As for the 0 crashes/lockups, I'm honestly not experiencing that. The machine I'm using right now is XP (we're switching over to it at work because the boss decided we weren't wasting enough money yet), and I'm experiencing at least one crash/lockup a day. Plus, the thing seems to have that good ol' Windows 98 lock-up-every-time-you-try-to-shut-down-or-reboot problem. Granted, it's likely a bad driver that is causing the problems and not the OS itself, but then again you'd think the OS would be able to handle errors like these a bit more gracefully. ..
Sounds like you need to run Windows Update and actually install all of the updates. You're right, XP does have a reboot issue out of the box on some hardware, but IIRC that was fixed almost as soon as XP launched (last year!). As for why you're getting crashes, it would be helpful to know what software you're running. As long as we're comparing anecdotal evidence, let me just say that the only reason I've had XP crash was because of video drivers and poorly-written games. For normal business stuff (IE, Office, Visual Studio, et al), I've never had a crash that wasn't attributable to my own idiotic coding (and again, that was from playing around with OpenGL while using beta video drivers...).
Re:Missed half of the "innovation"
on
Tenebrae Quake
·
· Score: 1, Offtopic
Way to go moderators! How is the above a troll? I pointed out that, of the two major reasons to look at Tenebrae, the submitter missed one (the more important of the two, imho), while at the same time glommed on to the idea of transparent water, which was available almost immediately after glquake was released (what, 1997? 98?). Vis-patched water == old news. Per-pixel lighting and stencil-buffered shadows == new stuff. So why did the submitter ignore the new shadowing methods and point out the vis-patched water? As for the rest, it's a legitimate gripe about other posters to the article.
But now I'm going to be modded off-topic, so why do I even bother?
It's too bad Zerstorer doesn't work with Tenebrae. Maybe if someone could hack it to work, then you'd have a good reason to try it.
From the Tenebrae FAQ (which is probably slashdotted by now, but luckily I have it sitting in my squid cache from visiting this earlier today thanks to Blue's News):
Q: I play with my favourite mod and now I get "progs.dat system vars have been modified, progdefs.h is out of date"
A: To make colored lights, etc. possible I had to change the system vars and this means that tenebrae is not compatible with old progs.dat. It should be easy however to "port" old mods to tenebrae (essentially a copy paste job).
Therefore, if you want to get Zerstorer working, it shouldn't take much. Good luck, and if you get it working let others know.
Missed half of the "innovation"
on
Tenebrae Quake
·
· Score: 0, Troll
Way to go submitter! You picked up on the per-pixel lighting enhancement (one of two things new in this mod), but got blinded by the vis-patched water that has been around since 1997 or so. The other important enhancement here is the stencil-buffered shadows (yeah, yeah, glquake had shadows, if you enabled them, but they were pathetic things. these shadows are nice). The point is that these two things (stencil-buffered shadows and per-pixel lighting) are two of the major enhancements coming in the Doom3 engine, and yet somebody was able to hack the old Quake1 engine to do them just as well. Sure, the visual quality isn't the same, thanks to limitations of the engine (old technology, simply can't push as many triangles as the newer engines, even if you do throw hardware at it), but that's mostly from a lack of triangles in models and scenes.
As for those who say this is a waste of time because it doesn't enhance gameplay, all I can say is "play it". The changed lighting adds new depth to the game. Okay, so it's not a huge change. So what? This is mostly a technology demo than anything else. I don't understand how some people can get off on stupid things like putting a switch into a teddy bear (how useless is that?), yet they can't understand why someone would modify an old engine to do per-pixel lighting and stencil-buffered shadows.
Yes, very sad. Judging from reaction to this and similar stories, a great many Slashdot readers believe that the law should treat them differently and that they aren't responsible for their actions.
Probably attributable to Slashdot demographics, but the attitude risks provoking a lot of restrictive legislation.
This just proves that/.'ers aren't as different from others (non-geeks, non-techies, non-however-you-happen-to-identify-yourself) as they like to think they are. In the "Real World" (ie, that thing outside of your bedroom, not on the internet or tied to some computer somewhere), people routinely feel that the law should apply to others and not themselves, and rarely (if ever!) take responsibility for their actions. Ever heard a bleeding-heart liberal cry, "There should be a law!"? Or a soccer mom complaining because the schools don't do a good enough job of babysitting her kids? That is (American) society, and it sucks. Many/.'ers complain about it, yet as we see with this article, they fall into the exact same traps. It may be different circumstances, but the ideas and actions are the same -- "I'm above the law" "The law only applies to criminals, and I'm not a criminal" "It's their fault for not locking their door/car/computer, not mine for breaking into it."
How could you be using terminal server when you log into XP when it isn't a server? XP is a desktop only version.
You're obviously living in the past. You're discussing Terminal Server circa NT4 (or older!), while I'm discussing what's been happening recently with TS. It's a well-known and documented fact that, for Fast User Switching in Windows XP, it's essentially implemented by having each login at the console spawn a TS session. You don't really notice it when you only have one session going at a time, but load up a couple users on your system, then login with one, switch out, login with another, switch out, do it again, switch out, and notice that all of those previous logins are still there, keeping their state, running their background processes, etc. Don't be confused by Windows XP calling it "Remote Desktop". It's still Terminal Server. (Caveat: Fast User Switching doesn't work if you're connected to a Domain, rather than a Workgroup or a stand-alone machine)
Have you worked with Windows Terminal Server? We've had some terrible fights with the thing to get it to work. The problems are the games it plays with the registry and user directories. Additionally, if you have anything that is using ports for communication they can get hopelessly confused. (Run a service on the Terminal Server yet try to make it available to the Terminal Server sessions, it's quite a pain.)
I've not worked with it extensively, but nearly all of my testing and debugging work is done via Terminal Server (especially when I have to go in and debug production or pre-production machines), so yes, I've worked with it. Some things could be better (it sucks when you get a popup on session 0 (the console), and can't see it with a different session, but I'm under the impression that's being fixed). Terminal Server circa Windows 2000 was much better than in NT4, and XP's version is much better than Windows 2000's (XP adds lots of fancy stuff, like 16bpp color, sounds over the wire, and more-granular options to reduce bandwidth usage, but there are other enhancements "under the covers" as well). Think on it this way -- if we were discussing the linux kernel, and you were referring to the very latest 2.4.x version while I kept going back and complaining about 2.0.x, you'd have problems, right? Same thing here -- as with all software, Terminal Server has evolved over time.
Terminal Server was originally written by Citrix. MS choose to license the software and has done some additional development but it certainly wasn't core MS code.
And SQL Server was based on code not written by Microsoft (based on Sybase or something like that, I'm to lazy to go look it up right now), but while SQL Server 6 was similar to the original product, SQL Server 2000 is a completely different animal. Internet Explorer was based on Mosaic way back in the day, and version 1 and 2 weren't very much different from Mosaic. However, you surely can't claim IE6 (or hell, even IE3!) is in any way similar to Mosaic, regardless of its origins. In other words -- red herring. When Microsoft buys software, they don't just let it stagnate (well, unless, after purchasing it, they determine that there's no point in continuing with the software). They continue to improve and enhance the software.
