The article itself is really quite unimportant. The language neutral ability of the CLR is a marketing point as it's a convenient selling point to Visual BASIC developers looking to upgrade. Nobody disputes that, but it is still a very nice feature to have. I challenge anybody to find a company which has code written in only one language.
The conclusion the article makes is what most critically damns it as biased. His points are purely political in nature, he admits it. He goes on to try to distance himself from the bias by claiming he is not condemning.Net framework and it's technical capabilities.
But then he goes on to make an anti-Microsoft statement, condemning this feature as nothing more than marketing, but yet instead implying that Sun is somehow different with their Java hype.
There are a lot of articles out there about.Net which are positive in nature. Those articles don't make it to slashdot because of the biased nature of the web site. That was the point the original poster was making. Hell,/. didn't even post an announcement when the.Net framework SDK became available for download.
The first step is to admit when you have a problem. From there you can solve it.
Language neutrality is actually quite a substantial advantage. Perhaps not to you, or Java developers...
But to the horde of developers that will be migrating from Visual Studio 6.0 to Visual Studio.NET. I've met quite a few VB developers who are unwilling to give up their syntax yet would love to take advantage of.Net.
It is a very valuable marketing point, and it allows for a very easy transition/upgrade for many developers out there already targetting Windows.
"...but unfortunately still bound to Microsoft's usual way of doing (and marketing) things: proprietary technology presented as the apex of openness, and a strongly biased system presented as language-neutral"
Sounds like Sun selling Java. Proprietary openness, and strongly biased systems presented as platform-neutral.:-)
Typical zealot. When faced with the possibility that your argument may not be shared by others you resort to personal attacks and claims that people who have an opposing opinion must be paid.
I know Senator Wellstone is a big proponent of this opt-in at the federal level.
But I recently heard that some of our reps are looking at passing a similar law at the state level.
This was the only thing I could find discussing it at this time...
http://www.startribune.com/stories/535/1201637.h tm l
I heard some of the comments made with regards to the GLB act. They lobbied to have it worded the way it was, specifically to make it harder for the consumer to opt-out of data sharing. The more difficult it was, the less likely consumers would act.
So I say do the same with opt-in. The more difficult it is, the less likely it is that I'll get 4 phone calls on Saturday morning asking to sell me crap.
Your argument does not have much merit, it certainly is not backed up by history, especially with regards to US politics.
But what I would like to know is why you cannot accept the fact that there are people in this world who would defend the settlement who are not employed by Microsoft.
Are you so biased that you cannot possibly see any argument against your position?
Strangely, it's that very zealotry that makes your position so easy to discredit.:(
You know if you weld the hood of a car shut, the user will never be able to change their oil themselves so it will have to be done by a GM Certified mechanic.
But the other day welding the hood shut was a bad thing.
Oh, it's so hard to keep these car analogies straight!
I have DSL and right now they aren't capping bandwidth or anything like that. I'm a fairly heavy user, I think, but I probably use no more than 3Gigs/month downstream on average, unless I download a lot of ISO images. But I also have a hosted web site with a 4Gig bandwidth cap.
Now if you go over the bandwidth quota you have to pay an extra $10/gigabyte or something like that. I hardly ever consume 4Gigs of bandwidth, more like maybe 500Megs so I've never been charged this excess fee.
Still I thought it was funny last week when due to an accounting error I received an email stating something like this:
"Your account only allows for 4 Gigs of bandwidth a month. You have used 500 Megs of bandwidth this month which is over your quota and you will be charged an extra $-35.00."
The numerical titles are merely references to the bulletins posted at www.redhat.com. There ye shall find the text and become enlightened.
I checked my dictionary and there is no such word as enronian. The only reference I could find to it on the web was in discussing President Bush's deficit spending package.
I don't think you can say that Redhat had 171 bulletins in 2001. They seem to have a bizarre numbering scheme and skip numbers occasionally. Maybe this is because the issue turned out to be a non-issue or something.
