While I personally prefer PostgreSQL to MS SQL, I have done quite a bit of work with both of them and I admit that MS SQL isn't too bad. There are some things I really, really hate about MS SQL, but most of this stems from me having had to move an Access DB's datastore to MS SQL, then later to port the whole bloody mess of a thing to PostgreSQL which was NOT a nice experience at all.
As you say, MS SQL gets a bad rap because of the crowd she lets admin her.
However, I just thought I'd let you know that as of version 7.4 PostgreSQL now has very good replication features at last. A number of companies offer proprietary replication products (commandprompt.com's one, dbExpert's one, etc) but there is at least one GPL'd replication back end also, which was in fact donated by a company which had previously been selling it.
I'd also like to add that I think its a terrible shame people consider MySQL the de facto "open source" RDBMS when PostgreSQL is far, far superior. There is simply no excuse for using MySQL, apart from maybe your hosting provider not supporting it or something. To remedy this situation, you should hit your hosting provider over the head with a large metal pipe.
Instead of judging the entire OpenBSD community by a couple of random emails on misc@ (which is the mailing list specifically for stupid questions and answers), why don't you report what the tech@ people were saying?
If you did, you would how the ACTUAL OpenBSD developers responded to fefe's benchmarks.
For example, here is what Ted Unangst (a very major committer to OpenBSD) replied to requests for help improving performance:
"apply the patch below to your mmap benchmark. a real application is
unlikely to use pread and mmap. openbsd uses a separate cache for read
and mmap calls. while it seems you are attempting to time only a page
fault with cached data, that is not happening on openbsd.
the results for all other OS should remain the same, but OpenBSD improves
dramatically. the adjusted benchmark is a much closer match to
application behavior in reality."
Which was followed by above-mentioned patch.
I don't think it's fair for you to judge an entire operating system community based on the contents of a few selected emails. By doing so, you are being just as biased as you say the others are.
If CVS is such a "p-o-s" in many respects, and unsuitable for large projects, why then do very large (much bigger than the Linux kernel) projects such as FreeBSD, OpenBSD and others, use it very successfully ?
Lots of people spout off about how "unsuitable" CVS is, but I have yet to see any concise example of where, exactly, its short-comings lie.
Damn straight. Anyone who makes such non-sensical, inflammatory comments as:
"Stallman and Torvalds would have us return to the time when software was so new that one person working alone could change the world over the weekend. But modern software, [...] is more complicated than that."
They also only do functional and not object oriented programming most of the time. It is true that over doing it and calling everything as an object is bad. Both Linux and FreeBSD use objects even though they are mostly functional programs. It really is appropriate in alot of situations.
Uh, I think you meant procedural not functional. Lisp is a functional programming language, C is a procedural language. There is a big difference - Linux and FreeBSD are definately not written in a functional language!
Yes I agree with your post. While OpenBSD is an excellent operating system, there are definate advantages to FreeBSD. It is similarly secure nowadays (as you pointed out) and has much better application support (Mozilla runs for example, and the FreeBSD ports tree is MUCH larger).
FreeBSD also has SMP support, much better Java support and has jail(8). It's also been better tweaked for performance. Once FreeBSD 5 matures, it will have alot more advanced features.
OpenBSD has pf (which is being ported to FreeBSD), systrace, audited userland and kernel (I think FreeBSD people borrow alot from OpenBSD people in terms of audited code - sendmail for example)
OpenBSD is great, so is FreeBSD - they both have their own niche areas.
I like to refer to it as 'GNU/Linux' because this way you are acknowledging the ideals of Free Software.
People who have no awareness of 'freeness' of software or the issues involved perhaps will be curious and try to find out more about this mysterious acronym. This is precisely what happened to me after running 'Linux' before I knew anything about GNU. I have since myself spread information about Free software to many others.
I think the "Stallman wants to 0wn Linux!!!" line is childish and petty. Why not see it for what it is - an advertisement for open and enlightened attitudes. Call it GNU/Linux 'mommy's testicles' if you want, but don't hold it against the man for seeking some (deserved) recognition - not even for himself directly - but for his positive ideology.
