Indeed you can. You can have it behave however you want. If you like Windows, you can have it behave just like Windows. Can Windows behave like the mac or like Blackbox or Icewm? Can it fuck.
You assume I want it to do that, or for that matter, that 50 million Windows users want that. You are sadly mistaken about that. The function of the desktop is to isolate and abstract the OS, not to be "really kewl"
Indeed you can. If you don't like one, you can use another. Everyone is happy. With Windows, everybody loses.
See above.
Indeed you can. If drivers aren't available, you can write your own. If drivers aren't available for Windows, what do you do?
That's a pathetic comeback. No, you show me a piece of consumer PC hardware that has not shipped with Windows drivers in the last 10 years or so.
Sorry, you've lost me there.
Sorry, I thought I was speaking your language. Never mind.
Famous first first words of aspiring OS aiming to be completely better and more configurable than the shite used by 50e6 PCs.
DOA, as it would seem. Give it up.
That wouldn't include Windows then. Have you ever tried to install Windows? Ever tried to install any hardware? A complete mess if ever there was one.
Actually yes, plenty of times. It's really hard to find a stock PC where some version of Windows will not run, and most intelligent people know this, at least from inference. And no, I really haven't had any "hardware messes", since I tend to know what I'm doing. On the other hand, I've had quite a time trying to find hardware that works with Linux (see above, "drivers"), and a distro that actually goes beginning to end without dying with some weird error that requires a trip to console heaven. Yeah, we're ready for primetime right there.
Why? Why radical? What radical changes do you want? What don't you like about them? What should they do to improve it? Saying "It's crap, make it radical" is meaningless.
OK, focus here. The whole point of this was that KDE and Gnome do nothing but copy the MS shell. Got it now?
KDE and Gnome are as attractive as you want them to be. They are infinitely customisable. You can make them look like whatever you want. With Windows, you're stuck with the manky default mess.
Nope, the Windows shell is customizable to hell and back. However the means to do that are not free or particularly common, so people like your clueless self always gravitate towards the standard riposte "ah! but can it do THIS!!!??".
It may come as a surprise to you but the "loser millions" who run Windows are not interested in having pretty widgets and transparent regions. They just want to use their goddamn computers to do whatever it is they bought them for in the first place. They don't need to be 1337! or have a kewl desktop that rotates when winked at.
Like I said, you have to elaborate. What exactly don't you like about them or the Windows shell? Saying "It's shit, they should make it completely different just for the sake of it" is meaningless. You have to elaborate on what you want them to change.
See above. And hope my elaboration was enough for you -- let me know if you'd like me to elaborate further.
My day job revolves around distributed systems architecture. I haven't met a software architect that was not fluent in at least five programming languages. The reality is, you use whatever happens to be required for the task. The right tool for the job, period. It doesn't matter if it's kewl or not, just that it gets things done.
Sometimes you also have to use whatever it is that the client (or your employer, if you're not a consultant) decided to standardize on, and that's not always fun (FoxPro comes to mind).
My point is, we are in the business of creating solutions to problems through software, not feeling cool because we get to use this or that language that we happen to just *love*. That's for hobbyist coders.
As a bonus, this mindset will always take you far higher than the standard "well, I only know F++, and I really don't care for anything else" attitude among programmers.
The amount of drivel and backlash Katz stories generate here are just unbelievable, but even more astonishing is the "take-your-medicine-and-smile" attitude of/. towards this, shall we say, phenomena. No matter how much negative feedback a Katz story generates, he always gets front and center stage in this supposedly plural and open forum. While it is certainly possibly that/. is promoting the airing of different points of view by allowing him the amount of control he has over the editorial contents (and I don't say that lightly. How many of us get every single submission accepted?), in light of this I'm beginning to think that the/. folks see a Katz article as a sure ad revenue stream, at least for those of us that haven't pointed images.slashdot.com to 127.0.0.1. I might be wrong of course, but I'm at a loss to find any other explanation.
This, however, should be the last straw. Please, pull John Katz off Slashdot. This story is ridiculous to the point of being scary. Katz has made an ass of himself - don't let him do the same thing to the site.
