Who uses 'looks' to decide to buy a computer? I'm sure some people do, but I don't, nor does anyone I work with. Price/performance/features/specs - those influence my purchase decision. "Sleek" exteriors and flash packaging don't do it for me.
I'm sure some people do, but I don't, and most people I know and work with don't either. I look at price and features. Fancy packaging and 'sleek' designs be damned. I want to know the specs - speed, memory, etc.
"Linux" won't ever standardize on anything (sorry to say). Hopefully a majority of the community WILL standardize on one basic version of a desktop environment, and office suite, etc. If there's a 'defacto' standard, more people will use it. Sorry, but I don't WANT people to have to learn lots of stuff *before* using a system just to be able to make a choice.
No one is saying to take away choices - you can go keep running sawfish all you want. But having a pronounced 'standard' will help encourage people to learn and support that standard more. The more users, the more demand for my services. If Linux, which I've invested a lot of time in learning, always remains a 'niche' player, future job prospects will be less than optimal. Let all the newbies in - that's more work for us later. Look at how many 'newbie' type Windows users there are that know just enough about a system to screw it up, then call for help. Who do they call? People that know and support Windows, not Linux. If more people are encouraged to try Linux on the desktop (because of a default - and usable - 'standard') then the more secure the job market will be for people with solid Linux skills.
That whole bug page is just ridiculous - a shining example of bad open source stuff at work. There's an expected behaviour, which IE and earlier netscapes had (opera? dunno) which has been removed, and it's been discussed for over a year, but it's still not resolved. Why? Issues of "it *should* be this way" or "let's have 3 options as to how it should work" etc. I guess NONE of these mozilla coders actually ever does any type of serverside scripting and needs to view the HTML output of a script in a browser. I need the source of WHAT THE BROWSER IS SHOWING AT THIS MOMENT IN TIME, not what I next 'GET' request. Get the basic EXPECTED and USEFUL behaviour worked out first - worry about 'kewl' features later.
While I'm on it, Netscape (and I think earlier mozillas) would choke because of this bug when you tried to PRINT. You basically could never print a page that was the result of a POST (or used cookie data) because it'd simply GET the same URL, and print that. And forget trying to PRINT an HTML page that was gzipped - you'd get binary data printed on the paper!:(
It *seems* that when I "view source", the browser hits the server to download another copy. I don't WANT *another* copy - I want to the see the source of what is being rendered in the browser. With many web-based apps, doing another request (especially without resending the proper POST info, etc) will give back different results.
The same behaviour was a huge problem for printing in Netscape. Rather than print what was in the browser's memory and on the screen, netscape would do a GET request on the URL. If it didn't come back with the right results - oh well! Too bad...
Why on earth can't we simply see what's in the browser's memory already? It seems this is the EASY thing to do and Netscape (and now Mozilla) are unnecessarily complicating the matter.
With the price of computers falling like a brick it won't be too long before the added cost of Microsoft Office doubles the price of a computer.
It already does, for low end stuff. I put together a low end system for about $500. Drive, motherboard, processor, RAM, case, etc. To install a retail copy of Win2k and Office XP (no upgrades, just fresh) is
Office XP - standard (not professional) $479 US
Windows 2000 professional - $319 US.
Yes, I'm sure there are stores with cheaper prices. Even if you got them both together for $500, that's STILL doubling the price of the system. Pricing of this stuff for average Joe Consumer is all based on them "upgrading". People just starting out, who don't/can't pirate but want all the MS goodies are in for sticker shock, imo.
Perhaps teachers SHOULD know a bit more about file permissions. If they did, they'd have a much better understanding, which could be taught to the students, if often only by example. More people understanding file permissions (whether under Win or Lin or whatever) will generally be more knowledgeable about at least BASIC security issues, and will be more prepared to deal with viruses and worms in the future (which will surely never completely die).
Actually, I think that one has a lot to do with PHP, leave MySQL out of it.
Actually, it *probably* has neither to do with PHP nor MySQL specifically, but most like the admin is using "pconnect". Each Apache child keeps a connection handle open to MySQL, so if your MySQL is set to max out at 100 simultaneous connections (the default, which most people leave set for some reason) and your Apache is set to have more than that (200?) you'll get this. The solution is to either NOT use pconnect or to implement some type of pooling system. Yeah, pooling mechanisms aren't native, but there are sql connection pooling projects out there to use. Also, pconnect v connect on a decent machine with mysql local isn't THAT much of a difference. It'd be nicer to have a slower site that was UP rather than a site that delivers error messages FAST.
I think the 2600 had about 8 or maybe 16 colors. you can't really "dither" all that much at that resolution either.
