RMS is most assuredly NOT on welfare. He is a millionare. You see, long ago he won the MacArther prize, got a million dollar check, and has never had to work since. As a millionaire, he is in the perfect position to represent us, the working programmer...
It's funny, sad, shocking, ambiguous, and meaningful (particularly in today's political environment).
Gilliam cut through all boundaries. It doesn't matter if you're American, European or Asian, you will see your own government in it. It doesn't matter if you're liberal, conservative, labour or socialist, you'll see your own pet policies taken to an absurd extreme.
I don't know if it ever hit the theaters, but I found it at the video store shortly after it was released. I'm a Vonnegut fan, and this film kept the spirit of the story. Starring Sam Gamgee and General Chang.
What makes this film so frightening are the masses of people that apparently think the premise is a good idea.
Already had PDF export. Really nice, I use it all the time for my colleagues stuck using MSOffice.
DocBook import/export
Yay! It's about time. This will make writing technical documents a breeze. If it will import/export proper DocBook, this could go a long ways towards ridding the world of MSWord as the defacto "standard" for technical documents.
All I want is for all applications to unite and allow me to change the look of every single "standard" dialog to a different appearance visually with only a single click.
MacOSX doesn't do this. Windows doesn't do this. Heck, even Microsoft applications running on Microsoft operating systems don't do this! Why should X11 conform to a standard no one else even recognizes?
The design of X11, and its current implementation, allows for too many different dialog styles and interfaces - it's not standardized
In one sense you are correct. It is a design decision of X11 (made way back when) that it was to be policy neutral. But this is not a bad thing. Far from it. It is not the job of X11 to tell a window manager where the close button must be. It is not the job of X11 to tell the application what buttons are allowed in its dialogs.
Can you imagine a programming language that imposed policy on parameter order in function calls? Can you imagine what the UNIX world would be like today if the Bourne Shell were mandated policy instead of a lowest common denominator?
This leads to a great deal of disunity in dialogs and applications, and it simply doesn't appeal to me.
That isn't X. If there is disunity in dialogs, the blame the makers of the dialogs, because X has nothing to do with it. X is policy neutral. It is not it's job to tell an application it MUST place the dialog accept button on the right (or left).
The magazine in question was PC World. Most MIS managers based their purchasing decisions off of what PC World recommended. Many IT managers still do. Now consider that PC World spent half a decade shouting that OS/2 was dying. It's no wonder OS/2 died. After all, Microsoft owned the PC press in the '90s.
I remember one head-to-head comparison/review of OS/2 versus NT. OS/2 kicked NT's butt from here to the moon. The review was glowing. Then in the last paragraph it recommended the purchase of NT.
Now, higly regarded design philosophies claim that one should optimize the design for the common case while still allowing for all other conceivable usage scenarios.
From what I've seen, XFree86 already is optimized for the common case: when the client and server are on the same local machine, then there is no overhead via network transparency. Remove all the network stuff and X will still be just as slow (or fast) as before.
That being said, I've never used X in a thin-client environment
It doesn't have to be a "thin-client" environment. All you need is a networked environment. At my work we are split about 50/50% UNIX and Windows developers. Windows developers are almost literally tied down to their workstations. That's where their environment is so that's where they have to work. They don't even notice it, because it is so ingrained into their thinking.
On the other hand, I have a Solaris and FreeBSD machine in my cubicle, and I can use them from *anywhere* in the company. In fact, I can use them anywhere in the *world* if I would ever bother signing up for remote access authorization. My cubicle is not my prison. I do a lot of work in the development lab, and it is extremely nice to be able to treat any random workstation there as my own personal environment. I can edit code in XEmacs, peruse its documentation in FrameMaker, check it in with ClearCase, and then move on to the next bug with ClearQuest, all while browing the web and checking my email with Mozilla. This is because of X11. My Windows coworkers can't do that. They're always running back to their cubicles to do their work.
Here's another example. A lot of my coworkers use both UNIX and Windows. They all have KVM switches. I hear they're very popular. But since I don't use Windows, I've never seen the need for one. I can run multiple applications from multiple machines on whatever display I happen to be sitting in front of. Without having to beg IT for permission to buy to the software or hardware to do it.
