Imagine a browser that can run a native lightweight UI (through Avalon). Imagine a world where such applications are trivial to build.
Right now, today, we are already beginning to see things like WYSIWYG HTML editors built with ASP.NET, that work like a native application embedded within the browser.
I was working on browser based, lightwieght UI's that look and feel like native applications written purely in JavaScript over three years ago. It's not something that is just beginning to appear now, and you don't need anything more than a standards compliant browser to do it.
however, i do still maintain that there are valid software patents. if a patent covers a previously unknown specific method of achieving a desired goal, then i have no issue with it.
the patenting of things that are already obvious is only a part of the problem with the current state of software patents. the (imo) bigger issue is that most of the time they go much beyond specific methods and instead use the fact that they have come up with such a mehod to patent the end result, preventing anyone else from independently finding a new method of achieving said result.
in that sense, i consider the rsa patent to be more reasonable than most. if the fundamental algorithm was already obvious and well understood by mathematicians at the time, then the patent should have been dismissed on those grounds (iana mathematician). however, given the way software patents are usually treated now, we should at least be happy that they only applied for a patent on one particular implementation of asymetric encryption rather than on the idea of asymetric encryption as a whole.
i'm not opposed to software patents as a whole- some, such as rsa and lzw, are truly breakthroughs, and i see no reason why the companies that developed them should not be allowed to use or sell them as they choose. (unisys were bastards about how they used the lzw patents, though, regardless of whether they were justified in getting the patent). However, very few "software" patents are really meaningful innovations. as an example, a company that i did some consulting for has applied for, and will probably receive, a patent on what is essentially a program to take a bunch of pre-recorded audio files and assemble them together into one big audio file. it doesn't use any new and innovative technology- most of the techniques and ideas that i used when writing the software came from phd research papers and open source software documentation that i found online.
Not all states do an all or nothing vote with their electors. in fact, iirc, the electors aren't even truly obligated to follow the popular vote in their state at all. of course, they almost always do.
there is at least one state (new hampshire, i believe) where one elector votes for the candidate who recieves the popular vote in each congressional district, and the remaining two electors vote for the candidate who won the popular vote in the state as a whole. thus it is not uncommon for new hampshire to split its electoral votes 3 to one candidate and 1 to the other. imo, more states should use this system, however, to be honest, the number of times that a candidate has won the popular vote and lost the elctoral vote is so small to be almost negligible. the current presidency is, of course, the exception, not the rule...
How many would use an official ad-encumbered client if one was available for your prefered environment?
i used to use official clients, and the ads never bothered me. the reasons i started using gaim were:
1) same client on windows and *nix
2) preferred the interface
3) didn't like running three different messenger clients (down to 2 now- most of the people i used to talk to on yahoo are on aol now)
if all of my contacts were on one service, i would have no problem using an official ad supported client provided that (1) and (2) above are satisfied (i.e. offers me the features i want, the ability to easily disable features i dont want, and works on linux or freebsd). of course recently, aol started using talking ads, which i would never stand for, and which will probably cause my wife to switch from aim to gaim as well.
from the article, they specifically mention one of the advantages of the rail gun over current systems is that it allows the ships to provide ground support from a greater distance. If the ship can sit 150 miles out from shore, and provide the same level of support to shore based troops that current ships provide from 20 miles out, it is in much less danger of being attacked by a zodiac full of explosives or a saboteur with a limpet mine...
I have yet to use a java client application, however, where I didn't feel that it was sluggish (even after loading). There are only two explanations: all java code is written poorly, or Java inherently causes a performance hit.
i think the actual explanation is closer to the first explanation- namely, all java GUI programs use poorly implemented GUI libraries. I know java can perform admirably as a server language, but up until recently, I had never used a java GUI application that was not a) slow, b) ugly, c) a royal PITA to use, and d) slow.
I have had to change my stance on that statement recently, having spent a decent amount of time lately using the Zend Development Environment for PHP, which is written in Java. In this particular case the java GUI is a) slow, and b) slow.
I think about the PHP/PostgreSQL applications I write today and shudder when I imagine what how difficult it would be to have to develop web applications in Java...