This post will probably be modded down so as to sanitize the discussion (Off topic or Flamebait is anything that constructively criticizes Slashdot, along with the rest of the troll content), and so will many other that are trying to make a valid point. But just remember one thing:
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
First off, a disclaimer: I've never worked for an IT shop per se. I've been a consultant (independent or otherwise) since I had my first real job about seven years ago.
In the consulting world, I've always found that most friendships are as enduring as the lifetime of a project or the assignment to a client site. For some reason we consultants tend to be (I think) a bit more closed socially. Why? Maybe because we interact with so many people for what are mostly short amounts of time.
Not to say none of those project-oriented relationships (for lack of a better description) never develop into more lasting deals, but it's not very common.
There's also the culture clash thing that is so much more common today than even a few years ago -- ever try to invite an Indian to a barbecue? Buy some chicken (OK, that's a stereotype but you'd be surprised how often it holds up). Ditto for people from other countries. Scotts just want to drink, Brits just sit there and so on. It's not good or bad, just different to what one is accustomed to.
As for human interaction within a corporate setting, with the possible exception of commercial software shops it's mostly a matter of company-sponsored "relationship building" that applies as much to IT as it does to HR or PR. In my experience there's really not that much of a difference.
MSVC++ 7 (when used along with the.NET framework) has something called managed extensions that do this, except better.
Plus, it works. Kewl, actually. It's not Java or C# by any stretch of the imagination, but it does boost productivity quite a lot, and it's not a speed hog, either.
I think we're going to see more of this in the future -- semi-low level languages such as C/C++ with some sort of extensions or "plug-ins" that not only encapsulate a lot of functionality but also save us from our own mistakes. Think of STL with a GC'ed memory space.
I would tend to say loading up the whole of.NET is a bit much just to keep me from reading three bytes outside of a memory buffer but it's an interesting idea nonetheless. How far can this go on before we start complaining about someone turning C++ into a scripting language...? Hmmm.
About three months ago UPS left a DVD player (brand new, in the box, shipped from Buy.com I think) on my doorstep. It was adressed to some dude on another street a few blocks from mine, but with the same house number.
I contemplated taking it to the intended recipient but never did. It's still in my downstairs closet, I never opened it. Maybe one of these days I will (already had a *much* better DVD player).
The only thing I ship via UPS these days are cigarretes. Everything else goes through FedEx.
- "You can do this or that if you don't like this or that"
- "You can install another window manager"
- "You can write your own drivers"
- "#props to all h4xx0rz"
Famous last words of aspiring desktop environment (and OS) aiming to fight another OS over the desktop of 50 million PCs.
The argument that people and companies will switch to Linux because it's free has not worked, and never will. Two words: out-of-the-box-works-great-with-everything and easy-to-use-for-John-Doe-and-his-mom. Well, maybe twenty words.
Now, if KDE or Gnome would come up with a totally radical and attractive GUI that made it easier to use a computer and isolated everyone from the OS, then we're-a-talking. But no, they're just copying the Windows shell. Yipeee!
Both Gnome and KDE have done nothing but rip off the Windows interface since their inception. Whether or not this is because "we want Windoze users to feel comfy once they start migrating in droves [sic]" is anybody's guess. Maybe it's simply a lack of creativity? Of course, Windows' only improvement over the Mac was the taskbar (the Finder would be a fine point, but still), and the Mac itself was ripped off the Xerox UIs.
This is not a flame, but mod away. I've some karma to burn. And we're all very open-minded here, right?!!
I know you work for a Brazilian company (Conectiva), though your name seems more Italian than not. Regarless, you are (along with Miguel de Icaza, who is from Mexico) probably the most visible non-european/american member of the Linux kernel development community. Do you have any plans to promote or push Linux as a viable alternative to government agencies or companies in Brazil or other Latin American countries?
Bruce's statement along the lines of I don't blame the sys admins for this. There are too many patches... is interesting.
While it is certainly up to the vendor to release as bug free code as possible, I disagree with his exoneration here. "If you don't know how to use it, don't" holds true regardless of what OS we're talking about. A Unix sysadmin that doesn't patch his/her boxe(s) is as much to blame as an MS sysadmin who fails to do so as well.
