Screw W3C validation suites. What's important is that the nytimes.com markup passes the one truly critical validation test: "web site looks consistently nice and polished no matter which browser or resolution is used to access it."
in general, just because something is interpreted doesn't mean it has to be slow.
However, except in rare and unusual cases (e.g., using an interpreter that does realtime execution analysis and modifies code on the fly), interpreted code will always be at least a little bit slower than compiled code.
(The sample Tetris clone loaded very quickly for me.)
Okay, but that's a pretty trivial example indeed -- Tetris was developed in the mid-'80s on a Soviet PDP-11 clone. Tetris has been implemented as simple state machines that run on wristwatches and keychains.
While novel, I don't think JVM-implemented-in-Javascript is going to be a practical path for anything very complex. This isn't going to enable me to run Eclipse as a web app.
I think smart kids are going to be pissed when they realize no one in developed countries uses sugar
Yes, just like smart kids a generation ago in this country were pissed when they found out that in the Real World, programmers used C and Pascal rather than BASIC and LOGO. Wait, that didn't happen; their experiences with the simple tools allowed them to pick up the advanced tools more readily.
I have no doubt that a Smart Kid whose first computing experiences were with Sugar will be able to transition to Windows or OS X or KDE when the time comes that he must do so.
Besides which, Sugar is actually more than just a window manager. Its hooks into the Journal make it a file manager and version control system as well, and its activity-sharing capabilities really don't have much precedent at all on the desktop. (If only it didn't run as runtime-interpreted Python...)
The comparison of proprietary software [...] to addictive drugs is actually pretty accurate.
I use Windows the same way I use caffeine: because I'm not very productive without it, and because if I wanted to quit I could, but it would involve massive withdrawal headaches.
But dare to consider the possibility that a slimmed down XP might also be a viable option... you better duck.
There is a common misconception that having an "open mind" requires one to consider all possibilities to have equal validity.
Knowing what I know about Sugar, and about each operating system, I cannot identify any scenario in which XP would be a better fit for the OLPC project than Linux.
This is not to say the OLPC project does not have issues; it does, not the least of which is all the hardware built into the XO-1 for which there is not yet any software support. I ask you, then: how will migrating to Windows fix any of those issues? What is the disease for which a convoluted, proprietary closed-source operating system is a viable cure?
"Why is Microsoft software that runs on anything but x86 processors such a remarkable rarity?"
Wasn't always like that.
With the exceptions of IE & Office for (pre-Intel) Mac, and those Windows NT 3.1 builds for SPARC et al, I think you'd have to go back about 25 years, to MS-BASIC for 8-bit home computers, to find a time where non-x86 Microsoft software was not rare.
People using Linux on BigIron(tm) bank on 24/7/365/25years uptime.
If you own a piece of Big Iron and run Linux on it, it's going to be virtualized. Hundreds of virtual Linux boxes that can arbitrarily failed over, patched, and rebooted, the physical hardware carrying on uninterrupted all the while.
Have the schoolchildren in developing countries, the end-users of these laptops, requested Windows because it would improve the quality of their education?
Have the teachers of these children, who were most likely taught how to teach at a Western schools where Windows computing was pervasive, requested Windows for their own comfort?
Or have the purchase managers in the education ministries of the countries buying into the OLPC programs -- the ones who have Microsoft salesmen lobbying them constantly about how great Windows is -- requested Windows for business-related reasons?
Actually it is DRM'ed. You can't just install anything you want, you have to first get a developer key to unlock it before you can do so, else it will only allow installation of officially signed OLPC stuff and nothing else.
That only applies to the OS that the machine boots from.
If you're satisfied with keeping the Linux distro that comes on the machine, you can install and run just about any user software available via yum or apt-get or putting some files on a USB thumb drive. No developer key needed.
I can go in with a non-programmer 11-year-old, and show them how to change that! That's so cool.
This is just about the worst approach to configuration I can think of.
Good: UI tools provided to configure behaviors ("Control Panel") Bad: must use a text editor to modify a config file Ugly: must edit the source code of the application itself
You can walk an 11-year-old through the process, but is there any chance an 11-year-old would discover how to do it without your guidance?
How can OLPC have standards for free software and yet be considering shipping a completely closed and proprietary OS as Windows? How is this in any way consistent?
