I am both a sceptic and a fan of the SW. I dislike XML serialization of RDF (and RDFS and OWL) - to me the SW is a knowledge engineering task and frankly 20 year old Lisp systems seem to offer a friendlier notation and a much better working environment. If you are a Lisp-er, check out the (now) open source Loom system that supplies a descriptive logic reasoner and other goodies.
The Protege project provides a good (and free) editor for working on ontologies - you might want to grab a copy and work through a tutorial.
I think that the SW will take off, but its success will be a grass roots type of effort: simple ontologies will be used in an adhoc sort of way and the popular ones might become defacto standards. I don't think that a top-down standards approach is going to work.
I added a chapter on the SW to my current Ruby book project, but it just has a few simple examples because I wanted to only use standard Ruby libraries -- no dependencies makes it easier to play with.
I had a SW business idea a few years ago, hacked some Lisp code, but never went anywhere with it (I tend to stop working on my own projects when I get large consulting jobs): define a simple ontology for representing news stories and writing an intelligent scraper that could create instances, given certain types of news stories. Anyway, I have always intended to get back to this idea someday.
Seriously, once you know the naming conventions, directory layouts, etc., it is very easy to find your way around a Rails project.
If you are working on a controller and want to mentally switch gears an modify the coresponding view, there is no doubt where to go (that is, which rhtml file to edit).
I find myself thinking about application problems and not framework problems. I am a little prejudiced right now: I am just finishing up the book "Ruby Quickly" for Manning (http://www.manning.com/watson/). I hate to admit it, but I am simply tired of developing in Java. Ruby is fun, and productive. I started a new AI project a few weeks ago, and I started all of the prototyping in Ruby. For one part of the system, Ruby is too slow, and I am replacing this bit of code with stuff written in Common Lisp. Still, for a large part of the system, Ruby is a great fit.
Interesting - thanks. I had a few co-workers who were so enamored with the 'reality chip' (actually a DSP) that SGI did for Nintendo, that they invested heavily in SGI.
I am not a hardware guy, but it was neat using early U64 protoypes.
Totally off topic, but I still enjoy my U64 - my grandson and I still enjoy some of the older games like Star Wars a lot.
Almost 10 years ago, I had the use of two packed-to-the-gills Reality Engines, one supplied by Nintendo when I was doing game AI work and one by Disney when I was the lead on a virtual reality prototype.
I am not a computer graphics specialist, but it was great to work with full screen graphics at a high frame rate. The artistic types at Angel Studios where I worked created amazing 3d models, textures, and environments - really, some of the most fun I ever had working.
I could really agree with you except for one thing: what guarentee do you have that a Word or Excel file that you create today and archive will be readable in 10 years? I suppose that an archive strategy could include exporting the original documents to test, CSV, etc., and archiving the original and text copies.
A little funny that you should mention owning Microsoft stock: last year I got so fed up with Microsoft's file formats, that I actually sold the bit of Microsoft stock that I had.
Try writing a few code snippets to access OpenOffice.org or AbiWord diocuments - pretty much trivial.
Anyway, I am not saying that you are wrong - I am just stating my own preferences.
my wife and I donate to Heffer project, Habbitat for Humanity, and the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) every month with automatic credit card payments
If you don't think that open document formats, an open internet, etc. are not important, you certainly have the rights to your own opinions.
I joined the OpenDocument Format Alliance (http://www.odfalliance.org/) recently - partly to keep connected with what they are doing and partly to support a good cause.
I understand how entrenched Microsoft Office is in many organizations but hopefully common sense will prevail - want permanent free access to your data? Then use ODF.
Although I am a 'programming language junky' (I am happily coding away in Ruby and Common Lisp this morning on a new long term AI engagement:-) I always think of systems as data with software added as needed. Seriously, get the data (structures, schema, persistence, etc.) right and the rest is easier. Who would want to build systems around Office formats?
I started to write an open source Sharepoint clone a few years ago to support ODF documents.
Unfortunately (or fortunately for my income), one of my consulting customers liked an early prototype and bought out the rights (unfortunately making it proprietary) and funded me for several months to improve it. They had me discard the OpenOffice.org backend and only support Microsoft Office documents, which was also too bad.
There are now some good open source projects like Daisy that support ODF.