Whether or not the amount of exploits for IIS are a direct result of how widely it is used outside of the "heavy metal" internet server arena is anybody's guess. But to even suggest that the sysadmins should say "oh, fuck it. It's the vendor's fault" is a bit like putting one's network in the hands of God... maybe it will be OK, and most likely it won't.
... getting data into this thing, especially when securely mounted on my car. Not that I'd complain or anything - this thing is monstrous. But I find myself downloading to my 20GB MP3 player time and again because I just found this great new song that I want to listen to.
There's got to be a better way, like a modularized HD assembly with basic USB or FireWire conectivity that you can lug to your PC and back to the car. Sure would beat those MP3 car players that do CD-R's.
There's no excuse for "losing" a domain you "used to own". For a measly $70 a year. I own 6 domains, the oldest since 1997, and I would never "lose" them or let them go just because I forgot to renew with NetSol. Selling them transferring them or whatever, fine.
Rather than promoting consideration towards your cause you're just making yourself (or your organization) look rather silly, eh?
It looks as if you decided to jump in the IT wagon because it seemed the fastest way to make a ton of money?
Software development is, contrary to what the corporate establishment wants you to believe, more craft than trade - indeed a kind of art, in a way. You've never heard about John Q. Public, who put himself through art school because he had to (parent pressure? promise of economic stability?). But you sure hear about Mozart and Tchaikovsky. And Van Gogh and Monet. And so on.
If you don't love to write code then you're never going to be particularly good at it, period. All the really good developers I've ever met were passionate about what they did (not radical or political about any single aspect of the job, just passionate). And anyone who's actually held a real job for more than a few years will tell you that there's no fate worse than waking up every morning and having to go to a job you really don't like.
Don't feel bad about your doubts. There's always time to go back and do things right. Find what you want to do, and do it. I spent four years of college studying biochemistry and then decided that I liked coding better instead -- and never looked back.
The best job in the world is the one you love, not the one that pays more.
The only thing lacking here was an entry on the table that reads "Microsoft: Sucks. Linux: Rulez"
This person is imagining the development and process management structures and practices at Microsoft. For that matter, the same conclusions apply to everything done at Oracle, Symantec, CA and IBM and everywhere else, and therefore only Linus Torvalds knows how to lead a project successfully and everyone else (that is not an open source company or project) is completely clueless and doomed to failure. Sheesh.
It's a good analysis of how one of the few really successful Open Source project models work but I can see no evidence there that Microsoft is doing something wrong (except perhaps, in the eye of the author, not giving away the code for Windows).
It's really surprising when one finds out that the enemy really doesn't breathe fire or smell of sulfur, but it's also hard to accept.
The software development process sucks more or less depending on who dreams it up and puts it to practice, but the quality of its end results have nothing to do with whether or not the source is being given away.
That is what our researcher friend is missing here.
Very impressive! Too bad their control is worth ~$500 or so (probably worth it in some cases). It renders better than most Mozilla and Gecko-based engines I've seen.
Just as employers have a legal right to monitor and read your email and network traffic, they have the absolutely legal right to search you once you enter their premises, even if in this case the employer is the government. Ditto for using "covert" surveillance within the workspace and so on.
The search in the context and manner as you describe does not infringe on your constitutional rights at all. It is not representative of the "unreasonable search and seizure" protection clause(s).
Now if you're not comfortable with them then your only recourse is really to quit and go somewhere else, though I doubt that would be a very effective statement on your part.
Given the state of the world right now, this inconvenience you and your colleagues are going through is hardly cause for constitutional alarm.
But please don't...
on
Slashdot Updates
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
One thing that absolutely pisses me off about the CNet and ZDNet ads is that they make the browser unusable and choppy untill you scroll them away. Don't put those there. Use simple images or light-weight animated GIFs.
Use PayPal. You have a solid, reliable reader base of what, half a million users? Create a yearly "pledge" drive similar to NPR stations. Get 1/10th of people to give you $5-50 bucks and you're all set. If you can't even get that, then the "community" doesn't deserve web sites like this.
Ads will kill readership, period. It's sad, but true. And because of the fact that you've given away the code, there are tons of options out there that will fill the void (for a while at least).