Think about it, you're trying to take a NT Server and run multiple users on it *AT THE SAME TIME*. NT simply wasn't designed to do that.
No, Windows 9x wasn't designed to do that. Perhaps NT 3.x wasn't designed to do that. NT4 at least had the capacity to do so, though it may not have been very mature. Windows 2000 supports it quite well. XP does, too. Windows.NET will be even better. And so it goes, as software evolves.
First off, have you worked with Windows Terminal Server? It's a hack on top of a kludge. MS doesn't even officially certify Office to run on top of it.
My friends working in the Terminal Server group would be pretty surprised to hear that. And I really can't see Microsoft using a "hack on top of a kludge" as a core piece of their current OS. (when you log into XP, even at the console, guess what? You're using terminal server.)
While NT, 2K, and XP support multiple users they don't support multiple users logged in at the same time.
For NT4 and 2K, you need to specifically add "at the console", because you can have as many people logged in remotely as you have licenses. For XP you're correct, but all I can say here is... so? XP isn't a server. It obviously has multi-user support, since you can have multiple console sessions going (though only one can be directly active, the others can and will do things in the background). You're limited on your remote access capabilities, but that's obviously because it's a workstation and not a server. Microsoft doesn't want you to try using XP as the hub for a thin-client system just yet (use NT4, 2K, or wait for.NET).
I feel the same way. The RIAA needs to pull their heads out of their asses and realize the potential of digitally-distributed media. They haven't yet, but they still might. Until then, it's still not okay to steal music. (I think there's a distinction to be made between previewing a couple songs with the intention of buying vs. downloading the music without ever even considering purchase at all. and bootlegs and live songs are a whole other issue...) How can you get the RIAA to do this? I don't know. But you could try boycotting their albums, writing them to let them know you're doing so, and make clear that you're not downloading their music (and don't download their music), but that you would be willing to lift your boycott if they would come up with an online distribution story that's acceptable (say, high-quality, no distorting watermarks, the ability to use the song on any of your mp3-enabled devices (assuming mp3 is the method of distribution, or you could specify a format you'd prefer -- perhaps provide multiple formats) and not tied to a single machine, etc). Get others to do the same, and when it reaches critical mass the RIAA may finally realize they've got a problem. And if they don't, well, there's a pantload of good music on independent labels out there. Maybe you can find something you enjoy out of that instead.
You miss the point. By voting with your money and not buying the CDs, you're not given the right to listen to the music anyway. Boycotting the music (and making the companies aware you're doing so) is an effective form of protest. Boycotting buying the CDs but still downloading the music just makes you a criminal.
You're right that there are plenty of people that would be willing to pay the artists directly, and in many cases that's doable (or at least, you can pay smaller labels, which oftentimes were created by the authors themselves). There a whole bunch of artists on Mp3.com that offer music directly to you for money. However, until the large labels get in gear, you're not going to find the big name acts. Oh well, boycott those as well. Again, you don't have the right to download that music anyway. If there's an artist or band you're interested in that doesn't offer their music online, try contacting them. Maybe they're contractually obligated, or maybe they just haven't thought to do that. Or maybe if you can get the artists to put pressure on the labels from the inside, while customers pressure them from the outside, they might see the light. But don't ruin it by obtaining illegal copies, because the labels will then just point their fingers and say, "Look, he's not boycotting our music, he just doesn't want to pay money for music. He's a thief, and good riddance."
If I listen to your song on the radio and don't buy the album, you lost a sale.
Not quite. That's analogous to normal advertising vs. online ads. In the first case, they're just advertising to create a brand (or playing a song to create a band). In the second, if they don't get a click through, then the ad "failed". You're trying to equate playing a song on the radio to the latter, which is wrong -- radio play is designed to just get the songs out there so you know them. Maybe you buy the CD, maybe not, but that's not the immediate goal.
If I walk past your CD in the record store, you lost a sale.
No, if you you walk past a CD in the record store, then you weren't interested in it. If you stop, pick up the CD, look it over, really consider buying it, but then put it back because you can get a copy from your friend or the internet, then a sale is lost.
If my friend tells me the album sucks, you lost a sale too.
Only if you were seriously considering buying it in the first place.
My point was not that downloading a song or two was causing the labels to lose sales. The point is that if you download a number of songs from an album, and keep them around and listen to them a fair amount, but you don't then buy the album, then a sale was lost -- you're obviously interested in the album, and you're listening to the music, but you didn't buy the album.
Last week I bought Deltron 3030 after being entranced by the MP3...an album that my loser friends have been trying to get me to buy for years.
That's cool. That's what mp3 sharing should be about, finding new stuff that you may or may not like (or finding a couple more songs by an artist when you already like one song, to see if buying the album is worth it, or if there's only that one good song). That's cool, and you're not going to get busted (remember, there's a monetary minimum here, too, and downloading a couple songs for previewing purposes won't get anywhere near that). The problem is the people that, rather than buying the album when they like some of the songs, just download all the songs from the album and burn it themselves. A similar example would be the people that rent DVDs from Blockbuster, rip them to their PC, and burn them down to VCDs (or burn them onto DVD-Rs, if they have them). They apparently like the movie enough to want to have it, but don't actually buy the movie. That's theft, in my book, though I'm fine with calling it a "lost sale".
As far as previewing music goes, more and more places are getting the clue. Most online music stores (CDNow.com, Tower Records, etc) allow you to preview tracks from CDs you're considering, so that you can get an idea of what some of the tracks on the CD sound like before you buy. A number of brick&mortar stores will let you listen to a couple CDs as well (not just the "listening station" things, either -- many stores let you actually open up a CD or already have one open you can listen to). Because of that, it seems to me that filesharing is becoming more and more the domain of people that just want the music for free, rather than those that just want to preview some stuff before they buy.
One other point is that W2K Terminal Server as a product is not accurate
I never said it was. I said there was such a product for NT4 back in the day. Win2K has Pro, Server, Advanced Server, and Data Center (big iron). Most people will be using Pro or Server. Both have Terminal Services.
Win2k may be multiuser, but the multiuser model in windows is not as fine grained as *nix.
Can you define what you mean here? For example, Win2K (and all NT-based Windows) have a very fine-grained ACL system that allows you to provide different levels of access to different users and groups of users. While this is changing in Linux with new filesystems like XFS, ext2fs (and I would assume by extension ext3, though I've not used it and I don't know what ACL system has been bodged on) has no real ACL system. You're left with just the standard unix permission system (user, group, other), which is anything but fine-grained. If you're talking about concurrent users, then you have more of a point, though XP has changed this by allowing more than one user to be logged on at the console (research Fast User Switching), and with the use of Terminal Services you can have as many sessions as you're willing to pay for (Microsoft is a business, so don't complain when they try to make money. Complain about other things, because I'm sure you can find a lot).
