This is insightful? Looks like the typical "I can make any song into a song about bhang" Linuxcentric bias we're always getting fed on/.
The article's not about Linux, nor is it about whether an OSS license would have increased the viability of BeOS. It's about an unfair, predatory license. Linux was every bit as important to this article as BeOS was in paragraph 49 of Jackson's Findings of Fact.* The article is, instead, about a predatory practice that the author, as a BeOS diehard, happened to see firsthand thanks to his relatively unique perspective -- that of a hardcore BeOS user.
Not to say Syberghost doesn't have some insight here (he certainly does), but so does most anything written by Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki, and I don't think his works fit well in this thread either.
In the immortal words of Walter Sobchak, "The OS isn't the issue here, Dude." Careful you don't miss the forest (MS's predatory license) for the trees (love of Linux).
* Specifically, a blip that was tangenentially related to the issue only in that it made for a "value unladen" example to support one of the author's points.
*sigh* - You compare Apples and oranges again!
on
Mac Rants
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· Score: 1
I've written for a Mac-specific hardware site and a Mac-specific gaming site, and it always riles me when I see Mac-intoxicated fools talk about hardware comparisons. Jobs knows it, I know it, you know it -- Macs are not faster across the board when compared to WinPCs.
But here's the key: Apple doesn't try nor need to be the fastest. As Jobs and the Mac team have realized, Apple's niche is the "solution provider". On the consumer front it's digital video (iMovie and iDVD) as well as hobbyist music trader/burners (iTunes, which is a wonderful application, imo). Naturally, the Mac also needs solid consumer software to round out consumer needs, thus Appleworks and (on OS X) Mail.app (another great app). This also explains Apple's partnership with MS for Office as well as IE.
This is also why Apple emphasizes design as much as they do -- to get the sales to these people who will never need a 1+ Megahertz ANYTHING, the casual daily computer user. Believe me, Granny don't need no Celeron 800 MHz, but that's the cheapest thing she's going to find these days. The processor doesn't matter with this market; the experience (which I'll wager you can get on Windows or Apple nearly equally) does. Don't underestimate the importance to the consumer of feeling like they look cool. (enter Exhibit A, my new iBook *sigh*)
For professionals, Macs target, obviously, Photoshop users. The whole freakin' processor is designed, by no small coincidence, around speedy Photoshop use! Nor is it any secret that many filters are optimized for Macs. Once Apple stops winning these biased comparisons, they'll have finally lost their niche market -- that of being the provider of a niche solution. They've thrown all their eggs into one (okay, a few) basket[s] and decided to, "Watch that basket!!!"
That Macs play games, run Java, crunch numbers, comes with vi installed, etc, all of these are secondary priorities if not downright lucky fringe benefits of Apple's targeting to provide niche solutions. Please, for heaven's sake, stop comparing Apples to WindowsPC or vice versa to see which computer you should buy. In a general comparison, Windows *should* always win. In certain specific cases, Apple should win. That's the way [for the short run at least] Apple wants it! Let what you want to do with your machine determine which you buy. Stop feeling like you have to apologize for it (or dupe others into silly "MHz Myth"-like arguements) to retain your dignity. If you like your Mac or your BillBox, it doesn't matter what zealots like myself think.;^)
Ruffin Bailey
In case you're having a hard time getting to the article (it's been/.'d, obviously), it basically just says that some self-professed Apple loving schmoe has a charted comparison where the PowerMac wins out against P4 toting p33c33z.
Oh, come on. I forgot to put a smiley and a laughing smiley in my post, but I was clearly going for a (Score: 5, Funny). Or at least a (Score: 2, I KNOW COWBOY NEAL!!!!)
Stop worrying about people who aren't worrying about moderation done to their posts or others but are just trying to get "crimminy-spit" into the OED. Sheesh.:^DDDD
The level of hypocrisy here is big enough to choke a whale.
Oh, come on. I put a smiley and a laughing smiley in my post. I was clearly going for a (Score: 5, Funny).
You expect a five for Funny on that lame arse, whale killin', FUD provoking, crimminy-spit? At best that's a, "(Score: 2, Attempted Appeal to Esoteric Slashdotter Sense of Humour)" aka, "(Score: 2, No Mention of Cowboy Neal)".
Perhaps you should change your sig to fifteen:^)'s, but you might get a "Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted." error like I did when I tried to print out all those smilies the first time.
Simply put, Apple's decision to release the iBook before MWNY can only mean one thing now that we know they didn't have something "totally innovative and sexy" around the corner:
Apple needed the money from the new iBooks to show up on last quarter's ledger more than they wanted to wait and have an expo with punch.
