Quite frankly, OOo is damaging itself just fine. Seriously, when Google docs (a hodgepodge of javascript and HTML DOM) compares favorably to an app written in native code, you just turn off the lights and close the shop. Project failed, thanks for playing, better luck next time.
Well, it's C++ in my case. The answer is, because I write software that will run in a very large datacenter. In addition, the set of C++ libraries and coding rules we're using here at work makes C++ not nearly as horrible as it is otherwise.
It's still hard to do multithreading, but other than that, it's actually pretty good.
Well, GM manufactures and sells cars. How else do you propose it should make the dough to pay back the loan? Print it? Federal reserve has a monopoly on that.
And besides, my wife drives a Camry Hybrid. IIRC it was $32K at the time, and it can't be driven without carbon based fuels. Folks who buy hybrid cars don't do it for the gas savings. Those cars have 50% less tailpipe emissions. That's why I bought the Camry Hybrid anyway. And I did not get to use the tax credit that you would get with Volt.
Volt, for its primary use case has zero tailpipe emissions, so if you live in an area when the majority of electricity comes from hydro, solar, wind or nuclear sources (like here in WA), you could reduce your carbon footprint pretty drastically.
Remember, we're talking about CO2 here, which is predicted to cause the extinction of mankind within the next 100 years or so.
Well, if it sells, the high sticker price will help them pay back the debt. Or would you rather see them giving it away for free and going bankrupt again. Volt is one of the cars that I'll consider as an upgrade to my aging Camry, once they work out the initial kinks. 30 miles from the battery more than covers my daily commute needs.
Yes, they are a tax burden, but don't forget, IBM isn't going to give stuff away for free - as always with IBM it will cost three times the initial estimate, with stiff extra charges for anything and everything. And in the end I'm not sure this will be any more efficient than the low-wage wetware we have today.
So you're adding the tax burden to pay unemployment to ex-govt employees, and you're also paying IBM for the snake oil which in the end will not work anyway (no system of this scale has ever been successfully built before). And somehow this is expected to reduce national debt. Hmm.
Um no. This is akin to replacing windows (no pun intended) in a house that's nearing foreclosure. Either you reduce the amount of principal by, yes, selling stuff, or your house gets foreclosed. New windows aren't going to make a bit of difference.
I don't see how laid off government employees will contribute to producing anything exportable. If anything they will create an extra tax burden on those who can produce exportable goods by consuming unemployment money, since we _already have_ a bunch of qualified workforce sitting there without work.
The only way to reduce the national debt is by selling more stuff to other nations than you buy from them. Aside from energy savings (which I bet won't be anywhere close to $1T), I don't see how to switch to e-government or any of the rest of this stuff will make any difference.
I have deleted my Facebook account due to it being too much of a time drain. Been a user for a couple of years. And Facebook actually doesn't show me every single irrelevant piece of drivel people post, it limits my feed to those messages that it thinks may be of interest to me, and generally it does a pretty good job.
This is why I don't get Twitter. There, uselessness of the post is not only encouraged, but also enforced by post length limitations, and by the lack of relevance-filtered feed. It's pretty much white noise.
Assuming a binary uses the subset of libraries that Mono supports (and it supports quite a bit up to.NET 3.0), Mono will run.NET binaries built using Microsoft tools unchanged.
Frankly, I consider all "managed" platforms unfit for use these days. If it needs perf, I use C++, if it doesn't need perf, I use Python.
That said, your blindness to C#'s superiority as a language (if not necessarily the platform) is telling. Keep believing it. Hopefully Oracle knows better and one day Java will become a decent language after all.
And BTW, your project will not "run for decades" on Java or on anything else. If you don't believe me, try running non-trivial software from pre-JRE5 days on JRE7.:-)
Scala has the exact same limitations as far as generics are concerned. It does ad closures and other functional bits found in C#, but I NEED a proper implementation of generics to ever consider Java seriously.