Most apps are still written expecting to be Admin, and most preinstalls are setup this way.
In this you are correct, though all Microsoft apps work properly these days, and to get certified for the XP logo, third-party apps have to support Fast User Switching (ie, be able to allow multiple users running the app at the same time). Sure, you may still need to be administrator to install software, but how is that any different than unix? (okay, sure, you can install software under $HOME, but in general most people will just become root and install software that way.) Yes, this is something that needs work, but it's being worked on. It's not a shortcoming of Windows so much as it's a shortcoming of having to support 15 years of legacy apps.
Scripting can be powerful on Windows, but it is not easy. On Linux, it is easy and powerful. Especially for someone who comes from being a non programmer.
"Easy" is relative. What may be easy to you, because you're a unix user, may not seem easy to someone else, and vice versa. A good test is to ask a unix admin to script some commonly-used task (say, resetting a bunch of user passwords) on a Windows system, and ask a windows admin to do the same on a unix system. Your Unix admin will be stumped because he doesn't know that he needs to use a certain COM object in some vbscript or jscript code, and your Windows admin will be stumped because he doesn't think to just script up passwd or write a tiny bit of perl or whatever. As far as being a non programmer, well, many so-called "non programmers" have actually written javascript for a website, and if they know javascript, then they can pick up WSH jscript. For a true "non programmer", both approaches are non-intuitive and will take work to learn, but c'est la vie.
And lastly there is one great reason to migrate now. It is easier to migrate today than it will be tomorrow.
I disagree. As long as people are interested in migrating, the distro developers will continue to work on migration stories so that it will actually be easier to migrate tomorrow rather than today. I'd venture to guess that you're talking about people getting locked into Windows software, but I'd be willing to bet that these people already are in the sense that they know how to use Windows, Office, etc. Therefore, switching today or tomorrow doesn't really matter, because you're still going to have to retrain. Switching tomorrow allows you to get another day out of the licenses you've already paid for, so you may as well do that. When you next need to upgrade, then consider the options. (you're not going to trade up the car you got last month because fuel cells just became efficient, reliable, and robust (making up an example) and cars using them have all the features of a combustible engined car. you're going to wait a couple years to get the most utility out of the car you just purchased, and then think about getting that alternatively fueled car when you're ready for a new one. <gratuitous>unless you're a hippy, of course.</gratuitous>).
And today, if you update to the latest service pack, you are granting Microsoft admin rights to your computer.
They probably don't have server versions. And only remote administration is free, Client license not.
As of Win2K, TS has been provided in all versions of NT, not just the server versions. And how am I wrong when you say yourself that "only remote administration is free"? With Pro, you're allowed at least one (probably no more than one, either) remote connection, which is "good enough" to remotely administer the box. With the server versions, you generally get some number of licenses (5, 10, 15, check your license) by default. So, like I said, unless you're doing thin-client computing, you generally don't need to worry about licensing costs.
Exactly youre talking about a 1000$ licence plus a huge fee per PC to connect...
You're confusing the old NT 4 Terminal Server edition with the product Terminal Server. Terminal Server (the product) is distributed with all versions of Windows 2000 and Windows XP, and unless you're making multiple connections to the machine (or making more connections than you have licenses for your server version), you don't need to worry about licensing issues. If you're doing thin-client computing, then sure, that's something you need to worry about. For remote administration, I think you'll find that the functionality provided by Terminal Services without any extra licenses is "good enough".
The fact is that Windows is a single-user platform.
No, no it's not. Let's be clear here -- we're discussing Windows 2000. You'd be correct if this discussion was about the Win9x line, but it's not and never was.
This means that administration is either done by walking to each box or by purchasing expensive remote access tools.
Wrong again. Microsoft Terminal Services comes with NT4 (server versions), Win2K (all versions), and Windows XP (all versions, though XP isn't a server OS). It will also be available in the upcoming Windows.NET. And it's free (well, there are some licensing issues you may need to work out, but you really only need to worry about that if you're trying to run thin clients. if you just need to remotely admin some machines, you should be fine without buying any special licenses). As well, WMI allows you to write scripts that can run on one machine and do work on another, so you don't even have to bother with a terminal server session.
Unix (and Linux) are multi-user, network aware OS's by nature.
As are Windows 2000 and Windows XP and the upcoming Windows.NET. (NT4 was network-aware as well, but not TCP/IP natively, so that's fine. However, it was still multi-user.)
You can effect all kinds of changes either remotely or through scripts without having to purchase additional software.
What additional software would this be? Because I can effect pretty much any changes I want with a bit of wscript code (vbscript, jscript, or perlscript, you choose) utilizing WMI and other COM interfaces. This is where most Unix admins get screwed up in Windows -- the automation model is different. In Unix, you typically either pipe commands together via shell script, or write some perl to munge things. In Windows, you have command script which is not quite as powerful as bash but suffices for many things, and you have the Windows Scripting Host. You can write code in vbscript, jscript, or perlscript (or if you want to get fancy, you can write your own dlls to support any language you wish). Rather than running small apps and messing with their stdout, you instead instantiate COM objects and work with those (You can do anything from accessing the filesystem to parsing XML to modifying user information and so on, given the proper privilege levels). In otherwords, Windows is just as scriptable as Unix, if not moreso, just in a completely different and alien way.
For basic Internet tasks for the public you can create a much nicer (and cheaper) system using Linux.
Perhaps, but I'm not arguing that, just as the original poster didn't. I'm arguing that they've already made the investment in Windows, they may as well get their money out of it for the next 3-4 years or so, at which point they might consider switching to Linux.
Its only recently that you can do some of this on windows. I was a windows andmin whoswitched over to UNIX, and I love being able to work on any users box without having to log them out and than log myself in.
Depends on what you mean by "some of this", because you've always (? NT4 is the oldest I've used, but I'm sure this was a core design principle for NT since the beginning) been able to setup non-admin users, and when running as a normal user you can use runas to run something as administrator (say, an installer), similar to su. With Terminal Server, you can have multiple sessions on a machine (only one active at the console, though). The point is, there are methods available to do these things in Windows, and they have been available in one form or another since at least NT4. They don't always map one-to-one with unix, but if you know where to look you can generally figure out how to do things you need.
The majority of Americans do not see digital piracy as theft. The majority of Americans also do not see picking flowers at a public park as theft, or sneaking a grape at the supermarket. The majority of Americans drank alcohol before the legal age. Technically, we should all be in prison, but these minor crimes don't really hurt anybody, and so they are overlooked. Why, then, is the DOJ going after file sharers?
Your examples are bad. Sure, you can pick flowers for free in a public park (though watch out for the park rangers, and if everybody did this there would be no more flowers left to pick), but unless you have the skill, you can't get a professional-quality flower arrangement for free, nor should you expect to. You can sample a grape at the grocery store, but if you want the whole bunch you have to buy it. Same for if you want a salad containing grapes (either buy the grapes and make the salad, or buy the salad). You're confusing constituent pieces (musical notes and words, for lack of any better way to break up a song) versus a complete product (a finished song or album). I can see a case being made for filesharing to "preview" an album (although most online places where you can buy CDs also allow you to sample those CDs, as do many brick&mortar stores). However, it's a very easy step from "I'll just download this one song to see if I like it" to "I'll just download this whole CD, because I don't want to pay for it". (Let's not make this an argument about CD prices -- yes, they could and should be lower. If you don't like that, vote with your money and don't buy. However, that doesn't give you the right to then go and steal the music anyway.)