I donate to the FSF (money, not time) and consider myself to be a supporter in general.
That said, a good fraction of my job is developing and deploying Java-based web portals and other infrastructure software on Linux servers - and I do need the "non free" Sun JDK and JRE for that.
So for me, it is a matter of pragmatism to sometimes use non-free software on Linux. (I have been using Ruby + Rails + Apache a lot more in the last year, and besides the simple fact that developing in Ruby is so much fun, I like the 'entire free software stack' thing).
So while I would always like free software alternative drivers to be available for Linux, I am right now using a proprietary ATI driver that is running dual monitors very nicely under Ubuntu on my development box.
I blogged about this today: the next step in the commoditization of operating systems: application and tool vendors include the operating system and every thing in one complete software stack.
This is not as crazy as I might have thought a few years ago because of virtualization tools like Xen (etc.) However, if companies like Oracle start selling the 'whole stack' I hope that they offer versions that are built for Xen.
Apple computers are 'feel good' consumer items
on
Apple's Fruitful Future
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
I had the serial number 71 Apple II (I wrote the little chess game that was distributed with early Apples on the demo software cassette), bought an early Mac (I wrote the ExperOPS5 commercial product on it), and I still use Macs a lot for my work (although I use Linux more).
For me, Apple products are "feel good" products. Visually they look great compared to the competition. The software always seems a little more solid (probably because of only needing to support their own hardware).
You can certainly get more bang for the buck with a PC clone running Linux, but Macs with OS X are great products. When I bought my first Mac, they were very new and one day I brought my Mac into work because I wanted my secretary to type in a big stack of notes that I had written on a business trip. I immediately got pulled into a meeting and when I got out of the meeting my non-technical secretary was done - it just took her a few minutes to figure out the Mac -- try that with a PC in 1984!
1. I do a little consulting work for people in other countries (Europe and one company in India) 2. I like the variety of news from international news sources
Sometimes I wonder if the "owners" want to screw stuff up in the U.S. A world-wide internet is necessary for business. Add to this what seems like a "dumbing down" of our school systems in the last few decades, and I have to ask, what gives?
On a tangent: the thing with software patents is similar: almost all money spent on software is spent for private development and a rich ecosystem of both open source and commercial software makes things go. If we in the U.S. can't use (in the future) Linux, etc. that is going to really hurt our competitiveness.
Anyway, I don't think that a separate internet will happen - just goes against the grain of what is good for business.
I tried it - seems well implemented
on
Google Pages Launches
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I run two of my own servers but I signed up because I was looking for a simple web hosting service to recommend to a few non-technical friends. The editing features are simple enough to use. I ended up putting a boring little rant on Spirituality and Responsibility on my free googlepages account - nothing that I would put on my professional web sites, and material that is probably too boring even for my blog:-)
I use Ubuntu Linux, Windows XP, and OS 10.4 for my work, usually depending on what a customer uses and what special software I might need to use. For Java development, I use IntelliJ, and all three operating systems are just about the same. For Ruby I like TextMate on the Mac, or jEdit/eclipse/emacs under Linux, but TextPad on Windows is OK also.
I don't usually (but sometimes:-) think about which OS I want to use for personal reasons - all three are just tools.
I rely on my web site for my business (I am a consultant living in a remote area, so most of my business initially comes from my web site). I have about as many people complement me on the simplicity of my site as other people who helpfully suggest things like "Hey, you really need to hire a web designer":-)
I think it comes down to what you need from a web site. I have one consulting page that is for my business, but I put a lot of non-work related stuff on my web site, and again I get some friendly advice that that is a bit unprofessional and un-focused. As an example, I have a link to my Flickr picture site right on my main menu. I did this because I enjoy seeing a picture or two of people whose work I read, but will likely never meet so I figure why not share a little. (I also put a picture on my main page of my wife and I in front of the Taj Mahal - not so professional perhaps, but fun:-)
I wrote http://kbdocs.com/ for my own use last year, then decided to make it public. KBdocs is simple (about a 3 evening hack) : styled text editing, tags, and export for local word-processing. As an experiment, I wrote KBdocs twice: once in Java+JSPs+POJOs and once using Ruby on Rails - I bounced from one implementation to the other as an experiment comparing Rails vs. Java development. A simplified copy of my Rails rKBdocs is a little example program in a new Ruby book that I am writing.