Maybe the LCD iMac and metal enclosure PowerMac are just over the horizon, but when the biggest "new" thing Jobs has is that old apps now work on OS X and work at acceptable speeds on the not quite yet released OS X 10.1, it's a pretty sad day in Cupertino.
And if you want to mod me for funny, here's a quote from the link above (goes to Mac OS Rumours):
As our reporters on the scene left the keynote, they reported almost being in tears over the remarks people were making all around them: "why the hell did I waste my time coming all the way out here and shelling out the cash for a pass just to see this?!" and "well, that was two hours of my life wasted...." In a couple of cases, people actually started making a loud fuss, swearing and stomping, promising loudly to demand their money back - or in one case, even running up to the Apple folks tearing down the keynote equipment and angrily demanding to talk to Steve! Now that's one we haven't seen before.
lol -- All this because the case that holds the processors didn't change enough.;) Just goes to show, though, Apple has a much different core audience than your typical, say, Linux distribution.
Java-stuff of course runs natively, uses the Aqua GUI via Swing.
Quick clarification: Java still doesn't run "natively". Java programmers can use Aqua as the "native" Swing look and feel (L&F) in Java on OS X, and the latest Developer Preview of the Java Virtual Machine from Apple hardware accelerates the Aqua L&F to the point that Java apps in Swing/Aqua can fly (some bugs with double buffering, however). Hopefully once the bugs are worked out, this acceleration will make OS X far and away the best platform for Java apps, as even GUI-intensive apps won't feel the kind of slowdown most schmoes unfortunately associate with Java programs. (Strangely, AWT isn't hardware accelerated, but that's another thread.)
Though Apple has given Java some good support to reaching into the system toolbox, as I'm sure the poster realizes, the true Java code is still interpreted by a Java Virtual Machine. It is not run natively (a la gcj).
Hmmmm. If MS broadens their use of this license to Windows or Office, things could get a little messy. I guess Apache and Win2k would be right out. And MS Office on Mac OS X would be impossible. And *gulp* NT comes with vi when you install some resource bundles... does that mean I can't use non-viral licensed software on NT?!! (That last one was sort of a joke -- I take it the version of vi on NT isn't Free[dom] Software)
This license is an interesting shot back from MS, but it's clearly just to get us in an uproar. No way could they add this viral license to their OS or popular products. If they thought people were bad at obeying licenses now... If I had to guess, I'd say this "media-spin-cloaked-in-a-license" is just an attempt to get the term "viral license" into the collective lexicon -- or at least a few online rags.
This is Java 1.0 at its worst -- this is not some magic box (yet) that takes your Java 1.3 app and makes it native.
Here are some
quotes from the gcj FAQ, just for context.
> What Java API's are supported? How complete is the support?
>
> Matt Welsh writes:
> Just look in the 'libjava' directory of libgcj and see what classes are there.
> Most GUI stuff isn't there yet, that's true, but many of the other classes are easy to add if they
don't yet exist. ...
> Considering that AWT support isnt here yet there is no chance of getting Swing running.
> Once we have AWT support the Swing 1.1.1 may be useable and even redistributable,
> but JFC will be another issue...
This quote means that we're talking Java 1.0. Don't bother
asking about Java3D yet!:^D
> GCJ supports all Java language constructs as per the Java language
> Specification v1.0. Recent GCJ snapshots have added support for
> most JDK1.1 language features, including inner classes.
(bold mine, natch)
Looks like "faceless" apps should compile, but don't expect much else.
For more info on AWT and gcj, check out the peerlib work. Not much has happened in a while
from the looks of it.
So gcj might be integrated with gcc, but as any two-bit Java programmer like myself can tell you, this ain't my Java. This is several generations behind any other platform. You'd be writing code for the absolute lowest denominator, using deprecated methods in today's Java world. You'd nearly be teaching yourself COBOL, if I can put an exaggerated spin on it. No GUI, no XML API, no Collections, no...
... none of us are going to be the next Bill Gates. The days when you can do a project that is significant enough to become a commercial product as a solo project (or even with a small group of hackers) is long past.
Just a quick point -- Sure, you might not be able to whip up an OS (that'd sell) quite as easily for the Personal Computer as you could (don't tell Linus, though), but the days of a one-man-shop putting out viable software has never been brighter. You don't have to be in California to be able to find 15 web developers a stone's throw away, just as an example.
It used to be tough to build an OS for the masses b/c the infrastructure (RAM, processors, PCs on the "common person's" [wooden] desktop) wasn't there. Now that the OS infrastucture is there, you just have to think as out of the box as those OS guys did then to make your product for today.
Imagine if we could all express our love of Windows XP simply by walking past the display aisle and [hopefully] faking an allergic reaction. Dropping to the ground with eyes rolling and tongue wagging while grasping your throat and gasping for air has to register fairly negatively on these things.