Keep in mind that the guy who wrote the OLPC standards for open software was just sacked...
Strong advocacy is not the same as religious fundamentalism, and, furthermore, you know this.
Your use of the phrase "religious fundamentalism" implies that there are other types of fundamentalism beyond those involving God.
Fundamentally, bible-thumpers and GPL-thumpers both exhibit a similar kind of narrow thinking: my beliefs are correct, they think, and you need to be convinced of my righteousness.
The meaning of "open source fundamentalist" is well understood, regardless of whether it correlates precisely to the dictionary definition of each word. This is a stupid discussion to be wasting our time on.
Everyone needs to keep in mind that its not about the laptop or the software but the educational project.
If the educational project could be executed without the laptop or the software, those never would have been created, because there would be no need.
I do not believe that the OLPC program must use a 100% Libre Open Source software stack in order to accomplish its goals; if a closed-source component does the job better, and allows more children to benefit, I'm all for it. However, I have not seen and cannot conceive of a single way in which Windows XP serves the OLPC project goals better than a small and stable Linux distro such as the one it already uses.
When you are in Apple's position, you leave the semiconductor development to others and let them battle it out to make the best component at the best price.
The semiconductor industry is really only interested in creating the best "general-purpose" semiconductor. If a hardware company like Apple has specific or divergent needs, their choices are to pay through the nose to "partner" with a chipmaker to accommodate their requirements (if they can find one willing), or to buy a chipmaker outright and do whatever they want.
Apple doesn't want to be stuck in the situation they were just a few years ago, needing IBM to improve the PowerPC so their business could move forward, but finding IBM uninterested in investing the effort because it wasn't profitable enough to them.
Since they are legally purchasing a license to use the sound recording for personal use - a rather restrictive license, at that - they really got what was coming to them.
What they had purchased was a license to use the sound recording for personal use FOR AN UNSPECIFIED LENGTH OF TIME. MSN Music's has no authority to make a unilateral decision to change the terms of that license.
Customers affected by this change are entitled to have their purchases refunded, or replaced with alternates of equal value and capability.
When we can make affordable fuel out of trash, garbage, and untreated sewage, then trash, garbage, and untreated sewage will nearly immediately be in short supply.
Not with the enthusiasm we have, and have had for generations, for wasteful consumption.
It'll be a long time before the zillions of acres of landfill have all been dug back up for fuel, and by then, hopefully the waste-to-energy conversion process will be efficient enough that we can reach parity between the amount of waste we'll continue to generate, and the amount of energy we need to extract from it.
Why on God's green earth, would I want to revert to a machine that ran at a few Megahertz and with 128k of RAM. Yea; that was "k"!!
"Luxury."
The Atari 2600 dreamed of having 128 "k". Instead it had only one hundred twenty-eight BYTES of RAM. As in, not enough to fit this whole paragraph as ASCII text.
Quite frankly the hacks that those game developers had to resort to in order to create a decent game on such meager (even by 1977 standards) hardware is more than a bit awe-inspiring. And that's why this new find is so exciting.
There is no reason to use an x86 processor for the project.
Okay. Is there any reason NOT to use an x86 CPU? There are some great low-power "embedded" CPU solutions out there, but is it accurate to say x86-based CPUs do not and cannot meet those criteria?
The systems has an 800 x 600 display
It's actually 1200x900. I'm not sure where you got your numbers from.
I wonder what else about the device you might be misinformed about?
The OLPC software is very well designed for its core tasks of educating children
I happen to think the Sugar UI and its activities contain a lot of terrific innovations, but being that I am not well-informed on the subject of educational pedagogy, I really can't say how well the software actually achieves its core tasks.
It may be exciting for students to hack together small Python scripts in Pippy or have a collaborative jam session in TamTam, but how does that mesh with a core learning curriculum based on The Three R's?
Slashdot Mirror
Beginners All purpose Symbolic Instruction Code.
There, consider yourselves enlightened.
I thought it stood for:
Bought
Apple;
Suck
It,
Commodore
Screw W3C validation suites. What's important is that the nytimes.com markup passes the one truly critical validation test: "web site looks consistently nice and polished no matter which browser or resolution is used to access it."
in general, just because something is interpreted doesn't mean it has to be slow.