Isn't this a fucking democracy?
Nope. It's a republic. You vote for people you think will represent your views properly, but that does not mean that they will. And if they don't, then you don't vote for them again.
I don't want to go to jail for pirating the new Pearl Jam or Queens of the Stone Age albums. I bought them anyway, but since I didn't clean them from my WinMX serving directory, i'm technically abetting piracy.
Simple solution -- clean those out of your WinMX directory. Quick, simple, and saves you from a trip to the big house.
I don't think I deserve it. I don't think my crime is that bad.
Nobody ever does. On the upside, you'll fit in very well in prison, where everybody's innocent.
I don't think that I'm depriving anyone of actual property or actual money they might have actually made, and I don't think the majority would argue with me.
Possibly true, but then probably not. If you've downloaded more than a couple songs on an album and kept them around without buying that album, then they've lost a sale (apparently you like the songs if you keep them around and still listen to them, and you would've bought the album if you couldn't just steal the songs). Maybe you didn't have the money to buy the CD, but then that doesn't give you the right to just steal the music. ("Your honor, I was flat broke but I needed a car, so I just took one from the lot. I felt I was entitled to it because I couldn't afford one and I really needed it.")
I think the first issue is the cost of keeping those machines up to date.
Did you not read what the original poster said? It wasn't "Why switch?", but "Why switch now?" If the library is already running Win2K, then they have
Paid-for licenses, and
Beefy enough hardware for it.
Given that, switching now is a waste of money (even if the switch costs $0, they've still wasted money on Win2K licenses). It serves no purpose but to promote a zealot agenda, and as a Seattle taxpayer, I would prefer my money be spent on better things.
The second is what the machines are supposed to be doing. If it's just surfing the web, emails, and basic word processing then you should be able to do this much cheaper than paying the annual MS tax.
I don't know where you work, but unless you're paying for a yearly service contract, you're not paying yearly for your license (some LORGs may have special licensing deals with MSFT that require yearly payments, but most businesses aren't LORGs), and especially not with Win2K (whether or not this will change in the future will have no effect on already-purchased licenses, of course). So, unless you're doing funky accounting (amortizing the cost of Windows 2000 licenses across the expected lifetime of the OS, for example), you don't have a yearly "MS tax" to pay. The licenses are already purchased, nothing more needs to be paid.
A terminal server like setup would allow you to use cheaper boxes at the front. (Maybe you could put out 10 more boxes with the savings in hardware and software.)
Well, the hardware's already purchased it seems. However, if they wanted to go with thin clients, you can do that just as well with Windows, so since they already have the licenses...
Finally, it'll discourage the script kiddies. When Joe Jr. goes to logon and use his floppy disk with the latest priviledge elevating holes in Windows they'll be stuck at step one.
Why even bother providing a floppy drive? Okay, so you change that to "When Joe Jr. goes to logon and use his CD-R with the latest priviledge elevating holes..." Still, it doesn't matter. It's apparent that you're not a Windows sysadmin (not a dig, just the truth -- unix admins don't always make good nt admins, especially when they have preconceptions about how "terrible" windows is), or you would realize that the reason most people get into trouble with nt4/win2k/winxp is because they run as administrator 24/7. You wouldn't do that with root in unix, so why do it in Windows? Anyway, you can very effectively lock down Win2k, and as long as you stay on top of security patches, you'll be just as secure as linux (where the same applies -- lock down your users and stay on top of security patches).
we are going to need to figure out how to keep cables from breaking in *much* colder regions (dark side of the moon).
As long as we're talking about imaginary places, what does it matter if we have a real solution? Just make something up, and it'll work, because there's no such place as the "dark side of the moon". (Or, at least, it's not a fixed place, so while some part of the moon is always dark, it's not always the same spot, just as with Earth and other planets.)
I used to think that we should be using Smalltalk instead of Java, but then I learned a little more about Scheme and think we should be using Scheme.
Smalltalk would've done just as well at levelling the playing field, and would have the same set of drawbacks as Java (only uses a single type of programming paradigm, that being object-oriented, it's garbage collected, etc). Scheme has the same benefits as Smalltalk re: being an equalizer, and you can massage it so that you can write code using multiple paradigms (Scheme's natively functional, but you can treat it as a procedural language, or you can mimic OOP by message passing). Plus, it really helps to drill in the concepts of recursion. And on top of all of that, it's really not a difficult language to get into, so you won't be spending most of your class time dealing with the language itself rather than core CS concepts.
The problem that I've seen is some universities have moved entirely to Java and Scheme and other garbage collected languages and we've had some pretty baaad job canidates from there who know absolutely nothing about memory management.:/
Intro classes like 125 should never be designed to give a student "real-world useful" skills. Instead, it's an introduction to core CS concepts (simple data structures, programming paradigms, recursion, just to name a few). Therefore, I don't think it's a problem having your intro class use a managed language. Now, at some point, you should use something like C or C++, simply to teach about memory management (I guess you could some of that from 232, comp arch II, but when I took it they were using MIPS assembly, which you'll probably rarely use anymore). Most of the problems that Java 125 people had when moving to 225 (before it became a Java class, too) was that they had no clue about pointers. That's what 223 was for, originally. It was a software lab that transitioned you from Scheme in the 125 intro to the C++ you'd need for 225 data structures. They got rid of 223 before moving 225 to Java, and that caused a hell of a lot of problems (they should've kept 223, and left 225 in C++, but oh well).
Eh? XP is not a server. That's either Windows 2000 Server, or Windows.NET Server (though why they would have classes for an operating system that isn't released yet, I don't know), but not "Windows Server XP". There's no such thing at all. Windows XP Home is for home users; Windows XP Pro is for workstations. There are no other versions of XP (well, there's that new Media Center version coming out soon, but you can't get it separate from specific computers, and there's XP Embedded coming soon too, but that's not for desktops or servers).
This is nothing new. For quite some time, every CS Freshman at UIUC was issued a free copy of MS Visual Studio.