There are two paradigms at work here. One is the "single user on a single machine running locally." The other is "multiple users on multiple machines running anywhere they want." X11 supports both paradigms. Windows supports only the first. Please don't dumb down X11 to the Windows level.
It's probably something to do with the 'export' keyword.
Not at all. Very few compilers support that. The problem with VC++ are many, but one of the major ones is that it doesn't support templatized member functions (at least not in VC++ 6).
The seemed to me a recipe for bloat/cache thrashing/ugliness.
Don't mistake that extra ten pounds as fat when it could in fact be muscle.
Let's take a concrete example. Let's say you want have doubly linked list of Fubar objects and another for Snafu objects. Furthermore, these classes are not in the same inheritance hierarchy. Implementing this with the STL takes extremely little work, but you end up instantiating implementations for two completely different doubly linked lists. Is this bloat?
Now let's look at non-STL C++. One way to do this is to create two different doubly linked lists with member data and functions in the Fubar and Snafu classes. For considerably more work, you end up with the same level of "bloat". So let's go to method number two, and use our handy-dandy generic list that holds void pointers to whatever we want. It's only half the size of the STL implementation, but you've completely lost all type safety. To make up for that, you use RTTI, which is hardly bloat-free and introduces other problems.
With the STL, you debug symbols are going to be significantly larger. But strip your statically linked binaries and you'll find that STL and non-STL executables that do exactly the same work are going to be nearly the same size.
It does this every night at around the same time. Been doing it for at least a year. Why the server power cord gets accidentally kicked out of the socket at the same time each night is best left to private speculation.
That's what's so great about Slackware! It doesn't have an of that crap in it!
Sometimes you want to go to the store and get milk. Not Vitamin D milk. Not lowfat milk. not no-fat milk. Not chocolate or strawberry milk. Just milk. That's like Slackware. Sometimes you just want to get Linux/Xfree86/KDE/Gnome/GCC without all the "improvements" the other distros put in.
p.s. But it is easy to install. The reason it is easy is that none of that "we have to make it easy" crap was added to the installer.
Most programs (and most programming languages) end up interfacing at the database level anyway.
What the fsck? Most database programs end up interfacing at the database level, most other kinds of programs do not. I'm working on a complete system at my work that encompasses the bare OS all the way up to very specialized end user applications. Maybe 10% the several thousand programs involved interface at the database level.
Also, has anyone here every heard of CORBA or RMI? I hear its hot shit for having applications talk to one another without using a database. Sounds crazy eh?
Yeah, it does sound crazy. Which is why most programs in the system I am talking about communicate with IPC, RPC, XML and good old TCP/IP. There's also a good deal of Dicom talk as well. How does this possibly work without a database? Because most of these programs don't use databases!
"Dear imaging software, I need frame 56 of the realtime capture you just did. Could you please create a JPEG of it and store it in MySQL so I can query for it on my end? Your's truly, the review workstation."
Executive Summary: XML is not RDMS which makes it damn hard using this XML screwdriver to hammer in RDMS nails.
Your main problem is that you think a tree should be a table. I think you need to get off of your RDBMS religion and realize that that there's a whole world of data our there that perfectly capable of not being shoved in a table before it can be used.
Let's see. It's extremely stable and robust. But more so than Debian? Hard to say. I would say "yes", but that's my opinion. So let's assume it's equally as stable as Debian. Let's move on to other stuff.
FreeBSD has complete documentation. I've never seen any Linux distro even come close to FreeBSD in terms of documenation. FreeBSD doesn't believe in the GNU idea that man pages are bad. There are man pages for everything in the OS. And they're good man pages. Then you have an excellent handbook, faq, and miscellaneous books and articles. These are superb.
Then there is "ease-of-use". Frankly, Debian is one of the harder Linux distros to use. Since you already know it, it may seem pretty easy, but you did have a very steep learning curve to get there. I've used both systems, so at least I can judge somewhat in their area. FreeBSD installation is much simpler than Debians. It's not as easy as, let's say, Lindows or Xandros, but it is very straight forward. Using packages/ports is as easy, if not easier than apt-get. In fact, building a CPU optimized package from source is just as easy as installing a prebuilt package.
