"Demanding that foreign workers posses special skills that no US worker possesses is silly."
Well, that's the fundamental justification for the existence of the program. Without that, there's no reason why a certain class of businesses should receive special treatment.
"What makes your country is your culture (and I don't mean things like country music or apple pie here...), and if you just open your borders, you will be immediately swamped by third-worlders (like me) who want their piece of the quality-of-life pie."
This, of course, is already the story of America. Anyone who isn't a Native American is the descendant of people who wanted a better life. Those of us with families that have been here for centuries have no more right to be here than you do.
It didn't take that many years to go from 0 users of HTML to where we are today despite the fact that most people didn't understand the potential at the time.
Or perhaps there could be two protocols available - one to support legacy sites and a new one specifically designed to facilitate web applications.
It would be great if you could have the most common AJAX-style transactions be available declaratively so that you could use them with little or no client-side scripting
"Browsing through this thread I can't help but recognise the same old arguments: "It is too hard to use for casual users", "it is no fun", "windows is good enough", "developers want to make money", "the gui is ugly" and so on. These arguments are not new, you would find the exact same arguments if you look at old slashdot stories."
Sometimes the old arguments reappear because they are still valid.
Let's face it. The time that individuals can make the big bucks from Linux is long past. Now that the early contributors have grown a bit older I'll bet some of them wonder why Linus is a multi-millionaire while they received nothing.
That's often the reason given, but in practice it's often better to spend the time and energy in the future when you actually understand those needs rather than in the present when you can only speculate.
In any case, if you have open-ended requirements you'll never know when you're finished. Refactoring can be the programming equivalent of making sure every book on the shelf is lined up within a millimeter - an exercise in compulsive behavior.
Well, of course it matters the degree to which these things are true. You'd also want to see what happens when you get away from the "poster boys" like Linux.
The point was not that open source developers should be obligated to implement everything the end users ask for, but rather that open source doesn't work the way people have been claiming for a decade.
The problem is that the criteria to label code "poor-quality" isn't limited to function or performance. Thus some "poor-quality" code can be less buggy and faster than the "good-quality" type.
Yes, when you sell other people's work but don't pay them for it, you can make money. The problem is that eventually developers realize that the rank-and-file contributors received nothing while a chosen few got rich. Time to move on to a new scam.
"For the vast majority of individuals who do not have the luxury of tech support (formal or informal) you have shiny machines that start well and then decline as bit rot takes its toll."
You could say exactly the same things about Moms and cars.
The only reason that HTTP is "text-based" is because that's the way UNIX is designed and it derived from the UNIX community.
Had the web been designed by the embedded community, it would have been much more efficiently encoded. Likewise HTML would have just been a file format without delusions of being a "language".
Slashdot Mirror
"Demanding that foreign workers posses special skills that no US worker possesses is silly."
Well, that's the fundamental justification for the existence of the program. Without that, there's no reason why a certain class of businesses should receive special treatment.
"What makes your country is your culture (and I don't mean things like country music or apple pie here...), and if you just open your borders, you will be immediately swamped by third-worlders (like me) who want their piece of the quality-of-life pie."
This, of course, is already the story of America. Anyone who isn't a Native American is the descendant of people who wanted a better life. Those of us with families that have been here for centuries have no more right to be here than you do.
"Allowing everyone to obtain citizenship also means it's a fiscal impossibility to guarantee any level of income or health care."
Hey, I didn't know there was a guarantee of a certain level of income or health care in the US. Where do I go to get my money?
Right. Just imagine what a mess we'd be in if 100 years ago anyone could become an American citizen just by showing up .. oh wait.
It didn't take that many years to go from 0 users of HTML to where we are today despite the fact that most people didn't understand the potential at the time.
Or perhaps there could be two protocols available - one to support legacy sites and a new one specifically designed to facilitate web applications.
It would be great if you could have the most common AJAX-style transactions be available declaratively so that you could use them with little or no client-side scripting
Are the client-side data validations declarative or do you still have to use Javascript to make them happen?
"Browsing through this thread I can't help but recognise the same old arguments: "It is too hard to use for casual users", "it is no fun", "windows is good enough", "developers want to make money", "the gui is ugly" and so on. These arguments are not new, you would find the exact same arguments if you look at old slashdot stories."
Sometimes the old arguments reappear because they are still valid.
Let's face it. The time that individuals can make the big bucks from Linux is long past. Now that the early contributors have grown a bit older I'll bet some of them wonder why Linus is a multi-millionaire while they received nothing.
That's often the reason given, but in practice it's often better to spend the time and energy in the future when you actually understand those needs rather than in the present when you can only speculate.
In any case, if you have open-ended requirements you'll never know when you're finished. Refactoring can be the programming equivalent of making sure every book on the shelf is lined up within a millimeter - an exercise in compulsive behavior.
Well, of course it matters the degree to which these things are true. You'd also want to see what happens when you get away from the "poster boys" like Linux.
The point was not that open source developers should be obligated to implement everything the end users ask for, but rather that open source doesn't work the way people have been claiming for a decade.
"What measures of quality are you talking about?"
e.g. The kind that motivates developers to refactor.
The problem is that the criteria to label code "poor-quality" isn't limited to function or performance. Thus some "poor-quality" code can be less buggy and faster than the "good-quality" type.
Yes, when you sell other people's work but don't pay them for it, you can make money. The problem is that eventually developers realize that the rank-and-file contributors received nothing while a chosen few got rich. Time to move on to a new scam.
"Actually, many of us don't like the idea of ANY interest group, corporation, religious zealot, etc. forcing their lifestyle on us."
I understand. However my experience is that most people who share your opinion are quite willing to force their lifestyle on others.
It's a bit like Supreme Court Justices. There are two kinds: those who pretend they're s strict constructionist and those who don't.
Sure, the genetically superior like yourself are compelled to inhale toxins even though they know it could kill them.
Yes, you concatenate ASS, U, and MES. Did you have a point?
What suggestion?
More like Obsoletes regularly. Wait a year to update and you can be SOL.
Do women buy and drive cars?
"For the vast majority of individuals who do not have the luxury of tech support (formal or informal) you have shiny machines that start well and then decline as bit rot takes its toll."
You could say exactly the same things about Moms and cars.
The only reason that HTTP is "text-based" is because that's the way UNIX is designed and it derived from the UNIX community.
Had the web been designed by the embedded community, it would have been much more efficiently encoded. Likewise HTML would have just been a file format without delusions of being a "language".
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
I didn't realize that scientific papers are now chopped-up and delivered via twitter.
We've had consumer available, general purpose computers since the mid 70's."
Not really. The Apple II didn't come out until 1977 and didn't even have a floppy drive. Adjusted for inflation it cost about $4600.
If it were possible to make them so they were suitable for mom don't you think that might have happened by now?"
Yes, it happened about 25 years ago.