On the other hand while looking through 2001 I did notice that some of the bulletins replaced other ones, and in those cases they deleted the original from the web site.
So Redhat definately does make it confusing. Their bulletins also don't have much detail, they don't attribute to who found the problem, on what date it was first reported to them, etc.
From what I could find, across all of the Redhat products they had somewhere around 80-90. Now I count 60 bulletins from Microsoft, not sure where you got the 51 number from.
Or are you taking these from the securityfocus article?
Screw securityfocus, let's look at bulletins released by manufacturers.
Microsoft security bulletins released in 2002:
MS02-001
Redhat security bulletins released in 2002:
2002-018
2002-015
2002-014
2002-012
2002-011
2002-009
2002-007
2002-004
2002-005
2002-003
2002-002
2001-171
2001-168
2001-165
And if you look at 2001 results you'll see a somewhat similar trend, although not near as pronounced. Somethink like 80 versus 60.
Are these statistics meaningful? Of course not. If you have read Paul's columns you would know he reported this tongue and cheek. It was a slow news day, he noticed this, had to make fun of it.
What makes this story interesting, and why Paul reported it is because if the numbers had been reversed you would be assured that would be the headline of the day on slashdot, and if anybody questioned it they would be called Microsoftie apologists.
And look at the responses you see here. They're almost comical. Reminds me of the responses to the Mindcraft benchmark. Fear, Uncertainty and Denial.:)
"If it was so superior, what killed it? Marketing? "
Yes.
I'd have to say just about everything that could go wrong did go wrong.
Still it was a cool machine. It was the innovator in cheap video production. Or rather NewTek was with the Video Toaster.
Even so, there are still a number of names around that first started on the Amiga. A lot of the 3D rendering packages like Lightwave started on the Amiga. Some of the game makers are still around like Psygnosis. Jim Sachs was a noted Amiga artist and is responsible for the Aquarium screen saver which is part of the Microsoft Plus! XP pack. etc.
"OpenGL, an existing 3D graphics standard which Microsoft refused to adopt"
I wonder about that comment. Microsoft certainly didn't refuse to adopt OpenGL initially as it was included in the first versions of Windows NT and promoted as a big feature. They saw this as an important aspect of future computing, and they wanted to support it.
Microsoft is not a company to just go off and create new software from scratch if they can obtain it elsewhere for cheap. So, something happened to encourage Microsoft to go off and work on Direct3D. A license dispute or something.
"The fact is that up to now, hardware, the OS software and, for the most part, games have been a pay-once/play forever deal. "
Obviously you haven't been paying attention over the past several years.
Ultima Online
Everquest
Asheron's Call
Many many numerous others, I know I paid $10/month for a bit to play Allegiance. Going back in history we have examples at Compuserve and so forth.
Ongoing charges has been a factor of life for multiplayer gaming since almost it's beginning some 20 years ago.
Take your FUD elsewhere, troll. If people find enjoyment with the game and the value of paying per month exists they will do so. Otherwise the game will fail.
In the case of the XBox what I see as viable is for them to have a one time charge to access a large farm of hosted servers that grants access to many different multiplayer games. As things stand right now each different game asks for a seperate $10/month fee. Most people I know do not get addicted to just one game, they may play several, or go months at a time without ever touching one particular game.
I agree that Netrek certainly has example aspects of what this guy is trying to do. State is held entirely on the server, and only a subset of information important to the player based on their tactical perspective is transmitted.
Now as to why C#. I don't understand what this guy is exactly trying to do. A massive multiplayer strategy game sounds like a rather large undertaking.
I have been throwing around the idea in the back of my head of writing a version of the Netrek server and client using C#. As far as worth, I see it purely as an educational undertaking. If it works, then the result may be more maintainable and extensible than the existing C code.
In the case of netrek, I doubt performance is an issue considering the game used to run on minimal hardware by todays standards. But in a massive multiplayer strategy game, I could see that as an issue.
