Funny. When I think of what Microsoft's online music store would be like, I picture an extremely limited selection of music which consists of artists like Barry Manilow, America and William Shatner.
That's true. Even MSFT TV commercials are so yucku-tacky, you know, "we want your kid to be succesful and make lots of money".
Microsoft is the polar opposite of anything "controversial", and art should thrive on a bit of controversial edge.
This is in stark contrast with what *really* takes place at Microsoft: dark dungeons with decapitated penguins, Steve Ballmer banging Bill Gates with both of them wearing S/M leather, Masonic rituals empahisizing their desire to establish a New World Order based on oppression & greed, George Bush fundraisers, black-clas programmers baking soap from the fat of newborn babies...
the world view's America as the land of the selfish, run by corporations, headed by a falsely-elected retard, and not bothered about persecuting people, being hypocritical, or just plain murder if it's beneficial to profits.
Check.
MS is associated with similar "American" traits - bullying, being crap, holding the world back.
Check.
so being for open source and linux is like being against capitalism and MS.
Here I beg to differ. OSS is not at all opposed to capitalism. Capitalism is great. Capitalism still benefits from "common property" such as roads, and we should keep on building roads.
Now Lisp took a hit in the aftermath of the Lisp machine days, but with computers and Moore's law and advances in compiler and language technology, maybe it is time for the idea to come back.
The problem w/ Lisp seems to be that not many programmers like it. Even the ones that try to like it, and learn it in school.
If you teach someone Python, it is extremely probable that the pupil will become a Python fan. Teaching people Lisp (or Scheme) seems to have pretty much the opposite reaction. Some of it is probably due to shoving FP down their throats, but not all.
Lisp, they say (Paul Graham, et al), was the victim of worse is better,
Wasn't it Richard Gabriel?
How about Python as a worse-is-better substitute for Lisp? Even Paul Graham admits it is getting close.
Actually, Python already seems to have replaced Lisp. Only the die-hard macro freaks stick with Lisp, most dynamic typing - first class functions - simple semantics people have picked up Python.
If Python is to become the heir to Lisp
Curious wording you have here. Python has beaten Lisp in popularity ages ago. Perhaps you mean a technical heir to Lisp? Lisp is by far not a "king" in anything, except perhaps power of expression. Many would argue that it is too powerful to be practical.
But speaking as a Delphi programmer who has done some work in C++, Java, and C#, I think Python has potential and is something I am going to be looking at as it evolves.
Better yet, starting hacking in Python right now. It doesn't *need* to evolve, it's excellent as it stands. I'll take all the evolution with open arms, but the beauty of programming in Python can take your breath away even now.
It really opens your eyes and helps you see how the rest of programming community seems to be still living in dark ages. I believe this is how Lisp people feel about their language too, so I guess we are in the same boat in a way. There seems to be a weird synchronizity b/w Lisp and Python. Both are probably manifestations of some deeply profound programming archetype:-).
It exists. And it is checking all the return values.
Checking return values is an outdated practice, you should just use languages like Python that support exception handling. Lets you focus on the problem.
Re:I just put my tinfoil hat on....
on
SCO Aims For The Feds
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
It would most certainly destroy SCO, et al.
I tend to think that destruction of SCO is inevitable anyway, and SCO knows it. This charade is the exit strategy for the SCO management - they are going to emerge from this as rich men (rich w/ MSFT money), provided that they are not punished for misconduct (and this is something we all hope).
That is, they can afford to anger pretty much everybody. Microsoft can't, however, and one would have expected SCO to tone down their attacks after the MSFT-SCO connection was proved beyond any doubt.
This is pure nonsense. More OSS use = good, even if only a tiny fraction gives back.
I don't see why some domain specific project should be open sourced - it would mostly benefit the competition of the company, while being completely worthless to the Open Source community at large.
We need lots of friends in proprietary software scene. There are lots of respectable proprietary companies out there.
People like you really piss me off. "They world owes me a job, the world owes me free music, the world owes me free software... But I owe the world nothing, it should pay me for my stuff"
People are free to think so, right?
Sigh. If you can't afford the license cost your software must be pretty sucky anyway, as thats barely a couple of months wages.
As Perl seems to fade more into irrelevence, languages that hold onto a strong central theme like PHP, Python, Ruby, and Dylan are coming to the fore to take its place.
Dylan? Come on, Dylan is pretty much dead. Agree about the other languages though.
Or do others share my personal opinion that Perl, Python, and Ruby are mostly out of favor because they aren't 133t enough to separate programmers from lusers?
It appears that Java programmers are considered the VB monkeys of today, so I don't think that's it.
Quite a few only use the languages they are taught at school, and with which they think they can get a job (those that don't have one or are afraid of losing their current job, that is). Therefore they avoid anything "exotic".