>And Gtk+ and Qt both make very inefficient use of >the X11 APIs, giving X11 an undeserved reputation >for being slow.
I don't know about Qt, but recent versions of GTK+ use the XRender extension. This bypasses entirely the regular X11 API. In fact, GTK+ makes VERY efficient use of X.
Give some concrete evidence (e.g. benchmarks) before making wild claims about performance.
Currently studying a BA Computer Science, which is half Liberal Arts, half Computer Science.
It's working out great for me, I would've found pure computer science waaaay too boring. I get to spend time studying formal computer science and get to study something completely different (in my case, French).
It's split accross the two faculties, Arts and Comp. Sci.
I think its a great way to learn cool, mind expanding stuff AND come out with a degree which can get you a job.
More people/universities should look at courses like this.
What a funny thing! Quake III running under FreeBSD/XFree86 4.2.1 is is acutally faster than under Win2k for me. How bizarre since according to YOU "a client-server based desktop environment is ALWAYS going to be slower than a non-c/s solution".
As many people have said before on this site, X11 isnt particularly slow or unstable. My personal experience, the experience of others, and benchmarks indicate a properly configured, recent XFree86 installation performs perfectly well AND is remotely accessable.
This 'X11 is client-server so is therefore slow and crap' is a common misconception by those who understand little.
We have the Render extension now which bypasses this. QT and GTK+ have used Render for quite some time now.
Perhaps saying that 'Evolution in Humans is over' is a tad strong, but one must admit that the conditions are not optimal for signifigant changes to take place.
For starters, Human communities are no longer isolated. Lets say that Bob in NY was born with a genetic mutation . Bob will most likely mate with someone from a completely different genetic heritage than himself. His offspring wil likely mate with people from different genetic heritages yet again, thus diluting the genetic mutation into nothingness. This is probably the greatest 'hurdle' to our further genetic evolution. That there are no genetically isolated communities left (at least, not in the long term) for mutations to gain a foothold and become the norm.
Also, remember the old thing of 'Survival of the Fittest'. If a mutation is to become entrenched in the gene pool, it must give the carrier some advantage in terms of reproduction. In the current social climate, where humans are at the top of the food chain, what mutation will give you a reproductive advantage? As another reply to this post said, wealthier people tend to reproduce *less* than poor people. How much we reproduce has very little to do with our genes nowadays.
Some argue that culture is our new area of evolution, and I would certainly not deny that we could conceivable 'manually' change our genes. I'm just saying that conditions for Darwinistic, 'natural' genetic evolution are not at an optimum.
Re:Ireland *has* changed to the Euro
on
The Euro
·
· Score: 1
Just to be clear:
There is nothing called the "Republic" of Ireland, a frequently (incorrectly) used term which refers to the nation of Ireland. No where in the Irish constitution is there a mention of the "Republic of Ireland". The nation is called simply "Eire" or "Ireland".
Linux makes a very nice workstation OS, but things like this that cause me to recommend FreeBSD for the server...
I've never heard of something like this happening in FreeBSD-STABLE.
While Linux may have more cutting edge features and perhaps has some speed advantages (this is debatable), the FreeBSD (and OpenBSD too!) coders are more conservative about what gets integrated into something which is supposedly stable.
BSD gives you more peace of mind IMHO.
>It is like in the Java world between AWT (Java 1.0.x) and Swing (Java 1.2.x). AWT tried to simply wrap around the native toolkits. As a result, it was quite slow. Swing does it like Qt, and provided an API for drawing widgets, much like Qt does with QStyle.
Not True !
The AWT was much _much_ faster than Swing ! Swing effectively uses low level AWT code (drawing routines) to draw its own platform independent widgets, called "lightweight" components [ because they dont use native "heavyweight" peers ]. If you've ever used swing, you'll know its a dog!
I just thought I'd comment on what I think of Napster alternatives.
I used napster when it was at its height; it had a huge selection and wide variety of material. Then Napster effectively died.
