I don't agree with some things RMS says and does, but the GPL is a common industry standard, and most people have at least a vague sense of what it means and implies. When I used the Artistic and ZLIB/LIBPNG livcense, it caused no end of confusion; using GPL cuts down on questions.
I've successfully gone the dual-licensing route, GPL for open source clients, and a "non-free" (as in beer) license that can (depending on the customer's needs) spell out specific rights, included the ability to include my code in closed-source applications. I am selling licenses, so the model appears to be working (at least for me).
Most people who want a paid-for non-GPL license (not all of whom are closed source, mind you) tend to be Windows developers. Perhaps they have been scared by Mr. Ballmer's idiocy, or (more likely) there is more closed-source development in the Windows world.
I wish the FSF well in its quest to create the perfect balance between freedom and the protection of creators' rights.
After reading Rob's article, I'm left with the inescapable conclusion that he's trying to sell Slashcode to newspapers. Well, maybe not sell in the traditional sense — his pitch is more along the lines of "do what Slashdot does", and it comes off sounding a bit like someone trying to convince others to replace their failing religion with a new belief system.
Slashdot is not a good example of quality information on the web — and expecting readers to correct errors is simply laziness. The Slashdot moderation system is highly biased toward people who already have good karma, keeping the moderation scores low for new people who may have valuable contributions.
Nor are wikis the answer. I do not accept Wikipedia as a primary information source for my home-schooled children; they can use it as a guide to finding verifiable resources, but Wikipedia is prone to biases both subtle and gross. Furthermore, Wikipedia and Slashdot exhibit the inherent biases of the Internet, where it is easier to find quality information on "geekish" topics than it is on more mundane subjects. Separating the wheat from the chaff is onerous at times.
Newspapers need to be relevent by providing accuirate, reliable information, rather than trying to compete with the Internet for immediacy and quantity. As Rob correctly points out, they need to be more concerned with the quality of information, as opposed to its quantity.
As many have pointed out, GCC 4.1 is actually several months away from release. Slashdot "editors" might want to learn about a concept called "fact checking."
I'm disturbed by the amount of GCC bashing in this list. I've never met a perfect compiler, and GCC is far superior to many commercial tools I've used. It provides professional-quality C, C++, Objective-C, Fortran 95 (almost), Java, and Ada compilers for dozens of platforms; the code generation is imprefect, but then again so is most of the code GCC is required to compile!
The vile lack of appreciation for GCC simply astounds me -- it is the foundation of Free Software. And it is a fine piece of work that is constantly growing and evolving -- though not as fast as Slashdot's headlines might suggest...;)
My major objection to these "methodologies" is that they tend to be applied like fundamentalist religion: Rigidly, absolutely, and with great fervor. Blindly following any ideology requires turning off one's brain — which seems a tad unproductive when doing something intellectual, like computer programming.
Agile development presents some compelling ideas, but it needs to be applied judiciously and wisely.
Microsoft has put most its eggs in the.NET platform and has abandoned tens of thousands of VB developers by pulling support and further development on VB6. There is an opportunity for the open source community to create a VB compatible IDE that could compile applications for both to Windows and Linux. Such an IDE in conjunction with WINE could bring not only applications but also developers to the Linux platform.
He makes it sound so simple, doesn't he?
Writing a complete VB clone isn;t as simple as writing an IDE. VB 6 worked because of the underlying Windows infrastructure — ADO, Access, COM, and all those other acronyms that could be glued together with VB to make an application. VB provides a great environment for hacking together in-house and vertical market applications. It's good for rapid prototyping, too.
The Unix world has some very strong biases that make cloning VB difficult, not the least of which is a general prejudice that all VB code sucks. I've worked in shops with VB programmers (I'm a C++ guy), and saw some darned ugly code; the anti-VB prejudice has some basis in fact. Be that as it may, VB is a powerful force that locks many developers into Windows. If any of this code is to move to Linux, we would need to replicate the entire foundation of acronyms used in VB programs — a daunting task that most Unix-oriented folk will find unpalatable.
In part, Mono was trying to accomplish Windows-Linux interoperability, albeit using.Net as the foundation. Mono, however, does not address the vast quantity of VB 6 applications. And Mono's viability is still open for debate, given Microsoft's proprietary attitudes.
A while back, I was tried to sell the idea of a FOSS Access and VB to several major Linux "players", without success. Perhaps my pitch just wasn't that good, or maybe, just maybe, Unix people really are letting their prejudices get in the way of a Really Good Idea.
