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one rather unfortunate downside of capitalism; it only works when government has enough regulatory power to compell companies not to harm its citizens.
You assume it is actually the sole responsibility of government(s). But it is not necessarily so.
The other, and better, alternative is that society, as the consensual, self-regulating aggregate of its individual and corporate agents.
For example, if people are wise enough to refuse to do business with convicted monopolists, MS looses big.
>
WordPerfect has a number of functions with regard to advanced document formatting that Open Office.org, for all of its usefulness
For example?
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there's the ever-wonderful option to actually view the document code, and manually correct the hidden formatting bugs that inflict themselves on my Word and OpenOffice.org use from time to time.
That'd be great, and even more if make an OOo feature. Perhaps that's already in some whishlist? Only that OOo and KOffice have settled with supremely verbose and user-unfriendly XML as a file format... hopefully they're using CSS so as to make it better.
In the end, the fact is that we already have nearly good enough free software, a proprietary package won't add much now. We could use reveal codes and some document filters, but that's about it.
If it didn't fly when they tried first, had a focus on GNU/Linux and there was no OOo, it won't fly now probably.
>
in 1995 we will have a good operating system and programming language; the bad news is that they will be Unix and C++
So what?
It is not like Mac OS X is not Unix, and even in GNU/Linux C++ failed to catch. Witness that the few successfull free software C++ projects are heavily corporate-sponsored, like OpenOffice.org and Mozilla; KDE is not quite an exception, building on Qt. Sure we're nearer 2,005 than 1,995, but also we are more likely to jump directly from C to Java or C# than to get bogged down in C++.
Mac OS X is not significantly better, not having kept pushing OpenStep as an open platform Apple has failed to popularise its arguably better Objective C. It also uses heavily a C++ derivative, Java.
The one alternative vision here again is RMS's, trying to use GNU/Hurd as a stepping stone to give us back our Lisp future.
As for Unix, Mac OS X is Unix too. So arguably today's worse and best platforms in usability are Unix, except that MS Windows can be argued even worse if developers and sysadmins are counted as users too.
>
This sort of ground has been covered before, and the result will probably be similar.
This article, and the one it refers to, commit some basic mistakes.
One is that by imitation one is stuck in underachievement. Not so, everyone learns by imitation, even the few ones who rise to geniality.
Other is that the GNU/Linux desktop is not maturing as fast as proprietary ones. This has not been my experience. Sure MS Windows has matured a lot since MS Windows 1, but that was a long time ago; most interface improvements came in the MS Windows 3.11 to 4.0 (AKA 95), and since them it has basically stagnated. Mac OS X was a huge improvement in both polish and underpinnings from Mac OS 9, but not in usability. On the other hand, Gnome 2.6 for instance is so much better than Gnome 1.4, and continues to improve.
Finally, he assumes there are no companies behing desktop GNU/Linux. Hasn't him ever heard of Novell, IBM, Sun, HP and their backing Gnome, contributing usability studies, guidelines and improvement to it, and taking part in the Gnome Foundation?
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If you are not able to sufficently handle programming - be it SQL programming
Never said that. Said I'm not a hacker, or in other words, I am not a systems programmer.
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If you can handle SQL - from whatever higher level lang - then you can do a proof of concept of such a language and get people interested
There are already at least 6 such languages, not only conceptual but operational: Codd's own Alpha, the original Ingres QUEL, Alphora Dataphor D4, Date and Darwen's Tutorial D, Opus and Duro. So it would useless for me to create yet another.
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does a propensity to capitalise the first letter of otherwhise unremarkable nouns betray a certain amount of Religious Brainwashing as a Young Person?
Perhaps it just betrays a whim or some German influence... whatever, it is an ad hominem attack.
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I ignore their outdated and almost universally derided opinions on the origins of life.
(Lack of) Age and (lotsa) popularity are no indications of sanity of anything, much less scientific theories.
Fair enough. What does irk me is that all this hype on life on Mars sounds too partisan to me, like trying to quelch doubts about received wisdom. Since I feel we're heading towards a new Dark Age, it does unsettle me.
>
I don't know what kind of direct role the internet had in the revolution, but indirectly, it did play a role
At the time of the end of the Soviet Empire the Net was just not accessible by a sufficient number of sufficiently influential people. It most certainly played not role at all. Personal connections, travel permissions and the tension between Perestroika and the constituent structures of the Empire did.
Problem is, abtraction breaks and then one needs a systems administrator, or to learn things oneself.
This is the same with any OS, it is just the nature of systems. Now MS Windows has much more complexity hidden than GNU/Linux and (Gnome|KDE), and it fails much worse due to virii etc; and then its users are much more ignorant due to its black-box nature.