I probably won't go forward with this because I have little interest in games these days. But it is interesting to think about.
Heh. Go to RedHat.com and count the number of security bulletins released for their version of Linux this year.
Now go to Microsoft.com and count theres.
The score is something like Redhat: 14, Microsoft: 1
Whether or not this means Microsoft is more secure is irrelevant. If the score had been the other way around it would have made the front page of slashdot.org.
"Quite frankly, I don't see the NEED to buy yet another PC (which is pretty much what it is) to do something that my current PC could probabally do, if someone put the time to it. "
There are like half a dozen different programs available that do just that. They all cost around $50-100, plus you need a TV tuner card which go for $40-300. There are even TV Tuner cards that come with this software from Hauppage and ATI.
I have a $40 WinTV-Go card, and have been contemplating buying the $50 Snapstream software which lets me record to disk. It also has a web interface which means I can connect from work to my home PC and set it up to record something, if I really want that.
It totally suits any need I would have for a Tivo system, except it's more flexible because I can control it remotely.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, I read the article.
.Net framework and it's technical capabilities.
.Net which are positive in nature. Those articles don't make it to slashdot because of the biased nature of the web site. That was the point the original poster was making. Hell, /. didn't even post an announcement when the .Net framework SDK became available for download.
The article itself is really quite unimportant. The language neutral ability of the CLR is a marketing point as it's a convenient selling point to Visual BASIC developers looking to upgrade. Nobody disputes that, but it is still a very nice feature to have. I challenge anybody to find a company which has code written in only one language.
The conclusion the article makes is what most critically damns it as biased. His points are purely political in nature, he admits it. He goes on to try to distance himself from the bias by claiming he is not condemning
But then he goes on to make an anti-Microsoft statement, condemning this feature as nothing more than marketing, but yet instead implying that Sun is somehow different with their Java hype.
There are a lot of articles out there about
The first step is to admit when you have a problem. From there you can solve it.
I think what he means is that so far the "java experts" who have had their articles posted here have a particular anti-Microsoft bias.
.Net. I would think that's blatantly obvious to any intelligent person.
Quoting Bill Joy or James Gosling isn't going to give you an unbiased view of
Language neutrality is actually quite a substantial advantage. Perhaps not to you, or Java developers...
.Net.
But to the horde of developers that will be migrating from Visual Studio 6.0 to Visual Studio.NET. I've met quite a few VB developers who are unwilling to give up their syntax yet would love to take advantage of
It is a very valuable marketing point, and it allows for a very easy transition/upgrade for many developers out there already targetting Windows.
"...but unfortunately still bound to Microsoft's usual way of doing (and marketing) things: proprietary technology presented as the apex of openness, and a strongly biased system presented as language-neutral"
:-)
Sounds like Sun selling Java. Proprietary openness, and strongly biased systems presented as platform-neutral.
Typical zealot. When faced with the possibility that your argument may not be shared by others you resort to personal attacks and claims that people who have an opposing opinion must be paid.
And you claim to not be a zealot. How cute.
I know Senator Wellstone is a big proponent of this opt-in at the federal level.
h tm l
But I recently heard that some of our reps are looking at passing a similar law at the state level.
This was the only thing I could find discussing it at this time...
http://www.startribune.com/stories/535/1201637.
I heard some of the comments made with regards to the GLB act. They lobbied to have it worded the way it was, specifically to make it harder for the consumer to opt-out of data sharing. The more difficult it was, the less likely consumers would act.
So I say do the same with opt-in. The more difficult it is, the less likely it is that I'll get 4 phone calls on Saturday morning asking to sell me crap.
Your argument does not have much merit, it certainly is not backed up by history, especially with regards to US politics.
:(
But what I would like to know is why you cannot accept the fact that there are people in this world who would defend the settlement who are not employed by Microsoft.
Are you so biased that you cannot possibly see any argument against your position?
