"The Techies" didn't create the problem by themselves. They had a lot of help from "The Suits."
Back in the days when computers were expensive, your manager wouldn't buy you that extra hard disk for your database because it cost REAL MONEY(tm).
So you had to try to optimize your disk usage, just like you tried to optimize your code. Remember code optimization? Big O notation, finding the best algorithm?
Squeezing 2 bytes per date meant a lot of savings. I can't really fault them for it.
Now we know better. Your code will be around in 20 years, so code for it.
When the first of us got on the web, it was the early 90's, before there was a Netscape Corporation or an Internet Explorer, when URLs didn't appear evrywhere and there weren't TV commercials for web sites. It was a time where not only did everybody and their uncle NOT have a web site, but if you said "World Wide Web", they'd say "What?!?"
We generally had two browser choices: Lynx or Mosaic for Motif. Most of us ended up downloading and compiling the browser ourselves. Sometimes we had to hack the code to make it compile under SCO. Typically we were the system administrators and we wrote a lot of Perl anyway.
So when we needed to choose a CGI language, perl was obvious. of course back then, we weren't doing transaction processing on our web sites we were writing phone lookups and simple query screens, but perl was it.
Then others started to get onto the web, and they asked us what we used to write CGI. We said "perl", so the learned perl.
Now it's 1999, we're so far removed from the time when there was a registered servers list at NCSA and there were only 1500 servers registered.
Webmaster, and web developer are full-fledged job titles, not just more cool stuff your system administrator knows how to do.
Perl for CGI came from the early adopters of WWW who were already using perl for their other tasks.
I think that RMS is worried about HIS crusade being usurped by ESR. ERS gets the mainistream press, not RMS.
RMS's dissertations about freedom are exactly what held the movement back all those years. Businesses are interested in profits not prophets.
The idea that people shoudl not be paid for software. That it should all be for free, and that I should do something else for a living is absurd. I'm good at one thing: software. I don't want to be a baker, or a waiter of a plumber.
Your movement must and will change as its pool of adherents grows, and people try to make money off the free software model.
You stick to your principles, I'll stick to mine. If we all do that, we'll survive the current set of growing pains we're feeling while the rest of world decides that they've caught on.
I think that part of RMS's problem with Open Source [as opposed to Free Software] is that with the widespread adoption of the Open Source title, RMS finds himself being marginallized.
He understands that there's almost no difference, but he sees a competing marketing organisation getting all the good press, and he fears that he may soon have to get a real job.
Uncle Bill is merely marginallizing Linux, as he does all his competition.
"Who them? They don't worry us here at MS."
Another way of stating this is: Marginallize it until we do it.
It's part of the "never let 'em see you sweat" school of thought.
Many of the early RDBMSes didn't do record level locking. When pressed, they'd say users didn't really need the feature [marginallize it]. Then they'd implement it, and charge extra for it [until we do it].
I once had the please of listeneing to an Oracle sales/marketing type discuss the archetecture of their Release 1.0 Oracle Web Server.
"Release 1 is a single process architecture, because that's more performant [sic].
Release 2 will be a multiprocess architecture, because that's more performant [sic]."
Lay off Keanu, I though Johnny Mnemonic suffered from it's plot story rewrite. They should have brought Molly to the big screen and let her kick some ninja butt.
Instead we got a wimpy female merc, Henry "too sexy for my shirt" Rollins as a Doctor, no less, and Rutger Hauer.
Slashdot Mirror
Back in the days when computers were expensive, your manager wouldn't buy you that extra hard disk for your database because it cost REAL MONEY(tm).
So you had to try to optimize your disk usage, just like you tried to optimize your code. Remember code optimization? Big O notation, finding the best algorithm?
Squeezing 2 bytes per date meant a lot of savings. I can't really fault them for it.
Now we know better. Your code will be around in 20 years, so code for it.
We generally had two browser choices: Lynx or Mosaic for Motif. Most of us ended up downloading and compiling the browser ourselves. Sometimes we had to hack the code to make it compile under SCO. Typically we were the system administrators and we wrote a lot of Perl anyway.
So when we needed to choose a CGI language, perl was obvious. of course back then, we weren't doing transaction processing on our web sites we were writing phone lookups and simple query screens, but perl was it.
Then others started to get onto the web, and they asked us what we used to write CGI. We said "perl", so the learned perl.
Now it's 1999, we're so far removed from the time when there was a registered servers list at NCSA and there were only 1500 servers registered.
Webmaster, and web developer are full-fledged job titles, not just more cool stuff your system administrator knows how to do.
Perl for CGI came from the early adopters of WWW who were already using perl for their other tasks.
I think that RMS is worried about HIS crusade being usurped by ESR. ERS gets the mainistream press, not RMS.
RMS's dissertations about freedom are exactly what held the movement back all those years. Businesses are interested in profits not prophets.
The idea that people shoudl not be paid for software. That it should all be for free, and that I should do something else for a living is absurd. I'm good at one thing: software. I don't want to be a baker, or a waiter of a plumber.
Your movement must and will change as its pool of adherents grows, and people try to make money off the free software model.
You stick to your principles, I'll stick to mine. If we all do that, we'll survive the current set of growing pains we're feeling while the rest of world decides that they've caught on.
He understands that there's almost no difference, but he sees a competing marketing organisation getting all the good press, and he fears that he may soon have to get a real job.
I was going to say something similar.
Canadians apparently don't have High School Massacres, and as such are not overly sensitized to High School Violence (tm).
I reiterate. Context, context, context.
Put your own business on the line.
Start your own TV network.
Create your own shows, or buy the rights to one that's for sale.
Deal with the FCC, conservative watchdog groups, advertisers and the viewing public.
Then judge what WB in the wake of Littleton.
Walk a mile in their penny loafers and wingtips before you judge them so harshly.
Does this mean that forms we type our seti passwords into will use POST instead of GET to keep our passwords out of the URL?
If it isn't already there, has somebody formally proposed to add a Slashdot code to the Geek Code?
You mean I can enjoy linux without drugs?
"Who them? They don't worry us here at MS."
Another way of stating this is: Marginallize it until we do it.
It's part of the "never let 'em see you sweat" school of thought.
Many of the early RDBMSes didn't do record level locking. When pressed, they'd say users didn't really need the feature [marginallize it]. Then they'd implement it, and charge extra for it [until we do it].
I once had the please of listeneing to an Oracle sales/marketing type discuss the archetecture of their Release 1.0 Oracle Web Server.
"Release 1 is a single process architecture, because that's more performant [sic].
Release 2 will be a multiprocess architecture, because that's more performant [sic]."
Remember: Marginallize it until we do it.
Lay off Keanu, I though Johnny Mnemonic suffered from it's plot story rewrite. They should have brought Molly to the big screen and let her kick some ninja butt.
Instead we got a wimpy female merc, Henry "too sexy for my shirt" Rollins as a Doctor, no less, and Rutger Hauer.
And you want to blame the movie on Keanu?
Furrfu!
Faceplant