Like a dictionary to a spoken language, a standards process can only stagnate a programming language. Its the use of either kind of language that matters - Java is used, C# is not (or is that.not?). In any case, Java programmers quietly know that the Sun JVM is not their only option and happily code away. C# programmers wonder which way Microsoft will shaft them next.
Microsoft are attempting to push the price of Rational up to either bust the deal or create fear and confusion in the Java market. The Borland thing is just to add credibility by appearing to have a contingency plan. Basically, they are terrified of an IBM armed with Rational dev tools and Java - a certain.NET killer.
Before any of you americans start quoting your constitution, please remember that this is Denmark and the law is different there. Why not wait and see what happens first, eh?
You seem to underestimate the importance of the mobile phone industry. The European and Asian markets for these devices makes the PC industry look like a kids pissing game. This is a big mess for Microsoft and they know it.
I am indeed not a perl programmer, but only because I believe that code has a life beyond its original developer. I have maintained a large body (corpse?) of perl in the past. Most of it was designed and written by a very clever person who certainly knew his stuff. Now, this is definately a perl thing, because his C was perfectly readable even by our most junior coders.
When the original developer left his job, no-one could penetrate the perl he had written. It took us weeks just to make simple changes without breaking everything. In the end, the managment decided to let us re-write it to improve long-term productivity. The end result? Even our most junior programmers could make meaningful contributions, resulting in faster development, bug fixing and ultimately satisfaction all round.
Now I am thinking about it, in my current company we once had to throw out the perl written by a particular person - and he claimed to write elegant code, too. In all my years, I have never seen this happen to C.
Perl gurus, don't forget that you are few and we are many. Look to the bell-curve - the owners of your output do.
Perl looks like an explosion in an ASCII factory - who is really going to miss it? Certainly not anyone who has had to maintain stuff written by someone who was trying to protect their job!
installed base and skill set inertia have blocked this transition
There is a good reason for this and the survival of hierarchical DBMS's; the simple fact that most people understand and make least mistakes in hierarchical models. Is it not unsurprising to find that people like to use tools that allow them to solve their problems in the way they actually think? Most are happy not to get bogged down in the details of precisely which minor disadvantage they are suffering from because by the time they have worked it out they have missed their deadline.
That is why our products have been selling for over 20 years in the UK - we recognise that hierarchies exist and everything else is related to them.
As for XML; it's perfect for import and export from a hierarchical DBMS and therefore lends itself admirably to programmers who like straightforward solutions.
I forgot to add that the proceeds of the licence bids should also go to the charities - and that I meant single parents, rather than just single mothers... oops.
My particular choice of charities is, of course, illustrative.
It seems to me that Tim was simply pointing out his, and our, future dilemmmas: What will happen to the market place that I work in? Are my skills transferrable?
Well, I think there may be a way of preserving the benefits of the consistency (a word chosen to not imply any particular level of quality) of Windows while punishing MS for their actions:
They should be forced to surrender 9x, NT and Office to a rotating licence system. Every, say - four years, an auction is held for each of them and the 'best' offer gets to carry the product forward. MS should be broken up completely and auctioned off, the proceeds going to *international* charities covering the homeless, single mothers, victims of child abuse, famine and disease (yes, a large chunk of MS's worth came from outside the US - 'payback time' as the Americans put it).
The offers would have to include detailed manifestos that must be adhered to (preferably by law). The final twist? The winners could be decided by the registered users using an online voting system.
I am sure that a consortium of interested parties from the gaming and home user fraternity would like to take on 9x... and then this argument would be in vain.
Why bother? The only advantage to yourself is to enrage the cracker community. They *enjoy* having that knowledge to themselves. When it is discovered, it is usually by someone in the security industry having that same intuitive leap that the craker has already had... automating the process of discovering vulnerabilities only reduces the thrill of the chase and the craft of the detection. Jobs depend on it!
The problem as I see it is this: american society will allow the creation of such a dangerous scheme in the first place. In Europe, we have learned that lesson. Just try it over here - you won't even get a hearing in a pub. If you want to help the troubled children of america, don't turn them in. Be friends with them. Chances are, they are more intelligent than you.
Absolutely correct. This can be seen both ways in the form of newsprint - how about television, then? There are programmes and adverts in between (if you are not watching the BBC, of course). Thing is, neither programme makers nor advertisers are allowed to issue libels and the broadcasters are not allowed to knowingly propagate them. All seems fair to me!