One could perhaps create a simpler OS if one dumped the POSIX inheritance or made it accessory, and went for something like, for instance, a formally defined orthogonal persistence system (Eros OS) with functional systems programming (Lisp, Haskell, ML) and relational data structures (The Third Manifesto, Opus, Duro, Alphora Dataphor, Required Technologies TransRelational), perhaps with a multiple-server microkernel for the transition from POSIX (GNU Hurd). No one has yet clearly stated such a strategy.
But sure MS Windows is not yet there, nor has such a vision. MS vision is just layering with abstractions, thus making the system even less maintainable when things break and hindering future development. Eventually the chinese hordes development strategy must come to fail.
Finding what one looks for.
on
Methane on Mars?
·
· Score: -1, Troll
Is it just me, or are these guys using obscene amounts of public money to try to quelch public's doubts about the Biological Evolution Theory?
I am not a Young-Earth Creationist, but I know that even among Young-Earth Creationists there is a portion of good Scientists that have serious doubts about Biological Evolution as a sufficient explanation for the Origin of Man.
As a contrast, these guys sound, or at least the poster make them sound, like the less reputable portion Young-Earth Creationists that seek (and find) evidence for their positions everywhere even if ungranted.
>
When Windows apps are easier to install than Linux apps (though not as easy to remove:) )?
MS Windows: choose an app based on referrals or brochures. Find a website or store. Pay. Get CD or file. Pop CD in or double-click file. Get told to log in as administrator, or prompted for its password. Run installer. Use. Get virus. Start all over again.
Debian GNU/Linux: fire Synaptic, give superuser password. Look for app, based on name or description filter or referrals or websites. Double-click it, click Execute. Make choices, run app. Finished. Never again reinstall.
Debian is simpler, and so is any other distribution using Synaptic or similar tools.
>
In Windows most people still don't have to worry about user permissions (though luckily it's there).
Therefore they never learn about security, therefore they get viruses and malware and such.
Simplifying is good, oversimplifying just backfires.
>
make Xwindows more usable if you think its sooooooo... good!
X Windows is quite good and usable, but then it does nothing in the level of installing apps. That's up to (Gnome|KDE) interacting with the distribution infrastructure. Debian-derived distros are just sublime at that, as is the latest beta3 of Debian itself while still not as easy to install the distro itself as its deriveds. Non-Debian-derived distros are as easy as Debian-derived ones, just not as solid, but still much more solid than MS Windows systems.
Slashdot Mirror
You assume it is actually the sole responsibility of government(s). But it is not necessarily so.
The other, and better, alternative is that society, as the consensual, self-regulating aggregate of its individual and corporate agents.
For example, if people are wise enough to refuse to do business with convicted monopolists, MS looses big.
For example?
That'd be great, and even more if make an OOo feature. Perhaps that's already in some whishlist? Only that OOo and KOffice have settled with supremely verbose and user-unfriendly XML as a file format... hopefully they're using CSS so as to make it better.
In the end, the fact is that we already have nearly good enough free software, a proprietary package won't add much now. We could use reveal codes and some document filters, but that's about it.
If it didn't fly when they tried first, had a focus on GNU/Linux and there was no OOo, it won't fly now probably.
So what?
It is not like Mac OS X is not Unix, and even in GNU/Linux C++ failed to catch. Witness that the few successfull free software C++ projects are heavily corporate-sponsored, like OpenOffice.org and Mozilla; KDE is not quite an exception, building on Qt. Sure we're nearer 2,005 than 1,995, but also we are more likely to jump directly from C to Java or C# than to get bogged down in C++.
Mac OS X is not significantly better, not having kept pushing OpenStep as an open platform Apple has failed to popularise its arguably better Objective C. It also uses heavily a C++ derivative, Java.
The one alternative vision here again is RMS's, trying to use GNU/Hurd as a stepping stone to give us back our Lisp future.
As for Unix, Mac OS X is Unix too. So arguably today's worse and best platforms in usability are Unix, except that MS Windows can be argued even worse if developers and sysadmins are counted as users too.
I fail to see your point.
That's not what I said. I said one starts copying, and thus learning; after that one can fly higher.
For example, MS started copying the Macintosh, and the Macintosh team started copying the Xerox Alto, and the Xerox team built on Engelbart's work.
This article, and the one it refers to, commit some basic mistakes.
One is that by imitation one is stuck in underachievement. Not so, everyone learns by imitation, even the few ones who rise to geniality.
Other is that the GNU/Linux desktop is not maturing as fast as proprietary ones. This has not been my experience. Sure MS Windows has matured a lot since MS Windows 1, but that was a long time ago; most interface improvements came in the MS Windows 3.11 to 4.0 (AKA 95), and since them it has basically stagnated. Mac OS X was a huge improvement in both polish and underpinnings from Mac OS 9, but not in usability. On the other hand, Gnome 2.6 for instance is so much better than Gnome 1.4, and continues to improve.
Finally, he assumes there are no companies behing desktop GNU/Linux. Hasn't him ever heard of Novell, IBM, Sun, HP and their backing Gnome, contributing usability studies, guidelines and improvement to it, and taking part in the Gnome Foundation?