Hrm. Not quite. For a year (97-98 school year? 98-99? Don't recall), they gave away free copies of Visual J++, but not Visual Studio proper. After that year, they switched back to a unix environment using Sun's JDK. Of course, the proper change would've been to switch CS125 back to scheme (check the usenet archives for uiuc.cs.undergrad if you can find them, circa 99-2000, for my arguments against the whole java switch crap). Luckily, I was always at least a semester ahead of the change, and so had CS125 (intro) in scheme, CS223 (C++ software lab) and 225 in C++ (data structures), CS348 (AI) in Lisp, CS323 (operating systems) in C++ (using Nachos), etc. Last I checked, all of those (except 223, which went away) are now in Java (323 may not be -- I know they tried it in Java, but they may actually have seen the light and switched back to Nachos). I actually graduated with exactly one class in Java -- the CS110j elective I took to waste some hours. I feel I'm better for it, because where I work, we do no java, but we do use a lot of C++ (and soon, C#). Scheme in CS125 really levelled the playing field (who goes into college knowing Scheme? now compare that to the number of people that go into college knowing Java, and you can see that this "intro" class is going to be boring for the people that already know Java, and more difficult for those that don't because they're trying to catch up to those that do. nevermind the fact that you'll be focusing more on the language than the concepts that should be learned...). Lisp in 348 was a natural fit for AI. And so on.
Just up front, let me admit that I really don't know too much about this area. I mean, I know what mufflers do, and where they're mounted, and a tiny tiny bit about how the various sounds are generated by obstructing, restricting, or freeing the flow of air (among other things). I'm simply not very knowledgeable in the area as a whole, because I've never had/wanted to replace a muffler on any car I've owned, yet.
I think a similar case can likely be made for aftermarket exhausts for upscale German cars. No, the average teen "boy racer" with his Honda CRX covered in stickers just wants something LOUD -- but there are more sophisiticated car owners into performance, too.
I'm the owner of a (admittedly lower-end) high-performance German car, and I haven't thought about performance mods yet. Maybe it's because I'm still relatively knew (I've had the car only a few months now) to this, I don't know. For the moment, I'm happy with the performance and exhaust note of my car. In fact, I'd be a little afraid that changing up my exhaust system to gain some more performance would sacrifice the unique tone of my current muffler, and I wouldn't want to lose that. Then again, you're right -- if I could increase the performance of my car while at the very least keeping my current exhaust note (if not making it even sweeter, though that's subjective and I'd have to have the whole system installed before I could tell whether I like the sound or not, and that's expensive), I'd be all over that. Of course, the tailpipe on my car is rather distinctive, as well, and i wouldn't want to lose the look either.
For the past few years, I have been seriously considered starting my own muffler manufacturing business. Provide an actual product, one that makes the world a better, quieter place, at a reasonable cost that actually performs as advertised.
I hope you're not planning on marketing to the boy-racer or performance segments of the muffler market, because "quieter" just won't do. Come to think of it, unless you get a contract with an automobile manufacturer, I doubt you'll sell many of your quieter mufflers. For most people, their stock muffler is "good enough", and they don't notice the noise. For those who actively replace their mufflers, it's a 50/50 split between getting better sound, and getting better performance, and those that want better performance tend to also want a better (read "louder") sound. So that leaves you with the segment of the market that is people replacing mufflers because they have to do so (their current muffler is old or broken or otherwise due for replacement), and most of them will very likely just use the stock manufacturer part for their car.
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Sounds like you need to run Windows Update and actually install all of the updates. You're right, XP does have a reboot issue out of the box on some hardware, but IIRC that was fixed almost as soon as XP launched (last year!). As for why you're getting crashes, it would be helpful to know what software you're running. As long as we're comparing anecdotal evidence, let me just say that the only reason I've had XP crash was because of video drivers and poorly-written games. For normal business stuff (IE, Office, Visual Studio, et al), I've never had a crash that wasn't attributable to my own idiotic coding (and again, that was from playing around with OpenGL while using beta video drivers ...).
Way to go moderators! How is the above a troll? I pointed out that, of the two major reasons to look at Tenebrae, the submitter missed one (the more important of the two, imho), while at the same time glommed on to the idea of transparent water, which was available almost immediately after glquake was released (what, 1997? 98?). Vis-patched water == old news. Per-pixel lighting and stencil-buffered shadows == new stuff. So why did the submitter ignore the new shadowing methods and point out the vis-patched water? As for the rest, it's a legitimate gripe about other posters to the article.
But now I'm going to be modded off-topic, so why do I even bother?
From the Tenebrae FAQ (which is probably slashdotted by now, but luckily I have it sitting in my squid cache from visiting this earlier today thanks to Blue's News):
Therefore, if you want to get Zerstorer working, it shouldn't take much. Good luck, and if you get it working let others know.
Way to go submitter! You picked up on the per-pixel lighting enhancement (one of two things new in this mod), but got blinded by the vis-patched water that has been around since 1997 or so. The other important enhancement here is the stencil-buffered shadows (yeah, yeah, glquake had shadows, if you enabled them, but they were pathetic things. these shadows are nice). The point is that these two things (stencil-buffered shadows and per-pixel lighting) are two of the major enhancements coming in the Doom3 engine, and yet somebody was able to hack the old Quake1 engine to do them just as well. Sure, the visual quality isn't the same, thanks to limitations of the engine (old technology, simply can't push as many triangles as the newer engines, even if you do throw hardware at it), but that's mostly from a lack of triangles in models and scenes.
As for those who say this is a waste of time because it doesn't enhance gameplay, all I can say is "play it". The changed lighting adds new depth to the game. Okay, so it's not a huge change. So what? This is mostly a technology demo than anything else. I don't understand how some people can get off on stupid things like putting a switch into a teddy bear (how useless is that?), yet they can't understand why someone would modify an old engine to do per-pixel lighting and stencil-buffered shadows.
The final sprite was the flame in torches and such. So, water bubbles, explosions, and fires. Absolutely everything else was polygonal.
This just proves that /.'ers aren't as different from others (non-geeks, non-techies, non-however-you-happen-to-identify-yourself) as they like to think they are. In the "Real World" (ie, that thing outside of your bedroom, not on the internet or tied to some computer somewhere), people routinely feel that the law should apply to others and not themselves, and rarely (if ever!) take responsibility for their actions. Ever heard a bleeding-heart liberal cry, "There should be a law!"? Or a soccer mom complaining because the schools don't do a good enough job of babysitting her kids? That is (American) society, and it sucks. Many /.'ers complain about it, yet as we see with this article, they fall into the exact same traps. It may be different circumstances, but the ideas and actions are the same -- "I'm above the law" "The law only applies to criminals, and I'm not a criminal" "It's their fault for not locking their door/car/computer, not mine for breaking into it."
You're obviously living in the past. You're discussing Terminal Server circa NT4 (or older!), while I'm discussing what's been happening recently with TS. It's a well-known and documented fact that, for Fast User Switching in Windows XP, it's essentially implemented by having each login at the console spawn a TS session. You don't really notice it when you only have one session going at a time, but load up a couple users on your system, then login with one, switch out, login with another, switch out, do it again, switch out, and notice that all of those previous logins are still there, keeping their state, running their background processes, etc. Don't be confused by Windows XP calling it "Remote Desktop". It's still Terminal Server. (Caveat: Fast User Switching doesn't work if you're connected to a Domain, rather than a Workgroup or a stand-alone machine)
I've not worked with it extensively, but nearly all of my testing and debugging work is done via Terminal Server (especially when I have to go in and debug production or pre-production machines), so yes, I've worked with it. Some things could be better (it sucks when you get a popup on session 0 (the console), and can't see it with a different session, but I'm under the impression that's being fixed). Terminal Server circa Windows 2000 was much better than in NT4, and XP's version is much better than Windows 2000's (XP adds lots of fancy stuff, like 16bpp color, sounds over the wire, and more-granular options to reduce bandwidth usage, but there are other enhancements "under the covers" as well). Think on it this way -- if we were discussing the linux kernel, and you were referring to the very latest 2.4.x version while I kept going back and complaining about 2.0.x, you'd have problems, right? Same thing here -- as with all software, Terminal Server has evolved over time.