Every online community has problems, whether it be mailing lsts, forums, IRX, IM — the anonymity of the web leads to reflects humanity in its rawest form.
That said, I've found IRC to be immesely useful, so long as I go to the right servers and channels. I don't spend all day on IRC, but I pop in now and then, when I have time to answer questions or when I've got a quetion of my own. I usually don't try IRC until I've Goggled for a solution.
The best network is irc.freenode.net; I find efnet and others are filled with spammers, bots, porn peddlers, and other rif-raf. FreeNode has some excellent channels — #gentoo-amd64 was essential to getting my Opteron workstation running back when Gentoo-AMD64 was still experimental.
pcm2: But that's just it, though, you and I are professional writers. I want to hear from Joe Business Manager.
I have yet to see any evidence that non-pro writers use spell checkers, much less grammar checkers. I just had a contract come in from a Big Name Company, and it's riddled with strange errors; I've received business and professional e-mails that make me cringe. My feeling is that many (most?) non-pros really don't care if their prose stinks.;)
me: I'm a pro writer, so I live inside word processors.
jsg: Out of curiosity, what makes you think the former implies the latter? I know plenty of writers that live inside text editors while eschewing word processors entirely.
If you insist on being nit-picky, then yes, you could divide word processors and text editors. In recent years the line between the two categories has blurred so much that the only real difference is WYSIWYG. I do a lot of work with TeX, code a fair amount, and write lots of plain-old-text files. The choice of tool depends on what you're delivering, and people who buy stuff from me tend to have a rather wide range of format requirements.
I'm a pro writer, so I live inside word processors. AbiWord is my tool of choice these daya on both Linux and Windows.
I turn off real-time grammar checking, because it distracts me from the act of writing. In my experience, grammar checkers are often incorrect in their analysis, particularly if you write fiction and technical works (as I do.) Unusual terminology and structure can give these checkers indigestion.
That isn't to say that I don't use grammar checkers. When I've completed a draft of an article, I often run the grammar checker manually to make certain I haven't missed anything obvious or silly. But I can't stand them in "real time", where I feel like I'm back in high school with the teacher looking over my shoulder and nit-picking every keystroke.
I commented on this before, so I won't repeat myself here: Idealism and Reality.
Additional thoughts: Some form of software liability may finally put the nail in the coffin of Creeping Featuritis, the disease that leads programs to contain an enormous number of fringe features. Perhaps time spent adding dubious features would be reallocated to assuring quality?
Liability might also encourage code resuse, given that developers would be loathe to replace a known "safe" wheel with one of their own creation (and uncertain quality.) Certified components might become a booming business.
Of course, there are a lot of "weasel words" in the thoughts above: "might" and "may" and "perhaps". I don't expect software to attain perfection; "perfect" is beyond human ability, and we need to accept that everything entails risk. But the current situation is awful, and developers should do much more to ensure the reliability and applicability of their works.
I run Gentoo on two systems (AMD64 and Pentium 4), and I've generally found technical support to be pretty good. I've used Red Hat and SuSE and Debian and Ubuntu and Knoppix, and found the tech support for those distros rather lacking. With Gentoo, I jump on IRC (irc.freenode.net) and usually have an answer within minutes. The #gentoo-amd64 channel is exceptionally helpful.
Even with technical support, I wouldn't recommend Gentoo for a novice. My wife's machine runs Ubuntu, and I used Knoppix on my kids' boxes. Gentoo is great for someone like me who wants (needs?) to be on the bleeding edge, and who likes a single source for the latest "stuff."
Scott, you knucklehead! Please read "When Koffice is working nicely on KDE" as "When Koffice is working nicely on Windows." Dear gods, I even proofed the durned thing.
I'll blame it on the sunburn. Hint: After shaving one's heqad, remember to wear a hat while chasing iguanas on a Florida beach.;)
Most people try to make their Linux systems compatible with Windows. I work the other direction — I have a specific quite of free software that makes my Windows XP computer compatible with my Linux systems. I run Abiword, Gnumeric, Inkscape, and GIMP on my Windows laptop, so it can work with data on my primary workstation that runs Gentoo Linux.
I'm not fond of Open Office (I have yet to try the 2.0 betas, though). When KOffice is working nicely on KDE, I'll take a look at it, though I'm generally happy with the tools listed above. I do have a copy of Office 2003 Pro (legal), mostly for those instances where a customer requires some very Microsoft-specific operation (an Access database, or a Word co with a nasty VBA macro). But 99% of the time, I use the free tools, and life is good.