The.NET runtime can be installed on any platform it is implemented for, just like a JVM. Right now, there's only
one runtime, and that one for Win32 and it's only in beta yet.
But don't ever expect that leg up to change. Though in principle.NET can run on most anything, I'd be willing to bet a quarter (ie, 25) that.NET will always be second rate on non-Windows clients, in large part because of...
For GUI apps, it's my understanding that.NET doesn't even support them directly through the framework API. Instead,
something called the Windows Forms API is used. AFAIK, this is NOT part of.NET.
Actually.NET does include GUIs -- and the tool o' choice is VB.NET (what comes after VB 6.0; I think of VB.NET as approx == VB 7). Balmer make a big deal at VBITS that the world needed however million more web programmers... "And that's YOU, the VB programmers!" Woohoo!
I think it's important to separate one's understanding of the concept of.NET from one's predictions of how.NET will manifeat itself in reality..NET sounds great (program in the "anti-establishment" lang of your choice, long as it isn't Java! Java's conspicuously absent from the list), but what you're going to end up with are incredibly dynamic client-side apps on Windows machines that load whatever.dlls are needed as needed (the browser becomes the "SuperSituational App" -- forget TEXTAREA, hello MSWordArea) and second-rate ports to html form element clients running on alternative operating systems (hello TEXTAREA again -- spell check [on the client], nope; italics and bold, nope; embedded images, nope -- you get the point).
Though the concept of.NET sounds great, you (where you == them darn semi-competent programmers that want to make something that hits 80% of the client market with extreme emphasis on doing it the quickest) are still going to want to use Windows workstations to program [in VB.NET] for Windows apps that will be served from Windows boxes (less important) to Windows clients (very important). Everything non-Windows will be second rate, again.
The press release seems to have been written by that college friend we all have who's out of control with exclamation points and capitalization and who never quite understood the rules of grammar.
We are a company that makes things happen!!! Product is KING and unlike all these.com companies, which go public with no substance behind them, our IPO will bring about changes that put products that people want, in the palm of their hands!!!
Believe me, there's more -- and it gets better. With all this well-written language, they simply must be real, right? Right?!!;^D
The degree to which Java can integrate in platform-specific ways with Apple's "soon" to be released OS X is even more incestuous than it ever was with VJ++ (not that I care as long as the plat-neutral stuff's all there).
Check this pdf from Apple's Developer resources. Surprising what you can do without a monopoly.;^D
Ruffin Bailey
"This may be the fault of the interpreter, in which case HE is the hippopotamus."
Can I sell my book to someone else? Yes.
Can I loan my copy of my book out? Maybe.
Can I sell my copy of my book? No.
There are still laws regarding books -- Can you imagine the first time an author saw someone else giving out copies of his/her writing? They probably reacted in a similar way. It might not seem fair now, but once this gets sorted out and is in context, you'll forget the downsides just like you already have about books (where "you" == someone mythical person who starts up this thread when DVD's and digital TV's replacements come out;^D ).
Ruffin Bailey
"This may be the fault of the interpreter, in which case HE is the hippopotamus."
[Home Secretary Jack Straw] said the introduction of closed circuit television in streets and shopping centres had been seen at the time as an attack on civil liberties but was now welcomed by the public.
The difference there is that you can video tape me doing the hokey pokey in Time Square and you don't have modicum A of evidence about the strange dancing preferences of the rest of my family. If you have my DNA on file, how long is it going to take reasonably intelligent law enforcement to figure out they can get 50% matches of my parents or siblings (and differing percentages of other relatives)?
Letting the government track your DNA has effects much more far reaching than that of your individual person. I'd argue that the pattern of "your" DNA has private information that belongs to your entire family, and should never be retained without due cause -- and then should not be able to be used in court to constitute evidence against a relative. (Though we all know such a database would still be used "off-the-record".) Talk about a scary precendent (sp?).
2
Ruffin Bailey
"This may be the fault of the interpreter, in which case HE is the hippopotamus."
The ruling can be found at this link:
http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Cable/Public_Notices/20 01/fcc01011_fact.txt
IM Condition
The FCC imposed the IM condition to avert market harm now so that it would not
be required to regulate in the future.
? Given AOL Time Warner's likely domination of the potentially competitive business
of new, IM-based services, especially advanced, IM-based high-speed services
("AIHS") applications, the FCC ruled that AOL Time Warner may not offer any
AIHS steaming video applications that uses a Names and Presence Directory
("NPD") over the Internet via AOL Time Warner broadband facilities until the
company demonstrates that it has satisfied one of three pro-competitive options
outlined by the FCC.