Re:Using the right tool for the job
on
OpenGL in PHP
·
· Score: 1
in perl, that code written as nearly the same as possible in perl:
would indeed produce global variables, as all perl variables are global by default. however, as i mentioned in my post, most languages i have used that behave this way give you the option to make them local:
foreach my $foo (@global_arr) {
my $tmp = some_func($foo);
some_other_func($tmp, $foo);
}
in this case $foo and $tmp are now local to the foreach loop. i can't speak for all languages (in particular i know very little about python and almost nothing about ruby), but the languages i that do know and use regularly fall into three categories with regards to scope:
- languages that enforce block level scoping (e.g. c, c++, java)
- languages that default to global scope but allow block level scoping by explicit declaration (e.g. perl, javascript)
- php
With academia firmly against proprietary software giants, we can use universities as a weapon against them.
ha! hardly.... universities love proprietary software makers. they pour tons of money into schools to get students hooked on their software. my school switched all of it's introductory CS labs over to microsoft visual c++ about a year or so before i started (over the strenuosu objections of many faculty and students) because microsoft gave them a really sweet deal. and i highly doubt that they paid several thousand dollars a piece for the hundreds of computers that have autocad installed on them in the architecture and mechanical engineering labs...
Re:Using the right tool for the job
on
OpenGL in PHP
·
· Score: 1
well, first of all the global scope isn't really global. while i understand the reason behind why they made the 'global' scope way they did, it hurts the brain of any programmer who has used any other language, and takes forever for anyone new to php who has learned how to program in a different language to get used to. the bigger problem though, is that, other than a function, there is no way to restrict the scope of a variable to a block level entity. for example, suppose i do this in the beginning of my script:
foreach ($global_arr as $foo) {
$tmp = some_func($foo);
some_other_func($tmp, $foo);
}
i have now just declared two variables, $foo and $tmp, that are global throughout the entire program, whether i like it or not. in any other language, the scope of those variables would be restricted to the for loop. (i realize that in some languages they would be be global variables by default, but you can at least force them to be local) so in a nutshell, you just stated exactly the problem with php's scoping: there is only a global space, a function space, and a class space.
as for the object orientation, i cant compare to python because i've never really used it, but compared to my experience with other languages.... while the OO features of php5 look pretty nice so far, php5 is not even released yet, and it will be years before it is in widespread use. OO in php4 is really nothing more than the ability to put functions in data structs. none of the language functions are object oriented, there is no form of data protection for objects, and it's just kind of a pain all around.
none of this is to say that i dislike php. (actually i do dislike it, but i dislike it less than most of the alternatives.) the language drives me crazy sometimes, but i still have been using it for over 3 years. the php language is certainly a pain, but i prefer php as a platform over anything else when it comes to working on the web...
Re:Using the right tool for the job
on
OpenGL in PHP
·
· Score: 1
i would say that it's absolutely brain-dead scoping rules alone make it not the right tool for just about any meaningful task. and unless you're refering only to php5, calling php object oriented is like calling an old ten-speed with an electric motor strapped onto it a motorcycle.
i could be wrong, ut i was pretty sure that the primary selection buffer is just as capable of containing non-text content as the clipboard buffer- they are implemeted the same way to X, the only difference is in how something gets into the buffer (i.e. automatically versus explicit action). the problem is that no applications use the primary buffer that way.
If you had extended your quote a little bit longer you might have noticed the part were he said that he specifically went to University to learn as much as he could from all of the computer and science classes. So he has a decent amount of formal education. He just didn't feel like jumping through the hoops to get the paper that goes with it.
While I can't offer any help with your printer, PSpice is actually a windows port of spice, a UNIX program that I've used with some level of success on Linux and FreeBSD in the past (about as much success as I ever had with PSpice anyway- I hated my ECE classes). Spice doesn't have the built in GUI that PSpice does, but there are GUI front ends available. When I was using PSpice for my labs about 6 or 7 years ago, they weren't very advanced, but I should hope they've imporved some since then.