Implementing responsibility in software is desirable -- and unlikely.
At the bottom of the problem (surprise, surprise!) we find money. Software development requires expensive human labor and support; the software industry already limits its investment in quality assurance and support. To fully test every piece of software for 100% (or even 99%) reliability would drive software prices spiralling — you would see no free software movement, no open source, and be living with a very limited selection of corporate software at cocaine-like prices. Witness what has happend with liability lawsuits and medicine, driving costs to astronomical levels.
If anything, the success of the software industry could be attributed the its very lack of guarantees. It has few material costs; anyone with a $500 PC can start a software business. You don't need to guarantee your product, and society is conditioned to accept broken software after years of living with Microsoft's badly engineered products. Companies ship erroneous code to customers, knowing full-well that it can be patched later.
Do I think software should provide guarantees? Yes. Will it happen in my lifetime? Not unless society changes dramatically.
In C#'s domain, improved database connectivity is very important. Heck, I've been known to write a bit of VB or C# when the situation calls for it -- if I want a quick Windows app, I reach for C#, not C or C++. However, I don't do very much platform-specific work anymore, and Mono notwithstanding,.Net-tools aren't really appropriate to the code I develop.
The point of my original post is: Real programmers use concise tools that are appropriate to the task at hand.
The more you complicate the plumbing, the easier it is to plug up. Creeping featurism is the major source of bugs in software today -- the more features, the harder a program is to implement, test, and debug.
As for assembler: I don't do much of it any more, except on certain performance-critical inner loops, and only then if the app is guaranteed to be platform specific. Otherwise, I stick to C, C++, Java, Fortran 95, and Python for most work, sometime slipping itno Visual Basic or C# as required.
The entire Mono project is based on the false assumption that Microsoft will bestow its blessings on those who clone.Net (and its tools). Given Microsoft's predatory and paranoid history, I can't imagine why Miguel persists in his Quixotic quest.
Why, oh why must language inventors continue to add every possible concept to their pet project? Must every language try to be everything to everyone?
No programming language is suited to all applications; anyone who claims omnipotence for their particular language is exhibiting either ignorance or arrogance. A wise programmer knows how to use many tools in appropriate contexts; it's this sort of rational maturity that separates amateurs from professionals. It makes no more sense to develop a web-hosted applet in C++ than it does to write a high-performance batch-processing engine in Java. Using multiple programming languages isn't a simple matter of syntax -- it's a matter of divergent perspectives that force me to think about what I'm developing.
A disturbing trend has emerged in the last decade, with developers trying to make every programming language applicable to every task; we add object-oriented features to COBOL and Fortran, add generic types to Java, and expand the C++ library with a plethora of complex templates. Now C# is "borrowing" all sorts of ideas from all over the map, without any thought for how all these pieces fit together into a cohesive and logical whole.
In the end, we get bloated tools that include features ill-suited to their core design. Instead of focusing on a clear set of goals, languages compete in an edless feature competition that often ignores sound engineering practices.
I have done professional C# programming, and the language does not impress me. Certainly it has some very good ideas -- but it lacks any sense of cohesion in design or intent, and it's ties to Microsoft make me leary of using it for long-term coding projects.
Scotty didn't inspire me to become an engineer, but he represented my heritage in space. My father is an engineer, as are his brothers; the family line goes back to blacksmiths.
McCoy was passion, Kirk was adevnturous spirit (and bad acting, and skirt chasing...;), Spock was logic -- and Scotty provided a sense of humor. Unlike the modern Trek series, he drank real alcohol, had real brawls in real bars, and loved his avocation.
Beyond his character, Doohan was a kindly and humorous man who treated his fans well. I met him a couple of times at Trek conventions in my youth. He was a solid veteran of World War II.
Don't buy into these technologies. If you don;t like them, don't buy them. If an entertainment technology is incovenient or too expensive, I can live without it.
Boorish? I state that I'm not all that fond of the show, but also declare that it's okay if other people's mileage may vary. Are you saying that anyone who does not share your tastes is wrong?
I couldn't care less if you like watching the show; please grant similar courtesy to those of use who do not care for it.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't agree with some things RMS says and does, but the GPL is a common industry standard, and most people have at least a vague sense of what it means and implies. When I used the Artistic and ZLIB/LIBPNG livcense, it caused no end of confusion; using GPL cuts down on questions.
