I wonder how difficult it would be to take the Java source and convert it into C++? Probably a mechanical conversion would be impractical, but I bet it wouldn't be that difficult. That would solve a lot of the performance problems, and allow bolting a better GUI toolset to it.
Thank you for a level-headed post. However, one thing you said I might take issue with...
Trust me folks -- this is a bold move on their part.
How bold is it really? Let's face it... by any objective standard (i.e., users) StarOffice has been an abject failure. Particularly when you consider the real purpose of StarOffice, which was to feed McNealy's hatred of Bill Gates. StarOffice was supposed to have caught the business world by fire since it was no-cost software using the oh-so-magical Java platform. Of course, it didn't happen that way.
Given that the purpose of the software is to irritate Bill Gates, this is just the next logical step. StarOffice was never about making money, and in fact, this could just be considered a way for Sun to reduce their development costs.
because after all they must have intended to build it the way you'd like them to?
Yeah, you're right. You got me! The problem is with my assumption that they wanted to build a browser without HTML rendering errors. What an idiot I am.
Has it occurred to you that your desire to control people might be your problem rather than theirs?
I didn't say they were out of my control. They are out of anyone's control, particularly their own self-control. Obviously they have the right to design their browser anyway they want, but I reserve the right to pass judgment on what they create.
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Re:you're missing the point, reality master
on
XFree86 4.0.1 Review
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· Score: 1
He's talking about font anti-aliasing, not graphics anti-aliasing, and there's a world of difference.
It's exactly the same technology. Algorithms don't know the difference between a graphic that happens to be in the shape of a font, and a graphic that happens to be some curvy logo.
The oh-so-popular 8-point navigation text on many web sites turns into a gray mess if it's anti-aliased at 1600x1200.
Are you talking about 8 points or 8 pixels? (points are resolution independent). At 8 pixels, you're right -- in most cases it shouldn't be antialiased, and in fact, Windows doesn't antialias below a certain pixel size.
That's all well and good, but waiting for bug reports is not a substitute for good testing. I'm not talking about obscure hard-to-reproduce bugs, I'm talking about major rendering failures on common web sites. Like I said, don't the developers use it themselves? If I can find numerous bugs just by surfing major web sites, then the people who maintain Gecko ought to be able to find them as well.
Antialiasing of fonts was invented because screens had fairly low resolution and so fonts looked jagged compared to typefaces in the real world, like books and magazines.
No, it was invented for images to look better. Antialising is not used just for fonts. Take a look at a web site with someone who didn't antialias their images, and it looks awful even at high resolutions. Granted, at a high enough resolution you wouldn't be able to tell, but we're talking about thousands of pixels per inch before you wouldn't be able to tell.
Also, you seem to be under the impression that photographs are not "antialiased", but they are (although, it's not called that). One of the ways you can tell a fake photograph is that the edges of an image are too clean.
it just makes the text look more hazy and less well defined, which puts more strain on the eyes.
I know that some people feel this way, but you're by far in the minority.
I already added the caveat about misinformation in my original post. I think that that is one of the few things that should be kept from children, if they are likely to believe it.
First of all, you're wrong -- some woman do like bondage, so that's not misinformation, it's a lifestyle choice. Granted, it's chosen by woman who are psychologically messed up, but it doesn't fall into "misinformation". Second, the key is "misinformation". You can put anything under that category (religion? evolution?), so you haven't really said anything.
When he is old enough to use it, he will pretty much have the run of the place. This will have limits, of course, but my goal is to make him educated well enough that I don't have to worry about what he looks at, because I know that he will do the right thing.
You're hopping back and forth across the fence. Which is it? "The run of the place" or "limits"? Beyond that, it's insane to assume a child will just "do the right thing" without supervision because 1) you can never know what he's really learned from your "education", and more importantly, 2) it's not about intelligence, it's about judgment. You only get judgment through time and experience. In other words, just because you tell a child the stove is hot, and he intellectually understands "hot", you still have to watch him to make sure he doesn't impetuously put his hands on it.
If that doesn't work, then something else may be necessary, but not censorware. I would rather use monitoring software that records what is viewed rather than arbitrarily block whole groups of sites.
Censorware is a tool, like any other. Apparently, you are in favor of restricting access to certain sites. Well, censorware allows you to override a site if you think your child is ready to access it. You seem to have bought into the propaganda regarding censorware, but it's just a different face on monitoring.
Parents who oppress raise children that won't mind being oppressed by a government out of control.