And SQL Server was based on code not written by Microsoft (based on Sybase or something like that, I'm to lazy to go look it up right now), but while SQL Server 6 was similar to the original product, SQL Server 2000 is a completely different animal. Internet Explorer was based on Mosaic way back in the day, and version 1 and 2 weren't very much different from Mosaic. However, you surely can't claim IE6 (or hell, even IE3!) is in any way similar to Mosaic, regardless of its origins. In other words -- red herring. When Microsoft buys software, they don't just let it stagnate (well, unless, after purchasing it, they determine that there's no point in continuing with the software). They continue to improve and enhance the software.
No, Windows 9x wasn't designed to do that. Perhaps NT 3.x wasn't designed to do that. NT4 at least had the capacity to do so, though it may not have been very mature. Windows 2000 supports it quite well. XP does, too. Windows .NET will be even better. And so it goes, as software evolves.
My friends working in the Terminal Server group would be pretty surprised to hear that. And I really can't see Microsoft using a "hack on top of a kludge" as a core piece of their current OS. (when you log into XP, even at the console, guess what? You're using terminal server.)
For NT4 and 2K, you need to specifically add "at the console", because you can have as many people logged in remotely as you have licenses. For XP you're correct, but all I can say here is ... so? XP isn't a server. It obviously has multi-user support, since you can have multiple console sessions going (though only one can be directly active, the others can and will do things in the background). You're limited on your remote access capabilities, but that's obviously because it's a workstation and not a server. Microsoft doesn't want you to try using XP as the hub for a thin-client system just yet (use NT4, 2K, or wait for .NET).
I feel the same way. The RIAA needs to pull their heads out of their asses and realize the potential of digitally-distributed media. They haven't yet, but they still might. Until then, it's still not okay to steal music. (I think there's a distinction to be made between previewing a couple songs with the intention of buying vs. downloading the music without ever even considering purchase at all. and bootlegs and live songs are a whole other issue ...) How can you get the RIAA to do this? I don't know. But you could try boycotting their albums, writing them to let them know you're doing so, and make clear that you're not downloading their music (and don't download their music), but that you would be willing to lift your boycott if they would come up with an online distribution story that's acceptable (say, high-quality, no distorting watermarks, the ability to use the song on any of your mp3-enabled devices (assuming mp3 is the method of distribution, or you could specify a format you'd prefer -- perhaps provide multiple formats) and not tied to a single machine, etc). Get others to do the same, and when it reaches critical mass the RIAA may finally realize they've got a problem. And if they don't, well, there's a pantload of good music on independent labels out there. Maybe you can find something you enjoy out of that instead.
You miss the point. By voting with your money and not buying the CDs, you're not given the right to listen to the music anyway. Boycotting the music (and making the companies aware you're doing so) is an effective form of protest. Boycotting buying the CDs but still downloading the music just makes you a criminal.
You're right that there are plenty of people that would be willing to pay the artists directly, and in many cases that's doable (or at least, you can pay smaller labels, which oftentimes were created by the authors themselves). There a whole bunch of artists on Mp3.com that offer music directly to you for money. However, until the large labels get in gear, you're not going to find the big name acts. Oh well, boycott those as well. Again, you don't have the right to download that music anyway. If there's an artist or band you're interested in that doesn't offer their music online, try contacting them. Maybe they're contractually obligated, or maybe they just haven't thought to do that. Or maybe if you can get the artists to put pressure on the labels from the inside, while customers pressure them from the outside, they might see the light. But don't ruin it by obtaining illegal copies, because the labels will then just point their fingers and say, "Look, he's not boycotting our music, he just doesn't want to pay money for music. He's a thief, and good riddance."
Not quite. That's analogous to normal advertising vs. online ads. In the first case, they're just advertising to create a brand (or playing a song to create a band). In the second, if they don't get a click through, then the ad "failed". You're trying to equate playing a song on the radio to the latter, which is wrong -- radio play is designed to just get the songs out there so you know them. Maybe you buy the CD, maybe not, but that's not the immediate goal.
No, if you you walk past a CD in the record store, then you weren't interested in it. If you stop, pick up the CD, look it over, really consider buying it, but then put it back because you can get a copy from your friend or the internet, then a sale is lost.
Only if you were seriously considering buying it in the first place.
My point was not that downloading a song or two was causing the labels to lose sales. The point is that if you download a number of songs from an album, and keep them around and listen to them a fair amount, but you don't then buy the album, then a sale was lost -- you're obviously interested in the album, and you're listening to the music, but you didn't buy the album.
That's cool. That's what mp3 sharing should be about, finding new stuff that you may or may not like (or finding a couple more songs by an artist when you already like one song, to see if buying the album is worth it, or if there's only that one good song). That's cool, and you're not going to get busted (remember, there's a monetary minimum here, too, and downloading a couple songs for previewing purposes won't get anywhere near that). The problem is the people that, rather than buying the album when they like some of the songs, just download all the songs from the album and burn it themselves. A similar example would be the people that rent DVDs from Blockbuster, rip them to their PC, and burn them down to VCDs (or burn them onto DVD-Rs, if they have them). They apparently like the movie enough to want to have it, but don't actually buy the movie. That's theft, in my book, though I'm fine with calling it a "lost sale".
As far as previewing music goes, more and more places are getting the clue. Most online music stores (CDNow.com, Tower Records, etc) allow you to preview tracks from CDs you're considering, so that you can get an idea of what some of the tracks on the CD sound like before you buy. A number of brick&mortar stores will let you listen to a couple CDs as well (not just the "listening station" things, either -- many stores let you actually open up a CD or already have one open you can listen to). Because of that, it seems to me that filesharing is becoming more and more the domain of people that just want the music for free, rather than those that just want to preview some stuff before they buy.
I never said it was. I said there was such a product for NT4 back in the day. Win2K has Pro, Server, Advanced Server, and Data Center (big iron). Most people will be using Pro or Server. Both have Terminal Services.
Can you define what you mean here? For example, Win2K (and all NT-based Windows) have a very fine-grained ACL system that allows you to provide different levels of access to different users and groups of users. While this is changing in Linux with new filesystems like XFS, ext2fs (and I would assume by extension ext3, though I've not used it and I don't know what ACL system has been bodged on) has no real ACL system. You're left with just the standard unix permission system (user, group, other), which is anything but fine-grained. If you're talking about concurrent users, then you have more of a point, though XP has changed this by allowing more than one user to be logged on at the console (research Fast User Switching), and with the use of Terminal Services you can have as many sessions as you're willing to pay for (Microsoft is a business, so don't complain when they try to make money. Complain about other things, because I'm sure you can find a lot).