I write a lot (a fun addiction:-) and I find that OpenOffice.org Write simply stays out of my way - I tend to not to have to think about the tool, just what I am writing. Microsoft Word (Mac version OK, Windows version less OK) is not that bad for writing, but problems with master documents and version problems between different versions of Word put me off.
I think that much of the friction in adopting OpenOffice.org is simple laziness of not wanting to learn something slightly different.
I have been a Linux user since I downloaded Slackware over a 2400 baud modem internet connection, but I must admit that I have started using OS X for my desktop more recently than Linux. For consulting work I need to deploy to Linux servers, but OS X is OK enough as a development environment and makes a nicer desktop, and if you load up Linux servers with Mac.termcap definitions, life is OK enough using Linux servers. That said, Windows basically sucks in my opinion as a desktop except for a few things: runs iTunes OK, plays DRMed video content purchased on the web, and TurtleCVS and TurtleSVN rock!
I live in the U.S., and I don't see Microsoft losing desktop 'space' here anytime soon. For the rest of the world however, I will quote myself from my blog: "Really, what country should depend strongly on proprietary software written and owned by a company in a foreign country?"
It is hard to predict, but I think that Linux use in the third world will explode while more "developed" countries will have more enertia and move away from proprietary software more slowly - much to our disadvantage.
I spent several evenings hacking something together (http://kbdocs.com/) that was really for my own use, but I made it public. While I wrote this in Java/JSPs, I have something similar in my upcoming Ruby Enterprise book, using Rails.
As an author, I rely heavily on OpenOffice.org and sometimes Word, but I also like having a light weight web based system for writing notes, etc. that are mostly for myself. BTW, my http://kbdocs.com/ system nicely exports to other formats.
I greatly respect RS, but I disagree with him here for a simple reason: the CC website makes it easy and convenient for people to pick a license that they are happy with for stuff that they produce.
Isn't this the point? People who produce stuff should get to pick a license that they are happy with. I release most of the code on my web site under the GPL (although I will usually give "LGPL waivers" if people ask). I use one of the CC licenses for my free web books and the childrens' story that my wife wrote.
Freedom is getting to choose your own license for stuff that you produce.
As an aside: many years ago, I was way out of line, and flamed the authors of the CLisp system for using the GPL - my reasons were selfish: at the time I thought that a portable Common Lisp system with a "business friendly" license would make it easier to sell the use of Common Lisp. Well, there are now several good Common Lisp systems available with BSD style licenses and CL is still a hard sell! I am still embarassed about this, and it has been probably 6 or 7 years.
I just blogged (http://mark-watson.blogspot.com/) about this. For people who need to do a lot of offline reading of technical papers, etc., I think that this device is a winner. You can load it with PDF files in addition buying DRMed eBooks. This will work well with material from, for example, ACM's Digital Portal.
I am a big fan of the iTunes Store. My wife and I watched an old Alfred Hitchcock show last night (fantastic, BTW) that I bought for $2. I have no problem buying DRMed eBooks as long as I can back them up (as iTunes allows).
There are some rough edges (availability and best with Internet Explorer [yuck]) but I use their service to track my main web site, my blog, and three J2EE-based web portals. I never thought that I needed the kind of user location and navigation information that Analytics provides, but now that I have access to this information I would not like to lose it! Knowing statistically how people navigate around your site gives you a better idea of what people like than simple web log statistics. For example, I give away all sorts of hopefully useful stuff on my main site, but to be honest, I am most keenly interested in people visiting my consulting services page. Analytics lets me see what site navigation paths lead to my consulting page.
I use it for mirroring my open source projects and the yearly cost is reasonable for this purpose. I don't really use many other.Mac features because I always hopping from OS X to Linux to Windows depending on what I am working on. (BTW, pardon an obvious suggestion: if you also need to use several systems, try what I do: set up a CVS (or subversion) server and keep **everything** you do under source code control: this makes it quick and easy to sit down at any box and get your environment).
Slashdot Mirror
I am both a sceptic and a fan of the SW. I dislike XML serialization of RDF (and RDFS and OWL) - to me the SW is a knowledge engineering task and frankly 20 year old Lisp systems seem to offer a friendlier notation and a much better working environment. If you are a Lisp-er, check out the (now) open source Loom system that supplies a descriptive logic reasoner and other goodies.