Oh come on! That sounds like warmed-over Dr. Spock. Discipline and setting limits is not "oppression". When you have children without limits, you get Columbine. Children need limits in order to develop properly.
I have a son, and the way I look at it is that information cannot hurt someone who is intelligent.
The only problem is that kids are not just miniature adults. Their brain's are not fully developed.
Let's put it another way. Do you think that a child growing up in the getto with gunfire and violency all around them is going to influence how their personalities develop? Of course it will. Now, do you think if your boy grew up seeing images of woman in bondage his entire life, that might influence how he sees women?
I think you need to wake up and realize that part of responsible parenting is setting limits on what your child is exposed to and when they are exposed to it.
What does it say that a Unix/Linux version is coming out before a Mac version?? I mean, Macolytes are used to being second-class citizens, but third class? The Mac population is pretty puny, but I don't think it's smaller than the Linux population that would use this.
Maybe they are aiming this also at the server market.
Quite frankly, I think the Mozilla programmers are out of control.
The world could really use a nice, standards-compliant browser that actually works (and Netscape is far from that). What really annoys me is that so little effort is going into this supposed "best part of Mozilla", namely Gecko. Watching Mozilla used by a friend of mine was a painful experience. There were so many rendering errors that I personally found it unusable.
Call me crazy, but I would think that the HTML renderer would be the most critical part of the browser to get right. But why isn't anyone fixing these obvious problems? Don't the developers actually use their own browser?
Hopefully having developers focusing on a browser rather than a full-blown development environment (that is butt-ugly, BTW) will give some sorely-needed attention to basic functionality.
Agreed. I was watching a friend of mine use Mozilla and I was astounded by how brain-damaged the rendering was. It really made me wonder whether any of the developers use the browser in real life. I mean, if Gecko is supposed to be the "best part of the Mozilla project"...
The Mozilla developers really, really, really need to take a step back and fix the HTML rendering. Otherwise, it will just continue to get a bigger bad name than it has now.
This is really not intended to be flamebait, although I'm sure many people will interpret it that way. Oh well, let the Karma fall where it may.
I really don't understand why many people love Apple. Granted, in the past they have come up with many innovations, the greatest of which was popularizing (note the word) the GUI. Give them credit where credit is due.
But the list of negatives is very, very long: inability to update their software with modern necessities (PMT, VM that's not broken, etc). Backstabbing the developers. Backstabbing the clone manufacturers. Incredible arrogance. Price gouging. Bad hardware (powerbooks have had a lot of quality problems, several brain-damaged printer models). Look-and-feel lawsuits. Closed hardware. Closed software. Closed minds.
Microsoft never dreamed of the anti-competition, monopolistic practices that Apple has implemented. The only difference is that Apple has been incompetent at becoming a monopoly. Can you imagine the world we would have if Apple had won?
Clue me in. Why does Apple get all this loyalty? The products are good in a lot of ways, but they're not that good (be honest!). Is it the home of people who just like to be different from the mainstream, and that's the attraction?
The other truly sickening thing about this quote is that we have a child saying that she is worth more than her own parents. WTF? This is so self evidently sick, that I find it tough to come up with words to denounce it without sounding too obvious. I mean, if one has had caring parents that worked hard to give you a life as good as they could, how could one think oneself any more than they are?
I find this attitude truly disheartening. One hears of stories about parents trying to keep their kids down, because of their jealousy that their kids may be more successful than they. That sounds a lot like your attitude. If your kids become more successful than you, are you going to start berating them? "So, Mr. Big Shot is too good for this family, eh? Think you're better than your old man, eh? EH?? EH???"
If your children don't have higher goals than yourself, and don't have more success than you, then you have failed as a parent.
Quite frankly, your attitude is the sick one.
The worship of money is the great vice of the US, which costs lives daily all over the world. Please see this fact; stop that madness, that meaningless way of life.
Extremely few people "worship money", as you put it. The problem is that you define worship as any desire for financial success. Guess what? One can be successful and not be greedy. There is absolutely nothing wrong with trying to achieve great financial success. In fact, society depends on it. The pie is not limited; when someone creates more wealth, it increases the amount of wealth available to society and creates more jobs for everyone. As the saying goes, a rising tide floats all boats.
Strongly disagree! I think one of the worst attributes of the Mac is the unwillingness to put words next to icons to give a hint what they mean. The fact is that it's extremely difficult to select a picture that conveys obviously and unambiguously the function of an icon.
The reason words are usually left out is that it makes it less expensive to internationalize a product, but that's at the expense of usability.
Quake is not 3D. It is 3D surfaces projected onto a 2D surface, creating an optical illusion of 3D. That does absolutely nothing for your 3D spacial skills.
