If you say that they were the first machines to bring a Xerox/Macintosh style UI to a commercial, UNIX-based platform, I think that would a bit more accurate. But even then, Smalltalk provided that kind of UI on UNIX platforms years before NeXT.
I meant what I said originally. Of course NeXTSTEP was not the first GUI available for Unix. But then, anyone can slap windows and a pointer on top of Unix. The difficult part is integrating the whole thing so that the power of Unix is available without forcing its complexity onto its users. NeXT did it with NeXTSTEP, and again (under the guise of Apple) with OS X. But they're the only ones who have done it.
In my view, the reason that Linux isn't 'Unix your Grandmother could use' is because the people who actually _write_the_software_ don't want that - they want real Unix (like your Grandmother can't use).
Yes, I know. Unfortunately, that attitude is fundamentally incompatible with the goal of Linux becoming a mainstream desktop OS. As long as that attitude towards Linux prevails, Windows will dominate the desktop. Whether this is a good thing or not is another question.
The NeXT machine was a smartly packaged, excellent practical compromise. Jobs deserves a lot of credit for good taste and practicality. But it wasn't breakthrough or even particularly novel technology given the systems that preceded it by nearly a decade.
It was a breakthrough in one important area: it made Unix easy to use. More specifically, it was a Unix system easy enough for one's grandmother could use. This isn't a "breakthrough" in the traditional operating systems sense, but it's something no other Unix system had done before. And other than OS X, and no Unix (or Unix-like) OS has done it since. Including Linux.
In the early '90s, after the NeXT cube came out, I started using Solaris, which Sun claimed they were going to sell to the masses. Compared to NeXTStep, it was pathetic. You couldn't even access a floppy disk without using obscure shell commands and/or su'ing to root. Linux today is better, but compared to NeXTStep it's still more of a challenge than it should be: there's still too much resorting to the shell and the editing of configuration files.
The high points is that most people find such acts repulsive...
There are 6 billion people on this planet. Even if only 1 out of every 10,000 considers biological warfare to be acceptable, you've still got 600,000 potential bio-terrorists.
Yet another consequence of speaking a language whose vocabulary came from German but whose grammar comes from Latin.:-)
Actually, it's the vocabulary that comes from Latin (via French, for the most part). English grammar is quite different from that of other European languages, but is more Germanic than anything else.
Chicago was the code name for Windows 4.0, aka Windows 95.
Some documents(note its date) claim Cairo was the code name for Windows NT 4.0 (the first release of NT with the Win95 interface).
Others claim that Cairo is/was the code name of NT 5.0 (aka Windows 2000)
Perhaps Microsoft used the Cairo codename for NT 4, and then reused it for NT 5. That's just a guess, though. However, the claim that NT 5 was due out in late '95 doesn't seem to have any basis in fact. Rather, it seems like the result of a confused combination of the version number of Cairo #2 with the release date of Cairo #1.
Do you honestly believe that the organized society is possible only because of a couple of hundred or thousand policemen are patrolling on our streets? Get real.
No, but I think a couple of hundred or thousand police patrolling our streets is necessary in order to have our type of organized society.
In practise, the people could do whatever they like but they choose not to do so because it's more benefical to them to leave their neighbours alone or even cooperate with them.
In practice, it is often easier to kill your neighbor and take his possessions, rather than work with him. History is not exactly full of examples of the collapse of governments leading to peaceful, government-free societies. Quite the contrary. Take Rome, for example. The fall of Rome ushered in 350 years of chaos in Europe. From what little we know, villages all over Europe were repeatedly looted by barbarians hordes. It was so bad that we actually don't know that much about it. People were so busy defending themselves that they didn't have the time to write much history.
This isn't to say that government regulations are the only thing keeping us from barbarian hordes:-). Just that it is easy to talk about how virtuous people will be without government when you've never actually seen what people are like without government.
Did you know that when you write a review on their site, it becomes their property?
In much the same way that the Free Software Foundation requires that the ownership any code submission to gcc be turned over to the FSF before they will incorporate that submission into the official gcc distribution.
Re:They are one in the same to me
on
CS vs CIS
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· Score: 1
Likewise at U.C. Santa Cruz. When I went there
('89-'95), CIS (Computer and Information Sciences) was exactly the same as Computer Science. There were no business or accounting classes that would count towards degreee requirements.
The reason it was called CIS was because one of the founders of the department was Dr. David Huffman (one of the pioneers of information theory). In '96 or '97, shortly after he retired, the name of the program was officially changed to "Computer Science". Nevertheless, officially my degrees (BA & MS) are called CIS. If any hiring manager looks at my resume and thinks I'm a glorified accountant, my job history (in compiler development) should quickly set him straight. If not, well, that's his loss.
Consider if somebody who made, for example $1 million dollars a year, and the IRS takes, $300k of that, their ends up being $300k of money that cannot circulate back into the economy. Now if he was given a tax break of say 10%, he now has $100k extra to invest into various business ventures, purchase of goods etc. $100k can easily pay the wages of 2 middle class workers.
But of course, with his taxes lower he can't find qualified workers because the government is no longer spending as much to educate people as it once was. Or maybe he can find qualified workers, but he can't deliver his product because the roads are falling apart because the government can't afford to maintain them. Or maybe the roads are OK but he can't afford to borrow the money needed to start his business because government borrowing (to make up for his $100K/year tax cut) has driven interest rates up.
You act as if government just takes all the tax money it collects and burns it. In reality, it spends it on all the things that are required to ensure that this country is a good place to do business. Don't believe me? Try starting a business in a place with ultra-low taxes and virtually no government, like Sudan, Bangladesh, Ethiopia or Russia, and see how far you get.