Finally, FreeBSD is more UNIX like than Debian. Is this a good thing? Yes! Why bother with a UNIX like operating system if it's not UNIX like. FreeBSD is real geniune UNIX in all but name (due to trademark issues). But at the same time, you can still run all your GNU's-not-unix software on it, because GNU wasn't designed to be for a single OS (even if it was orignally intended to be a single OS). You can even run all of your binary Linux software on it to, like Acroread, VMWare, etc.
Re:So much is GNU however
on
RMS Turns 50
·
· Score: 1
Your [implied] argument seemed to be that "GPL software == GNU software". This is an absurd statement. You further compound your absurdities by claiming that KDE is part of the GNU project.
Let me quote from RMS:
It wouldn't be fair to put the name GNU on every individual program that is released under the GPL. If you write a program and release it under the GPL, that doesn't mean the GNU Project wrote it or that you wrote it for us. --
gnu-linux-faq
There you go. Or did you need a quote from someone more authoritative on GNU than Richard Stallman?
Re:So much is GNU however
on
RMS Turns 50
·
· Score: 1
I've never once seen RMS argue that Linux should be called GNU/Linux because it's under the GPL. Lot's of KDE is under the GPL as well, so should it be called GNU/KDE, even for those builds that run under BSD and Solaris? Hah!
At least RMS makes a somewhat valid argument. Yours is ridiculous.
You have the story wrong. Your house is all built but for the roof and wiring. Then along comes some Finnish kid who sees your plans and builds his own house, and gets his friends to put in the wiring. Of course, he makes a lot of changes to your basic plans. You look over and see this kid's house complete, and you say "Dammit! That's my house. Name it after me!" You never stop to realize that he made his plans for his roof and wiring available as well, so it's your damn fault for never finishing your own home.
Slashdot Mirror
forks and fragmentation. The GPL is what prevents that.
GNU Emacs versus XEmacs...
Which is why we're all opposed to taking them away from Saddam.
RMS is most assuredly NOT on welfare. He is a millionare. You see, long ago he won the MacArther prize, got a million dollar check, and has never had to work since. As a millionaire, he is in the perfect position to represent us, the working programmer...
It's funny, sad, shocking, ambiguous, and meaningful (particularly in today's political environment).
Gilliam cut through all boundaries. It doesn't matter if you're American, European or Asian, you will see your own government in it. It doesn't matter if you're liberal, conservative, labour or socialist, you'll see your own pet policies taken to an absurd extreme.
I don't know if it ever hit the theaters, but I found it at the video store shortly after it was released. I'm a Vonnegut fan, and this film kept the spirit of the story. Starring Sam Gamgee and General Chang.
What makes this film so frightening are the masses of people that apparently think the premise is a good idea.
Do you even know what DocBook is?
PDF export and mailing
Already had PDF export. Really nice, I use it all the time for my colleagues stuck using MSOffice.
DocBook import/export
Yay! It's about time. This will make writing technical documents a breeze. If it will import/export proper DocBook, this could go a long ways towards ridding the world of MSWord as the defacto "standard" for technical documents.
All I want is for all applications to unite and allow me to change the look of every single "standard" dialog to a different appearance visually with only a single click.
MacOSX doesn't do this. Windows doesn't do this. Heck, even Microsoft applications running on Microsoft operating systems don't do this! Why should X11 conform to a standard no one else even recognizes?
The design of X11, and its current implementation, allows for too many different dialog styles and interfaces - it's not standardized
In one sense you are correct. It is a design decision of X11 (made way back when) that it was to be policy neutral. But this is not a bad thing. Far from it. It is not the job of X11 to tell a window manager where the close button must be. It is not the job of X11 to tell the application what buttons are allowed in its dialogs.
Can you imagine a programming language that imposed policy on parameter order in function calls? Can you imagine what the UNIX world would be like today if the Bourne Shell were mandated policy instead of a lowest common denominator?