Programming is hard. It's an unnatural thing for the human mind to do.
Not in Python - it's as natural as eating or sex:).
The more code can be automatically verified and checked, the better IMHO.
That's why there should be tests that excercise your code. Static typing helps catch some trivial bugs, but it only goes so far.
It's (a) slow even with tools like Psyco a
I think this is the reason it's not considered for OO.org scale programs. Desktop programs need to be very snappy, and Python takes a hit here. Less so because of the size or scalability. google for Chandler @ OSAF.
has a wierd non-C like syntax which is a bit offputting for people who are used to C++/Java/C# style languages.
The syntax is not "weird". Actually it's much more natural than in C family languages. And someone who can't get used to a new kind of syntax of such simplicity is probably quite stupid and should not be programming anyway (note that I'm emphatically *not* referring to you here, so ease up on the flamethrower:).
Yes, Linux made the Unix-oriented evnvironment available to more people, but piggybacking on a current and widely-used platform != revival.
Linux made Unix viable again. Unix on fast and cheap commodity hardware. Open, unified Unix, instead of mish mash of incompatible proprietary variants.
Without Linux (and BSD's, which might be where Linux is now if Linux didn't exist), Microsoft would have collected the jackpot already. And rightly so, probably - proprietary Unices sucks, and if it's something I can't run on my home machine, I don't want to deal with it.
Also, Linux has create a Future for Unix family. Without Linux, there would be no perception of future, and every sensible manager would jump out of the sinking ship ASAP. If Windows was the "obvious way of the future", everybody would be running it already.
Developing software for Linux with.NET does NOT necessarily make Microsoft a winner. If it does, where's your reasoning?
At some point, if/when C# has a large mindshare among Linux programmers, and there is lots of C# code around (I hope this never happens), MSFT decides to shut down all the.NET/C# stuff done in Linux. The development is naturally switched over to windows.
My personal opinion is that Mono must never come into the code base. It is a project doomed from the start, and I don't want it polluting the code base.
My sentiment exactly. If Gnome is going to start stockpiling stuff written in C#, it becomes something you can't rely on always being available (i.e. it's over immediately after MSFT thinks they've been entertained enough). The moment C# is starting to creep in is the time Gnome should be forked. Or at least the applications that are written in C#.
BTW, what does Sun think of C# in Gnome? They are contributing to the project, I would suppose that C# has no place in Java Desktop System;-).
KDE is starting to look more and more appealing every day. This is a sad thing to watch - on the one hand Gnome has great initiatives and innovative people, on the other hand we have people who seem to have missed the cluetrain and can't foresee the impending demise of non-MSFT CLR.
I for one don't want out Linux desktop future to be built on Microsoft-owned land. Look at SCO, you can start litigation and fuel FUD even with less obvious IP claims than Microsoft has for Mono.
Anyone noticed how incredibly unpractical Haskell is? It sacrifices too much by taking the FP purity too far.
Also, apparently the Haskell people are way too intimately associated with Microsoft (isn't Cambridge some kind of Microsoft stool pigeon these days?). One just *has* to suspect that they are up to no good. We need to inspect this connection further before giving them the benefit of a doubt;-).
Yes, I truly felt like burning some of that Karma of mine:).
That way an informed consumer can make a choice whether or not they want DRM on their system.
It won't matter much, because most people don't care either way. Worse yet, the salesman simply tells the customer that the feature will "enable access to new media formats" and the sucker takes the bait.
but pretend this isn't Slashdot where software must be free and open source and piracy is k-rad
I would question yout lumping together of open source and piracy. They are actually polar opposites. Open Source could eradicate (software) piracy, and rampant piracy hinders the spreading of Open Source.
and upon her viewing a goatse picture that he emailed her after a conversation in which he described his fantasies of using her face as a target for various liquids, she developed Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and was scarred for life.
If she can handle Christina Aquilera, Boyzone or whatever the prepubescents listen these days, she can handle that.
Slashdot Mirror
Funny. When I think of what Microsoft's online music store would be like, I picture an extremely limited selection of music which consists of artists like Barry Manilow, America and William Shatner.
That's true. Even MSFT TV commercials are so yucku-tacky, you know, "we want your kid to be succesful and make lots of money".
Microsoft is the polar opposite of anything "controversial", and art should thrive on a bit of controversial edge.
This is in stark contrast with what *really* takes place at Microsoft: dark dungeons with decapitated penguins, Steve Ballmer banging Bill Gates with both of them wearing S/M leather, Masonic rituals empahisizing their desire to establish a New World Order based on oppression & greed, George Bush fundraisers, black-clas programmers baking soap from the fat of newborn babies...
the world view's America as the land of the selfish, run by corporations, headed by a falsely-elected retard, and not bothered about persecuting people, being hypocritical, or just plain murder if it's beneficial to profits.
Check.