In this you are correct, though all Microsoft apps work properly these days, and to get certified for the XP logo, third-party apps have to support Fast User Switching (ie, be able to allow multiple users running the app at the same time). Sure, you may still need to be administrator to install software, but how is that any different than unix? (okay, sure, you can install software under $HOME, but in general most people will just become root and install software that way.) Yes, this is something that needs work, but it's being worked on. It's not a shortcoming of Windows so much as it's a shortcoming of having to support 15 years of legacy apps.
"Easy" is relative. What may be easy to you, because you're a unix user, may not seem easy to someone else, and vice versa. A good test is to ask a unix admin to script some commonly-used task (say, resetting a bunch of user passwords) on a Windows system, and ask a windows admin to do the same on a unix system. Your Unix admin will be stumped because he doesn't know that he needs to use a certain COM object in some vbscript or jscript code, and your Windows admin will be stumped because he doesn't think to just script up passwd or write a tiny bit of perl or whatever. As far as being a non programmer, well, many so-called "non programmers" have actually written javascript for a website, and if they know javascript, then they can pick up WSH jscript. For a true "non programmer", both approaches are non-intuitive and will take work to learn, but c'est la vie.
I disagree. As long as people are interested in migrating, the distro developers will continue to work on migration stories so that it will actually be easier to migrate tomorrow rather than today. I'd venture to guess that you're talking about people getting locked into Windows software, but I'd be willing to bet that these people already are in the sense that they know how to use Windows, Office, etc. Therefore, switching today or tomorrow doesn't really matter, because you're still going to have to retrain. Switching tomorrow allows you to get another day out of the licenses you've already paid for, so you may as well do that. When you next need to upgrade, then consider the options. (you're not going to trade up the car you got last month because fuel cells just became efficient, reliable, and robust (making up an example) and cars using them have all the features of a combustible engined car. you're going to wait a couple years to get the most utility out of the car you just purchased, and then think about getting that alternatively fueled car when you're ready for a new one. <gratuitous>unless you're a hippy, of course.</gratuitous>).
FUD, and not worth a response.
As of Win2K, TS has been provided in all versions of NT, not just the server versions. And how am I wrong when you say yourself that "only remote administration is free"? With Pro, you're allowed at least one (probably no more than one, either) remote connection, which is "good enough" to remotely administer the box. With the server versions, you generally get some number of licenses (5, 10, 15, check your license) by default. So, like I said, unless you're doing thin-client computing, you generally don't need to worry about licensing costs.
You're confusing the old NT 4 Terminal Server edition with the product Terminal Server. Terminal Server (the product) is distributed with all versions of Windows 2000 and Windows XP, and unless you're making multiple connections to the machine (or making more connections than you have licenses for your server version), you don't need to worry about licensing issues. If you're doing thin-client computing, then sure, that's something you need to worry about. For remote administration, I think you'll find that the functionality provided by Terminal Services without any extra licenses is "good enough".
No, no it's not. Let's be clear here -- we're discussing Windows 2000. You'd be correct if this discussion was about the Win9x line, but it's not and never was.
Wrong again. Microsoft Terminal Services comes with NT4 (server versions), Win2K (all versions), and Windows XP (all versions, though XP isn't a server OS). It will also be available in the upcoming Windows.NET. And it's free (well, there are some licensing issues you may need to work out, but you really only need to worry about that if you're trying to run thin clients. if you just need to remotely admin some machines, you should be fine without buying any special licenses). As well, WMI allows you to write scripts that can run on one machine and do work on another, so you don't even have to bother with a terminal server session.
As are Windows 2000 and Windows XP and the upcoming Windows.NET. (NT4 was network-aware as well, but not TCP/IP natively, so that's fine. However, it was still multi-user.)
What additional software would this be? Because I can effect pretty much any changes I want with a bit of wscript code (vbscript, jscript, or perlscript, you choose) utilizing WMI and other COM interfaces. This is where most Unix admins get screwed up in Windows -- the automation model is different. In Unix, you typically either pipe commands together via shell script, or write some perl to munge things. In Windows, you have command script which is not quite as powerful as bash but suffices for many things, and you have the Windows Scripting Host. You can write code in vbscript, jscript, or perlscript (or if you want to get fancy, you can write your own dlls to support any language you wish). Rather than running small apps and messing with their stdout, you instead instantiate COM objects and work with those (You can do anything from accessing the filesystem to parsing XML to modifying user information and so on, given the proper privilege levels). In otherwords, Windows is just as scriptable as Unix, if not moreso, just in a completely different and alien way.
Perhaps, but I'm not arguing that, just as the original poster didn't. I'm arguing that they've already made the investment in Windows, they may as well get their money out of it for the next 3-4 years or so, at which point they might consider switching to Linux.
Depends on what you mean by "some of this", because you've always (? NT4 is the oldest I've used, but I'm sure this was a core design principle for NT since the beginning) been able to setup non-admin users, and when running as a normal user you can use runas to run something as administrator (say, an installer), similar to su. With Terminal Server, you can have multiple sessions on a machine (only one active at the console, though). The point is, there are methods available to do these things in Windows, and they have been available in one form or another since at least NT4. They don't always map one-to-one with unix, but if you know where to look you can generally figure out how to do things you need.
Your examples are bad. Sure, you can pick flowers for free in a public park (though watch out for the park rangers, and if everybody did this there would be no more flowers left to pick), but unless you have the skill, you can't get a professional-quality flower arrangement for free, nor should you expect to. You can sample a grape at the grocery store, but if you want the whole bunch you have to buy it. Same for if you want a salad containing grapes (either buy the grapes and make the salad, or buy the salad). You're confusing constituent pieces (musical notes and words, for lack of any better way to break up a song) versus a complete product (a finished song or album). I can see a case being made for filesharing to "preview" an album (although most online places where you can buy CDs also allow you to sample those CDs, as do many brick&mortar stores). However, it's a very easy step from "I'll just download this one song to see if I like it" to "I'll just download this whole CD, because I don't want to pay for it". (Let's not make this an argument about CD prices -- yes, they could and should be lower. If you don't like that, vote with your money and don't buy. However, that doesn't give you the right to then go and steal the music anyway.)
Nope. It's a republic. You vote for people you think will represent your views properly, but that does not mean that they will. And if they don't, then you don't vote for them again.
Simple solution -- clean those out of your WinMX directory. Quick, simple, and saves you from a trip to the big house.
Nobody ever does. On the upside, you'll fit in very well in prison, where everybody's innocent.