The Protege project provides a good (and free) editor for working on ontologies - you might want to grab a copy and work through a tutorial.
I think that the SW will take off, but its success will be a grass roots type of effort: simple ontologies will be used in an adhoc sort of way and the popular ones might become defacto standards. I don't think that a top-down standards approach is going to work.
I added a chapter on the SW to my current Ruby book project, but it just has a few simple examples because I wanted to only use standard Ruby libraries -- no dependencies makes it easier to play with.
I had a SW business idea a few years ago, hacked some Lisp code, but never went anywhere with it (I tend to stop working on my own projects when I get large consulting jobs): define a simple ontology for representing news stories and writing an intelligent scraper that could create instances, given certain types of news stories. Anyway, I have always intended to get back to this idea someday.
Try leaving politics aside and do what benefits the most people.
Is Red Hat still a viable business? I am just curious - I don't use their stuff.
Also, didn't Red Hat buy JBoss? Why on earth would they not be strongly motivated to ship with built in JREs?
Seriously, once you know the naming conventions, directory layouts, etc., it is very easy to find your way around a Rails project.
If you are working on a controller and want to mentally switch gears an modify the coresponding view, there is no doubt where to go (that is, which rhtml file to edit).
I find myself thinking about application problems and not framework problems. I am a little prejudiced right now: I am just finishing up the book "Ruby Quickly" for Manning (http://www.manning.com/watson/). I hate to admit it, but I am simply tired of developing in Java. Ruby is fun, and productive. I started a new AI project a few weeks ago, and I started all of the prototyping in Ruby. For one part of the system, Ruby is too slow, and I am replacing this bit of code with stuff written in Common Lisp. Still, for a large part of the system, Ruby is a great fit.
Interesting - thanks. I had a few co-workers who were so enamored with the 'reality chip' (actually a DSP) that SGI did for Nintendo, that they invested heavily in SGI.
I am not a hardware guy, but it was neat using early U64 protoypes.
Totally off topic, but I still enjoy my U64 - my grandson and I still enjoy some of the older games like Star Wars a lot.
Almost 10 years ago, I had the use of two packed-to-the-gills Reality Engines, one supplied by Nintendo when I was doing game AI work and one by Disney when I was the lead on a virtual reality prototype.
I am not a computer graphics specialist, but it was great to work with full screen graphics at a high frame rate. The artistic types at Angel Studios where I worked created amazing 3d models, textures, and environments - really, some of the most fun I ever had working.
I could really agree with you except for one thing: what guarentee do you have that a Word or Excel file that you create today and archive will be readable in 10 years? I suppose that an archive strategy could include exporting the original documents to test, CSV, etc., and archiving the original and text copies.
A little funny that you should mention owning Microsoft stock: last year I got so fed up with Microsoft's file formats, that I actually sold the bit of Microsoft stock that I had.
Try writing a few code snippets to access OpenOffice.org or AbiWord diocuments - pretty much trivial.
Anyway, I am not saying that you are wrong - I am just stating my own preferences.
my wife and I donate to Heffer project, Habbitat for Humanity, and the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) every month with automatic credit card payments
If you don't think that open document formats, an open internet, etc. are not important, you certainly have the rights to your own opinions.
I joined the OpenDocument Format Alliance (http://www.odfalliance.org/) recently - partly to keep connected with what they are doing and partly to support a good cause.
:-) I always think of systems as data with software added as needed. Seriously, get the data (structures, schema, persistence, etc.) right and the rest is easier. Who would want to build systems around Office formats?
I understand how entrenched Microsoft Office is in many organizations but hopefully common sense will prevail - want permanent free access to your data? Then use ODF.
Although I am a 'programming language junky' (I am happily coding away in Ruby and Common Lisp this morning on a new long term AI engagement
I started to write an open source Sharepoint clone a few years ago to support ODF documents.
Unfortunately (or fortunately for my income), one of my consulting customers liked an early prototype and bought out the rights (unfortunately making it proprietary) and funded me for several months to improve it. They had me discard the OpenOffice.org backend and only support Microsoft Office documents, which was also too bad.