Hacker kiddies and the open/free troll crowd are not going to provide you with a constructive, objective view - just as going off and asking this question in a Microsoft newsgroup won't either. I'd probably try to get my hands on and use research organization data (except Gartner!).
Your best bet though, if you have a couple of weeks to burn, is hitting Google and looking for what the average Usenet dude is saying. It'll be hard to get hard data but at least you can get a handle on the "heartbeat" of the issue.
Interestingly enough this is the low level mechanism used by COM to do interprocess comms.
Eeek! Try again. COM uses the standard Windows messaging architecture.
Slashdot Mirror
You assume I want it to do that, or for that matter, that 50 million Windows users want that. You are sadly mistaken about that. The function of the desktop is to isolate and abstract the OS, not to be "really kewl"
Indeed you can. If you don't like one, you can use another. Everyone is happy. With Windows, everybody loses.
See above.
Indeed you can. If drivers aren't available, you can write your own. If drivers aren't available for Windows, what do you do?
That's a pathetic comeback. No, you show me a piece of consumer PC hardware that has not shipped with Windows drivers in the last 10 years or so.
Sorry, you've lost me there.
Sorry, I thought I was speaking your language. Never mind.
Famous first first words of aspiring OS aiming to be completely better and more configurable than the shite used by 50e6 PCs.
DOA, as it would seem. Give it up.
That wouldn't include Windows then. Have you ever tried to install Windows? Ever tried to install any hardware? A complete mess if ever there was one.
Actually yes, plenty of times. It's really hard to find a stock PC where some version of Windows will not run, and most intelligent people know this, at least from inference. And no, I really haven't had any "hardware messes", since I tend to know what I'm doing. On the other hand, I've had quite a time trying to find hardware that works with Linux (see above, "drivers"), and a distro that actually goes beginning to end without dying with some weird error that requires a trip to console heaven. Yeah, we're ready for primetime right there.
Why? Why radical? What radical changes do you want? What don't you like about them? What should they do to improve it? Saying "It's crap, make it radical" is meaningless.
OK, focus here. The whole point of this was that KDE and Gnome do nothing but copy the MS shell. Got it now?
KDE and Gnome are as attractive as you want them to be. They are infinitely customisable. You can make them look like whatever you want. With Windows, you're stuck with the manky default mess.
Nope, the Windows shell is customizable to hell and back. However the means to do that are not free or particularly common, so people like your clueless self always gravitate towards the standard riposte "ah! but can it do THIS!!!??". It may come as a surprise to you but the "loser millions" who run Windows are not interested in having pretty widgets and transparent regions. They just want to use their goddamn computers to do whatever it is they bought them for in the first place. They don't need to be 1337! or have a kewl desktop that rotates when winked at.
Like I said, you have to elaborate. What exactly don't you like about them or the Windows shell? Saying "It's shit, they should make it completely different just for the sake of it" is meaningless. You have to elaborate on what you want them to change.
See above. And hope my elaboration was enough for you -- let me know if you'd like me to elaborate further.
Well?
Oh. Bite me?
My day job revolves around distributed systems architecture. I haven't met a software architect that was not fluent in at least five programming languages. The reality is, you use whatever happens to be required for the task. The right tool for the job, period. It doesn't matter if it's kewl or not, just that it gets things done.
Sometimes you also have to use whatever it is that the client (or your employer, if you're not a consultant) decided to standardize on, and that's not always fun (FoxPro comes to mind).
My point is, we are in the business of creating solutions to problems through software, not feeling cool because we get to use this or that language that we happen to just *love*. That's for hobbyist coders.
As a bonus, this mindset will always take you far higher than the standard "well, I only know F++, and I really don't care for anything else" attitude among programmers.
This, however, should be the last straw. Please, pull John Katz off Slashdot. This story is ridiculous to the point of being scary. Katz has made an ass of himself - don't let him do the same thing to the site.
This post will probably be modded down so as to sanitize the discussion (Off topic or Flamebait is anything that constructively criticizes Slashdot, along with the rest of the troll content), and so will many other that are trying to make a valid point. But just remember one thing:
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
First off, a disclaimer: I've never worked for an IT shop per se. I've been a consultant (independent or otherwise) since I had my first real job about seven years ago.