Re:Anything Python can do that PHP can't?
on
PHP 4.1.0 Released
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· Score: 2
Dunno enough about Python to answer for certain. One of the other guys in the office used it quite a bit, and kept coming up against oddities in how it handled certain situations. Don't ask specifics right now, cause I don't know them. But I do know that we keep coming back to PHP and using it more and more. Yes, there are some things it can't do very well, but pretty much every language we've looked at has some deficiencies, either in terms of learning curve, or strange behaviours, or lack of support/acceptance, or whatever. PHP seems to satisfy the most needs, while having the fewest drawbacks, when talking about primarily/strictly web-based apps.
Email me privately if you'd like to discuss this further.:)
True - but it's not cross platform, which is what I was getting at. The "price" aspect was intended to be related more to the cross-platform quality, rather than standalone. PHP being cross-platform should be somewhat more threatening to ASP than something like CF, because of the price. Just a viewpoint, anyway.:)
PHP is just one of many languages one can use in Active Server Pages.
Sorry, wrong. VBScript, Jscript, and to a lesser extent PerlScript are languages that have ASP 'hooks' - 'seamless' integration into the ASP environment. PHP is not one of those languages, unless something has DRASTICALLY changed, and I think we'd have seen a more specific announcement about that.
PHP runs as an ISAPI module under Windows - hopefully it does NOW anyway. It was pretty flaky in the past. Hopefully this 4.1 release remedies a lot of that. A few core PHP people were invited to MS some time ago to discuss how to make the ISAPI version more stable. There were apparently many threading issues, and the PHP team didn't have much in the way of specific MS experience - not as much as the Unix experience the developers bring to the table.
PHP is most definitely a competitor, as is perl. WHY would I tie myself to coding ONLY on windows (via VBscript, ASP, etc) if I can just as easily take that code and port it elsewhere? Same issue as Java - my PHP code will run without change on a unix server or a windows server. So it's most certainly a competitor, no doubt about that. Throw in the price tag for PHP/Perl/etc ($0) and it really *should* be scaring MS some. At least it probably rattles a few cages in certain departments there.:)
Does it run under the Mac version of IE? If so, that might qualify as another "platform".
Re:Call for Automated Email Filters
on
Email Turns Thirty
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Procmail is a filter BEFORE email hits your inbox. What you'd want is an actual email client that would 'learn' from what you're doing, not an external 'filter' program. Neat idea, but not the same as another procmail-type filter system.
Wow - you're taking that to the extreme. Do you shut out people who approach you in a room to talk to you because you didn't give them permission first? Pretty much the same concept.
If I email my bills to clients, but they didn't request them first, does that mean it's 'spam' and they don't have to pay it?
This company had legitimate relationships with current customers. If you can't email a current customer with information about something about your current relationship, then there's something seriously wrong with that definition of 'spam'.
Hmmm... I guess I'm not allowed to send anyone ANY email ever unless the intended recipient requested it first. If the 'real world' operated like some people want email to operate, the world would be a mighty dull place...
Yeah, I'm late to this, but I'll post it anyway...
The basic fact that he worked for a porn site didn't bother me particularly, though my boss had some (moral) concerns.
This is the one that got to me - you'd think that someone who had a moral problem with porn would want to hire this guy to get him OUT of the porn business. If people who have a moral issue with porn will never hire anyone who's been associated with the porn biz, it just makes it more likely that more people will stay in the business, helping it to grow.:/
And at one time they say that they are tightly integrated with IE and Active X, but in the next sentance they claim that they are free and unrestricted. My immediate reaction was that they can hardly be free if they're tightly integrated with something that is non-free. In other words, the use of free software obligates me to use non-free software, which obligates me to support a company I find reprehensible. Is that sort of thing extending or restricting my freedom?
Well, I often feel the same way about most "open source" stuff. It's all written in C, which I find reprehensible. Well, not reprehensible, but too difficult for me. To use that C software, I'm obligated to learn C (to extend it anyway, which should be part of my freedom). Are they extending or restricting my freedom by only writing C code? I'd say it's restricting my ability to do useful things with it, because I now have a burden of learning something I don't want to learn.
Not quite a reply to the whole 'viral' thing, but...
The biggest problem I see is that it can be pretty much damn near impossible to "add" enough "value" due to human nature. People will use what's 'good enough' if it's free, compared to something which may be *better* if they have to pay for it. They'll put up with crashing software, bad interfaces, etc, for the sake of the pocketbook.
If I took Apache and could add some 'value' to it through patches that could quintuple it's serving power, people STILL wouldn't pay for it - not enough to justify my work in developing it and marketing it.