MS is associated with similar "American" traits - bullying, being crap, holding the world back.
Check.
so being for open source and linux is like being against capitalism and MS.
Here I beg to differ. OSS is not at all opposed to capitalism. Capitalism is great. Capitalism still benefits from "common property" such as roads, and we should keep on building roads.
inertia
To paraphrase Aleister Crowley:
A man who is doing this True Will has the inertia of the Universe to assist him.
Therefore, I'm optimistic. We are fighting the good fight, and following the natural Will of the IT to gravitate towards more open solutions.
They are wrong, they had a chance that they capitalized on, but now it's time for universe to bitchslap them a little bit.
Don't most of those reasons also apply to the BSDs?
Dunno. Has Netcraft already confirmed it?
That's not very nice. I hope this does not happen to Slashdot.
I don't think it would matter much. Only n00bs read the articles here anyway.
EM64T
Remember, it's spelled x86-64.
Now Lisp took a hit in the aftermath of the Lisp machine days, but with computers and Moore's law and advances in compiler and language technology, maybe it is time for the idea to come back.
:-).
The problem w/ Lisp seems to be that not many programmers like it. Even the ones that try to like it, and learn it in school.
If you teach someone Python, it is extremely probable that the pupil will become a Python fan. Teaching people Lisp (or Scheme) seems to have pretty much the opposite reaction. Some of it is probably due to shoving FP down their throats, but not all.
Lisp, they say (Paul Graham, et al), was the victim of worse is better,
Wasn't it Richard Gabriel?
How about Python as a worse-is-better substitute for Lisp? Even Paul Graham admits it is getting close.
Actually, Python already seems to have replaced Lisp. Only the die-hard macro freaks stick with Lisp, most dynamic typing - first class functions - simple semantics people have picked up Python.
If Python is to become the heir to Lisp
Curious wording you have here. Python has beaten Lisp in popularity ages ago. Perhaps you mean a technical heir to Lisp? Lisp is by far not a "king" in anything, except perhaps power of expression. Many would argue that it is too powerful to be practical.
But speaking as a Delphi programmer who has done some work in C++, Java, and C#, I think Python has potential and is something I am going to be looking at as it evolves.
Better yet, starting hacking in Python right now. It doesn't *need* to evolve, it's excellent as it stands. I'll take all the evolution with open arms, but the beauty of programming in Python can take your breath away even now.
It really opens your eyes and helps you see how the rest of programming community seems to be still living in dark ages. I believe this is how Lisp people feel about their language too, so I guess we are in the same boat in a way. There seems to be a weird synchronizity b/w Lisp and Python. Both are probably manifestations of some deeply profound programming archetype
It exists. And it is checking all the return values.
Checking return values is an outdated practice, you should just use languages like Python that support exception handling. Lets you focus on the problem.
It would most certainly destroy SCO, et al.
I tend to think that destruction of SCO is inevitable anyway, and SCO knows it. This charade is the exit strategy for the SCO management - they are going to emerge from this as rich men (rich w/ MSFT money), provided that they are not punished for misconduct (and this is something we all hope).
That is, they can afford to anger pretty much everybody. Microsoft can't, however, and one would have expected SCO to tone down their attacks after the MSFT-SCO connection was proved beyond any doubt.
First of all, the federal government would probably stomp a hole in MS's skull for anti-trust concerns
Sorry, I may be misunderstanding something here...
Aren't we talking of USA right now, with that George guy on the rudder?
Have you seen their stock price recently?
They need to make as much noise and annoy as many as possible, and they need to do it now. The bigger and more controversial the opponent, the better.
If they don't make noise, Microsoft doesn't get much value for their investment, right? So they need to capitalize every second SCO is still alive.
Don't want to give, don't take.
This is pure nonsense. More OSS use = good, even if only a tiny fraction gives back.
I don't see why some domain specific project should be open sourced - it would mostly benefit the competition of the company, while being completely worthless to the Open Source community at large.
We need lots of friends in proprietary software scene. There are lots of respectable proprietary companies out there.
People like you really piss me off. "They world owes me a job, the world owes me free music, the world owes me free software... But I owe the world nothing, it should pay me for my stuff"
People are free to think so, right?
Sigh. If you can't afford the license cost your software must be pretty sucky anyway, as thats barely a couple of months wages.
$2400 buys you a lot of beer, dontcha think?
As Perl seems to fade more into irrelevence, languages that hold onto a strong central theme like PHP, Python, Ruby, and Dylan are coming to the fore to take its place.
Dylan? Come on, Dylan is pretty much dead. Agree about the other languages though.
.NET exists and provides rich functionality on all versions of Windows, from cell phones to servers.
Copy-pasted that straight from a MSFT marketing brochure?
Or do others share my personal opinion that Perl, Python, and Ruby are mostly out of favor because they aren't 133t enough to separate programmers from lusers?