A friend told me about AudioGalaxy.com - now that was *cool*. Say if I was learning a new piece on the guitar. Something (relatively) obscure, like Piere Bensusan. I could find it, and reliably transfer it. Absolutely brilliant!
Now AudioGalaxy.com, while not entirely dead, seems to have caved in to the record companies. I tried to get "Yesterdays" by Wes Montgomery (a prominant Jazz guitarist), and was told that "searching had been disabled" for the track. OK that sucked. I tried Gnucleus (OpenSource windows Gnutell client) and it found a load of his other stuff, but not "Yesterdays".
My point is that, while "alternatives" will keep coming to replace thwarted music sharing systems, the users wont necessarily.
I've found the technology of these "next-generation" file sharing systems to be pretty slick, but the selection of music to be lacking. If they dont have the music Im looking for, it doesn't matter how many copies of the latest Korn or Limp Bizkit tracks are floating around, the technology is effectively useless.
Because the GPL is inherently designed to allow "trading", ie you do NOT violate the GPL by "trading" GPL'd software.
Violating GPL != Trading GPLd software.
The key point here is that many people (myself included) believe that, since music is a Pure Public Good (see http://www.tidbits.com/tb-issues/TidBITS-602.html# lnk5 ), it should be freely available to anyone who wants it, just like GPLd software!
People think that the concept of the GPL (and other "open source" licences) is good, and that the concept of having to pay (ridiculous) sums of money for music is bad.
I think that you're missing the point; people believe software and music should be freely available.
The GPL enables this, therefore it is good. Furthermore, violating the GPL prevents software from being freely available, therefore it is bad.
Music trading makes music freely available, therefore it is good.
You might like to try CodeCommander.
It was coming along nicely when I last tried it (a couple of months ago, version 0.9 something), and was fine for php, bit of c or java etc.
Personally I use JEdit nowadays, but if you don't have a decent amount of ram and a fast machine go for CodeCommander.
I agree entirely, however Napster has already tried this line of defense. Basically the point Napster is seen to be *encouraging* copyright infringement; and that its interface makes this ridiculously easy.
Slashdot Mirror
While I personally prefer PostgreSQL to MS SQL, I have done quite a bit of work with both of them and I admit that MS SQL isn't too bad. There are some things I really, really hate about MS SQL, but most of this stems from me having had to move an Access DB's datastore to MS SQL, then later to port the whole bloody mess of a thing to
PostgreSQL which was NOT a nice experience at all.
As you say, MS SQL gets a bad rap because of the crowd she lets admin her.
However, I just thought I'd let you know that as of version 7.4 PostgreSQL now has very good replication features at last. A number of companies offer proprietary replication products (commandprompt.com's one, dbExpert's one, etc) but there is at least one GPL'd replication back end also, which was in fact donated by a company which had previously been selling it.
I'd also like to add that I think its a terrible shame people consider MySQL the de facto "open source" RDBMS when PostgreSQL is far, far superior. There is simply no excuse for using MySQL, apart from maybe your hosting provider not supporting it or something. To remedy this situation, you should hit your hosting provider over the head with a large metal pipe.
If you did, you would how the ACTUAL OpenBSD developers responded to fefe's benchmarks.
For example, here is what Ted Unangst (a very major committer to OpenBSD) replied to requests for help improving performance:
"apply the patch below to your mmap benchmark. a real application is unlikely to use pread and mmap. openbsd uses a separate cache for read and mmap calls. while it seems you are attempting to time only a page fault with cached data, that is not happening on openbsd.
the results for all other OS should remain the same, but OpenBSD improves dramatically. the adjusted benchmark is a much closer match to application behavior in reality."
Which was followed by above-mentioned patch.
I don't think it's fair for you to judge an entire operating system community based on the contents of a few selected emails. By doing so, you are being just as biased as you say the others are.
If CVS is such a "p-o-s" in many respects, and unsuitable for large projects, why then do very large (much bigger than the Linux kernel) projects such as FreeBSD, OpenBSD and others, use it very successfully ?
Lots of people spout off about how "unsuitable" CVS is, but I have yet to see any concise example of where, exactly, its short-comings lie.