There are now some good open source projects like Daisy that support ODF.
I donate to the FSF (money, not time) and consider myself to be a supporter in general.
That said, a good fraction of my job is developing and deploying Java-based web portals and other infrastructure software on Linux servers - and I do need the "non free" Sun JDK and JRE for that.
So for me, it is a matter of pragmatism to sometimes use non-free software on Linux. (I have been using Ruby + Rails + Apache a lot more in the last year, and besides the simple fact that developing in Ruby is so much fun, I like the 'entire free software stack' thing).
So while I would always like free software alternative drivers to be available for Linux, I am right now using a proprietary ATI driver that is running dual monitors very nicely under Ubuntu on my development box.
I blogged about this today: the next step in the commoditization of operating systems: application and tool vendors include the operating system and every thing in one complete software stack.
This is not as crazy as I might have thought a few years ago because of virtualization tools like Xen (etc.) However, if companies like Oracle start selling the 'whole stack' I hope that they offer versions that are built for Xen.
I had the serial number 71 Apple II (I wrote the little chess game that was distributed with early Apples on the demo software cassette), bought an early Mac (I wrote the ExperOPS5 commercial product on it), and I still use Macs a lot for my work (although I use Linux more).
For me, Apple products are "feel good" products. Visually they look great compared to the competition. The software always seems a little more solid (probably because of only needing to support their own hardware).
You can certainly get more bang for the buck with a PC clone running Linux, but Macs with OS X are great products. When I bought my first Mac, they were very new and one day I brought my Mac into work because I wanted my secretary to type in a big stack of notes that I had written on a business trip. I immediately got pulled into a meeting and when I got out of the meeting my non-technical secretary was done - it just took her a few minutes to figure out the Mac -- try that with a PC in 1984!
This would be bad for me:
1. I do a little consulting work for people in other countries (Europe and one company in India)
2. I like the variety of news from international news sources
Sometimes I wonder if the "owners" want to screw stuff up in the U.S. A world-wide internet is necessary for business. Add to this what seems like a "dumbing down" of our school systems in the last few decades, and I have to ask, what gives?
On a tangent: the thing with software patents is similar: almost all money spent on software is spent for private development and a rich ecosystem of both open source and commercial software makes things go. If we in the U.S. can't use (in the future) Linux, etc. that is going to really hurt our competitiveness.
Anyway, I don't think that a separate internet will happen - just goes against the grain of what is good for business.
I run two of my own servers but I signed up because I was looking for a simple web hosting service to recommend to a few non-technical friends. The editing features are simple enough to use. I ended up putting a boring little rant on Spirituality and Responsibility on my free googlepages account - nothing that I would put on my professional web sites, and material that is probably too boring even for my blog :-)
I use Ubuntu Linux, Windows XP, and OS 10.4 for my work, usually depending on what a customer uses and what special software I might need to use. For Java development, I use IntelliJ, and all three operating systems are just about the same. For Ruby I like TextMate on the Mac, or jEdit/eclipse/emacs under Linux, but TextPad on Windows is OK also.
:-) think about which OS I want to use for personal reasons - all three are just tools.
I don't usually (but sometimes
I rely on my web site for my business (I am a consultant living in a remote area, so most of my business initially comes from my web site). I have about as many people complement me on the simplicity of my site as other people who helpfully suggest things like "Hey, you really need to hire a web designer" :-)
:-)
I think it comes down to what you need from a web site. I have one consulting page that is for my business, but I put a lot of non-work related stuff on my web site, and again I get some friendly advice that that is a bit unprofessional and un-focused. As an example, I have a link to my Flickr picture site right on my main menu. I did this because I enjoy seeing a picture or two of people whose work I read, but will likely never meet so I figure why not share a little. (I also put a picture on my main page of my wife and I in front of the Taj Mahal - not so professional perhaps, but fun
Try my little 3 evening hack: http://kbdocs.com/
One caveate: I only do periodic backups, so you might want to occasionally use the export feature to generate local backups on your computer.
I wrote http://kbdocs.com/ for my own use last year, then decided to make it public. KBdocs is simple (about a 3 evening hack) : styled text editing, tags, and export for local word-processing. As an experiment, I wrote KBdocs twice: once in Java+JSPs+POJOs and once using Ruby on Rails - I bounced from one implementation to the other as an experiment comparing Rails vs. Java development. A simplified copy of my Rails rKBdocs is a little example program in a new Ruby book that I am writing.