1. Three: Windows, Linux, Mac OS X 2. Who gives a shit? We're talking about technical merit here, not who came to market earlier. 3. Please, there was ONE moderately critical vulnerability in ASP.NET. There are dozens upon dozens of broken Java web frameworks. Surely you don't want to imply that they never had security vulnerabilities? 4. I don't see how this is an advantage. I'm not aware of any language features "deprecated" in C# to date. Try LINQ, closures and reified generics, though. You might like it.
He needs to focus less on freedom, and more on achieving some semblance of feature parity with.NET. Microsoft is so far ahead with C# and CLR it's not even funny anymore. Dear James, why the fuck can't I new up an array of fully specialized generic objects in Java in year 2010? I mean, this is just bizarre crap. And this guy just keeps going around and telling everyone how much of a genius he is.
The US is still going to be the most technologically advanced country whether they build this computer or not. They build it out of technologies invented here in the US after all.
He should seriously consider doing this for a living. One of the best lectures I have ever seen. I knew 99% of this stuff already (and more), but the presentation was _flawless_.
Except for the new releases, eBooks should be priced at an average cost of a used paperback copy in good condition, and certainly not a buck more than a brand new, printed paperback, like many e-books are priced today.
What if the alien race has their own "Jesus"? And who's to say which "Jesus" is really the "son of good" and which one is the impostor. Aliens might come here to baptize. And pray to god (if you believe) that they don't use the methods employed by crusaders and the Inquisition.;-)
Then there's also the issue that the "god created Man in his own image". What if the aliens aren't anthropomorphic?
His axiom is self-contradictory. He believes in one god, rejecting, without evidence the existence of all others, as well as Santa Claus, Tooth Fairy, unicorns and so on. You can't have it piecemeal. If your axiom is to believe the fundamentally unobservable, then unicorns should exist as well.
Just when I thought their distro name could not sound any more gay (I mean, come on, admit it "Man driver" was pretty bad), they turn around and prove me dead wrong.
Going over your list in order: 1. Which no one uses since you end up working 60-70 hours a week 2. Don't you have to pay for that these days? 3. Don't see how this is a benefit to me. 4. Don't see how this is a benefit to most Googlers who don't adopt. The extent of "assistance" is unclear. 5. More like a "nurse". This "doctor" can't even write prescriptions. The most you can get is over the counter medications and cholesterol screening. Other than tech talks, gym and game rooms, you have to pay for all other "benefits". 6. This is common in large tech companies. Not all offices get "ski trips". 7. That's 20% on top of your 120% you're already spending on your main project. Not a benefit at all.
>> Compared to?
Compared to even Microsoft. Here are the benefits I really want: 1. Microsoft style "cadillac" fully employer paid health plan with complete coverage and no co-pays or deductibles. 2. More vacation time. Say, 5 weeks instead of 3. 3. Separate offices for engineers who want them. It's difficult to concentrate when other people are talking.
Give me these three and keep all the rest.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. It's just easier to get stuff done here, the quality of the workforce is much higher than anywhere else, and I'm paid substantially more. But the only people who call Google benefits "lavish" are those who joined right out of school, or from a really shitty employer.
What "lavish" benefits are you talking about? Lunches? Lunches pay for themselves because they all of a sudden take 25-30 minutes instead of an hour or more. At $100+ (sometimes way more than that) per hour it just makes sense for a company to pay for lunches. Buses to and from work? Umm. OK, I'll give you that (even though Microsoft also has buses). On-site gym that hardly anyone goes to? What else?
Google is actually pretty bare bones on the inside. They hire three good engineers where other companies would hire 10 passable ones, and give them twice as much work. And yeah, they feed them, so that they'd have more time to do work.
Slashdot Mirror
Quite frankly, OOo is damaging itself just fine. Seriously, when Google docs (a hodgepodge of javascript and HTML DOM) compares favorably to an app written in native code, you just turn off the lights and close the shop. Project failed, thanks for playing, better luck next time.
