This sounds to me like a "shovelware" book, albeit too late to have any impact on anything other then the trees that died to print it. Do they pay the authors of these tomes by the pound?
I co-wrote Pro VB 6 XML for Wrox, and choose royalties. (Paid better, long term, than the flat rate!) If you're writing just one or two chapters for a book you're likely to be offered only flat rate, which is per page. But the editors don't encourage cruft.
Also, I don't think Wrox is merely trying to "cash in", though they are in business to sell books. The folks I've dealt with are sincerly interested in developing atttention to Linux and open source development.
The basic assumption everyone is making is that cooks should get paid. Maybe that's totally wrong... Cooking is much more pure without money anyway.
What makes you think art is, or should be, special? It's just another human activity that can be done for pleasure, or for money, or on a dare, or for any number of reasons.
Being hungry or cold or generally impovished does not make you a better artist, just a hungry, cold, impovished one. If someone wants to produce art, and finds a way to get paid for it, great. Art is not here to make everyone happy.
As large corporations rarely pay their fair share of taxes, why should they benefit from public money?
Who or what does "they" refer to in your sentence? Taxes are paid by both corporate entities *and* the individuals who make up the corporation. So, taxes are collected twice. Ultimately, though, it's only the latter who actually benefit.
Re:About Microsoft Documentation @# +4 : Bingo #@
on
Writing Documentation
·
· Score: 1
Where can I find documentation about
Microsoft Craporation software that doesnt
follow the following pattern:?
topic a: See topic b.
topic b: See topic a.
I thought I made it pretty clear that I do what my boss wants.
You made it clear that you believed that there may be no clear expression of corporate will. You said you do what your boss asks, but that it may conflict with some other policy. If you have doubts about what you're asked to do, then it's up to you to a) ask your boss to clarify what is wanted, and b) check that it is consistent with company policy.
If your boss asks you to wipe every harddrive and install Linux, I doubt you would do it. I suspect you understand claiming "My boss said to do it" does not always carry much weight. Ultimately, *you* are responsible. Most companies do not try to nail people for honestly following specicic instructions given by a boss who one would resaonably expect to know company policy.
As for your suggestion of asking HR, are you seriously advocating that when my boss tells me to install Linux and Apache on an old PC, I should call up some HR person and ask for permission? I have never had a boss who would be pleased with that behavior.
It depends. If you have reason to believe that your boss is not really authorized to ask you to do something, then you need to cover your ass. There are tactful ways of doing this, but the bottom line is that you need to excercise some judgement, and not blindly follow orders. Would your boss get mad if you asked him or her to confirm that installing Linux was OK, and would not put you at any risk? Would your boss prefer a zombie robot slave?
Linux was tolerated retroactively, not pursued proactively. Do you think those pioneering sysadmins should go to jail?
Jail? All depends, but that's unlikely unless there was deliberate damage. I've "secretly" installed Linux at work, but I knew I had some leeway about what I could do with old PCs. If I had any reasn to believe that doing so was a violation of company poilcy, and did it anyway, then I would deserve what I got.
Most people are not hired to be pioneers. That's just life. If you want to be a pioneer, start your own company and take your own risks.
I'd still like to hear your answer to this: How do you think Linux entered the Fortune 500 IT world?
I have no idea, but maybe it was first installed by somebody who simply had permission. Really, it's not so farfetched, though it's a less romantic notion that the idea of clandestine, underground freedom fighters risking jail to further OSS.
You seem to insist on an oversimplified world where any ambiguity absolves you of responsibilty.
But when you work for a big corporation, the will of the "owner" is expressed in a diffuse way. Nobody you deal with really has authority to speak for the corporation (only an officer of the corporation can do that.)
Oh? Officers of the corp. can, and do, delegate authority to other employees. I worked for a corporation, and was directly respnsible for people being arrested due to misuse of copporate property, yet I was never an officer. It's absurd to say that only an *officer* can determine proper use of company property.
Therefore, you are reduced to interpreting conflicting demands, one of which could be a corporate policy manual.
No; you simply go to HR and ask them to clarify the company policy. Of course, some may find it morally *convenient* to remain ingnorant.
My approach has been to deliver what my boss wants, and disregard the other expressions of corporate will. I count on my boss to protect me against anyone I offend. But what if my boss gets hit by a truck? Am I liable to be prosecuted for violating some obscure "corporate policy" I never read?
Well, yes. Assuming you're an adult, you're expected to take resonable steps to ensure that your actions are consistent with company policy.
Claiming that a corporate entity is too nebulous a concept to apply conventional ideas about property rights is just a cop-out. It's really quite simple: if something doesn't belong to you, then *ask* before you use it. Ask your boss; ask human resources. How hard can that be? The downside is that you might not be told what you want to hear; maybe *that's* the real problem.