I've successfully gone the dual-licensing route, GPL for open source clients, and a "non-free" (as in beer) license that can (depending on the customer's needs) spell out specific rights, included the ability to include my code in closed-source applications. I am selling licenses, so the model appears to be working (at least for me).
Most people who want a paid-for non-GPL license (not all of whom are closed source, mind you) tend to be Windows developers. Perhaps they have been scared by Mr. Ballmer's idiocy, or (more likely) there is more closed-source development in the Windows world.
I wish the FSF well in its quest to create the perfect balance between freedom and the protection of creators' rights.
After reading Rob's article, I'm left with the inescapable conclusion that he's trying to sell Slashcode to newspapers. Well, maybe not sell in the traditional sense — his pitch is more along the lines of "do what Slashdot does", and it comes off sounding a bit like someone trying to convince others to replace their failing religion with a new belief system.
Slashdot is not a good example of quality information on the web — and expecting readers to correct errors is simply laziness. The Slashdot moderation system is highly biased toward people who already have good karma, keeping the moderation scores low for new people who may have valuable contributions.
Nor are wikis the answer. I do not accept Wikipedia as a primary information source for my home-schooled children; they can use it as a guide to finding verifiable resources, but Wikipedia is prone to biases both subtle and gross. Furthermore, Wikipedia and Slashdot exhibit the inherent biases of the Internet, where it is easier to find quality information on "geekish" topics than it is on more mundane subjects. Separating the wheat from the chaff is onerous at times.
Newspapers need to be relevent by providing accuirate, reliable information, rather than trying to compete with the Internet for immediacy and quantity. As Rob correctly points out, they need to be more concerned with the quality of information, as opposed to its quantity.
As many have pointed out, GCC 4.1 is actually several months away from release. Slashdot "editors" might want to learn about a concept called "fact checking." I'm disturbed by the amount of GCC bashing in this list. I've never met a perfect compiler, and GCC is far superior to many commercial tools I've used. It provides professional-quality C, C++, Objective-C, Fortran 95 (almost), Java, and Ada compilers for dozens of platforms; the code generation is imprefect, but then again so is most of the code GCC is required to compile! The vile lack of appreciation for GCC simply astounds me -- it is the foundation of Free Software. And it is a fine piece of work that is constantly growing and evolving -- though not as fast as Slashdot's headlines might suggest... ;)
My major objection to these "methodologies" is that they tend to be applied like fundamentalist religion: Rigidly, absolutely, and with great fervor. Blindly following any ideology requires turning off one's brain — which seems a tad unproductive when doing something intellectual, like computer programming.
Agile development presents some compelling ideas, but it needs to be applied judiciously and wisely.
He makes it sound so simple, doesn't he?
Writing a complete VB clone isn;t as simple as writing an IDE. VB 6 worked because of the underlying Windows infrastructure — ADO, Access, COM, and all those other acronyms that could be glued together with VB to make an application. VB provides a great environment for hacking together in-house and vertical market applications. It's good for rapid prototyping, too.
The Unix world has some very strong biases that make cloning VB difficult, not the least of which is a general prejudice that all VB code sucks. I've worked in shops with VB programmers (I'm a C++ guy), and saw some darned ugly code; the anti-VB prejudice has some basis in fact. Be that as it may, VB is a powerful force that locks many developers into Windows. If any of this code is to move to Linux, we would need to replicate the entire foundation of acronyms used in VB programs — a daunting task that most Unix-oriented folk will find unpalatable.
In part, Mono was trying to accomplish Windows-Linux interoperability, albeit using .Net as the foundation. Mono, however, does not address the vast quantity of VB 6 applications. And Mono's viability is still open for debate, given Microsoft's proprietary attitudes.
A while back, I was tried to sell the idea of a FOSS Access and VB to several major Linux "players", without success. Perhaps my pitch just wasn't that good, or maybe, just maybe, Unix people really are letting their prejudices get in the way of a Really Good Idea.