It appears that Java programmers are considered the VB monkeys of today, so I don't think that's it.
Quite a few only use the languages they are taught at school, and with which they think they can get a job (those that don't have one or are afraid of losing their current job, that is). Therefore they avoid anything "exotic".
OTOH, avoiding Perl makes perfect sense.
Programming is hard. It's an unnatural thing for the human mind to do.
:).
:).
Not in Python - it's as natural as eating or sex
The more code can be automatically verified and checked, the better IMHO.
That's why there should be tests that excercise your code. Static typing helps catch some trivial bugs, but it only goes so far.
It's (a) slow even with tools like Psyco a
I think this is the reason it's not considered for OO.org scale programs. Desktop programs need to be very snappy, and Python takes a hit here. Less so because of the size or scalability. google for Chandler @ OSAF.
has a wierd non-C like syntax which is a bit offputting for people who are used to C++/Java/C# style languages.
The syntax is not "weird". Actually it's much more natural than in C family languages. And someone who can't get used to a new kind of syntax of such simplicity is probably quite stupid and should not be programming anyway (note that I'm emphatically *not* referring to you here, so ease up on the flamethrower
Instead, you go check and find out that the Mercury and Haskell projects are sponsored by Microsoft.
.NET to universities. Some gullible professors will no doubt swallow the bait.
These ports are just attempts by Microsoft to sell
You seriously thought MSFT cares about languages other than C# and VB.NET?
Yes, Linux made the Unix-oriented evnvironment available to more people, but piggybacking on a current and widely-used platform != revival.
Linux made Unix viable again. Unix on fast and cheap commodity hardware. Open, unified Unix, instead of mish mash of incompatible proprietary variants.
Without Linux (and BSD's, which might be where Linux is now if Linux didn't exist), Microsoft would have collected the jackpot already. And rightly so, probably - proprietary Unices sucks, and if it's something I can't run on my home machine, I don't want to deal with it.
Also, Linux has create a Future for Unix family. Without Linux, there would be no perception of future, and every sensible manager would jump out of the sinking ship ASAP. If Windows was the "obvious way of the future", everybody would be running it already.
Developing software for Linux with .NET does NOT necessarily make Microsoft a winner. If it does, where's your reasoning?
.NET/C# stuff done in Linux. The development is naturally switched over to windows.
At some point, if/when C# has a large mindshare among Linux programmers, and there is lots of C# code around (I hope this never happens), MSFT decides to shut down all the
They win, we lose.
My personal opinion is that Mono must never come into the code base. It is a project doomed from the start, and I don't want it polluting the code base.
;-).
My sentiment exactly. If Gnome is going to start stockpiling stuff written in C#, it becomes something you can't rely on always being available (i.e. it's over immediately after MSFT thinks they've been entertained enough). The moment C# is starting to creep in is the time Gnome should be forked. Or at least the applications that are written in C#.
BTW, what does Sun think of C# in Gnome? They are contributing to the project, I would suppose that C# has no place in Java Desktop System
KDE is starting to look more and more appealing every day. This is a sad thing to watch - on the one hand Gnome has great initiatives and innovative people, on the other hand we have people who seem to have missed the cluetrain and can't foresee the impending demise of non-MSFT CLR.
I for one don't want out Linux desktop future to be built on Microsoft-owned land. Look at SCO, you can start litigation and fuel FUD even with less obvious IP claims than Microsoft has for Mono.
They've got a whole course online! FOR FREE!
Wow. That's indeed a good argument to scrap all those undocumented OSS languages we have been using for the past 10-15 years.
Anyone noticed how incredibly unpractical Haskell is? It sacrifices too much by taking the FP purity too far.
;-).
:).
Also, apparently the Haskell people are way too intimately associated with Microsoft (isn't Cambridge some kind of Microsoft stool pigeon these days?). One just *has* to suspect that they are up to no good. We need to inspect this connection further before giving them the benefit of a doubt
Yes, I truly felt like burning some of that Karma of mine
That way an informed consumer can make a choice whether or not they want DRM on their system.
It won't matter much, because most people don't care either way. Worse yet, the salesman simply tells the customer that the feature will "enable access to new media formats" and the sucker takes the bait.
How long do you think before this hardware gets hacked?
I would bet on 3 months.
but pretend this isn't Slashdot where software must be free and open source and piracy is k-rad
I would question yout lumping together of open source and piracy. They are actually polar opposites. Open Source could eradicate (software) piracy, and rampant piracy hinders the spreading of Open Source.
and upon her viewing a goatse picture that he emailed her after a conversation in which he described his fantasies of using her face as a target for various liquids, she developed Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and was scarred for life.
If she can handle Christina Aquilera, Boyzone or whatever the prepubescents listen these days, she can handle that.