Read the parent post again. There was no mention of JavaScript whatsoever. He was talking about Java.
There is a big difference. You can't simply cut and paste Java code.
"Stallman and Torvalds would have us return to the time when software was so new that one person working alone could change the world over the weekend. But modern software, [...] is more complicated than that."
Should be ignored at all cost.
Uh, I think you meant procedural not functional. Lisp is a functional programming language, C is a procedural language. There is a big difference - Linux and FreeBSD are definately not written in a functional language!
Yes I agree with your post. While OpenBSD is an excellent operating system, there are definate advantages to FreeBSD. It is similarly secure nowadays (as you pointed out) and has much better application support (Mozilla runs for example, and the FreeBSD ports tree is MUCH larger).
FreeBSD also has SMP support, much better Java support and has jail(8). It's also been better tweaked for performance. Once FreeBSD 5 matures, it will have alot more advanced features.
OpenBSD has pf (which is being ported to FreeBSD), systrace, audited userland and kernel (I think FreeBSD people borrow alot from OpenBSD people in terms of audited code - sendmail for example)
OpenBSD is great, so is FreeBSD - they both have their own niche areas.
For your information, there is actually a fork of the main MPlayer which implements multithreading.
Not sure how good it is since I don't have an SMP system, but it does exist.
http://mplayerxp.sourceforge.net/
Ah, the boon that is Free Software. Have a problem with something? You can modify the source and fix it yourself!
I like to refer to it as 'GNU/Linux' because this way you are acknowledging the ideals of Free Software.
People who have no awareness of 'freeness' of software or the issues involved perhaps will be curious and try to find out more about this mysterious acronym. This is precisely what happened to me after running 'Linux' before I knew anything about GNU. I have since myself spread information about Free software to many others.
I think the "Stallman wants to 0wn Linux!!!" line is childish and petty. Why not see it for what it is - an advertisement for open and enlightened attitudes. Call it GNU/Linux 'mommy's testicles' if you want, but don't hold it against the man for seeking some (deserved) recognition - not even for himself directly - but for his positive ideology.
>And Gtk+ and Qt both make very inefficient use of >the X11 APIs, giving X11 an undeserved reputation >for being slow.
I don't know about Qt, but recent versions of GTK+ use the XRender extension. This bypasses entirely the regular X11 API. In fact, GTK+ makes VERY efficient use of X.
Give some concrete evidence (e.g. benchmarks) before making wild claims about performance.
Otherwise its just FUD.
I am doing precisely what you suggest :)
Currently studying a BA Computer Science, which is half Liberal Arts, half Computer Science.
It's working out great for me, I would've found pure computer science waaaay too boring. I get to spend time studying formal computer science and get to study something completely different (in my case, French).
It's split accross the two faculties, Arts and Comp. Sci.
I think its a great way to learn cool, mind expanding stuff AND come out with a degree which can get you a job.
More people/universities should look at courses like this.
Work both sides of the brain, baby!
Uh, I believe you mean the Dutch.
What a funny thing! Quake III running under FreeBSD/XFree86 4.2.1 is is acutally faster than under Win2k for me. How bizarre since according to YOU "a client-server based desktop environment is ALWAYS going to be slower than a non-c/s solution".
As many people have said before on this site, X11 isnt particularly slow or unstable. My personal experience, the experience of others, and benchmarks indicate a properly configured, recent XFree86 installation performs perfectly well AND is remotely accessable.
This 'X11 is client-server so is therefore slow and crap' is a common misconception by those who understand little.
We have the Render extension now which bypasses this. QT and GTK+ have used Render for quite some time now.
Get your facts straight before condemning X11.
It also runs under win32 systems:
w in 32/
ftp://ftp.fokus.gmd.de/pub/unix/cdrecord/alpha/
Add Slackware to the list of "defenders" of Free Software. Slackware is one of the oldest and most secure distros around, and still going strong.
Perhaps saying that 'Evolution in Humans is over' is a tad strong, but one must admit that the conditions are not optimal for signifigant changes to take place.