This leads to a great deal of disunity in dialogs and applications, and it simply doesn't appeal to me.
That isn't X. If there is disunity in dialogs, the blame the makers of the dialogs, because X has nothing to do with it. X is policy neutral. It is not it's job to tell an application it MUST place the dialog accept button on the right (or left).
The magazine in question was PC World. Most MIS managers based their purchasing decisions off of what PC World recommended. Many IT managers still do. Now consider that PC World spent half a decade shouting that OS/2 was dying. It's no wonder OS/2 died. After all, Microsoft owned the PC press in the '90s.
I remember one head-to-head comparison/review of OS/2 versus NT. OS/2 kicked NT's butt from here to the moon. The review was glowing. Then in the last paragraph it recommended the purchase of NT.
Now, higly regarded design philosophies claim that one should optimize the design for the common case while still allowing for all other conceivable usage scenarios.
From what I've seen, XFree86 already is optimized for the common case: when the client and server are on the same local machine, then there is no overhead via network transparency. Remove all the network stuff and X will still be just as slow (or fast) as before.
I believe the issue is less x is too complicated and more that X was never geared towards n00bs up until recently
:-)
Amen! Well, amen to all expect the "redhat" part
I see no need to dumb down X11 to support the n00b. It's fast, fast, flexible and fast. I see no need to trade that for fast, fast, fast and fast.
That being said, I've never used X in a thin-client environment
It doesn't have to be a "thin-client" environment. All you need is a networked environment. At my work we are split about 50/50% UNIX and Windows developers. Windows developers are almost literally tied down to their workstations. That's where their environment is so that's where they have to work. They don't even notice it, because it is so ingrained into their thinking.
On the other hand, I have a Solaris and FreeBSD machine in my cubicle, and I can use them from *anywhere* in the company. In fact, I can use them anywhere in the *world* if I would ever bother signing up for remote access authorization. My cubicle is not my prison. I do a lot of work in the development lab, and it is extremely nice to be able to treat any random workstation there as my own personal environment. I can edit code in XEmacs, peruse its documentation in FrameMaker, check it in with ClearCase, and then move on to the next bug with ClearQuest, all while browing the web and checking my email with Mozilla. This is because of X11. My Windows coworkers can't do that. They're always running back to their cubicles to do their work.
Here's another example. A lot of my coworkers use both UNIX and Windows. They all have KVM switches. I hear they're very popular. But since I don't use Windows, I've never seen the need for one. I can run multiple applications from multiple machines on whatever display I happen to be sitting in front of. Without having to beg IT for permission to buy to the software or hardware to do it.
There are two paradigms at work here. One is the "single user on a single machine running locally." The other is "multiple users on multiple machines running anywhere they want." X11 supports both paradigms. Windows supports only the first. Please don't dumb down X11 to the Windows level.
It's probably something to do with the 'export' keyword.
Not at all. Very few compilers support that. The problem with VC++ are many, but one of the major ones is that it doesn't support templatized member functions (at least not in VC++ 6).
The seemed to me a recipe for bloat/cache thrashing/ugliness.
Don't mistake that extra ten pounds as fat when it could in fact be muscle.
Let's take a concrete example. Let's say you want have doubly linked list of Fubar objects and another for Snafu objects. Furthermore, these classes are not in the same inheritance hierarchy. Implementing this with the STL takes extremely little work, but you end up instantiating implementations for two completely different doubly linked lists. Is this bloat?
Now let's look at non-STL C++. One way to do this is to create two different doubly linked lists with member data and functions in the Fubar and Snafu classes. For considerably more work, you end up with the same level of "bloat". So let's go to method number two, and use our handy-dandy generic list that holds void pointers to whatever we want. It's only half the size of the STL implementation, but you've completely lost all type safety. To make up for that, you use RTTI, which is hardly bloat-free and introduces other problems.
With the STL, you debug symbols are going to be significantly larger. But strip your statically linked binaries and you'll find that STL and non-STL executables that do exactly the same work are going to be nearly the same size.