Hypothetical example, but I hope it makes the point...
Which is why I said I don't think it'll happen in my lifetime. Even if I live a long time, I probably don't have more than 50-60 years left(!), so I think I was pretty conservative in my estimate.
I suspect by the time they have this issue sufficiently researched and tested, wireless connections will be pretty much commonplace over much of the world. Imagine being able to THINK of something and have relevant information directly IN your brain. No more going to the library (does anyone ever do that anymore? It's all I had growing up!), no more 'surfing the web' to find information. It'll all just be THERE - ready for mental ingestion without physically having to DO much work.
I also think about how this will be abused - IM and 'wireless' ads are two that come to mind. Billboards and ads are annoying enough, but you can turn off the TV/Radio, or close your eyes, or look at something else. Imagine NEVER being able to get away from this stuff - mentally, I mean. It'd be pumped into your brain directly - those stupid human body filters like your eyes, feet, etc. won't be able to stop those ads from embedding themselves into your brain...
I know, it's all farfetched, and I kind doubt I'll see widespread adoption of this in my lifetime. But for any possible UPSIDE of this, I see way too many downsides.:/
Well, it's kinda branding, but the message it's sending isn't necessarily that "these developers wrote this program". "K" thrown in front of something seems to signify that it's written to work with KDE, not that any 'official' KDE developers worked on it. It's late, but "KBear" comes to mind as something which isn't 'officially' from the KDE team, but simply means that it's geared to work with KDE. Unfortunately, 'K' is too easy to tack on - I think the 'branding' message will be diluted, if it's not already to some degree.
Yeah, aesthetically, it's coming along nicely, and as I mentioned before, cookie control is better than many other browsers. If they could do the tabbed browsing like in moz.9.6, and a few other things, it may become my default platform. As more of my work is done via just web browsers, I'm flirting more and more with using Linux/KDE as my primary environment, instead of secondary to W2k. I *really* don't want to get into the whole XP thing in the Windows world. By the time I need to upgrade again, fingers crossed, Linux/KDE will be a rock-solid alternative (close, but no cigar yet).
Slashdot Mirror
I submmitted similar comments twice - sorry about that! Wasn't looking at what I was doing (too engrossed in my cool looking computer case...)
Who uses 'looks' to decide to buy a computer? I'm sure some people do, but I don't, nor does anyone I work with. Price/performance/features/specs - those influence my purchase decision. "Sleek" exteriors and flash packaging don't do it for me.
I'm sure some people do, but I don't, and most people I know and work with don't either. I look at price and features. Fancy packaging and 'sleek' designs be damned. I want to know the specs - speed, memory, etc.
"Linux" won't ever standardize on anything (sorry to say). Hopefully a majority of the community WILL standardize on one basic version of a desktop environment, and office suite, etc. If there's a 'defacto' standard, more people will use it. Sorry, but I don't WANT people to have to learn lots of stuff *before* using a system just to be able to make a choice.
No one is saying to take away choices - you can go keep running sawfish all you want. But having a pronounced 'standard' will help encourage people to learn and support that standard more. The more users, the more demand for my services. If Linux, which I've invested a lot of time in learning, always remains a 'niche' player, future job prospects will be less than optimal. Let all the newbies in - that's more work for us later. Look at how many 'newbie' type Windows users there are that know just enough about a system to screw it up, then call for help. Who do they call? People that know and support Windows, not Linux. If more people are encouraged to try Linux on the desktop (because of a default - and usable - 'standard') then the more secure the job market will be for people with solid Linux skills.
That whole bug page is just ridiculous - a shining example of bad open source stuff at work. There's an expected behaviour, which IE and earlier netscapes had (opera? dunno) which has been removed, and it's been discussed for over a year, but it's still not resolved. Why? Issues of "it *should* be this way" or "let's have 3 options as to how it should work" etc. I guess NONE of these mozilla coders actually ever does any type of serverside scripting and needs to view the HTML output of a script in a browser. I need the source of WHAT THE BROWSER IS SHOWING AT THIS MOMENT IN TIME, not what I next 'GET' request. Get the basic EXPECTED and USEFUL behaviour worked out first - worry about 'kewl' features later.
:(
While I'm on it, Netscape (and I think earlier mozillas) would choke because of this bug when you tried to PRINT. You basically could never print a page that was the result of a POST (or used cookie data) because it'd simply GET the same URL, and print that. And forget trying to PRINT an HTML page that was gzipped - you'd get binary data printed on the paper!
Well, Ford might have thought "we can't possibly get ahold of everyone who has this problem, so we won't notify anyone".