I used the treo 300 (almost identical to the 270 except cdma instead of gsm) for almost 2 years and the samsung sph-i300 for about a year before that. i use a regular phone now, because i was switching carriers and i didn't like any of the new smartphones enough to put down that much money again.
based on the two phones i used, the quality is as good as any other cell phone i've used. in fact, one of my reasons for buying the i300 was because the quality and reception was better than my previous samsung phone. I don't remember either of them ever crashing except when i was trying to write one of my own programs for them. in fact, in the 4+ years that i've used a palm pilot, i think i could count the crashes that were not from testing/debugging one of my own programs on one hand. in short, my treo was just as good a palm pilot as any other palm pilot i've used, and just as good a phone as any other phone i've used.
there are two considerations that i would keep in mind. one is to consider the primary way you'll be using the device. to me, the samsung always felt like a phone that had a palm pilot added on to it. the treo, on the other hand, felt like it started life as a palm pilot and had a phone added to it. they both performed both tasks admirably, but you could still tell where the focus was in the design. so you should decide which function is more important to you (or which device you interact with better) and research the available devices based on that. one example: the treo had an internal battery that could only be charged by plugging in the treo (ala palm v), while the samsung had a battery that could be easily swapped, and a charger that could charge either the phone or a spare battery, or both. for a business traveller who uses his phone a lot, the samsung was a much better device. or if you constantly forget to charge you phone and always want to have a fresh battery handy, like me, the samsung was much more practical...
the other things i have to add are more personal preference. first, although it took me a while to get used to it, i love the keyboard on the treo 300. i highly doubt i will ever go back to a stylus based pda. second, i've always preferred flip phones to stick phones, and with smartphones this is especially true. the one thing i always hated most about the sph-i300 was that there was no cover for the buttons. it wouldn't have had to be fancy, just something like the plastic cover that came with my old visor platinum. (it did come with a leather holder/cover, but that was way too bulky to carry around in my pocket- it was about the size of a small day planner.) the lack of any kind of flip cover was what kept me from upgrading to the treo 600- that and i just didnt use the palm pilot enough anymore to justify the extra cost.
at least in Chicago, there has been talk of passing city ordinances that would forbid the use of camera phones in public restrooms, locker rooms at public parks, etc. personally, im not sure why you would want to use your phone in the bathroom anyway, but whatever.
even aside from laws, it can still be a pain. our network administrator cant take his phone into our colocation facility when he goes to do any kind of server maintenance because cameras are not allowed in the racks.
This has been my complaint with gnome for a long time too. back around gnome version 1.0 or 1.2, i spent a lot of time comparing gnome to kde. i really liked how everything in kde worked together and how it felt like a complete, well-designed environment. but i still used gnome instead, because before that i had used enlightenment and before that afterstep, and i was used to being able to configure every little thing about how my desktop behaved. kde just didn't give me the flexibility to set up my environment the way I wanted it to work. And on top of that, i just preferred the way gnome looked.
Some years have passed since then, of course. KDE has been improving dramatically, adding tons of ways to configure how you use it, while still keeping the feel of a unified environment. Gnome on the other hand seems like it's going full speed reverse. Every release they've removed options, made it dumber, and made only marginal improvements in making it work together as an environment. It still looks nice, compared to KDE, but even there the difference is minimal.
The problem is that both groups are trying to prodice a product so that any idiot can use linux. And ever since Gnome decided to leave behind the people who like to have some control over how their desktop works, i've been using sawfish with an old gnome panel sitting around wondering whether the enlightenment team will ever produce anything new in a usable state.
When you would introduce a normal Windows user to the Mac they would figure out how the finder works and get on with their lives
it's been my experience that sticking a normal windows user on a mac (classic- not sure about os x yet) is a never ending headache, and returning to a windows pc is a great relief.
of course, is suspect it is the same for a mac user using windows....
I found the triple edged sword amusing as well, but the line that sold me was this:
Open Source activists that want to see Linux succeed argue that eventually, they want all intellectual property protection to end, including patents and trademarks.
the guy clearly either has no idea what he is talking about or is deliberately misleading. the whole point of the GPL is using existing copyright law to ensure that the software remains free.
this is true, but redhat enterprise linux seems to be selling fine despite the existence of white box linux, centos, tao, and probably others which are available for free...
Slashdot Mirror
Imagine a browser that can run a native lightweight UI (through Avalon). Imagine a world where such applications are trivial to build.
Right now, today, we are already beginning to see things like WYSIWYG HTML editors built with ASP.NET, that work like a native application embedded within the browser.