I guess KDE is not much behind if at all.
Never said that. Said I'm not a hacker, or in other words, I am not a systems programmer.
There are already at least 6 such languages, not only conceptual but operational: Codd's own Alpha, the original Ingres QUEL, Alphora Dataphor D4, Date and Darwen's Tutorial D, Opus and Duro. So it would useless for me to create yet another.
In other words, he assumes his monopoly will keep giving him a 80% markup on costs.
Somehow I think he's delusional. Time for funds to sell MS stock...
I am not a hacker. Unfortunately, hackers don't understand data. Because users don't bitch enough, hackers don't know what's needed.
The poster, in the mailing list, asked for resources on colour theory... my (artist) wife usually likes Hand Print very much.
Long time no read, will look for and post later, hope soon.
A very fashionable and socially safe prejudice. Comfortable and cozy in fact.
It proves nothing.
Simply not true. You seem not to have read anything by reasonable Evolution doubters lately, which is to be expected given current obscurantism.
OK, I stand corrected. Lack of context, took the wrong ilation.
I haven't RTFineA. So I blame it on the poster.
My question precisely.
Your prejudice. One do can be a scientist and yet doubt Biological Evolution as a sufficient theory of the origin of Man.
Perhaps it just betrays a whim or some German influence... whatever, it is an ad hominem attack.
(Lack of) Age and (lotsa) popularity are no indications of sanity of anything, much less scientific theories.
That's the connection I found not wise, and sound like proposed by the the poster's quotes on Wise People...
Fair enough. What does irk me is that all this hype on life on Mars sounds too partisan to me, like trying to quelch doubts about received wisdom. Since I feel we're heading towards a new Dark Age, it does unsettle me.
At the time of the end of the Soviet Empire the Net was just not accessible by a sufficient number of sufficiently influential people. It most certainly played not role at all. Personal connections, travel permissions and the tension between Perestroika and the constituent structures of the Empire did.
Problem is, abtraction breaks and then one needs a systems administrator, or to learn things oneself.
This is the same with any OS, it is just the nature of systems. Now MS Windows has much more complexity hidden than GNU/Linux and (Gnome|KDE), and it fails much worse due to virii etc; and then its users are much more ignorant due to its black-box nature.
One could perhaps create a simpler OS if one dumped the POSIX inheritance or made it accessory, and went for something like, for instance, a formally defined orthogonal persistence system (Eros OS) with functional systems programming (Lisp, Haskell, ML) and relational data structures (The Third Manifesto, Opus, Duro, Alphora Dataphor, Required Technologies TransRelational), perhaps with a multiple-server microkernel for the transition from POSIX (GNU Hurd). No one has yet clearly stated such a strategy.
But sure MS Windows is not yet there, nor has such a vision. MS vision is just layering with abstractions, thus making the system even less maintainable when things break and hindering future development. Eventually the chinese hordes development strategy must come to fail.
Is it just me, or are these guys using obscene amounts of public money to try to quelch public's doubts about the Biological Evolution Theory?
I am not a Young-Earth Creationist, but I know that even among Young-Earth Creationists there is a portion of good Scientists that have serious doubts about Biological Evolution as a sufficient explanation for the Origin of Man.
As a contrast, these guys sound, or at least the poster make them sound, like the less reputable portion Young-Earth Creationists that seek (and find) evidence for their positions everywhere even if ungranted.
MS Windows: choose an app based on referrals or brochures. Find a website or store. Pay. Get CD or file. Pop CD in or double-click file. Get told to log in as administrator, or prompted for its password. Run installer. Use. Get virus. Start all over again.
Debian GNU/Linux: fire Synaptic, give superuser password. Look for app, based on name or description filter or referrals or websites. Double-click it, click Execute. Make choices, run app. Finished. Never again reinstall.
Debian is simpler, and so is any other distribution using Synaptic or similar tools.
Therefore they never learn about security, therefore they get viruses and malware and such.
Simplifying is good, oversimplifying just backfires.
X Windows is quite good and usable, but then it does nothing in the level of installing apps. That's up to (Gnome|KDE) interacting with the distribution infrastructure. Debian-derived distros are just sublime at that, as is the latest beta3 of Debian itself while still not as easy to install the distro itself as its deriveds. Non-Debian-derived distros are as easy as Debian-derived ones, just not as solid, but still much more solid than MS Windows systems.
A filesystem ain't ACID, nor is MysQL without some magickal incantations...
I wonder which application software did they run... StarOffice, Applixware?
To be fair, Apple's are first machines to be targeted squarely at MS Windows machines. Sun's were marketed more as low-end workstations.
Because everyone knows them: PostgreSQL and Interbase and SAPdb AKA MaxDB... or if one doesn't care for freedom, IBM DB2 or Sybase SQL Server.
I find it very funny that people want to use MySQL anywhere, when most of the /. effect victims fall prey to it. Even /. itself...