Quite. The important thing to remember is that Demon actually did the right thing. By settling out of court, they actually *avoided* making the legal precedent. If Netbenefit were worried about the legal ramifications of the Demon case, they were not being advised correctly by thier lawyers. What this means is that their lawyers were basing their viewpoint on existing libel legislation. Simply put - they would get a very public legal hammering if they did not heed the threat (just like Demon). In this case too, they are doing the right thing because it is preferrable to setting the legal precedent.
Demon settled out of court because they failed to remove a defamatory posting when requested - admittedly, the man deserved it. But Demon failed to remove the posting at the request of the complainant and they paid the price like any other carrier of libels would in this country. (I am a Demon subscriber, BTW). Whether that libel was invited, deserved, petty, or not, is irrelevant. The problem was Demon's inaction.
What NetBenefit have done is different - they have received a legal threat concerning potential libels and are asserting their right to protect themselves against the actions of others. If they were a newspaper, it would be a case of 'we will not run your advert until you assure us that we won't get sued becuause of you'.
Neither of these problems present me with any difficulties because I understand the nature of a libel. It is illegal in this country to distribute a libel - and ISP's are subject to that law.
Take a close look at the AUP's of UK IPS's - they will explicitly state their rights to pull sites that contain libellious, slanderous or other material that contravenes the law. Now look at the AUP's of UK newspapers (re: advertising and other public access mechanisms) - they look very similiar, do they not?
All you Americans should try to understand that in the rest of the world, what one says and publishes and *is party to* is important. In other words, we are bound by law to think before we open our mouths, unlike you. (ooh - defamatory comments!).
I am now absolutely certain that america has definitively demonstrated it's collective stupidity. Besides the plain fact that this system is both abusive and will be abused, it is a commercial operation! america has finally sold it's children. It's strange really, because the ones you can make the most money out of are the more promising ones. For this, I shall punish america by dropping it's capital 'A' - it no longer deserves the recognition as a word of importance any more - even at the beginning of a sentence. Fellow non-americans, I hope you will carry out this sentence at least until they stop this madness.
Slashdot Mirror
Like a dictionary to a spoken language, a standards process can only stagnate a programming language. Its the use of either kind of language that matters - Java is used, C# is not (or is that .not?). In any case, Java programmers quietly know that the Sun JVM is not their only option and happily code away. C# programmers wonder which way Microsoft will shaft them next.
...is not going to be the friendly melting pot it promised to be, after all.
That'll be Palladium, then.
Remember that Sun's offerings are the *reference* implementations. Correctness and purity before performance.
Also, does it not surprise you that the offerings of 2002 are bulky on (a poor example of an) operating system of 1998.
Microsoft are attempting to push the price of Rational up to either bust the deal or create fear and confusion in the Java market. The Borland thing is just to add credibility by appearing to have a contingency plan. Basically, they are terrified of an IBM armed with Rational dev tools and Java - a certain .NET killer.
What makes you think I am Danish?
It's Denmark, stupid. And don't be so rude about the Germans - a far more polite people than the americans.
See my previous posts regarding your capital 'A'.
Before any of you americans start quoting your constitution, please remember that this is Denmark and the law is different there. Why not wait and see what happens first, eh?
You seem to underestimate the importance of the mobile phone industry. The European and Asian markets for these devices makes the PC industry look like a kids pissing game. This is a big mess for Microsoft and they know it.
...a British manufacturer of mobile phones.
The article is humorous. Only two or three of the 500+ posters have noticed this. Stop it now before you all vanish up your arses.
...and my optical mice on two differet boxes.
BTW, the 'article' is an ironic piece. No-one seems to have noticed this though.
It wasn't intended as a troll, I can assure you!
I am indeed not a perl programmer, but only because I believe that code has a life beyond its original developer. I have maintained a large body (corpse?) of perl in the past. Most of it was designed and written by a very clever person who certainly knew his stuff. Now, this is definately a perl thing, because his C was perfectly readable even by our most junior coders.
When the original developer left his job, no-one could penetrate the perl he had written. It took us weeks just to make simple changes without breaking everything. In the end, the managment decided to let us re-write it to improve long-term productivity. The end result? Even our most junior programmers could make meaningful contributions, resulting in faster development, bug fixing and ultimately satisfaction all round.
Now I am thinking about it, in my current company we once had to throw out the perl written by a particular person - and he claimed to write elegant code, too. In all my years, I have never seen this happen to C.
Perl gurus, don't forget that you are few and we are many. Look to the bell-curve - the owners of your output do.