Joy's new pet project is called Jxta (pronounced "Jucksta," and short for "juxtapose"), [...]
It's a bad sign when you have to tell people how to pronounce the cutesy name of your technology. I look at Jxta and hear "Jicksta", or maybe "Jecksta".
WTF is 'Webcurity'? Is that like "obscurity", but on the web?
Oh, wait, I get it: Take a word, lop of the first syllable, then just put 'web' in front of it. Extra points for ignoring all rules of etymology, or for "inventing" a "word" that a) is not needed and b) doesn't not actually convey the intended meaning without some side explanation.
The real power arises when the same expression, whether it uses lots of syntactic sugar or not, can mean absolutely anything that the programmer wants, not only what the language designer wants it to mean.
Gee, does the compilier or interpreter have any say in this, or would that also be too restricting?
Can you point to any language that meets your criteria?
Yeah, and god knows, OO languages that combine the power of Lisp with the ease of Perl are all over the place.
Like Java(tm). Oh, wait, that's the power of COBOL with the ease of, well, COBOL.
Java is a trademark or registered trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All rights reserved. The Java name and Java logo may not be used without express permission from Sun Microsystems, Inc. Sun Microsystems reserves the right to pretend interest in "open source" development yet maintian dictatorial control over ever last freaking aspect of the Java bloated programming language because Sun Microsystems were the first and only people to think of "write once, run anywhere." Oh, and that phrase is trademarked, too, so don't even think of applying it to anything else, even if it's true (which it isn't for Java, but we have the marketing and the laywers, so there).
I'm all for people feeling good about their work, but Mr. Fleury is a bit bombastic abut his product. Makes it kind of hard to really believe what he's saying (and oddly similar to MSFT sales pitches).
If he really is planning on something called JBoss.net, I think he'll find that 1) people expect it to run MSFT.net code, and 2) MSFT will expres an unpleasant interest.
And just what are "socialist marginal characters"? Are they for or against "WebOS" monopolies?
And why is SUN in all caps? Is that to remind people that it was started from publicly-funded research (Stanford University Network )?
And what does that buy you? XML is a meta-syntax for markup languages; Scheme is a programming language. You don't "code" in XML any more than you code in HTML.
This is not a troll: what's the equivalent in Lisp to XML namespaces, or attributes, or DTDs?
Slashdot Mirror
I co-wrote Pro VB 6 XML for Wrox, and choose royalties. (Paid better, long term, than the flat rate!) If you're writing just one or two chapters for a book you're likely to be offered only flat rate, which is per page. But the editors don't encourage cruft.
Also, I don't think Wrox is merely trying to "cash in", though they are in business to sell books. The folks I've dealt with are sincerly interested in developing atttention to Linux and open source development.
What makes you think art is, or should be, special? It's just another human activity that can be done for pleasure, or for money, or on a dare, or for any number of reasons.
Being hungry or cold or generally impovished does not make you a better artist, just a hungry, cold, impovished one. If someone wants to produce art, and finds a way to get paid for it, great. Art is not here to make everyone happy.
I've been telling AOL to eat me for quite some time now.
Who or what does "they" refer to in your sentence? Taxes are paid by both corporate entities *and* the individuals who make up the corporation. So, taxes are collected twice. Ultimately, though, it's only the latter who actually benefit.
Thanks. That explains Java.
Um, I'm pretty sure Sun *has* grasped the concept, but it doesn't suit their busines model.
But, for a question, how about "What is the general understanding of OSS at Sun?"
The Web Standards Project will get on this right away!
APEX. Less than $100 USD. Flash the firmware (very easy!), no more region codes, or macrovision. Does PALS conversion. Plays MP3s, too. Sweet box.
You made it clear that you believed that there may be no clear expression of corporate will. You said you do what your boss asks, but that it may conflict with some other policy. If you have doubts about what you're asked to do, then it's up to you to a) ask your boss to clarify what is wanted, and b) check that it is consistent with company policy.
If your boss asks you to wipe every harddrive and install Linux, I doubt you would do it. I suspect you understand claiming "My boss said to do it" does not always carry much weight. Ultimately, *you* are responsible. Most companies do not try to nail people for honestly following specicic instructions given by a boss who one would resaonably expect to know company policy.
As for your suggestion of asking HR, are you seriously advocating that when my boss tells me to install Linux and Apache on an old PC, I should call up some HR person and ask for permission? I have never had a boss who would be pleased with that behavior.