Possibly true, but then probably not. If you've downloaded more than a couple songs on an album and kept them around without buying that album, then they've lost a sale (apparently you like the songs if you keep them around and still listen to them, and you would've bought the album if you couldn't just steal the songs). Maybe you didn't have the money to buy the CD, but then that doesn't give you the right to just steal the music. ("Your honor, I was flat broke but I needed a car, so I just took one from the lot. I felt I was entitled to it because I couldn't afford one and I really needed it.")
Did you not read what the original poster said? It wasn't "Why switch?", but "Why switch now?" If the library is already running Win2K, then they have
Given that, switching now is a waste of money (even if the switch costs $0, they've still wasted money on Win2K licenses). It serves no purpose but to promote a zealot agenda, and as a Seattle taxpayer, I would prefer my money be spent on better things.
I don't know where you work, but unless you're paying for a yearly service contract, you're not paying yearly for your license (some LORGs may have special licensing deals with MSFT that require yearly payments, but most businesses aren't LORGs), and especially not with Win2K (whether or not this will change in the future will have no effect on already-purchased licenses, of course). So, unless you're doing funky accounting (amortizing the cost of Windows 2000 licenses across the expected lifetime of the OS, for example), you don't have a yearly "MS tax" to pay. The licenses are already purchased, nothing more needs to be paid.
Well, the hardware's already purchased it seems. However, if they wanted to go with thin clients, you can do that just as well with Windows, so since they already have the licenses ...
Why even bother providing a floppy drive? Okay, so you change that to "When Joe Jr. goes to logon and use his CD-R with the latest priviledge elevating holes ..." Still, it doesn't matter. It's apparent that you're not a Windows sysadmin (not a dig, just the truth -- unix admins don't always make good nt admins, especially when they have preconceptions about how "terrible" windows is), or you would realize that the reason most people get into trouble with nt4/win2k/winxp is because they run as administrator 24/7. You wouldn't do that with root in unix, so why do it in Windows? Anyway, you can very effectively lock down Win2k, and as long as you stay on top of security patches, you'll be just as secure as linux (where the same applies -- lock down your users and stay on top of security patches).
As long as we're talking about imaginary places, what does it matter if we have a real solution? Just make something up, and it'll work, because there's no such place as the "dark side of the moon". (Or, at least, it's not a fixed place, so while some part of the moon is always dark, it's not always the same spot, just as with Earth and other planets.)
Smalltalk would've done just as well at levelling the playing field, and would have the same set of drawbacks as Java (only uses a single type of programming paradigm, that being object-oriented, it's garbage collected, etc). Scheme has the same benefits as Smalltalk re: being an equalizer, and you can massage it so that you can write code using multiple paradigms (Scheme's natively functional, but you can treat it as a procedural language, or you can mimic OOP by message passing). Plus, it really helps to drill in the concepts of recursion. And on top of all of that, it's really not a difficult language to get into, so you won't be spending most of your class time dealing with the language itself rather than core CS concepts.
Intro classes like 125 should never be designed to give a student "real-world useful" skills. Instead, it's an introduction to core CS concepts (simple data structures, programming paradigms, recursion, just to name a few). Therefore, I don't think it's a problem having your intro class use a managed language. Now, at some point, you should use something like C or C++, simply to teach about memory management (I guess you could some of that from 232, comp arch II, but when I took it they were using MIPS assembly, which you'll probably rarely use anymore). Most of the problems that Java 125 people had when moving to 225 (before it became a Java class, too) was that they had no clue about pointers. That's what 223 was for, originally. It was a software lab that transitioned you from Scheme in the 125 intro to the C++ you'd need for 225 data structures. They got rid of 223 before moving 225 to Java, and that caused a hell of a lot of problems (they should've kept 223, and left 225 in C++, but oh well).
Eh? XP is not a server. That's either Windows 2000 Server, or Windows .NET Server (though why they would have classes for an operating system that isn't released yet, I don't know), but not "Windows Server XP". There's no such thing at all. Windows XP Home is for home users; Windows XP Pro is for workstations. There are no other versions of XP (well, there's that new Media Center version coming out soon, but you can't get it separate from specific computers, and there's XP Embedded coming soon too, but that's not for desktops or servers).
Hrm. Not quite. For a year (97-98 school year? 98-99? Don't recall), they gave away free copies of Visual J++, but not Visual Studio proper. After that year, they switched back to a unix environment using Sun's JDK. Of course, the proper change would've been to switch CS125 back to scheme (check the usenet archives for uiuc.cs.undergrad if you can find them, circa 99-2000, for my arguments against the whole java switch crap). Luckily, I was always at least a semester ahead of the change, and so had CS125 (intro) in scheme, CS223 (C++ software lab) and 225 in C++ (data structures), CS348 (AI) in Lisp, CS323 (operating systems) in C++ (using Nachos), etc. Last I checked, all of those (except 223, which went away) are now in Java (323 may not be -- I know they tried it in Java, but they may actually have seen the light and switched back to Nachos). I actually graduated with exactly one class in Java -- the CS110j elective I took to waste some hours. I feel I'm better for it, because where I work, we do no java, but we do use a lot of C++ (and soon, C#). Scheme in CS125 really levelled the playing field (who goes into college knowing Scheme? now compare that to the number of people that go into college knowing Java, and you can see that this "intro" class is going to be boring for the people that already know Java, and more difficult for those that don't because they're trying to catch up to those that do. nevermind the fact that you'll be focusing more on the language than the concepts that should be learned ...). Lisp in 348 was a natural fit for AI. And so on.
Just up front, let me admit that I really don't know too much about this area. I mean, I know what mufflers do, and where they're mounted, and a tiny tiny bit about how the various sounds are generated by obstructing, restricting, or freeing the flow of air (among other things). I'm simply not very knowledgeable in the area as a whole, because I've never had/wanted to replace a muffler on any car I've owned, yet.
I'm the owner of a (admittedly lower-end) high-performance German car, and I haven't thought about performance mods yet. Maybe it's because I'm still relatively knew (I've had the car only a few months now) to this, I don't know. For the moment, I'm happy with the performance and exhaust note of my car. In fact, I'd be a little afraid that changing up my exhaust system to gain some more performance would sacrifice the unique tone of my current muffler, and I wouldn't want to lose that. Then again, you're right -- if I could increase the performance of my car while at the very least keeping my current exhaust note (if not making it even sweeter, though that's subjective and I'd have to have the whole system installed before I could tell whether I like the sound or not, and that's expensive), I'd be all over that. Of course, the tailpipe on my car is rather distinctive, as well, and i wouldn't want to lose the look either.
I hope you're not planning on marketing to the boy-racer or performance segments of the muffler market, because "quieter" just won't do. Come to think of it, unless you get a contract with an automobile manufacturer, I doubt you'll sell many of your quieter mufflers. For most people, their stock muffler is "good enough", and they don't notice the noise. For those who actively replace their mufflers, it's a 50/50 split between getting better sound, and getting better performance, and those that want better performance tend to also want a better (read "louder") sound. So that leaves you with the segment of the market that is people replacing mufflers because they have to do so (their current muffler is old or broken or otherwise due for replacement), and most of them will very likely just use the stock manufacturer part for their car.