>> Why start with C
Well, it's C++ in my case. The answer is, because I write software that will run in a very large datacenter. In addition, the set of C++ libraries and coding rules we're using here at work makes C++ not nearly as horrible as it is otherwise.
It's still hard to do multithreading, but other than that, it's actually pretty good.
6. Has to run his stuff in a very large datacenter using one third of the RAM and half as many machines higher level languages would require, faster.
Well, GM manufactures and sells cars. How else do you propose it should make the dough to pay back the loan? Print it? Federal reserve has a monopoly on that.
And besides, my wife drives a Camry Hybrid. IIRC it was $32K at the time, and it can't be driven without carbon based fuels. Folks who buy hybrid cars don't do it for the gas savings. Those cars have 50% less tailpipe emissions. That's why I bought the Camry Hybrid anyway. And I did not get to use the tax credit that you would get with Volt.
Volt, for its primary use case has zero tailpipe emissions, so if you live in an area when the majority of electricity comes from hydro, solar, wind or nuclear sources (like here in WA), you could reduce your carbon footprint pretty drastically.
Remember, we're talking about CO2 here, which is predicted to cause the extinction of mankind within the next 100 years or so.
>> People are pissed because they still owe us
Well, if it sells, the high sticker price will help them pay back the debt. Or would you rather see them giving it away for free and going bankrupt again. Volt is one of the cars that I'll consider as an upgrade to my aging Camry, once they work out the initial kinks. 30 miles from the battery more than covers my daily commute needs.
Yes, they are a tax burden, but don't forget, IBM isn't going to give stuff away for free - as always with IBM it will cost three times the initial estimate, with stiff extra charges for anything and everything. And in the end I'm not sure this will be any more efficient than the low-wage wetware we have today.
So you're adding the tax burden to pay unemployment to ex-govt employees, and you're also paying IBM for the snake oil which in the end will not work anyway (no system of this scale has ever been successfully built before). And somehow this is expected to reduce national debt. Hmm.
Um no. This is akin to replacing windows (no pun intended) in a house that's nearing foreclosure. Either you reduce the amount of principal by, yes, selling stuff, or your house gets foreclosed. New windows aren't going to make a bit of difference.
I don't see how laid off government employees will contribute to producing anything exportable. If anything they will create an extra tax burden on those who can produce exportable goods by consuming unemployment money, since we _already have_ a bunch of qualified workforce sitting there without work.
The only way to reduce the national debt is by selling more stuff to other nations than you buy from them. Aside from energy savings (which I bet won't be anywhere close to $1T), I don't see how to switch to e-government or any of the rest of this stuff will make any difference.
>> people you friend on Facebook
I have deleted my Facebook account due to it being too much of a time drain. Been a user for a couple of years. And Facebook actually doesn't show me every single irrelevant piece of drivel people post, it limits my feed to those messages that it thinks may be of interest to me, and generally it does a pretty good job.
This is why I don't get Twitter. There, uselessness of the post is not only encouraged, but also enforced by post length limitations, and by the lack of relevance-filtered feed. It's pretty much white noise.
I hate to break it to you, but you do also have to pay to get support with commercial software, too. And pay MORE most of the time.
By then a regular atmospheric plane flight will be $20K due to shortage of fuel. Spend that money on terrestrial travel now, while it is still cheap.
Assuming a binary uses the subset of libraries that Mono supports (and it supports quite a bit up to .NET 3.0), Mono will run .NET binaries built using Microsoft tools unchanged.
Frankly, I consider all "managed" platforms unfit for use these days. If it needs perf, I use C++, if it doesn't need perf, I use Python.
That said, your blindness to C#'s superiority as a language (if not necessarily the platform) is telling. Keep believing it. Hopefully Oracle knows better and one day Java will become a decent language after all.