It does this every night at around the same time. Been doing it for at least a year. Why the server power cord gets accidentally kicked out of the socket at the same time each night is best left to private speculation.
That's what's so great about Slackware! It doesn't have an of that crap in it!
Sometimes you want to go to the store and get milk. Not Vitamin D milk. Not lowfat milk. not no-fat milk. Not chocolate or strawberry milk. Just milk. That's like Slackware. Sometimes you just want to get Linux/Xfree86/KDE/Gnome/GCC without all the "improvements" the other distros put in.
p.s. But it is easy to install. The reason it is easy is that none of that "we have to make it easy" crap was added to the installer.
Most programs (and most programming languages) end up interfacing at the database level anyway.
What the fsck? Most database programs end up interfacing at the database level, most other kinds of programs do not. I'm working on a complete system at my work that encompasses the bare OS all the way up to very specialized end user applications. Maybe 10% the several thousand programs involved interface at the database level.
Also, has anyone here every heard of CORBA or RMI? I hear its hot shit for having applications talk to one another without using a database. Sounds crazy eh?
Yeah, it does sound crazy. Which is why most programs in the system I am talking about communicate with IPC, RPC, XML and good old TCP/IP. There's also a good deal of Dicom talk as well. How does this possibly work without a database? Because most of these programs don't use databases!
"Dear imaging software, I need frame 56 of the realtime capture you just did. Could you please create a JPEG of it and store it in MySQL so I can query for it on my end? Your's truly, the review workstation."
Executive Summary: XML is not RDMS which makes it damn hard using this XML screwdriver to hammer in RDMS nails.
Your main problem is that you think a tree should be a table. I think you need to get off of your RDBMS religion and realize that that there's a whole world of data our there that perfectly capable of not being shoved in a table before it can be used.
Don't look back now, but I think NetBSD is gaining on us...
Let's see. It's extremely stable and robust. But more so than Debian? Hard to say. I would say "yes", but that's my opinion. So let's assume it's equally as stable as Debian. Let's move on to other stuff.
FreeBSD has complete documentation. I've never seen any Linux distro even come close to FreeBSD in terms of documenation. FreeBSD doesn't believe in the GNU idea that man pages are bad. There are man pages for everything in the OS. And they're good man pages. Then you have an excellent handbook, faq, and miscellaneous books and articles. These are superb.
Then there is "ease-of-use". Frankly, Debian is one of the harder Linux distros to use. Since you already know it, it may seem pretty easy, but you did have a very steep learning curve to get there. I've used both systems, so at least I can judge somewhat in their area. FreeBSD installation is much simpler than Debians. It's not as easy as, let's say, Lindows or Xandros, but it is very straight forward. Using packages/ports is as easy, if not easier than apt-get. In fact, building a CPU optimized package from source is just as easy as installing a prebuilt package.
Finally, FreeBSD is more UNIX like than Debian. Is this a good thing? Yes! Why bother with a UNIX like operating system if it's not UNIX like. FreeBSD is real geniune UNIX in all but name (due to trademark issues). But at the same time, you can still run all your GNU's-not-unix software on it, because GNU wasn't designed to be for a single OS (even if it was orignally intended to be a single OS). You can even run all of your binary Linux software on it to, like Acroread, VMWare, etc.
Let me quote from RMS:
There you go. Or did you need a quote from someone more authoritative on GNU than Richard Stallman?
I've never once seen RMS argue that Linux should be called GNU/Linux because it's under the GPL. Lot's of KDE is under the GPL as well, so should it be called GNU/KDE, even for those builds that run under BSD and Solaris? Hah!
At least RMS makes a somewhat valid argument. Yours is ridiculous.
You have the story wrong. Your house is all built but for the roof and wiring. Then along comes some Finnish kid who sees your plans and builds his own house, and gets his friends to put in the wiring. Of course, he makes a lot of changes to your basic plans. You look over and see this kid's house complete, and you say "Dammit! That's my house. Name it after me!" You never stop to realize that he made his plans for his roof and wiring available as well, so it's your damn fault for never finishing your own home.