I think a lot of our economic prosperity it due to the policies of the Reagan/Bush administrations. How you ask? Well economic policies don't affect the economy over night, sometimes it can be a matter of years before the changes work through all levels of the economy.
So you're saying it takes 15 years for an economic policy to make itself felt in the economy? Does that mean that you believe that the U.S.'s growth in the '80s was due to Richard Nixon's economic policy?
Notice that as we come to the end of Clinton's 8 years in office, the economy is showing signs of slowing. Perhaps this could be the result of 8 years of Clinton economic policy?
If the economy is showing signs of slowing (to a "mere" 4% growth rate), it's due to the Fed's interest rate hikes and the growing cost of energy.
The reality is that it takes a couple of years at most for a federal economic policy or budget to begin to make itself felt in the economy. Reagan's policies grew the economy, but at the cost of high deficits and stagnant middle-class and lower-middle-class wages. His rising tide lifted some, but not most, boats.
Clinton's policies also grew the economy, but under his administration the deficit was eliminated and wages began to rise, across-the-board, for the first time since 1973.
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I suppose this computer, financed in part by Celera Genomics, will be called the "Celeron".
It was a breakthrough in one important area: it made Unix easy to use. More specifically, it was a Unix system easy enough for one's grandmother could use. This isn't a "breakthrough" in the traditional operating systems sense, but it's something no other Unix system had done before. And other than OS X, and no Unix (or Unix-like) OS has done it since. Including Linux.
In the early '90s, after the NeXT cube came out, I started using Solaris, which Sun claimed they were going to sell to the masses. Compared to NeXTStep, it was pathetic. You couldn't even access a floppy disk without using obscure shell commands and/or su'ing to root. Linux today is better, but compared to NeXTStep it's still more of a challenge than it should be: there's still too much resorting to the shell and the editing of configuration files.
Actually, it's the vocabulary that comes from Latin (via French, for the most part). English grammar is quite different from that of other European languages, but is more Germanic than anything else.
Chicago was the code name for Windows 4.0, aka Windows 95.
Some documents(note its date) claim Cairo was the code name for Windows NT 4.0 (the first release of NT with the Win95 interface).
Others claim that Cairo is/was the code name of NT 5.0 (aka Windows 2000)
Perhaps Microsoft used the Cairo codename for NT 4, and then reused it for NT 5. That's just a guess, though. However, the claim that NT 5 was due out in late '95 doesn't seem to have any basis in fact. Rather, it seems like the result of a confused combination of the version number of Cairo #2 with the release date of Cairo #1.
This isn't to say that government regulations are the only thing keeping us from barbarian hordes :-). Just that it is easy to talk about how virtuous people will be without government when you've never actually seen what people are like without government.
Or will there be a 2.4.0-prerelease2 in a couple of weeks?
Did you know that when you write a review on their site, it becomes their property?
In much the same way that the Free Software Foundation requires that the ownership any code submission to gcc be turned over to the FSF before they will incorporate that submission into the official gcc distribution.
Likewise at U.C. Santa Cruz. When I went there ('89-'95), CIS (Computer and Information Sciences) was exactly the same as Computer Science. There were no business or accounting classes that would count towards degreee requirements.
The reason it was called CIS was because one of the founders of the department was Dr. David Huffman (one of the pioneers of information theory). In '96 or '97, shortly after he retired, the name of the program was officially changed to "Computer Science". Nevertheless, officially my degrees (BA & MS) are called CIS. If any hiring manager looks at my resume and thinks I'm a glorified accountant, my job history (in compiler development) should quickly set him straight. If not, well, that's his loss.
Consider if somebody who made, for example $1 million dollars a year, and the IRS takes, $300k of that, their ends up being $300k of money that cannot circulate back into the economy. Now if he was given a tax break of say 10%, he now has $100k extra to invest into various business ventures, purchase of goods etc. $100k can easily pay the wages of 2 middle class workers.
But of course, with his taxes lower he can't find qualified workers because the government is no longer spending as much to educate people as it once was. Or maybe he can find qualified workers, but he can't deliver his product because the roads are falling apart because the government can't afford to maintain them. Or maybe the roads are OK but he can't afford to borrow the money needed to start his business because government borrowing (to make up for his $100K/year tax cut) has driven interest rates up.
You act as if government just takes all the tax money it collects and burns it. In reality, it spends it on all the things that are required to ensure that this country is a good place to do business. Don't believe me? Try starting a business in a place with ultra-low taxes and virtually no government, like Sudan, Bangladesh, Ethiopia or Russia, and see how far you get.
I think a lot of our economic prosperity it due to the policies of the Reagan/Bush administrations. How you ask? Well economic policies don't affect the economy over night, sometimes it can be a matter of years before the changes work through all levels of the economy.
So you're saying it takes 15 years for an economic policy to make itself felt in the economy? Does that mean that you believe that the U.S.'s growth in the '80s was due to Richard Nixon's economic policy?
Notice that as we come to the end of Clinton's 8 years in office, the economy is showing signs of slowing. Perhaps this could be the result of 8 years of Clinton economic policy?
If the economy is showing signs of slowing (to a "mere" 4% growth rate), it's due to the Fed's interest rate hikes and the growing cost of energy.
The reality is that it takes a couple of years at most for a federal economic policy or budget to begin to make itself felt in the economy. Reagan's policies grew the economy, but at the cost of high deficits and stagnant middle-class and lower-middle-class wages. His rising tide lifted some, but not most, boats.
Clinton's policies also grew the economy, but under his administration the deficit was eliminated and wages began to rise, across-the-board, for the first time since 1973.
It created the Internet.