However, except in rare and unusual cases (e.g., using an interpreter that does realtime execution analysis and modifies code on the fly), interpreted code will always be at least a little bit slower than compiled code.
(The sample Tetris clone loaded very quickly for me.)
Okay, but that's a pretty trivial example indeed -- Tetris was developed in the mid-'80s on a Soviet PDP-11 clone. Tetris has been implemented as simple state machines that run on wristwatches and keychains.
While novel, I don't think JVM-implemented-in-Javascript is going to be a practical path for anything very complex. This isn't going to enable me to run Eclipse as a web app.
I think smart kids are going to be pissed when they realize no one in developed countries uses sugar
Yes, just like smart kids a generation ago in this country were pissed when they found out that in the Real World, programmers used C and Pascal rather than BASIC and LOGO.
Wait, that didn't happen; their experiences with the simple tools allowed them to pick up the advanced tools more readily.
I have no doubt that a Smart Kid whose first computing experiences were with Sugar will be able to transition to Windows or OS X or KDE when the time comes that he must do so.
Besides which, Sugar is actually more than just a window manager. Its hooks into the Journal make it a file manager and version control system as well, and its activity-sharing capabilities really don't have much precedent at all on the desktop. (If only it didn't run as runtime-interpreted Python...)
The comparison of proprietary software [...] to addictive drugs is actually pretty accurate.
I use Windows the same way I use caffeine: because I'm not very productive without it, and because if I wanted to quit I could, but it would involve massive withdrawal headaches.
But dare to consider the possibility that a slimmed down XP might also be a viable option... you better duck.
There is a common misconception that having an "open mind" requires one to consider all possibilities to have equal validity.
Knowing what I know about Sugar, and about each operating system, I cannot identify any scenario in which XP would be a better fit for the OLPC project than Linux.
This is not to say the OLPC project does not have issues; it does, not the least of which is all the hardware built into the XO-1 for which there is not yet any software support. I ask you, then: how will migrating to Windows fix any of those issues? What is the disease for which a convoluted, proprietary closed-source operating system is a viable cure?
"Why is Microsoft software that runs on anything but x86 processors such a remarkable rarity?"
Wasn't always like that.
With the exceptions of IE & Office for (pre-Intel) Mac, and those Windows NT 3.1 builds for SPARC et al, I think you'd have to go back about 25 years, to MS-BASIC for 8-bit home computers, to find a time where non-x86 Microsoft software was not rare.
People using Linux on BigIron(tm) bank on 24/7/365/25years uptime.
If you own a piece of Big Iron and run Linux on it, it's going to be virtualized. Hundreds of virtual Linux boxes that can arbitrarily failed over, patched, and rebooted, the physical hardware carrying on uninterrupted all the while.
Intel just wants to sell semiconductors, no matter what software is running on it.
Then why did they develop their own "Classmate PC" product line in direct competition with OLPC?
Microsoft just wants to sell software, no matter what semiconductor it is running on.
Then why is Microsoft software that runs on anything but x86 processors such a remarkable rarity?
some people want Windows.
Sure, but which people?
Have the schoolchildren in developing countries, the end-users of these laptops, requested Windows because it would improve the quality of their education?
Have the teachers of these children, who were most likely taught how to teach at a Western schools where Windows computing was pervasive, requested Windows for their own comfort?
Or have the purchase managers in the education ministries of the countries buying into the OLPC programs -- the ones who have Microsoft salesmen lobbying them constantly about how great Windows is -- requested Windows for business-related reasons?
Actually it is DRM'ed. You can't just install anything you want, you have to first get a developer key to unlock it before you can do so, else it will only allow installation of officially signed OLPC stuff and nothing else.
That only applies to the OS that the machine boots from.
If you're satisfied with keeping the Linux distro that comes on the machine, you can install and run just about any user software available via yum or apt-get or putting some files on a USB thumb drive. No developer key needed.
I can go in with a non-programmer 11-year-old, and show them how to change that! That's so cool.
This is just about the worst approach to configuration I can think of.
Good: UI tools provided to configure behaviors ("Control Panel")
Bad: must use a text editor to modify a config file
Ugly: must edit the source code of the application itself
You can walk an 11-year-old through the process, but is there any chance an 11-year-old would discover how to do it without your guidance?
How can OLPC have standards for free software and yet be considering shipping a completely closed and proprietary OS as Windows? How is this in any way consistent?