For starters, Human communities are no longer isolated. Lets say that Bob in NY was born with a genetic mutation . Bob will most likely mate with someone from a completely different genetic heritage than himself. His offspring wil likely mate with people from different genetic heritages yet again, thus diluting the genetic mutation into nothingness. This is probably the greatest 'hurdle' to our further genetic evolution. That there are no genetically isolated communities left (at least, not in the long term) for mutations to gain a foothold and become the norm.
Also, remember the old thing of 'Survival of the Fittest'. If a mutation is to become entrenched in the gene pool, it must give the carrier some advantage in terms of reproduction. In the current social climate, where humans are at the top of the food chain, what mutation will give you a reproductive advantage? As another reply to this post said, wealthier people tend to reproduce *less* than poor people. How much we reproduce has very little to do with our genes nowadays.
Some argue that culture is our new area of evolution, and I would certainly not deny that we could conceivable 'manually' change our genes. I'm just saying that conditions for Darwinistic, 'natural' genetic evolution are not at an optimum.
Just to be clear:
There is nothing called the "Republic" of Ireland, a frequently (incorrectly) used term which refers to the nation of Ireland. No where in the Irish constitution is there a mention of the "Republic of Ireland". The nation is called simply "Eire" or "Ireland".
Linux makes a very nice workstation OS, but things like this that cause me to recommend FreeBSD for the server...
I've never heard of something like this happening in FreeBSD-STABLE.
While Linux may have more cutting edge features and perhaps has some speed advantages (this is debatable), the FreeBSD (and OpenBSD too!) coders are more conservative about what gets integrated into something which is supposedly stable.
BSD gives you more peace of mind IMHO.
Not True !
The AWT was much _much_ faster than Swing ! Swing effectively uses low level AWT code (drawing routines) to draw its own platform independent widgets, called "lightweight" components [ because they dont use native "heavyweight" peers ]. If you've ever used swing, you'll know its a dog!
I used napster when it was at its height; it had a huge selection and wide variety of material. Then Napster effectively died.
A friend told me about AudioGalaxy.com - now that was *cool*. Say if I was learning a new piece on the guitar. Something (relatively) obscure, like Piere Bensusan. I could find it, and reliably transfer it. Absolutely brilliant!
Now AudioGalaxy.com, while not entirely dead, seems to have caved in to the record companies. I tried to get "Yesterdays" by Wes Montgomery (a prominant Jazz guitarist), and was told that "searching had been disabled" for the track. OK that sucked. I tried Gnucleus (OpenSource windows Gnutell client) and it found a load of his other stuff, but not "Yesterdays".
My point is that, while "alternatives" will keep coming to replace thwarted music sharing systems, the users wont necessarily.
I've found the technology of these "next-generation" file sharing systems to be pretty slick, but the selection of music to be lacking. If they dont have the music Im looking for, it doesn't matter how many copies of the latest Korn or Limp Bizkit tracks are floating around, the technology is effectively useless.
Just my experience.
Because the GPL is inherently designed to allow "trading", ie you do NOT violate the GPL by "trading" GPL'd software.
Violating GPL != Trading GPLd software.
The key point here is that many people (myself included) believe that, since music is a Pure Public Good (see http://www.tidbits.com/tb-issues/TidBITS-602.html# lnk5 ), it should be freely available to anyone who wants it, just like GPLd software!
People think that the concept of the GPL (and other "open source" licences) is good, and that the concept of having to pay (ridiculous) sums of money for music is bad.
I think that you're missing the point; people believe software and music should be freely available.
The GPL enables this, therefore it is good. Furthermore, violating the GPL prevents software from being freely available, therefore it is bad.
Music trading makes music freely available, therefore it is good.
Why would I want a bluetooth printer?
whats wrong with pport ?
Personally I use JEdit nowadays, but if you don't have a decent amount of ram and a fast machine go for CodeCommander.
I agree entirely, however Napster has already tried this line of defense. Basically the point Napster is seen to be *encouraging* copyright infringement; and that its interface makes this ridiculously easy.
Ha!
Yeah right.
Right wingers are about (a) forcing morals / religion upon others (b) greed and (c) control.