? AOL Time Warner must file a progress report with the FCC, 180 days from the
release date of the order and every 180 days thereafter, describing in technical depth
the actions it has taken to achieve interoperability of its IM offerings and other
offerings. These reports will be placed on public notice for comment.
? The IM condition will sunset five years after the release of the Order.
"This may be the fault of the interpreter, in which case HE is the hippopotamus."
And we should make it illegal to even UPGRADE a computer... hmm lets see.. you buy a machine with 64mb ram and now you have to buy a whole new machine!!! a 400mhz processor came with it? wanna upgrade to 600mhz? too bad you gotta buy a new machine..
I think you're going to have to pay royalties on that idea; Apple's way ahead of you. This new sort of computer is called an iMac.
Ruffin Bailey
"This may be the fault of the interpreter, in which case HE is the hippopotamus."
For downloadable homebrews (since the first request was for new games for the author's Atari 2600): http://www.io.com/~nickb/atari3.htm
Try Oystron and This Planet sucks, two of my favorite new games. Emus are on-site
as well.
Nick Bensema's site (follow link above) also has programming tutorials (many that he wrote) and tools to program the Atari on everything from your DOS box to a Commodore 64 (no lie) -- except for a Mac. For that you have to go to my site...
http://homepage.mac.com/mactari/mactari/mact.htm l
(yes, the URL is pretty repetitive)
This page has tools for Classic Mac OS. I hope to get around to compiling the tools under Darwin soon.
To _talk_ about Atari programming, head over to www.biglist.com and sign up for the "Stella" listserv. Low but interesting traffic on our favorite classic console!
Ruffin Bailey
"This may be the fault of the interpreter, in which case HE is the hippopotamus."
I love Java, but [the quote "but it is yet another proprietary Microsoft platform which will tie the developer to Windows"] is simply bullshit. The main purpose of.NET is the exact opposite. It's purpose is to allow developers to actually use COM and the Windows API without being shackled to VB and Visual C++.
Well now, I wish I could believe that. Certainly the way.NET has been billed would make you think it'll be easy to access from most any langauge..NET's idea of using XML to talk to the servers to pass method calls to and to access object models on the fly sounds pretty neat. Really, how hard is it going to be to reverse engineer, much less interface with using mature APIs, well-done XML? Past that, you're just sending back and forth 0101010101s.
What worries me is Microsoft's track record. They take a standard, argueably add functionality in a Microsoft-brand superset of the standard, and then get programmers addicted to the easier development cycle of selling out to Bill's new tools at the expense of having crossplatform code (which, it should be noted, is not always a bad thing). Look not only at Java, but JScript, DHTML, CSS, and a whole host of web-specific technologies (not that Netscape is ethically clean -- remember the "layer" tag?).
So though.NET should be a great system that will provide cross-platform access to servers running MS tools (certainly eliminates a lot of the software piracy issues for MS), I wouldn't be surprised if Bill and Co. shut the cross platform door just as soon as you've taken a bite and realized how juicy and succulent the.NET platform's apple can be. And there's nothing to stop MS from making the relationship of.NET to, say, CORBA (or even just TCP/IP and sockets), that of a MS Word doc to a text file. Or JScript to Javascript. Or the Internet Explorer DOM to the W3C standard. Or CodeWarrior to VJ++. Or...
"This may be the fault of the interpreter, in which
case HE is the hippopotamus." Boris Yeltsin, 60 Minutes
"This may be the fault of the interpreter, in which case HE is the hippopotamus."
> No, friends, this policy is profoundly consumer hostile. The "naked operating system page" is profoundly dishonest since it appears to be offering products that Microsoft is not actually selling.
It's not so much consumer hostile as it is subverting the chance for people to find good competition for OS-less hardware. The conclusion to be reached here is that Microsoft is using a "MediSCARE" tatic (if you'll forgive the analogy) to strong-arm easily confused hardware outlets into thinking that they are implicitly condoning piracy -- by releasing systems that are actually condusive to the very legal practice of installing Linux!
To me the weirdest thing about the Naked PC deal is the approach MS can take towards subverting Linux. There are enough hardware vendors that would read the Naked pitch and actually believe MS's jive that the pitch can make a significant change in the amount of OS-less hardware that's out there. The market's so big (and, admittedly, the cost of making the web page is so low -- not that graphic designers are cheap) a quick slap like that can be counted on to lower a consumer's options and thereby strengthen/maintain Windows' hold on the client market.
MS is a lot of things, but I'm impressed at how rarely (FLAME ON!) that thing is "stupid".
Slashdot Mirror
This is insightful? Looks like the typical "I can make any song into a song about bhang" Linuxcentric bias we're always getting fed on /.