Strangely, it's that very zealotry that makes your position so easy to discredit.
You know if you weld the hood of a car shut, the user will never be able to change their oil themselves so it will have to be done by a GM Certified mechanic.
But the other day welding the hood shut was a bad thing.
Oh, it's so hard to keep these car analogies straight!
But then the anti-MS community has a long standing reputation for throwing off online polls.
One needs only look at examples from Team OS/2 in the Infoworld 1996 scandal, and the astroturfing from Kevin Reichard over at linuxtoday.com.
"Most likely that those 7500 people are just shareholders of MS."
and the 15,000 are Linux users complaining about how they have no choice.
"Java is a standard, and it is pretty much as open as postscript or pdf. The standards publishing body for Java is Sun, and for ps/pdf, Adobe."
:)
Well if that's true than anything ever created by Microsoft is a Standard as well.
But I doubt you'd get many Linux users to agree with that.
The difference between C# and Java is that Microsoft had the balls to submit it to ECMA.
"This is only partially true. From a home user perspective .NET is little more than useless garbage. Renting software"
Uhh, he said to look at it with your blinders off.
Since we're into car analogies, let me explain in simpler terms...
Miguel is saying the new Ford Mustang is pretty cool.
You are complaining because Hertz rents Ford Mustangs.
I have DSL and right now they aren't capping bandwidth or anything like that. I'm a fairly heavy user, I think, but I probably use no more than 3Gigs/month downstream on average, unless I download a lot of ISO images. But I also have a hosted web site with a 4Gig bandwidth cap.
Now if you go over the bandwidth quota you have to pay an extra $10/gigabyte or something like that. I hardly ever consume 4Gigs of bandwidth, more like maybe 500Megs so I've never been charged this excess fee.
Still I thought it was funny last week when due to an accounting error I received an email stating something like this:
"Your account only allows for 4 Gigs of bandwidth a month. You have used 500 Megs of bandwidth this month which is over your quota and you will be charged an extra $-35.00."
They sent out a correction the next day.
:-)
The numerical titles are merely references to the bulletins posted at www.redhat.com. There ye shall find the text and become enlightened.
I checked my dictionary and there is no such word as enronian. The only reference I could find to it on the web was in discussing President Bush's deficit spending package.
I don't think you can say that Redhat had 171 bulletins in 2001. They seem to have a bizarre numbering scheme and skip numbers occasionally. Maybe this is because the issue turned out to be a non-issue or something.
On the other hand while looking through 2001 I did notice that some of the bulletins replaced other ones, and in those cases they deleted the original from the web site.
So Redhat definately does make it confusing. Their bulletins also don't have much detail, they don't attribute to who found the problem, on what date it was first reported to them, etc.
From what I could find, across all of the Redhat products they had somewhere around 80-90. Now I count 60 bulletins from Microsoft, not sure where you got the 51 number from.
Or are you taking these from the securityfocus article?
Actually I think the claim from Slashdot was 65,000 bugs. :)
0 22 5&mode=thread
Ahh, yes here it is...
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/02/11/184
Slashdot would have claimed that Windows 2000 had 4 million bugs, but they used an unsigned short in their program and lost count.
Screw securityfocus, let's look at bulletins released by manufacturers.
:)
Microsoft security bulletins released in 2002:
MS02-001
Redhat security bulletins released in 2002:
2002-018
2002-015
2002-014
2002-012
2002-011
2002-009
2002-007
2002-004
2002-005
2002-003
2002-002
2001-171
2001-168
2001-165
And if you look at 2001 results you'll see a somewhat similar trend, although not near as pronounced. Somethink like 80 versus 60.
Are these statistics meaningful? Of course not. If you have read Paul's columns you would know he reported this tongue and cheek. It was a slow news day, he noticed this, had to make fun of it.
What makes this story interesting, and why Paul reported it is because if the numbers had been reversed you would be assured that would be the headline of the day on slashdot, and if anybody questioned it they would be called Microsoftie apologists.