In the consulting world, I've always found that most friendships are as enduring as the lifetime of a project or the assignment to a client site. For some reason we consultants tend to be (I think) a bit more closed socially. Why? Maybe because we interact with so many people for what are mostly short amounts of time.
Not to say none of those project-oriented relationships (for lack of a better description) never develop into more lasting deals, but it's not very common.
There's also the culture clash thing that is so much more common today than even a few years ago -- ever try to invite an Indian to a barbecue? Buy some chicken (OK, that's a stereotype but you'd be surprised how often it holds up). Ditto for people from other countries. Scotts just want to drink, Brits just sit there and so on. It's not good or bad, just different to what one is accustomed to.
As for human interaction within a corporate setting, with the possible exception of commercial software shops it's mostly a matter of company-sponsored "relationship building" that applies as much to IT as it does to HR or PR. In my experience there's really not that much of a difference.
Plus, it works. Kewl, actually. It's not Java or C# by any stretch of the imagination, but it does boost productivity quite a lot, and it's not a speed hog, either.
I think we're going to see more of this in the future -- semi-low level languages such as C/C++ with some sort of extensions or "plug-ins" that not only encapsulate a lot of functionality but also save us from our own mistakes. Think of STL with a GC'ed memory space.
I would tend to say loading up the whole of .NET is a bit much just to keep me from reading three bytes outside of a memory buffer but it's an interesting idea nonetheless. How far can this go on before we start complaining about someone turning C++ into a scripting language...? Hmmm.
About three months ago UPS left a DVD player (brand new, in the box, shipped from Buy.com I think) on my doorstep. It was adressed to some dude on another street a few blocks from mine, but with the same house number.
I contemplated taking it to the intended recipient but never did. It's still in my downstairs closet, I never opened it. Maybe one of these days I will (already had a *much* better DVD player).
The only thing I ship via UPS these days are cigarretes. Everything else goes through FedEx.
- "You can do this or that if you don't like this or that"
- "You can install another window manager"
- "You can write your own drivers"
- "#props to all h4xx0rz"
Famous last words of aspiring desktop environment (and OS) aiming to fight another OS over the desktop of 50 million PCs.
The argument that people and companies will switch to Linux because it's free has not worked, and never will. Two words: out-of-the-box-works-great-with-everything and easy-to-use-for-John-Doe-and-his-mom. Well, maybe twenty words.
Now, if KDE or Gnome would come up with a totally radical and attractive GUI that made it easier to use a computer and isolated everyone from the OS, then we're-a-talking. But no, they're just copying the Windows shell. Yipeee!
Not there yet.
Both Gnome and KDE have done nothing but rip off the Windows interface since their inception. Whether or not this is because "we want Windoze users to feel comfy once they start migrating in droves [sic]" is anybody's guess. Maybe it's simply a lack of creativity? Of course, Windows' only improvement over the Mac was the taskbar (the Finder would be a fine point, but still), and the Mac itself was ripped off the Xerox UIs.
This is not a flame, but mod away. I've some karma to burn. And we're all very open-minded here, right?!!
I know you work for a Brazilian company (Conectiva), though your name seems more Italian than not. Regarless, you are (along with Miguel de Icaza, who is from Mexico) probably the most visible non-european/american member of the Linux kernel development community. Do you have any plans to promote or push Linux as a viable alternative to government agencies or companies in Brazil or other Latin American countries?
While it is certainly up to the vendor to release as bug free code as possible, I disagree with his exoneration here. "If you don't know how to use it, don't" holds true regardless of what OS we're talking about. A Unix sysadmin that doesn't patch his/her boxe(s) is as much to blame as an MS sysadmin who fails to do so as well.
Whether or not the amount of exploits for IIS are a direct result of how widely it is used outside of the "heavy metal" internet server arena is anybody's guess. But to even suggest that the sysadmins should say "oh, fuck it. It's the vendor's fault" is a bit like putting one's network in the hands of God... maybe it will be OK, and most likely it won't.
Sad.
There's got to be a better way, like a modularized HD assembly with basic USB or FireWire conectivity that you can lug to your PC and back to the car. Sure would beat those MP3 car players that do CD-R's.