I was working on browser based, lightwieght UI's that look and feel like native applications written purely in JavaScript over three years ago. It's not something that is just beginning to appear now, and you don't need anything more than a standards compliant browser to do it.
i assume it was at least a pre-1983 copper penny, and not a zinc penny, otherwise the suit might have been successful.....
i stand corrected regarding rsa.
however, i do still maintain that there are valid software patents. if a patent covers a previously unknown specific method of achieving a desired goal, then i have no issue with it.
the patenting of things that are already obvious is only a part of the problem with the current state of software patents. the (imo) bigger issue is that most of the time they go much beyond specific methods and instead use the fact that they have come up with such a mehod to patent the end result, preventing anyone else from independently finding a new method of achieving said result.
in that sense, i consider the rsa patent to be more reasonable than most. if the fundamental algorithm was already obvious and well understood by mathematicians at the time, then the patent should have been dismissed on those grounds (iana mathematician). however, given the way software patents are usually treated now, we should at least be happy that they only applied for a patent on one particular implementation of asymetric encryption rather than on the idea of asymetric encryption as a whole.
i'm not opposed to software patents as a whole- some, such as rsa and lzw, are truly breakthroughs, and i see no reason why the companies that developed them should not be allowed to use or sell them as they choose. (unisys were bastards about how they used the lzw patents, though, regardless of whether they were justified in getting the patent). However, very few "software" patents are really meaningful innovations. as an example, a company that i did some consulting for has applied for, and will probably receive, a patent on what is essentially a program to take a bunch of pre-recorded audio files and assemble them together into one big audio file. it doesn't use any new and innovative technology- most of the techniques and ideas that i used when writing the software came from phd research papers and open source software documentation that i found online.
Not all states do an all or nothing vote with their electors. in fact, iirc, the electors aren't even truly obligated to follow the popular vote in their state at all. of course, they almost always do.
there is at least one state (new hampshire, i believe) where one elector votes for the candidate who recieves the popular vote in each congressional district, and the remaining two electors vote for the candidate who won the popular vote in the state as a whole. thus it is not uncommon for new hampshire to split its electoral votes 3 to one candidate and 1 to the other. imo, more states should use this system, however, to be honest, the number of times that a candidate has won the popular vote and lost the elctoral vote is so small to be almost negligible. the current presidency is, of course, the exception, not the rule...
How many would use an official ad-encumbered client if one was available for your prefered environment?
i used to use official clients, and the ads never bothered me. the reasons i started using gaim were:
1) same client on windows and *nix
2) preferred the interface
3) didn't like running three different messenger clients (down to 2 now- most of the people i used to talk to on yahoo are on aol now)
if all of my contacts were on one service, i would have no problem using an official ad supported client provided that (1) and (2) above are satisfied (i.e. offers me the features i want, the ability to easily disable features i dont want, and works on linux or freebsd). of course recently, aol started using talking ads, which i would never stand for, and which will probably cause my wife to switch from aim to gaim as well.
from the article, they specifically mention one of the advantages of the rail gun over current systems is that it allows the ships to provide ground support from a greater distance. If the ship can sit 150 miles out from shore, and provide the same level of support to shore based troops that current ships provide from 20 miles out, it is in much less danger of being attacked by a zodiac full of explosives or a saboteur with a limpet mine...
I have yet to use a java client application, however, where I didn't feel that it was sluggish (even after loading). There are only two explanations: all java code is written poorly, or Java inherently causes a performance hit.
i think the actual explanation is closer to the first explanation- namely, all java GUI programs use poorly implemented GUI libraries. I know java can perform admirably as a server language, but up until recently, I had never used a java GUI application that was not a) slow, b) ugly, c) a royal PITA to use, and d) slow.