And BTW, your project will not "run for decades" on Java or on anything else. If you don't believe me, try running non-trivial software from pre-JRE5 days on JRE7. :-)
Scala has the exact same limitations as far as generics are concerned. It does ad closures and other functional bits found in C#, but I NEED a proper implementation of generics to ever consider Java seriously.
1. Three: Windows, Linux, Mac OS X
2. Who gives a shit? We're talking about technical merit here, not who came to market earlier.
3. Please, there was ONE moderately critical vulnerability in ASP.NET. There are dozens upon dozens of broken Java web frameworks. Surely you don't want to imply that they never had security vulnerabilities?
4. I don't see how this is an advantage. I'm not aware of any language features "deprecated" in C# to date. Try LINQ, closures and reified generics, though. You might like it.
Even Mono supports reified generics. Your argument is invalid.
He needs to focus less on freedom, and more on achieving some semblance of feature parity with .NET. Microsoft is so far ahead with C# and CLR it's not even funny anymore. Dear James, why the fuck can't I new up an array of fully specialized generic objects in Java in year 2010? I mean, this is just bizarre crap. And this guy just keeps going around and telling everyone how much of a genius he is.
The US is still going to be the most technologically advanced country whether they build this computer or not. They build it out of technologies invented here in the US after all.
He should seriously consider doing this for a living. One of the best lectures I have ever seen. I knew 99% of this stuff already (and more), but the presentation was _flawless_.
Except for the new releases, eBooks should be priced at an average cost of a used paperback copy in good condition, and certainly not a buck more than a brand new, printed paperback, like many e-books are priced today.
What if the alien race has their own "Jesus"? And who's to say which "Jesus" is really the "son of good" and which one is the impostor. Aliens might come here to baptize. And pray to god (if you believe) that they don't use the methods employed by crusaders and the Inquisition. ;-)
Then there's also the issue that the "god created Man in his own image". What if the aliens aren't anthropomorphic?
His axiom is self-contradictory. He believes in one god, rejecting, without evidence the existence of all others, as well as Santa Claus, Tooth Fairy, unicorns and so on. You can't have it piecemeal. If your axiom is to believe the fundamentally unobservable, then unicorns should exist as well.
Just when I thought their distro name could not sound any more gay (I mean, come on, admit it "Man driver" was pretty bad), they turn around and prove me dead wrong.
Going over your list in order:
1. Which no one uses since you end up working 60-70 hours a week
2. Don't you have to pay for that these days?
3. Don't see how this is a benefit to me.
4. Don't see how this is a benefit to most Googlers who don't adopt. The extent of "assistance" is unclear.
5. More like a "nurse". This "doctor" can't even write prescriptions. The most you can get is over the counter medications and cholesterol screening. Other than tech talks, gym and game rooms, you have to pay for all other "benefits".
6. This is common in large tech companies. Not all offices get "ski trips".
7. That's 20% on top of your 120% you're already spending on your main project. Not a benefit at all.
>> Compared to?
Compared to even Microsoft. Here are the benefits I really want:
1. Microsoft style "cadillac" fully employer paid health plan with complete coverage and no co-pays or deductibles.
2. More vacation time. Say, 5 weeks instead of 3.
3. Separate offices for engineers who want them. It's difficult to concentrate when other people are talking.
Give me these three and keep all the rest.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. It's just easier to get stuff done here, the quality of the workforce is much higher than anywhere else, and I'm paid substantially more. But the only people who call Google benefits "lavish" are those who joined right out of school, or from a really shitty employer.
What "lavish" benefits are you talking about? Lunches? Lunches pay for themselves because they all of a sudden take 25-30 minutes instead of an hour or more. At $100+ (sometimes way more than that) per hour it just makes sense for a company to pay for lunches. Buses to and from work? Umm. OK, I'll give you that (even though Microsoft also has buses). On-site gym that hardly anyone goes to? What else?
Google is actually pretty bare bones on the inside. They hire three good engineers where other companies would hire 10 passable ones, and give them twice as much work. And yeah, they feed them, so that they'd have more time to do work.