Not to mention that twitching a mouse and pressing some keys are not going to develop skills for reaching and handling 3D objects.
I heard an interesting theory one time that too much computer usage for very young children could be damaging to their motor skills. His theory was that playing physical games and using real markers, etc helped develop 3D spacial skills. Since computers are really only 2D viewing, then coordination could suffer. Even books, while a 2 dimensional surface, requires reaching out and turning pages, moving the book around, allows reading in different body positions, etc.
As I thought about it, it seemed to make a lot of sense.
Er, it never occurs to you to actually get technical support from either Microsoft or your hardware manufacturer? If you're getting 5-10 BSODs a day, then there is a problem. If you worked for me, and never tried to fix the problem, you would be out on your ass.
a nation which started a bloody revolution over taxes.
Er, no. They started a war over a lack of representation in parliament, and a host of other inequities. And the revolution wasn't bloody until the English came and made it bloody.
Come to think of it, I think you're right. What are the struggles of overcoming Hitler compared to having convenient food? The horror! Boy, I'll bet when the Mongols were rampaging through a village and killed every single person, they didn't realize how lucky they were to be slaughtered. They could have been under the yoke of the Big Mac!
Katz is right. It is clear that only at the end of the 20th century is oppression truly understood. We can only hope to find within ourselves the same courage that allowed the men to storm Normandy, as we try to resist the temptation of Supersizing, and hope that freedom fighters everywhere will rise up and slay the dragon that is only now recognized by humble servants of Man such as Jose.
Let the poems begin. Let us write a thousand songs to be sung by soldiers who will march in this epic battle! Godspeed, brave soldiers, godspeed!
Glory, glory hallelujia! Glory, glory hallelujia! Glory, glory hallelujia! His troops are marching on!
Slashdot Mirror
I wonder how difficult it would be to take the Java source and convert it into C++? Probably a mechanical conversion would be impractical, but I bet it wouldn't be that difficult. That would solve a lot of the performance problems, and allow bolting a better GUI toolset to it.
Any thoughts?
--
Thank you for a level-headed post. However, one thing you said I might take issue with...
Trust me folks -- this is a bold move on their part.
How bold is it really? Let's face it... by any objective standard (i.e., users) StarOffice has been an abject failure. Particularly when you consider the real purpose of StarOffice, which was to feed McNealy's hatred of Bill Gates. StarOffice was supposed to have caught the business world by fire since it was no-cost software using the oh-so-magical Java platform. Of course, it didn't happen that way.
Given that the purpose of the software is to irritate Bill Gates, this is just the next logical step. StarOffice was never about making money, and in fact, this could just be considered a way for Sun to reduce their development costs.
--
because after all they must have intended to build it the way you'd like them to?
Yeah, you're right. You got me! The problem is with my assumption that they wanted to build a browser without HTML rendering errors. What an idiot I am.
Boy, you're smart.
--
Has it occurred to you that your desire to control people might be your problem rather than theirs?
I didn't say they were out of my control. They are out of anyone's control, particularly their own self-control. Obviously they have the right to design their browser anyway they want, but I reserve the right to pass judgment on what they create.
--
He's talking about font anti-aliasing, not graphics anti-aliasing, and there's a world of difference.
It's exactly the same technology. Algorithms don't know the difference between a graphic that happens to be in the shape of a font, and a graphic that happens to be some curvy logo.
The oh-so-popular 8-point navigation text on many web sites turns into a gray mess if it's anti-aliased at 1600x1200.
Are you talking about 8 points or 8 pixels? (points are resolution independent). At 8 pixels, you're right -- in most cases it shouldn't be antialiased, and in fact, Windows doesn't antialias below a certain pixel size.
--
That's what Bugzilla is all about.
That's all well and good, but waiting for bug reports is not a substitute for good testing. I'm not talking about obscure hard-to-reproduce bugs, I'm talking about major rendering failures on common web sites. Like I said, don't the developers use it themselves? If I can find numerous bugs just by surfing major web sites, then the people who maintain Gecko ought to be able to find them as well.
--
Antialiasing of fonts was invented because screens had fairly low resolution and so fonts looked jagged compared to typefaces in the real world, like books and magazines.
No, it was invented for images to look better. Antialising is not used just for fonts. Take a look at a web site with someone who didn't antialias their images, and it looks awful even at high resolutions. Granted, at a high enough resolution you wouldn't be able to tell, but we're talking about thousands of pixels per inch before you wouldn't be able to tell.