Perl looks like an explosion in an ASCII factory - who is really going to miss it? Certainly not anyone who has had to maintain stuff written by someone who was trying to protect their job!
I hope it withers on the vine.
That is why our products have been selling for over 20 years in the UK - we recognise that hierarchies exist and everything else is related to them.
As for XML; it's perfect for import and export from a hierarchical DBMS and therefore lends itself admirably to programmers who like straightforward solutions.
I forgot to add that the proceeds of the licence bids should also go to the charities - and that I meant single parents, rather than just single mothers... oops.
My particular choice of charities is, of course, illustrative.
Matt.
It seems to me that Tim was simply pointing out his, and our, future dilemmmas: What will happen to the market place that I work in? Are my skills transferrable?
Well, I think there may be a way of preserving the benefits of the consistency (a word chosen to not imply any particular level of quality) of Windows while punishing MS for their actions:
They should be forced to surrender 9x, NT and Office to a rotating licence system. Every, say - four years, an auction is held for each of them and the 'best' offer gets to carry the product forward. MS should be broken up completely and auctioned off, the proceeds going to *international* charities covering the homeless, single mothers, victims of child abuse, famine and disease (yes, a large chunk of MS's worth came from outside the US - 'payback time' as the Americans put it).
The offers would have to include detailed manifestos that must be adhered to (preferably by law). The final twist? The winners could be decided by the registered users using an online voting system.
I am sure that a consortium of interested parties from the gaming and home user fraternity would like to take on 9x... and then this argument would be in vain.
Matt.
Why bother? The only advantage to yourself is to enrage the cracker community. They *enjoy* having that knowledge to themselves. When it is discovered, it is usually by someone in the security industry having that same intuitive leap that the craker has already had... automating the process of discovering vulnerabilities only reduces the thrill of the chase and the craft of the detection. Jobs depend on it!
The problem as I see it is this: american society will allow the creation of such a dangerous scheme in the first place. In Europe, we have learned that lesson. Just try it over here - you won't even get a hearing in a pub. If you want to help the troubled children of america, don't turn them in. Be friends with them. Chances are, they are more intelligent than you.
Absolutely correct. This can be seen both ways in the form of newsprint - how about television, then? There are programmes and adverts in between (if you are not watching the BBC, of course). Thing is, neither programme makers nor advertisers are allowed to issue libels and the broadcasters are not allowed to knowingly propagate them. All seems fair to me!
I would like to point out that my previous post does not refer in any way to the post from 'Yaruar'.
Quite. The important thing to remember is that Demon actually did the right thing. By settling out of court, they actually *avoided* making the legal precedent. If Netbenefit were worried about the legal ramifications of the Demon case, they were not being advised correctly by thier lawyers. What this means is that their lawyers were basing their viewpoint on existing libel legislation. Simply put - they would get a very public legal hammering if they did not heed the threat (just like Demon). In this case too, they are doing the right thing because it is preferrable to setting the legal precedent.
Demon settled out of court because they failed to remove a defamatory posting when requested - admittedly, the man deserved it. But Demon failed to remove the posting at the request of the complainant and they paid the price like any other carrier of libels would in this country. (I am a Demon subscriber, BTW). Whether that libel was invited, deserved, petty, or not, is irrelevant. The problem was Demon's inaction.
What NetBenefit have done is different - they have received a legal threat concerning potential libels and are asserting their right to protect themselves against the actions of others. If they were a newspaper, it would be a case of 'we will not run your advert until you assure us that we won't get sued becuause of you'.
Neither of these problems present me with any difficulties because I understand the nature of a libel. It is illegal in this country to distribute a libel - and ISP's are subject to that law.
Take a close look at the AUP's of UK IPS's - they will explicitly state their rights to pull sites that contain libellious, slanderous or other material that contravenes the law. Now look at the AUP's of UK newspapers (re: advertising and other public access mechanisms) - they look very similiar, do they not?
All you Americans should try to understand that in the rest of the world, what one says and publishes and *is party to* is important. In other words, we are bound by law to think before we open our mouths, unlike you. (ooh - defamatory comments!).
I am now absolutely certain that america has definitively demonstrated it's collective stupidity. Besides the plain fact that this system is both abusive and will be abused, it is a commercial operation! america has finally sold it's children. It's strange really, because the ones you can make the most money out of are the more promising ones. For this, I shall punish america by dropping it's capital 'A' - it no longer deserves the recognition as a word of importance any more - even at the beginning of a sentence. Fellow non-americans, I hope you will carry out this sentence at least until they stop this madness.