The article's not about Linux, nor is it about whether an OSS license would have increased the viability of BeOS. It's about an unfair, predatory license. Linux was every bit as important to this article as BeOS was in paragraph 49 of Jackson's Findings of Fact.* The article is, instead, about a predatory practice that the author, as a BeOS diehard, happened to see firsthand thanks to his relatively unique perspective -- that of a hardcore BeOS user.
Not to say Syberghost doesn't have some insight here (he certainly does), but so does most anything written by Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki, and I don't think his works fit well in this thread either.
In the immortal words of Walter Sobchak, "The OS isn't the issue here, Dude." Careful you don't miss the forest (MS's predatory license) for the trees (love of Linux).
* Specifically, a blip that was tangenentially related to the issue only in that it made for a "value unladen" example to support one of the author's points.
I've written for a Mac-specific hardware site and a Mac-specific gaming site, and it always riles me when I see Mac-intoxicated fools talk about hardware comparisons. Jobs knows it, I know it, you know it -- Macs are not faster across the board when compared to WinPCs.
;^)
/.'d, obviously), it basically just says that some self-professed Apple loving schmoe has a charted comparison where the PowerMac wins out against P4 toting p33c33z.
But here's the key: Apple doesn't try nor need to be the fastest. As Jobs and the Mac team have realized, Apple's niche is the "solution provider". On the consumer front it's digital video (iMovie and iDVD) as well as hobbyist music trader/burners (iTunes, which is a wonderful application, imo). Naturally, the Mac also needs solid consumer software to round out consumer needs, thus Appleworks and (on OS X) Mail.app (another great app). This also explains Apple's partnership with MS for Office as well as IE.
This is also why Apple emphasizes design as much as they do -- to get the sales to these people who will never need a 1+ Megahertz ANYTHING, the casual daily computer user. Believe me, Granny don't need no Celeron 800 MHz, but that's the cheapest thing she's going to find these days. The processor doesn't matter with this market; the experience (which I'll wager you can get on Windows or Apple nearly equally) does. Don't underestimate the importance to the consumer of feeling like they look cool. (enter Exhibit A, my new iBook *sigh*)
For professionals, Macs target, obviously, Photoshop users. The whole freakin' processor is designed, by no small coincidence, around speedy Photoshop use! Nor is it any secret that many filters are optimized for Macs. Once Apple stops winning these biased comparisons, they'll have finally lost their niche market -- that of being the provider of a niche solution. They've thrown all their eggs into one (okay, a few) basket[s] and decided to, "Watch that basket!!!"
That Macs play games, run Java, crunch numbers, comes with vi installed, etc, all of these are secondary priorities if not downright lucky fringe benefits of Apple's targeting to provide niche solutions. Please, for heaven's sake, stop comparing Apples to WindowsPC or vice versa to see which computer you should buy. In a general comparison, Windows *should* always win. In certain specific cases, Apple should win. That's the way [for the short run at least] Apple wants it! Let what you want to do with your machine determine which you buy. Stop feeling like you have to apologize for it (or dupe others into silly "MHz Myth"-like arguements) to retain your dignity. If you like your Mac or your BillBox, it doesn't matter what zealots like myself think.
Ruffin Bailey
In case you're having a hard time getting to the article (it's been
Oh, come on. I forgot to put a smiley and a laughing smiley in my post, but I was clearly going for a (Score: 5, Funny). Or at least a (Score: 2, I KNOW COWBOY NEAL!!!!)
:^DDDD
Stop worrying about people who aren't worrying about moderation done to their posts or others but are just trying to get "crimminy-spit" into the OED. Sheesh.
You expect a five for Funny on that lame arse, whale killin', FUD provoking, crimminy-spit? At best that's a, "(Score: 2, Attempted Appeal to Esoteric Slashdotter Sense of Humour)" aka, "(Score: 2, No Mention of Cowboy Neal)".
Perhaps you should change your sig to fifteen
Simply put, Apple's decision to release the iBook before MWNY can only mean one thing now that we know they didn't have something "totally innovative and sexy" around the corner:
;) Just goes to show, though, Apple has a much different core audience than your typical, say, Linux distribution.
Apple needed the money from the new iBooks to show up on last quarter's ledger more than they wanted to wait and have an expo with punch.
Maybe the LCD iMac and metal enclosure PowerMac are just over the horizon, but when the biggest "new" thing Jobs has is that old apps now work on OS X and work at acceptable speeds on the not quite yet released OS X 10.1, it's a pretty sad day in Cupertino.