I have had to change my stance on that statement recently, having spent a decent amount of time lately using the Zend Development Environment for PHP, which is written in Java. In this particular case the java GUI is a) slow, and b) slow.
you didn't even have to go that far to see his bias... just take a look at the title:
The Java is Faster than C++ and C++ Sucks Unbiased Benchmark
I think about the PHP/PostgreSQL applications I write today and shudder when I imagine what how difficult it would be to have to develop web applications in Java...
in perl, that code written as nearly the same as possible in perl:
foreach $foo (@global_arr) {
$tmp = some_func($foo);
some_other_func($tmp, $foo);
}
would indeed produce global variables, as all perl variables are global by default. however, as i mentioned in my post, most languages i have used that behave this way give you the option to make them local:
foreach my $foo (@global_arr) {
my $tmp = some_func($foo);
some_other_func($tmp, $foo);
}
in this case $foo and $tmp are now local to the foreach loop. i can't speak for all languages (in particular i know very little about python and almost nothing about ruby), but the languages i that do know and use regularly fall into three categories with regards to scope:
- languages that enforce block level scoping (e.g. c, c++, java)
- languages that default to global scope but allow block level scoping by explicit declaration (e.g. perl, javascript)
- php
With academia firmly against proprietary software giants, we can use universities as a weapon against them.
ha! hardly.... universities love proprietary software makers. they pour tons of money into schools to get students hooked on their software. my school switched all of it's introductory CS labs over to microsoft visual c++ about a year or so before i started (over the strenuosu objections of many faculty and students) because microsoft gave them a really sweet deal. and i highly doubt that they paid several thousand dollars a piece for the hundreds of computers that have autocad installed on them in the architecture and mechanical engineering labs...
well, first of all the global scope isn't really global. while i understand the reason behind why they made the 'global' scope way they did, it hurts the brain of any programmer who has used any other language, and takes forever for anyone new to php who has learned how to program in a different language to get used to. the bigger problem though, is that, other than a function, there is no way to restrict the scope of a variable to a block level entity. for example, suppose i do this in the beginning of my script:
foreach ($global_arr as $foo) {
$tmp = some_func($foo);
some_other_func($tmp, $foo);
}
i have now just declared two variables, $foo and $tmp, that are global throughout the entire program, whether i like it or not. in any other language, the scope of those variables would be restricted to the for loop. (i realize that in some languages they would be be global variables by default, but you can at least force them to be local) so in a nutshell, you just stated exactly the problem with php's scoping: there is only a global space, a function space, and a class space.
as for the object orientation, i cant compare to python because i've never really used it, but compared to my experience with other languages.... while the OO features of php5 look pretty nice so far, php5 is not even released yet, and it will be years before it is in widespread use. OO in php4 is really nothing more than the ability to put functions in data structs. none of the language functions are object oriented, there is no form of data protection for objects, and it's just kind of a pain all around.
none of this is to say that i dislike php. (actually i do dislike it, but i dislike it less than most of the alternatives.) the language drives me crazy sometimes, but i still have been using it for over 3 years. the php language is certainly a pain, but i prefer php as a platform over anything else when it comes to working on the web...
i would say that it's absolutely brain-dead scoping rules alone make it not the right tool for just about any meaningful task. and unless you're refering only to php5, calling php object oriented is like calling an old ten-speed with an electric motor strapped onto it a motorcycle.
actually the one that surprised me was Net::DNS::Nameserver.
36,195 domains on 6 installations: 36,195 / 6 = 6032 domains/server!!!
Also amusing was Nominum ANS/CNS:
12 domains on 14 installations: 12 / 14 = 0.86 domains/server
i could be wrong, ut i was pretty sure that the primary selection buffer is just as capable of containing non-text content as the clipboard buffer- they are implemeted the same way to X, the only difference is in how something gets into the buffer (i.e. automatically versus explicit action). the problem is that no applications use the primary buffer that way.
If you had extended your quote a little bit longer you might have noticed the part were he said that he specifically went to University to learn as much as he could from all of the computer and science classes. So he has a decent amount of formal education. He just didn't feel like jumping through the hoops to get the paper that goes with it.
While I can't offer any help with your printer, PSpice is actually a windows port of spice, a UNIX program that I've used with some level of success on Linux and FreeBSD in the past (about as much success as I ever had with PSpice anyway- I hated my ECE classes). Spice doesn't have the built in GUI that PSpice does, but there are GUI front ends available. When I was using PSpice for my labs about 6 or 7 years ago, they weren't very advanced, but I should hope they've imporved some since then.
