. C will always be there but for developing component architectures there are numerous reasons to go with C++.
KDE consumes huge amounts of resources and starts up lots of processes.
Blackbox is nice on starved boxes, but for anyone who has a PIII or higher, KDE sessions are quite useable.
The KDE/Qt licenses (GPL/commercial) restrict my ability
Wasn't QT GPL'd??
KDE is replicating an old paradigm--the Windows desktop; I don't think that's where the industry is going.
Huh? XP, OSX, Win2k, all are polishing up their WIMP interfaces. Even task-oriented systems like the PalmOS are being supplanted by general WIMP interfaces as people demand more functionality.
This is a lame feature and thank god KDE does not attempt it. There is nothing more moronic than a bunch of people talking to their computers (no offense to Star Trekkers).
If the only thing I can do with this is launch programs, its just a joke.
3) An easy way to script out application action (like AppleScript)
There are about a thousand ways to do this on linux that are better than anything Apple has come up with itself. Perl. Python. Bourne Shell for christs sake. Apple has caught up to linux with scripting, but only on the basis of porting the GNU tools through BSD support.
7) A proper user interface
Well, supposedly Apple had the ultimate UI before OSX, yet they felt the need to scrap it. You can find numerous articles where UI folks and Apple greybeards shit all over OSX's interface.
Personally I like the OSX UI, but its more or less eye candy. Functionally almost nothing has changed that isn't purely cosmetic (and resource hungry).
8) Lots of properly integrated apps
No. KDE has plenty of apps well integrated through KParts. Apple has Classic and Cocoa, and will have these two environments for a VERY VERY VERY VERY LONG TIME. Since few people are working on any Mac code these days, Apple is going to be supporting MacOS9 apps until doomsday. Already Apple users are being humilliated on the shelves at retailers by Windows 98 and soon XP will finish the job.
Sure, there is a lot of distance for KDE to go, but as cool as OSX is, Apple has killed itself on strategy. When your userbase is as low as Apple, doing a total presto changeo on the OS, development tools, and even thr fricking monitor connection is just more motivation for Apple users to buy a PC next time around. I commend the for the Apple store concept, but it won't help at this point.
The QT libraries continue to evolve nicely, and thanks to Troll for GPL'ing the code.
Konqueror is an excellent browser product, and I consider it to be on par with the excellent Mozilla product.
KOffice is a competitve, well integrated product for people with moderate needs. I haven't had any problems yet I could not solve with KOffice.
KDevelop is the closest thing the Visual Studio on linux.
Other lesser-known product like Qunata, Kate and KXML are starting to show real promise. I would like Kate in particular to really catch fire like Emacs has over the years - its time for an editor that it totally integrated with its visual environment.
Its the integration that keeps me using KDE over GNOME, which I admit may have some stronger individual programs but just isn't stitched together like KDE is. Its amazing that this entire system is free and has source code available. I look forward to the next five years of this fantastic set of products.
I was referring to 2% of slashdot users having actually used PGP encrypted mail (not just downloaded the software and generated a key for fun)...and yes, you are right - 2% is not on the mark - probably closer to 0.5% (seriously).
This will simply become part of the arithmetic commercial developers will have to deal with.
How many among even the savy group here maintains a valid PGP key that is available online? Of those, how many maintain their key in a searchable index? I presume the answer is less than 2%.
How many of you have received an email either signed or encrypted in such a fashion and then actually used the sender's public key to decrypt/verify?? Probably 10% of readers here or less.
And that folks, is why PKI and hence PGP are dead-ends.
If for no other reason than for driving home to (otherwise naively unsuspecting) people that they have no privacy and are being constantly observed. It is the governments duty to at least allow cicitzens the dignity of knowing they are being watched, data mined, profiled, and statistically reduced on a daily basis.
Yahoo news gets more traffic than any other news site.
Bend Over
In fact, the key benefit of Akamai and other content caches is to help flatten out spikes (they don't generally improve static content requests when traffic is normal).
That is bullshit. Yahoo kept chugging along delivering news. They didn't skip a beat.
You lost credibility the moment you lauded /. for its uptime.
2: Print - the best researched and most respected news is still carried out by folks like the WSJ, Washington Post, etc.
3: Radio - radio continues to feature in-depth reporting, although much more dumbed down than in print sources.
DEAD LAST: TV - the boob tube continues to be the news source for the illiterate, with the maximum amount of information transmitted to be contained in a two minute blurb. Everything Chomsky says about TV news is true. This is the gutter of information and news.
No matter what tools come on the scene, C/C++ will be my mainstay for performance-intensive code. Perl will be my tool of choice for glue and scripts. A SQL database or DB files solve my data storage problems. XML, HTTP, and HTML solve my interchange problems. I am not interested in giving up any of these as they have all proven to work.
So I ask Microsoft - where do I need .Net tools??
The only place you have privacy is in a room in your house with no windows. Otherwise assume you are being observed.
If you have a credit card, your entire purchase history is in a database.
If you have a drivers license or ssn which you use to identify yourself, your activities can be traced.
You phone can be trivially tapped.
You are being videotaped in most public buildings whether you know it or not.
Your internet connection is the most trivial of all to tap and trace.
Use TiVo? You viewing habits are in a database.
Where oh where is this privacy you are trying to protect? At least a national ID card would make everyone aware of the fact that they have ZERO privacy.
for people who cannot afford the premium version, or who somehow missed out on college for various reasons, this is a great boon to them without diminishing your experience.