Keep in mind that the guy who wrote the OLPC standards for open software was just sacked...
Strong advocacy is not the same as religious fundamentalism, and, furthermore, you know this.
Your use of the phrase "religious fundamentalism" implies that there are other types of fundamentalism beyond those involving God.
Fundamentally, bible-thumpers and GPL-thumpers both exhibit a similar kind of narrow thinking: my beliefs are correct, they think, and you need to be convinced of my righteousness.
The meaning of "open source fundamentalist" is well understood, regardless of whether it correlates precisely to the dictionary definition of each word. This is a stupid discussion to be wasting our time on.
Everyone needs to keep in mind that its not about the laptop or the software but the educational project.
If the educational project could be executed without the laptop or the software, those never would have been created, because there would be no need.
I do not believe that the OLPC program must use a 100% Libre Open Source software stack in order to accomplish its goals; if a closed-source component does the job better, and allows more children to benefit, I'm all for it. However, I have not seen and cannot conceive of a single way in which Windows XP serves the OLPC project goals better than a small and stable Linux distro such as the one it already uses.
Score: -1, Microsoft User
You do remember the topic is using public terminals, right?
How often do you see a public email/web-type terminal that is NOT running Windows?
When you are in Apple's position, you leave the semiconductor development to others and let them battle it out to make the best component at the best price.
The semiconductor industry is really only interested in creating the best "general-purpose" semiconductor. If a hardware company like Apple has specific or divergent needs, their choices are to pay through the nose to "partner" with a chipmaker to accommodate their requirements (if they can find one willing), or to buy a chipmaker outright and do whatever they want.
Apple doesn't want to be stuck in the situation they were just a few years ago, needing IBM to improve the PowerPC so their business could move forward, but finding IBM uninterested in investing the effort because it wasn't profitable enough to them.
Since they are legally purchasing a license to use the sound recording for personal use - a rather restrictive license, at that - they really got what was coming to them.
What they had purchased was a license to use the sound recording for personal use FOR AN UNSPECIFIED LENGTH OF TIME. MSN Music's has no authority to make a unilateral decision to change the terms of that license.
Customers affected by this change are entitled to have their purchases refunded, or replaced with alternates of equal value and capability.
When we can make affordable fuel out of trash, garbage, and untreated sewage, then trash, garbage, and untreated sewage will nearly immediately be in short supply.
Not with the enthusiasm we have, and have had for generations, for wasteful consumption.
It'll be a long time before the zillions of acres of landfill have all been dug back up for fuel, and by then, hopefully the waste-to-energy conversion process will be efficient enough that we can reach parity between the amount of waste we'll continue to generate, and the amount of energy we need to extract from it.
There is no way that the Magistrate actually believes that the RIAA does not intend to sue these students.
The RIAA damn well better intended to sue some students, or else why the hell are they wasting the courts' time with subpoenas?
Why on God's green earth, would I want to revert to a machine that ran at a few Megahertz and with 128k of RAM. Yea; that was "k"!!
"Luxury."
The Atari 2600 dreamed of having 128 "k". Instead it had only one hundred twenty-eight BYTES of RAM. As in, not enough to fit this whole paragraph as ASCII text.
Quite frankly the hacks that those game developers had to resort to in order to create a decent game on such meager (even by 1977 standards) hardware is more than a bit awe-inspiring. And that's why this new find is so exciting.
There is no reason to use an x86 processor for the project.
Okay. Is there any reason NOT to use an x86 CPU? There are some great low-power "embedded" CPU solutions out there, but is it accurate to say x86-based CPUs do not and cannot meet those criteria?
The systems has an 800 x 600 display
It's actually 1200x900. I'm not sure where you got your numbers from.
I wonder what else about the device you might be misinformed about?
The OLPC software is very well designed for its core tasks of educating children
I happen to think the Sugar UI and its activities contain a lot of terrific innovations, but being that I am not well-informed on the subject of educational pedagogy, I really can't say how well the software actually achieves its core tasks.
It may be exciting for students to hack together small Python scripts in Pippy or have a collaborative jam session in TamTam, but how does that mesh with a core learning curriculum based on The Three R's?
4: Reflash the OS to something businesses can use.
How would one "reflash" a child-sized keyboard to one suitable for use by adults' hands?