Also, you seem to be under the impression that photographs are not "antialiased", but they are (although, it's not called that). One of the ways you can tell a fake photograph is that the edges of an image are too clean.
it just makes the text look more hazy and less well defined, which puts more strain on the eyes.
I know that some people feel this way, but you're by far in the minority.
--
I already added the caveat about misinformation in my original post. I think that that is one of the few things that should be kept from children, if they are likely to believe it.
First of all, you're wrong -- some woman do like bondage, so that's not misinformation, it's a lifestyle choice. Granted, it's chosen by woman who are psychologically messed up, but it doesn't fall into "misinformation". Second, the key is "misinformation". You can put anything under that category (religion? evolution?), so you haven't really said anything.
When he is old enough to use it, he will pretty much have the run of the place. This will have limits, of course, but my goal is to make him educated well enough that I don't have to worry about what he looks at, because I know that he will do the right thing.
You're hopping back and forth across the fence. Which is it? "The run of the place" or "limits"? Beyond that, it's insane to assume a child will just "do the right thing" without supervision because 1) you can never know what he's really learned from your "education", and more importantly, 2) it's not about intelligence, it's about judgment. You only get judgment through time and experience. In other words, just because you tell a child the stove is hot, and he intellectually understands "hot", you still have to watch him to make sure he doesn't impetuously put his hands on it.
If that doesn't work, then something else may be necessary, but not censorware. I would rather use monitoring software that records what is viewed rather than arbitrarily block whole groups of sites.
Censorware is a tool, like any other. Apparently, you are in favor of restricting access to certain sites. Well, censorware allows you to override a site if you think your child is ready to access it. You seem to have bought into the propaganda regarding censorware, but it's just a different face on monitoring.
Parents who oppress raise children that won't mind being oppressed by a government out of control.
Oh come on! That sounds like warmed-over Dr. Spock. Discipline and setting limits is not "oppression". When you have children without limits, you get Columbine. Children need limits in order to develop properly.
--
I have a son, and the way I look at it is that information cannot hurt someone who is intelligent.
The only problem is that kids are not just miniature adults. Their brain's are not fully developed.
Let's put it another way. Do you think that a child growing up in the getto with gunfire and violency all around them is going to influence how their personalities develop? Of course it will. Now, do you think if your boy grew up seeing images of woman in bondage his entire life, that might influence how he sees women?
I think you need to wake up and realize that part of responsible parenting is setting limits on what your child is exposed to and when they are exposed to it.
--
Dude, 1 million x 0.01% = 100 false rejections. 100,000 would be 10%.
--
What does it say that a Unix/Linux version is coming out before a Mac version?? I mean, Macolytes are used to being second-class citizens, but third class? The Mac population is pretty puny, but I don't think it's smaller than the Linux population that would use this.
Maybe they are aiming this also at the server market.
--
Quite frankly, I think the Mozilla programmers are out of control.
The world could really use a nice, standards-compliant browser that actually works (and Netscape is far from that). What really annoys me is that so little effort is going into this supposed "best part of Mozilla", namely Gecko. Watching Mozilla used by a friend of mine was a painful experience. There were so many rendering errors that I personally found it unusable.
Call me crazy, but I would think that the HTML renderer would be the most critical part of the browser to get right. But why isn't anyone fixing these obvious problems? Don't the developers actually use their own browser?
Hopefully having developers focusing on a browser rather than a full-blown development environment (that is butt-ugly, BTW) will give some sorely-needed attention to basic functionality.
--
Agreed. I was watching a friend of mine use Mozilla and I was astounded by how brain-damaged the rendering was. It really made me wonder whether any of the developers use the browser in real life. I mean, if Gecko is supposed to be the "best part of the Mozilla project"...
The Mozilla developers really, really, really need to take a step back and fix the HTML rendering. Otherwise, it will just continue to get a bigger bad name than it has now.
--
GNU does not deserve a TLD after 15 years of work for the community and a pity attempt to get something from the corporations does?
Nobody "deserves" a top-level domain. It's an organizational structure, not an award.
--
This is really not intended to be flamebait, although I'm sure many people will interpret it that way. Oh well, let the Karma fall where it may.
I really don't understand why many people love Apple. Granted, in the past they have come up with many innovations, the greatest of which was popularizing (note the word) the GUI. Give them credit where credit is due.
But the list of negatives is very, very long: inability to update their software with modern necessities (PMT, VM that's not broken, etc). Backstabbing the developers. Backstabbing the clone manufacturers. Incredible arrogance. Price gouging. Bad hardware (powerbooks have had a lot of quality problems, several brain-damaged printer models). Look-and-feel lawsuits. Closed hardware. Closed software. Closed minds.