And if you want to mod me for funny, here's a quote from the link above (goes to Mac OS Rumours):
As our reporters on the scene left the keynote, they reported almost being in tears over the remarks people were making all around them: "why the hell did I waste my time coming all the way out here and shelling out the cash for a pass just to see this?!" and "well, that was two hours of my life wasted...." In a couple of cases, people actually started making a loud fuss, swearing and stomping, promising loudly to demand their money back - or in one case, even running up to the Apple folks tearing down the keynote equipment and angrily demanding to talk to Steve! Now that's one we haven't seen before.
lol -- All this because the case that holds the processors didn't change enough.
Ruffin Bailey
Java-stuff of course runs natively, uses the Aqua GUI via Swing.
Quick clarification: Java still doesn't run "natively". Java programmers can use Aqua as the "native" Swing look and feel (L&F) in Java on OS X, and the latest Developer Preview of the Java Virtual Machine from Apple hardware accelerates the Aqua L&F to the point that Java apps in Swing/Aqua can fly (some bugs with double buffering, however). Hopefully once the bugs are worked out, this acceleration will make OS X far and away the best platform for Java apps, as even GUI-intensive apps won't feel the kind of slowdown most schmoes unfortunately associate with Java programs. (Strangely, AWT isn't hardware accelerated, but that's another thread.)
Though Apple has given Java some good support to reaching into the system toolbox, as I'm sure the poster realizes, the true Java code is still interpreted by a Java Virtual Machine. It is not run natively (a la gcj).
Ruffin Bailey
Hmmmm. If MS broadens their use of this license to Windows or Office, things could get a little messy. I guess Apache and Win2k would be right out. And MS Office on Mac OS X would be impossible. And *gulp* NT comes with vi when you install some resource bundles ... does that mean I can't use non-viral licensed software on NT?!! (That last one was sort of a joke -- I take it the version of vi on NT isn't Free[dom] Software)
This license is an interesting shot back from MS, but it's clearly just to get us in an uproar. No way could they add this viral license to their OS or popular products. If they thought people were bad at obeying licenses now... If I had to guess, I'd say this "media-spin-cloaked-in-a-license" is just an attempt to get the term "viral license" into the collective lexicon -- or at least a few online rags.
Ruffin Bailey
This is Java 1.0 at its worst -- this is not some magic box (yet) that takes your Java 1.3 app and makes it native.
...
:^D
... before
getting too excited! ;^)
Here are some quotes from the gcj FAQ, just for context.
> What Java API's are supported? How complete is the support?
>
> Matt Welsh writes:
> Just look in the 'libjava' directory of libgcj
and see what classes are there.
> Most GUI stuff isn't there yet, that's true, but many of the other classes are easy to add if they don't yet exist.
> Considering that AWT support isnt here yet there is no chance of getting Swing running.
> Once we have AWT support the Swing 1.1.1 may be useable and even redistributable,
> but JFC will be another issue...
This quote means that we're talking Java 1.0. Don't bother asking about Java3D yet!
> GCJ supports all Java language constructs as per the Java language
> Specification v1.0. Recent GCJ snapshots have added support for
> most JDK1.1 language features, including inner classes.
(bold mine, natch)
Looks like "faceless" apps should compile, but don't expect much else.
So check out... gcj FAQ
the gcj site
For more info on AWT and gcj, check out the peerlib work. Not much has happened in a while from the looks of it.
So gcj might be integrated with gcc, but as any two-bit Java programmer like myself can tell you, this ain't my Java. This is several generations behind any other platform. You'd be writing code for the absolute lowest denominator, using deprecated methods in today's Java world. You'd nearly be teaching yourself COBOL, if I can put an exaggerated spin on it. No GUI, no XML API, no Collections, no...
Ruffin Bailey
... none of us are going to be the next Bill Gates. The days when you can do a project that is significant enough to become a commercial product as a solo project (or even with a small group of hackers) is long past.
Just a quick point -- Sure, you might not be able to whip up an OS (that'd sell) quite as easily for the Personal Computer as you could (don't tell Linus, though), but the days of a one-man-shop putting out viable software has never been brighter. You don't have to be in California to be able to find 15 web developers a stone's throw away, just as an example.
It used to be tough to build an OS for the masses b/c the infrastructure (RAM, processors, PCs on the "common person's" [wooden] desktop) wasn't there. Now that the OS infrastucture is there, you just have to think as out of the box as those OS guys did then to make your product for today.
Heck, just look at Napster.
Ruffin
Imagine if we could all express our love of Windows XP simply by walking past the display aisle and [hopefully] faking an allergic reaction. Dropping to the ground with eyes rolling and tongue wagging while grasping your throat and gasping for air has to register fairly negatively on these things.
Programming is to art as VB is to assembler.
Is anyone else thinking this man was a hell of a ways before his time?