MAKE THE EFFORT. If people aren't registered with a valid email (and check it occasionally) that's their problem.
It *seems* that when I "view source", the browser hits the server to download another copy. I don't WANT *another* copy - I want to the see the source of what is being rendered in the browser. With many web-based apps, doing another request (especially without resending the proper POST info, etc) will give back different results.
The same behaviour was a huge problem for printing in Netscape. Rather than print what was in the browser's memory and on the screen, netscape would do a GET request on the URL. If it didn't come back with the right results - oh well! Too bad...
Why on earth can't we simply see what's in the browser's memory already? It seems this is the EASY thing to do and Netscape (and now Mozilla) are unnecessarily complicating the matter.
With the price of computers falling like a brick it won't be too long before the added cost of Microsoft Office doubles the price of a computer.
It already does, for low end stuff. I put together a low end system for about $500. Drive, motherboard, processor, RAM, case, etc. To install a retail copy of Win2k and Office XP (no upgrades, just fresh) is
Office XP - standard (not professional) $479 US
Windows 2000 professional - $319 US.
Yes, I'm sure there are stores with cheaper prices. Even if you got them both together for $500, that's STILL doubling the price of the system. Pricing of this stuff for average Joe Consumer is all based on them "upgrading". People just starting out, who don't/can't pirate but want all the MS goodies are in for sticker shock, imo.
Perhaps teachers SHOULD know a bit more about file permissions. If they did, they'd have a much better understanding, which could be taught to the students, if often only by example. More people understanding file permissions (whether under Win or Lin or whatever) will generally be more knowledgeable about at least BASIC security issues, and will be more prepared to deal with viruses and worms in the future (which will surely never completely die).
Actually, I think that one has a lot to do with PHP, leave MySQL out of it.
Actually, it *probably* has neither to do with PHP nor MySQL specifically, but most like the admin is using "pconnect". Each Apache child keeps a connection handle open to MySQL, so if your MySQL is set to max out at 100 simultaneous connections (the default, which most people leave set for some reason) and your Apache is set to have more than that (200?) you'll get this. The solution is to either NOT use pconnect or to implement some type of pooling system. Yeah, pooling mechanisms aren't native, but there are sql connection pooling projects out there to use. Also, pconnect v connect on a decent machine with mysql local isn't THAT much of a difference. It'd be nicer to have a slower site that was UP rather than a site that delivers error messages FAST.
I think the 2600 had about 8 or maybe 16 colors. you can't really "dither" all that much at that resolution either.
Dunno enough about Python to answer for certain. One of the other guys in the office used it quite a bit, and kept coming up against oddities in how it handled certain situations. Don't ask specifics right now, cause I don't know them. But I do know that we keep coming back to PHP and using it more and more. Yes, there are some things it can't do very well, but pretty much every language we've looked at has some deficiencies, either in terms of learning curve, or strange behaviours, or lack of support/acceptance, or whatever. PHP seems to satisfy the most needs, while having the fewest drawbacks, when talking about primarily/strictly web-based apps.
:)
Email me privately if you'd like to discuss this further.
True - but it's not cross platform, which is what I was getting at. The "price" aspect was intended to be related more to the cross-platform quality, rather than standalone. PHP being cross-platform should be somewhat more threatening to ASP than something like CF, because of the price. Just a viewpoint, anyway. :)
PHP is just one of many languages one can use in Active Server Pages.
:)
Sorry, wrong. VBScript, Jscript, and to a lesser extent PerlScript are languages that have ASP 'hooks' - 'seamless' integration into the ASP environment. PHP is not one of those languages, unless something has DRASTICALLY changed, and I think we'd have seen a more specific announcement about that.
PHP runs as an ISAPI module under Windows - hopefully it does NOW anyway. It was pretty flaky in the past. Hopefully this 4.1 release remedies a lot of that. A few core PHP people were invited to MS some time ago to discuss how to make the ISAPI version more stable. There were apparently many threading issues, and the PHP team didn't have much in the way of specific MS experience - not as much as the Unix experience the developers bring to the table.
PHP is most definitely a competitor, as is perl. WHY would I tie myself to coding ONLY on windows (via VBscript, ASP, etc) if I can just as easily take that code and port it elsewhere? Same issue as Java - my PHP code will run without change on a unix server or a windows server. So it's most certainly a competitor, no doubt about that. Throw in the price tag for PHP/Perl/etc ($0) and it really *should* be scaring MS some. At least it probably rattles a few cages in certain departments there.
Does it run under the Mac version of IE? If so, that might qualify as another "platform".