Every online community has problems, whether it be mailing lsts, forums, IRX, IM — the anonymity of the web leads to reflects humanity in its rawest form. That said, I've found IRC to be immesely useful, so long as I go to the right servers and channels. I don't spend all day on IRC, but I pop in now and then, when I have time to answer questions or when I've got a quetion of my own. I usually don't try IRC until I've Goggled for a solution. The best network is irc.freenode.net; I find efnet and others are filled with spammers, bots, porn peddlers, and other rif-raf. FreeNode has some excellent channels — #gentoo-amd64 was essential to getting my Opteron workstation running back when Gentoo-AMD64 was still experimental.
pcm2: But that's just it, though, you and I are professional writers. I want to hear from Joe Business Manager.
I have yet to see any evidence that non-pro writers use spell checkers, much less grammar checkers. I just had a contract come in from a Big Name Company, and it's riddled with strange errors; I've received business and professional e-mails that make me cringe. My feeling is that many (most?) non-pros really don't care if their prose stinks. ;)
me: I'm a pro writer, so I live inside word processors.
jsg: Out of curiosity, what makes you think the former implies the latter? I know plenty of writers that live inside text editors while eschewing word processors entirely.
If you insist on being nit-picky, then yes , you could divide word processors and text editors. In recent years the line between the two categories has blurred so much that the only real difference is WYSIWYG. I do a lot of work with TeX, code a fair amount, and write lots of plain-old-text files. The choice of tool depends on what you're delivering, and people who buy stuff from me tend to have a rather wide range of format requirements.
I'm a pro writer, so I live inside word processors. AbiWord is my tool of choice these daya on both Linux and Windows.
I turn off real-time grammar checking, because it distracts me from the act of writing. In my experience, grammar checkers are often incorrect in their analysis, particularly if you write fiction and technical works (as I do.) Unusual terminology and structure can give these checkers indigestion.
That isn't to say that I don't use grammar checkers. When I've completed a draft of an article, I often run the grammar checker manually to make certain I haven't missed anything obvious or silly. But I can't stand them in "real time", where I feel like I'm back in high school with the teacher looking over my shoulder and nit-picking every keystroke.
Additional thoughts: Some form of software liability may finally put the nail in the coffin of Creeping Featuritis, the disease that leads programs to contain an enormous number of fringe features. Perhaps time spent adding dubious features would be reallocated to assuring quality?
Liability might also encourage code resuse, given that developers would be loathe to replace a known "safe" wheel with one of their own creation (and uncertain quality.) Certified components might become a booming business.
Of course, there are a lot of "weasel words" in the thoughts above: "might" and "may" and "perhaps". I don't expect software to attain perfection; "perfect" is beyond human ability, and we need to accept that everything entails risk. But the current situation is awful, and developers should do much more to ensure the reliability and applicability of their works.
I run the ~amd64 test release, which is very current.
I run Gentoo on two systems (AMD64 and Pentium 4), and I've generally found technical support to be pretty good. I've used Red Hat and SuSE and Debian and Ubuntu and Knoppix, and found the tech support for those distros rather lacking. With Gentoo, I jump on IRC (irc.freenode.net) and usually have an answer within minutes. The #gentoo-amd64 channel is exceptionally helpful.
Even with technical support, I wouldn't recommend Gentoo for a novice. My wife's machine runs Ubuntu, and I used Knoppix on my kids' boxes. Gentoo is great for someone like me who wants (needs?) to be on the bleeding edge, and who likes a single source for the latest "stuff."
Scott, you knucklehead! Please read "When Koffice is working nicely on KDE" as "When Koffice is working nicely on Windows." Dear gods, I even proofed the durned thing.
I'll blame it on the sunburn. Hint: After shaving one's heqad, remember to wear a hat while chasing iguanas on a Florida beach. ;)
Well, not everything... ;)
Most people try to make their Linux systems compatible with Windows. I work the other direction — I have a specific quite of free software that makes my Windows XP computer compatible with my Linux systems. I run Abiword, Gnumeric, Inkscape, and GIMP on my Windows laptop, so it can work with data on my primary workstation that runs Gentoo Linux.
I'm not fond of Open Office (I have yet to try the 2.0 betas, though). When KOffice is working nicely on KDE, I'll take a look at it, though I'm generally happy with the tools listed above. I do have a copy of Office 2003 Pro (legal), mostly for those instances where a customer requires some very Microsoft-specific operation (an Access database, or a Word co with a nasty VBA macro). But 99% of the time, I use the free tools, and life is good.
Implementing responsibility in software is desirable -- and unlikely.