(If this post doesn't make any sense, you've got a lot of worthwhile reading in front of you)
The .NET runtime can be installed on any platform it is implemented for, just like a JVM. Right now, there's only
one runtime, and that one for Win32 and it's only in beta yet.
.NET can run on most anything, I'd be willing to bet a quarter (ie, 25) that .NET will always be second rate on non-Windows clients, in large part because of...
.NET doesn't even support them directly through the framework API. Instead,
something called the Windows Forms API is used. AFAIK, this is NOT part of .NET.
.NET does include GUIs -- and the tool o' choice is VB.NET (what comes after VB 6.0; I think of VB.NET as approx == VB 7). Balmer make a big deal at VBITS that the world needed however million more web programmers... "And that's YOU, the VB programmers!" Woohoo!
.NET from one's predictions of how .NET will manifeat itself in reality. .NET sounds great (program in the "anti-establishment" lang of your choice, long as it isn't Java! Java's conspicuously absent from the list), but what you're going to end up with are incredibly dynamic client-side apps on Windows machines that load whatever .dlls are needed as needed (the browser becomes the "SuperSituational App" -- forget TEXTAREA, hello MSWordArea) and second-rate ports to html form element clients running on alternative operating systems (hello TEXTAREA again -- spell check [on the client], nope; italics and bold, nope; embedded images, nope -- you get the point).
.NET sounds great, you (where you == them darn semi-competent programmers that want to make something that hits 80% of the client market with extreme emphasis on doing it the quickest) are still going to want to use Windows workstations to program [in VB.NET] for Windows apps that will be served from Windows boxes (less important) to Windows clients (very important). Everything non-Windows will be second rate, again.
But don't ever expect that leg up to change. Though in principle
For GUI apps, it's my understanding that
Actually
I think it's important to separate one's understanding of the concept of
Though the concept of
Ruffin Bailey
The press release seems to have been written by that college friend we all have who's out of control with exclamation points and capitalization and who never quite understood the rules of grammar.
.com companies, which go public with no substance behind them, our IPO will bring about changes that put products that people want, in the palm of their hands!!!
;^D
Here are some classics from the release.
We are changing the paradigm from every angle.
We are a company that makes things happen!!! Product is KING and unlike all these
Believe me, there's more -- and it gets better. With all this well-written language, they simply must be real, right? Right?!!
Ruffin Bailey
The degree to which Java can integrate in platform-specific ways with Apple's "soon" to be released OS X is even more incestuous than it ever was with VJ++ (not that I care as long as the plat-neutral stuff's all there).
;^D
Check this pdf from Apple's Developer resources. Surprising what you can do without a monopoly.
Ruffin Bailey
"This may be the fault of the interpreter, in which case HE is the hippopotamus."
Can I sell my book to someone else? Yes.
;^D ).
Can I loan my copy of my book out? Maybe.
Can I sell my copy of my book? No.
There are still laws regarding books -- Can you imagine the first time an author saw someone else giving out copies of his/her writing? They probably reacted in a similar way. It might not seem fair now, but once this gets sorted out and is in context, you'll forget the downsides just like you already have about books (where "you" == someone mythical person who starts up this thread when DVD's and digital TV's replacements come out
Ruffin Bailey
"This may be the fault of the interpreter, in which case HE is the hippopotamus."
[Home Secretary Jack Straw] said the introduction of closed circuit television in streets and shopping centres had been seen at the time as an attack on civil liberties but was now welcomed by the public.
The difference there is that you can video tape me doing the hokey pokey in Time Square and you don't have modicum A of evidence about the strange dancing preferences of the rest of my family. If you have my DNA on file, how long is it going to take reasonably intelligent law enforcement to figure out they can get 50% matches of my parents or siblings (and differing percentages of other relatives)?
Letting the government track your DNA has effects much more far reaching than that of your individual person. I'd argue that the pattern of "your" DNA has private information that belongs to your entire family, and should never be retained without due cause -- and then should not be able to be used in court to constitute evidence against a relative. (Though we all know such a database would still be used "off-the-record".) Talk about a scary precendent (sp?).
2
Ruffin Bailey
"This may be the fault of the interpreter, in which case HE is the hippopotamus."
The ruling can be found at this link: http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Cable/Public_Notices/20 01/fcc01011_fact.txt
IM Condition
The FCC imposed the IM condition to avert market harm now so that it would not be required to regulate in the future.
? Given AOL Time Warner's likely domination of the potentially competitive business of new, IM-based services, especially advanced, IM-based high-speed services ("AIHS") applications, the FCC ruled that AOL Time Warner may not offer any AIHS steaming video applications that uses a Names and Presence Directory ("NPD") over the Internet via AOL Time Warner broadband facilities until the company demonstrates that it has satisfied one of three pro-competitive options outlined by the FCC.