Procmail is a filter BEFORE email hits your inbox. What you'd want is an actual email client that would 'learn' from what you're doing, not an external 'filter' program. Neat idea, but not the same as another procmail-type filter system.
Wow - you're taking that to the extreme. Do you shut out people who approach you in a room to talk to you because you didn't give them permission first? Pretty much the same concept.
If I email my bills to clients, but they didn't request them first, does that mean it's 'spam' and they don't have to pay it?
This company had legitimate relationships with current customers. If you can't email a current customer with information about something about your current relationship, then there's something seriously wrong with that definition of 'spam'.
Hmmm... I guess I'm not allowed to send anyone ANY email ever unless the intended recipient requested it first. If the 'real world' operated like some people want email to operate, the world would be a mighty dull place...
Yeah, I'm late to this, but I'll post it anyway...
:/
The basic fact that he worked for a porn site didn't bother me particularly, though my boss had some (moral) concerns.
This is the one that got to me - you'd think that someone who had a moral problem with porn would want to hire this guy to get him OUT of the porn business. If people who have a moral issue with porn will never hire anyone who's been associated with the porn biz, it just makes it more likely that more people will stay in the business, helping it to grow.
How about Phillip Morris: is it moral to sell something to people that will harm the for sure and shorten their life span almost surely?
:(
I sure hope to God you're not referring to Kraft's "Macaroni and Cheese", though I have my fears you are...
And at one time they say that they are tightly integrated with IE and Active X, but in the next sentance they claim that they are free and unrestricted. My immediate reaction was that they can hardly be free if they're tightly integrated with something that is non-free. In other words, the use of free software obligates me to use non-free software, which obligates me to support a company I find reprehensible. Is that sort of thing extending or restricting my freedom?
Well, I often feel the same way about most "open source" stuff. It's all written in C, which I find reprehensible. Well, not reprehensible, but too difficult for me. To use that C software, I'm obligated to learn C (to extend it anyway, which should be part of my freedom). Are they extending or restricting my freedom by only writing C code? I'd say it's restricting my ability to do useful things with it, because I now have a burden of learning something I don't want to learn.
Not quite a reply to the whole 'viral' thing, but...
The biggest problem I see is that it can be pretty much damn near impossible to "add" enough "value" due to human nature. People will use what's 'good enough' if it's free, compared to something which may be *better* if they have to pay for it. They'll put up with crashing software, bad interfaces, etc, for the sake of the pocketbook.
If I took Apache and could add some 'value' to it through patches that could quintuple it's serving power, people STILL wouldn't pay for it - not enough to justify my work in developing it and marketing it.
Hypothetical example, but I hope it makes the point...
Which is why I said I don't think it'll happen in my lifetime. Even if I live a long time, I probably don't have more than 50-60 years left(!), so I think I was pretty conservative in my estimate.
I suspect by the time they have this issue sufficiently researched and tested, wireless connections will be pretty much commonplace over much of the world. Imagine being able to THINK of something and have relevant information directly IN your brain. No more going to the library (does anyone ever do that anymore? It's all I had growing up!), no more 'surfing the web' to find information. It'll all just be THERE - ready for mental ingestion without physically having to DO much work.
:/
I also think about how this will be abused - IM and 'wireless' ads are two that come to mind. Billboards and ads are annoying enough, but you can turn off the TV/Radio, or close your eyes, or look at something else. Imagine NEVER being able to get away from this stuff - mentally, I mean. It'd be pumped into your brain directly - those stupid human body filters like your eyes, feet, etc. won't be able to stop those ads from embedding themselves into your brain...
I know, it's all farfetched, and I kind doubt I'll see widespread adoption of this in my lifetime. But for any possible UPSIDE of this, I see way too many downsides.
Well, it's kinda branding, but the message it's sending isn't necessarily that "these developers wrote this program". "K" thrown in front of something seems to signify that it's written to work with KDE, not that any 'official' KDE developers worked on it. It's late, but "KBear" comes to mind as something which isn't 'officially' from the KDE team, but simply means that it's geared to work with KDE. Unfortunately, 'K' is too easy to tack on - I think the 'branding' message will be diluted, if it's not already to some degree.
Fair enough - tired is fine. :)
Yeah, aesthetically, it's coming along nicely, and as I mentioned before, cookie control is better than many other browsers. If they could do the tabbed browsing like in moz.9.6, and a few other things, it may become my default platform. As more of my work is done via just web browsers, I'm flirting more and more with using Linux/KDE as my primary environment, instead of secondary to W2k. I *really* don't want to get into the whole XP thing in the Windows world. By the time I need to upgrade again, fingers crossed, Linux/KDE will be a rock-solid alternative (close, but no cigar yet).