And look at the responses you see here. They're almost comical. Reminds me of the responses to the Mindcraft benchmark. Fear, Uncertainty and Denial.
Go to www.newtek.com. They have a new Video Toaster 2 that's based off of a PC running Windows 2000.
"If it was so superior, what killed it? Marketing? "
Yes.
I'd have to say just about everything that could go wrong did go wrong.
Still it was a cool machine. It was the innovator in cheap video production. Or rather NewTek was with the Video Toaster.
Even so, there are still a number of names around that first started on the Amiga. A lot of the 3D rendering packages like Lightwave started on the Amiga. Some of the game makers are still around like Psygnosis. Jim Sachs was a noted Amiga artist and is responsible for the Aquarium screen saver which is part of the Microsoft Plus! XP pack. etc.
Well at least you don't disagree with my characterization of your post as FUD.
"OpenGL, an existing 3D graphics standard which Microsoft refused to adopt"
I wonder about that comment. Microsoft certainly didn't refuse to adopt OpenGL initially as it was included in the first versions of Windows NT and promoted as a big feature. They saw this as an important aspect of future computing, and they wanted to support it.
Microsoft is not a company to just go off and create new software from scratch if they can obtain it elsewhere for cheap. So, something happened to encourage Microsoft to go off and work on Direct3D. A license dispute or something.
"The fact is that up to now, hardware, the OS software and, for the most part, games have been a pay-once/play forever deal. "
Obviously you haven't been paying attention over the past several years.
Ultima Online
Everquest
Asheron's Call
Many many numerous others, I know I paid $10/month for a bit to play Allegiance. Going back in history we have examples at Compuserve and so forth.
Ongoing charges has been a factor of life for multiplayer gaming since almost it's beginning some 20 years ago.
Take your FUD elsewhere, troll. If people find enjoyment with the game and the value of paying per month exists they will do so. Otherwise the game will fail.
In the case of the XBox what I see as viable is for them to have a one time charge to access a large farm of hosted servers that grants access to many different multiplayer games. As things stand right now each different game asks for a seperate $10/month fee. Most people I know do not get addicted to just one game, they may play several, or go months at a time without ever touching one particular game.
Hi Joe!
I agree that Netrek certainly has example aspects of what this guy is trying to do. State is held entirely on the server, and only a subset of information important to the player based on their tactical perspective is transmitted.
Now as to why C#. I don't understand what this guy is exactly trying to do. A massive multiplayer strategy game sounds like a rather large undertaking.
I have been throwing around the idea in the back of my head of writing a version of the Netrek server and client using C#. As far as worth, I see it purely as an educational undertaking. If it works, then the result may be more maintainable and extensible than the existing C code.
In the case of netrek, I doubt performance is an issue considering the game used to run on minimal hardware by todays standards. But in a massive multiplayer strategy game, I could see that as an issue.
I probably won't go forward with this because I have little interest in games these days. But it is interesting to think about.
Heh. Go to RedHat.com and count the number of security bulletins released for their version of Linux this year.
Now go to Microsoft.com and count theres.
The score is something like Redhat: 14, Microsoft: 1
Whether or not this means Microsoft is more secure is irrelevant. If the score had been the other way around it would have made the front page of slashdot.org.
"Quite frankly, I don't see the NEED to buy yet another PC (which is pretty much what it is) to do something that my current PC could probabally do, if someone put the time to it. "
There are like half a dozen different programs available that do just that. They all cost around $50-100, plus you need a TV tuner card which go for $40-300. There are even TV Tuner cards that come with this software from Hauppage and ATI.
I have a $40 WinTV-Go card, and have been contemplating buying the $50 Snapstream software which lets me record to disk. It also has a web interface which means I can connect from work to my home PC and set it up to record something, if I really want that.
It totally suits any need I would have for a Tivo system, except it's more flexible because I can control it remotely.