? AOL Time Warner must file a progress report with the FCC, 180 days from the release date of the order and every 180 days thereafter, describing in technical depth the actions it has taken to achieve interoperability of its IM offerings and other offerings. These reports will be placed on public notice for comment.
? The IM condition will sunset five years after the release of the Order.
"This may be the fault of the interpreter, in which case HE is the hippopotamus."
And we should make it illegal to even UPGRADE a computer... hmm lets see.. you buy a machine with 64mb ram and now you have to buy a whole new machine!!! a 400mhz processor came with it? wanna upgrade to 600mhz? too bad you gotta buy a new machine..
I think you're going to have to pay royalties on that idea; Apple's way ahead of you. This new sort of computer is called an iMac.
Ruffin Bailey
"This may be the fault of the interpreter, in which case HE is the hippopotamus."
For downloadable homebrews (since the first request was for new games for the author's Atari 2600): http://www.io.com/~nickb/atari3.htm
m l
Try Oystron and This Planet sucks, two of my favorite new games. Emus are on-site
as well.
Nick Bensema's site (follow link above) also has programming tutorials (many that he wrote) and tools to program the Atari on everything from your DOS box to a Commodore 64 (no lie) -- except for a Mac. For that you have to go to my site...
http://homepage.mac.com/mactari/mactari/mact.ht
(yes, the URL is pretty repetitive)
This page has tools for Classic Mac OS. I hope to get around to compiling the tools under Darwin soon.
To _talk_ about Atari programming, head over to www.biglist.com and sign up for the "Stella" listserv. Low but interesting traffic on our favorite classic console!
Ruffin Bailey
"This may be the fault of the interpreter, in which case HE is the hippopotamus."
I love Java, but [the quote "but it is yet another proprietary Microsoft platform which will tie the developer to Windows"] is simply bullshit. The main purpose of .NET is the exact opposite. It's purpose is to allow developers to actually use COM and the Windows API without being shackled to VB and Visual C++.
.NET has been billed would make you think it'll be easy to access from most any langauge. .NET's idea of using XML to talk to the servers to pass method calls to and to access object models on the fly sounds pretty neat. Really, how hard is it going to be to reverse engineer, much less interface with using mature APIs, well-done XML? Past that, you're just sending back and forth 0101010101s.
.NET should be a great system that will provide cross-platform access to servers running MS tools (certainly eliminates a lot of the software piracy issues for MS), I wouldn't be surprised if Bill and Co. shut the cross platform door just as soon as you've taken a bite and realized how juicy and succulent the .NET platform's apple can be. And there's nothing to stop MS from making the relationship of .NET to, say, CORBA (or even just TCP/IP and sockets), that of a MS Word doc to a text file. Or JScript to Javascript. Or the Internet Explorer DOM to the W3C standard. Or CodeWarrior to VJ++. Or...
Well now, I wish I could believe that. Certainly the way
What worries me is Microsoft's track record. They take a standard, argueably add functionality in a Microsoft-brand superset of the standard, and then get programmers addicted to the easier development cycle of selling out to Bill's new tools at the expense of having crossplatform code (which, it should be noted, is not always a bad thing). Look not only at Java, but JScript, DHTML, CSS, and a whole host of web-specific technologies (not that Netscape is ethically clean -- remember the "layer" tag?).
So though
"This may be the fault of the interpreter, in which case HE is the hippopotamus." Boris Yeltsin, 60 Minutes
"This may be the fault of the interpreter, in which case HE is the hippopotamus."
> No, friends, this policy is profoundly consumer hostile. The "naked operating system page" is profoundly dishonest since it appears to be offering products that Microsoft is not actually selling.
It's not so much consumer hostile as it is subverting the chance for people to find good competition for OS-less hardware. The conclusion to be reached here is that Microsoft is using a "MediSCARE" tatic (if you'll forgive the analogy) to strong-arm easily confused hardware outlets into thinking that they are implicitly condoning piracy -- by releasing systems that are actually condusive to the very legal practice of installing Linux!
To me the weirdest thing about the Naked PC deal is the approach MS can take towards subverting Linux. There are enough hardware vendors that would read the Naked pitch and actually believe MS's jive that the pitch can make a significant change in the amount of OS-less hardware that's out there. The market's so big (and, admittedly, the cost of making the web page is so low -- not that graphic designers are cheap) a quick slap like that can be counted on to lower a consumer's options and thereby strengthen/maintain Windows' hold on the client market.
MS is a lot of things, but I'm impressed at how rarely (FLAME ON!) that thing is "stupid".
Ruffin Bailey