I used the treo 300 (almost identical to the 270 except cdma instead of gsm) for almost 2 years and the samsung sph-i300 for about a year before that. i use a regular phone now, because i was switching carriers and i didn't like any of the new smartphones enough to put down that much money again.
based on the two phones i used, the quality is as good as any other cell phone i've used. in fact, one of my reasons for buying the i300 was because the quality and reception was better than my previous samsung phone. I don't remember either of them ever crashing except when i was trying to write one of my own programs for them. in fact, in the 4+ years that i've used a palm pilot, i think i could count the crashes that were not from testing/debugging one of my own programs on one hand. in short, my treo was just as good a palm pilot as any other palm pilot i've used, and just as good a phone as any other phone i've used.
there are two considerations that i would keep in mind. one is to consider the primary way you'll be using the device. to me, the samsung always felt like a phone that had a palm pilot added on to it. the treo, on the other hand, felt like it started life as a palm pilot and had a phone added to it. they both performed both tasks admirably, but you could still tell where the focus was in the design. so you should decide which function is more important to you (or which device you interact with better) and research the available devices based on that. one example: the treo had an internal battery that could only be charged by plugging in the treo (ala palm v), while the samsung had a battery that could be easily swapped, and a charger that could charge either the phone or a spare battery, or both. for a business traveller who uses his phone a lot, the samsung was a much better device. or if you constantly forget to charge you phone and always want to have a fresh battery handy, like me, the samsung was much more practical...
the other things i have to add are more personal preference. first, although it took me a while to get used to it, i love the keyboard on the treo 300. i highly doubt i will ever go back to a stylus based pda. second, i've always preferred flip phones to stick phones, and with smartphones this is especially true. the one thing i always hated most about the sph-i300 was that there was no cover for the buttons. it wouldn't have had to be fancy, just something like the plastic cover that came with my old visor platinum. (it did come with a leather holder/cover, but that was way too bulky to carry around in my pocket- it was about the size of a small day planner.) the lack of any kind of flip cover was what kept me from upgrading to the treo 600- that and i just didnt use the palm pilot enough anymore to justify the extra cost.
at least in Chicago, there has been talk of passing city ordinances that would forbid the use of camera phones in public restrooms, locker rooms at public parks, etc. personally, im not sure why you would want to use your phone in the bathroom anyway, but whatever.
even aside from laws, it can still be a pain. our network administrator cant take his phone into our colocation facility when he goes to do any kind of server maintenance because cameras are not allowed in the racks.
This has been my complaint with gnome for a long time too. back around gnome version 1.0 or 1.2, i spent a lot of time comparing gnome to kde. i really liked how everything in kde worked together and how it felt like a complete, well-designed environment. but i still used gnome instead, because before that i had used enlightenment and before that afterstep, and i was used to being able to configure every little thing about how my desktop behaved. kde just didn't give me the flexibility to set up my environment the way I wanted it to work. And on top of that, i just preferred the way gnome looked.
Some years have passed since then, of course. KDE has been improving dramatically, adding tons of ways to configure how you use it, while still keeping the feel of a unified environment. Gnome on the other hand seems like it's going full speed reverse. Every release they've removed options, made it dumber, and made only marginal improvements in making it work together as an environment. It still looks nice, compared to KDE, but even there the difference is minimal.
The problem is that both groups are trying to prodice a product so that any idiot can use linux. And ever since Gnome decided to leave behind the people who like to have some control over how their desktop works, i've been using sawfish with an old gnome panel sitting around wondering whether the enlightenment team will ever produce anything new in a usable state.
When you would introduce a normal Windows user to the Mac they would figure out how the finder works and get on with their lives
it's been my experience that sticking a normal windows user on a mac (classic- not sure about os x yet) is a never ending headache, and returning to a windows pc is a great relief.
of course, is suspect it is the same for a mac user using windows....
I found the triple edged sword amusing as well, but the line that sold me was this:
Open Source activists that want to see Linux succeed argue that eventually, they want all intellectual property protection to end, including patents and trademarks.
the guy clearly either has no idea what he is talking about or is deliberately misleading. the whole point of the GPL is using existing copyright law to ensure that the software remains free.
this is true, but redhat enterprise linux seems to be selling fine despite the existence of white box linux, centos, tao, and probably others which are available for free...
I just made that my new sig. I just wish I could have fit it properly in the 120 character limit...