At the bottom of the problem (surprise, surprise!) we find money. Software development requires expensive human labor and support; the software industry already limits its investment in quality assurance and support. To fully test every piece of software for 100% (or even 99%) reliability would drive software prices spiralling — you would see no free software movement, no open source, and be living with a very limited selection of corporate software at cocaine-like prices. Witness what has happend with liability lawsuits and medicine, driving costs to astronomical levels.
If anything, the success of the software industry could be attributed the its very lack of guarantees. It has few material costs; anyone with a $500 PC can start a software business. You don't need to guarantee your product, and society is conditioned to accept broken software after years of living with Microsoft's badly engineered products. Companies ship erroneous code to customers, knowing full-well that it can be patched later.
Do I think software should provide guarantees? Yes. Will it happen in my lifetime? Not unless society changes dramatically.
I wish I'd made that joke. ;)
I did read the article, and (as I said elsewhere in this thread) there's good reasons to add the query "stuff."
But the query stuff isn't the only thing they are adding to C# with version 3.
In some ways, I think it's a dick-measuring contest: "Hey, the X language has frotz! We'd better get frotz too!"
In C#'s domain, improved database connectivity is very important. Heck, I've been known to write a bit of VB or C# when the situation calls for it -- if I want a quick Windows app, I reach for C#, not C or C++. However, I don't do very much platform-specific work anymore, and Mono notwithstanding, .Net-tools aren't really appropriate to the code I develop.
The point of my original post is: Real programmers use concise tools that are appropriate to the task at hand.
The more you complicate the plumbing, the easier it is to plug up. Creeping featurism is the major source of bugs in software today -- the more features, the harder a program is to implement, test, and debug.
As for assembler: I don't do much of it any more, except on certain performance-critical inner loops, and only then if the app is guaranteed to be platform specific. Otherwise, I stick to C, C++, Java, Fortran 95, and Python for most work, sometime slipping itno Visual Basic or C# as required.
The entire Mono project is based on the false assumption that Microsoft will bestow its blessings on those who clone .Net (and its tools). Given Microsoft's predatory and paranoid history, I can't imagine why Miguel persists in his Quixotic quest.
Why, oh why must language inventors continue to add every possible concept to their pet project? Must every language try to be everything to everyone?
No programming language is suited to all applications; anyone who claims omnipotence for their particular language is exhibiting either ignorance or arrogance. A wise programmer knows how to use many tools in appropriate contexts; it's this sort of rational maturity that separates amateurs from professionals. It makes no more sense to develop a web-hosted applet in C++ than it does to write a high-performance batch-processing engine in Java. Using multiple programming languages isn't a simple matter of syntax -- it's a matter of divergent perspectives that force me to think about what I'm developing.
A disturbing trend has emerged in the last decade, with developers trying to make every programming language applicable to every task; we add object-oriented features to COBOL and Fortran, add generic types to Java, and expand the C++ library with a plethora of complex templates. Now C# is "borrowing" all sorts of ideas from all over the map, without any thought for how all these pieces fit together into a cohesive and logical whole.
In the end, we get bloated tools that include features ill-suited to their core design. Instead of focusing on a clear set of goals, languages compete in an edless feature competition that often ignores sound engineering practices.
I have done professional C# programming, and the language does not impress me. Certainly it has some very good ideas -- but it lacks any sense of cohesion in design or intent, and it's ties to Microsoft make me leary of using it for long-term coding projects.
The best thing that could happen to science education is to replace the current occupant of the White House with someone competent and intelligent.
Whether or not the American people are, as a whole, smart enough to replace George W. Bush with someone better is open for debate, unfortunately.
Scotty didn't inspire me to become an engineer, but he represented my heritage in space. My father is an engineer, as are his brothers; the family line goes back to blacksmiths.
McCoy was passion, Kirk was adevnturous spirit (and bad acting, and skirt chasing... ;), Spock was logic -- and Scotty provided a sense of humor. Unlike the modern Trek series, he drank real alcohol, had real brawls in real bars, and loved his avocation.
Beyond his character, Doohan was a kindly and humorous man who treated his fans well. I met him a couple of times at Trek conventions in my youth. He was a solid veteran of World War II.
I hope he is happy, wherever the stars take him.
Don't buy into these technologies. If you don;t like them, don't buy them. If an entertainment technology is incovenient or too expensive, I can live without it.
Boorish? I state that I'm not all that fond of the show, but also declare that it's okay if other people's mileage may vary. Are you saying that anyone who does not share your tastes is wrong?
I couldn't care less if you like watching the show; please grant similar courtesy to those of use who do not care for it.