Microsoft never dreamed of the anti-competition, monopolistic practices that Apple has implemented. The only difference is that Apple has been incompetent at becoming a monopoly. Can you imagine the world we would have if Apple had won?
Clue me in. Why does Apple get all this loyalty? The products are good in a lot of ways, but they're not that good (be honest!). Is it the home of people who just like to be different from the mainstream, and that's the attraction?
--
The other truly sickening thing about this quote is that we have a child saying that she is worth more than her own parents. WTF? This is so self evidently sick, that I find it tough to come up with words to denounce it without sounding too obvious. I mean, if one has had caring parents that worked hard to give you a life as good as they could, how could one think oneself any more than they are?
I find this attitude truly disheartening. One hears of stories about parents trying to keep their kids down, because of their jealousy that their kids may be more successful than they. That sounds a lot like your attitude. If your kids become more successful than you, are you going to start berating them? "So, Mr. Big Shot is too good for this family, eh? Think you're better than your old man, eh? EH?? EH???"
If your children don't have higher goals than yourself, and don't have more success than you, then you have failed as a parent.
Quite frankly, your attitude is the sick one.
The worship of money is the great vice of the US, which costs lives daily all over the world. Please see this fact; stop that madness, that meaningless way of life.
Extremely few people "worship money", as you put it. The problem is that you define worship as any desire for financial success. Guess what? One can be successful and not be greedy. There is absolutely nothing wrong with trying to achieve great financial success. In fact, society depends on it. The pie is not limited; when someone creates more wealth, it increases the amount of wealth available to society and creates more jobs for everyone. As the saying goes, a rising tide floats all boats.
--
It's a topic on your preferences page.
--
Isn't it a little more challenging to type than to turn a page?
I don't think so. Think about what's involved in typing... you're just making small movements with your fingers and pressing.
To turn a page is an extremely complex motion. You have to:
To put it another way, which would be more complicated... to build a robot that types, or a robot that turns a page?
--
Strongly disagree! I think one of the worst attributes of the Mac is the unwillingness to put words next to icons to give a hint what they mean. The fact is that it's extremely difficult to select a picture that conveys obviously and unambiguously the function of an icon.
The reason words are usually left out is that it makes it less expensive to internationalize a product, but that's at the expense of usability.
--
Quake is not 3D. It is 3D surfaces projected onto a 2D surface, creating an optical illusion of 3D. That does absolutely nothing for your 3D spacial skills.
Not to mention that twitching a mouse and pressing some keys are not going to develop skills for reaching and handling 3D objects.
--
I heard an interesting theory one time that too much computer usage for very young children could be damaging to their motor skills. His theory was that playing physical games and using real markers, etc helped develop 3D spacial skills. Since computers are really only 2D viewing, then coordination could suffer. Even books, while a 2 dimensional surface, requires reaching out and turning pages, moving the book around, allows reading in different body positions, etc.
As I thought about it, it seemed to make a lot of sense.
--
Er, it never occurs to you to actually get technical support from either Microsoft or your hardware manufacturer? If you're getting 5-10 BSODs a day, then there is a problem. If you worked for me, and never tried to fix the problem, you would be out on your ass.
Or, possibly more likely, this is a baldface lie.
--
What the hell? Someone stuck my identity on there. Someone really needs to get a life.
--
a nation which started a bloody revolution over taxes.
Er, no. They started a war over a lack of representation in parliament, and a host of other inequities. And the revolution wasn't bloody until the English came and made it bloody.
History wasn't your best subject, was it?
--
Come to think of it, I think you're right. What are the struggles of overcoming Hitler compared to having convenient food? The horror! Boy, I'll bet when the Mongols were rampaging through a village and killed every single person, they didn't realize how lucky they were to be slaughtered. They could have been under the yoke of the Big Mac!
Katz is right. It is clear that only at the end of the 20th century is oppression truly understood. We can only hope to find within ourselves the same courage that allowed the men to storm Normandy, as we try to resist the temptation of Supersizing, and hope that freedom fighters everywhere will rise up and slay the dragon that is only now recognized by humble servants of Man such as Jose.
Let the poems begin. Let us write a thousand songs to be sung by soldiers who will march in this epic battle! Godspeed, brave soldiers, godspeed!
Glory, glory hallelujia!
Glory, glory hallelujia!
Glory, glory hallelujia!
His troops are marching on!
RM101 breaks down in tears
--