Rather than promoting consideration towards your cause you're just making yourself (or your organization) look rather silly, eh?
Software development is, contrary to what the corporate establishment wants you to believe, more craft than trade - indeed a kind of art, in a way. You've never heard about John Q. Public, who put himself through art school because he had to (parent pressure? promise of economic stability?). But you sure hear about Mozart and Tchaikovsky. And Van Gogh and Monet. And so on.
If you don't love to write code then you're never going to be particularly good at it, period. All the really good developers I've ever met were passionate about what they did (not radical or political about any single aspect of the job, just passionate). And anyone who's actually held a real job for more than a few years will tell you that there's no fate worse than waking up every morning and having to go to a job you really don't like.
Don't feel bad about your doubts. There's always time to go back and do things right. Find what you want to do, and do it. I spent four years of college studying biochemistry and then decided that I liked coding better instead -- and never looked back.
The best job in the world is the one you love, not the one that pays more.
This person is imagining the development and process management structures and practices at Microsoft. For that matter, the same conclusions apply to everything done at Oracle, Symantec, CA and IBM and everywhere else, and therefore only Linus Torvalds knows how to lead a project successfully and everyone else (that is not an open source company or project) is completely clueless and doomed to failure. Sheesh.
It's a good analysis of how one of the few really successful Open Source project models work but I can see no evidence there that Microsoft is doing something wrong (except perhaps, in the eye of the author, not giving away the code for Windows).
It's really surprising when one finds out that the enemy really doesn't breathe fire or smell of sulfur, but it's also hard to accept.
The software development process sucks more or less depending on who dreams it up and puts it to practice, but the quality of its end results have nothing to do with whether or not the source is being given away.
That is what our researcher friend is missing here.
was this supposed to be funny?
Wow.
3. Open source means you can fix the code. So stop complaining and do something useful.
That's the spirit the corporate world just loves so much. Props to all h^x0rz.
A Strategic Comparasion of Windows Vs. Unix
... to a better, more rouboust technology.
Of comparisions.....
Spelling just went out the Window on this one, eh.
Very impressive! Too bad their control is worth ~$500 or so (probably worth it in some cases). It renders better than most Mozilla and Gecko-based engines I've seen.
Just as employers have a legal right to monitor and read your email and network traffic, they have the absolutely legal right to search you once you enter their premises, even if in this case the employer is the government. Ditto for using "covert" surveillance within the workspace and so on.
The search in the context and manner as you describe does not infringe on your constitutional rights at all. It is not representative of the "unreasonable search and seizure" protection clause(s).
Now if you're not comfortable with them then your only recourse is really to quit and go somewhere else, though I doubt that would be a very effective statement on your part.
Given the state of the world right now, this inconvenience you and your colleagues are going through is hardly cause for constitutional alarm.
One thing that absolutely pisses me off about the CNet and ZDNet ads is that they make the browser unusable and choppy untill you scroll them away. Don't put those there. Use simple images or light-weight animated GIFs.
Use PayPal. You have a solid, reliable reader base of what, half a million users? Create a yearly "pledge" drive similar to NPR stations. Get 1/10th of people to give you $5-50 bucks and you're all set. If you can't even get that, then the "community" doesn't deserve web sites like this.
Ads will kill readership, period. It's sad, but true. And because of the fact that you've given away the code, there are tons of options out there that will fill the void (for a while at least).
Hacker kiddies and the open/free troll crowd are not going to provide you with a constructive, objective view - just as going off and asking this question in a Microsoft newsgroup won't either. I'd probably try to get my hands on and use research organization data (except Gartner!). Your best bet though, if you have a couple of weeks to burn, is hitting Google and looking for what the average Usenet dude is saying. It'll be hard to get hard data but at least you can get a handle on the "heartbeat" of the issue.
Interestingly enough this is the low level mechanism used by COM to do interprocess comms. Eeek! Try again. COM uses the standard Windows messaging architecture.
U rool. I stand in awe of your l337 aol-ish grammar. Your tender age doesn't do justice to your IQ.
More, please.
I find myself quivering with excitement and anticipation.