I write a lot (a fun addiction :-) and I find that OpenOffice.org Write simply stays out of my way - I tend to not to have to think about the tool, just what I am writing. Microsoft Word (Mac version OK, Windows version less OK) is not that bad for writing, but problems with master documents and version problems between different versions of Word put me off.
.termcap definitions, life is OK enough using Linux servers. That said, Windows basically sucks in my opinion as a desktop except for a few things: runs iTunes OK, plays DRMed video content purchased on the web, and TurtleCVS and TurtleSVN rock!
I think that much of the friction in adopting OpenOffice.org is simple laziness of not wanting to learn something slightly different.
I have been a Linux user since I downloaded Slackware over a 2400 baud modem internet connection, but I must admit that I have started using OS X for my desktop more recently than Linux. For consulting work I need to deploy to Linux servers, but OS X is OK enough as a development environment and makes a nicer desktop, and if you load up Linux servers with Mac
I live in the U.S., and I don't see Microsoft losing desktop 'space' here anytime soon. For the rest of the world however, I will quote myself from my blog: "Really, what country should depend strongly on proprietary software written and owned by a company in a foreign country?"
It is hard to predict, but I think that Linux use in the third world will explode while more "developed" countries will have more enertia and move away from proprietary software more slowly - much to our disadvantage.
I spent several evenings hacking something together (http://kbdocs.com/) that was really for my own use, but I made it public. While I wrote this in Java/JSPs, I have something similar in my upcoming Ruby Enterprise book, using Rails.
As an author, I rely heavily on OpenOffice.org and sometimes Word, but I also like having a light weight web based system for writing notes, etc. that are mostly for myself. BTW, my http://kbdocs.com/ system nicely exports to other formats.
I greatly respect RS, but I disagree with him here for a simple reason: the CC website makes it easy and convenient for people to pick a license that they are happy with for stuff that they produce.
Isn't this the point? People who produce stuff should get to pick a license that they are happy with. I release most of the code on my web site under the GPL (although I will usually give "LGPL waivers" if people ask). I use one of the CC licenses for my free web books and the childrens' story that my wife wrote.
Freedom is getting to choose your own license for stuff that you produce.
As an aside: many years ago, I was way out of line, and flamed the authors of the CLisp system for using the GPL - my reasons were selfish: at the time I thought that a portable Common Lisp system with a "business friendly" license would make it easier to sell the use of Common Lisp. Well, there are now several good Common Lisp systems available with BSD style licenses and CL is still a hard sell! I am still embarassed about this, and it has been probably 6 or 7 years.
.. and I thought that Apple passed the code to do this back to Sun over a year ago.
I just blogged (http://mark-watson.blogspot.com/) about this. For people who need to do a lot of offline reading of technical papers, etc., I think that this device is a winner. You can load it with PDF files in addition buying DRMed eBooks. This will work well with material from, for example, ACM's Digital Portal.
I am a big fan of the iTunes Store. My wife and I watched an old Alfred Hitchcock show last night (fantastic, BTW) that I bought for $2. I have no problem buying DRMed eBooks as long as I can back them up (as iTunes allows).
There are some rough edges (availability and best with Internet Explorer [yuck]) but I use their service to track my main web site, my blog, and three J2EE-based web portals. I never thought that I needed the kind of user location and navigation information that Analytics provides, but now that I have access to this information I would not like to lose it! Knowing statistically how people navigate around your site gives you a better idea of what people like than simple web log statistics. For example, I give away all sorts of hopefully useful stuff on my main site, but to be honest, I am most keenly interested in people visiting my consulting services page. Analytics lets me see what site navigation paths lead to my consulting page.
I use it for mirroring my open source projects and the yearly cost is reasonable for this purpose. I don't really use many other .Mac features because I always hopping from OS X to Linux to Windows depending on what I am working on. (BTW, pardon an obvious suggestion: if you also need to use several systems, try what I do: set up a CVS (or subversion) server and keep **everything** you do under source code control: this makes it quick and easy to sit down at any box and get your environment).