It depends. If you have reason to believe that your boss is not really authorized to ask you to do something, then you need to cover your ass. There are tactful ways of doing this, but the bottom line is that you need to excercise some judgement, and not blindly follow orders. Would your boss get mad if you asked him or her to confirm that installing Linux was OK, and would not put you at any risk? Would your boss prefer a zombie robot slave?
Linux was tolerated retroactively, not pursued proactively. Do you think those pioneering sysadmins should go to jail?
Jail? All depends, but that's unlikely unless there was deliberate damage. I've "secretly" installed Linux at work, but I knew I had some leeway about what I could do with old PCs. If I had any reasn to believe that doing so was a violation of company poilcy, and did it anyway, then I would deserve what I got.
Most people are not hired to be pioneers. That's just life. If you want to be a pioneer, start your own company and take your own risks.
I'd still like to hear your answer to this: How do you think Linux entered the Fortune 500 IT world?
I have no idea, but maybe it was first installed by somebody who simply had permission. Really, it's not so farfetched, though it's a less romantic notion that the idea of clandestine, underground freedom fighters risking jail to further OSS.
You seem to insist on an oversimplified world where any ambiguity absolves you of responsibilty.
Oh? Officers of the corp. can, and do, delegate authority to other employees. I worked for a corporation, and was directly respnsible for people being arrested due to misuse of copporate property, yet I was never an officer. It's absurd to say that only an *officer* can determine proper use of company property.
Therefore, you are reduced to interpreting conflicting demands, one of which could be a corporate policy manual.
No; you simply go to HR and ask them to clarify the company policy. Of course, some may find it morally *convenient* to remain ingnorant.
My approach has been to deliver what my boss wants, and disregard the other expressions of corporate will. I count on my boss to protect me against anyone I offend. But what if my boss gets hit by a truck? Am I liable to be prosecuted for violating some obscure "corporate policy" I never read?
Well, yes. Assuming you're an adult, you're expected to take resonable steps to ensure that your actions are consistent with company policy.
Claiming that a corporate entity is too nebulous a concept to apply conventional ideas about property rights is just a cop-out. It's really quite simple: if something doesn't belong to you, then *ask* before you use it. Ask your boss; ask human resources. How hard can that be? The downside is that you might not be told what you want to hear; maybe *that's* the real problem.
Do you write your PERL CODE IN ALL UPPERCASE? That *would* hurt your eyes.
Please; it's Perl, or perl, but not PERL.
Heretic! How dare you besmirch the good name of the Original Altruistic VolksBrowser.
I wonder if they used their own grammar-checker.
It's a bad sign when you have to tell people how to pronounce the cutesy name of your technology. I look at Jxta and hear "Jicksta", or maybe "Jecksta".
You don't get to attend unless you spell "Isaac's" name correctly.
Oh, wait, I get it: Take a word, lop of the first syllable, then just put 'web' in front of it. Extra points for ignoring all rules of etymology, or for "inventing" a "word" that a) is not needed and b) doesn't not actually convey the intended meaning without some side explanation.
(makes note to add 25th hour to day)
Let me guess: you're not a linguist. Am I right?
Ha! I *knew* it.
Damn, if I had a Jamaican accent, I could have a TV psychic hotline.
you will have to learn to appreciate the international english that most people speak
The technical term is bad English. The correct way to "appreciate" that is to point out when people make errors and help them learn correct English.
Or British English, if that's easier.
Gee, does the compilier or interpreter have any say in this, or would that also be too restricting?
Can you point to any language that meets your criteria?
Perhaps one of these (some out know, some to be published Real Soon Now) would help.
Like Java(tm). Oh, wait, that's the power of COBOL with the ease of, well, COBOL.
Java is a trademark or registered trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All rights reserved. The Java name and Java logo may not be used without express permission from Sun Microsystems, Inc. Sun Microsystems reserves the right to pretend interest in "open source" development yet maintian dictatorial control over ever last freaking aspect of the Java bloated programming language because Sun Microsystems were the first and only people to think of "write once, run anywhere." Oh, and that phrase is trademarked, too, so don't even think of applying it to anything else, even if it's true (which it isn't for Java, but we have the marketing and the laywers, so there).
If he really is planning on something called JBoss.net, I think he'll find that 1) people expect it to run MSFT .net code, and 2) MSFT will expres an unpleasant interest.
And just what are "socialist marginal characters"? Are they for or against "WebOS" monopolies?
And why is SUN in all caps? Is that to remind people that it was started from publicly-funded research (Stanford University Network )?
This is not a troll: what's the equivalent in Lisp to XML namespaces, or attributes, or DTDs?
No; Ruby. Except you get Smalltalk instead of Lisp.