"Python is being used by top notch hackers everywhere, specially there where people know something about programming, like Google."
Well, I'm glad you listed some other reasons later in your post. The fact that "top notch hackers" and Google use isn't too convincing. There's a lot of people at Google that received good grades in school and are clever at puzzles, but I don't see much evidence that Google knows more about programming than the average software company.
"I took a "GUI programming with C++" class years ago, and basically all it involved was learning how to use the Visual C++ 4.0 GUI and memorising the MFC class structure."
Sounds like another case of the myth that "C++ on Windows == MFC". MFC was convenient for certain types of applications, but for many others C++ and the Windows API was a more appropriate choice.
Older workers are not usually downsized because of obsolete skills. It's usually about higher salaries and cultural differences with the younger majority.
Of course, managers don't like to be told that their new idea was tried a few years back and failed. Experience can potentially help companies, but keeping your job is about keeping your boss happy, not necessarily about doing what's best for the company.
Actually McCain is walking a fine line between doing what he thinks is right while not making it impossible to get his party's nomination for President. Given the tricks the Bush campaign did to him in the past, when McCain says he supports the President it's 100% political.
Hey, you won the prize among hundreds of entries on Slashdot for the dumbest use of the incorrect phrase "convicted monopoly". If you actually read the document you linked to you would see at the top the phrase "Civil Action No. 98-1232 (TPJ)". I don't have to explain the definition of "Civil Action", I hope.
"This has been touched on elsewhere in this thread, but why should all the responsibility for evaluating the credibility of a statement rest on the speaker?"
We're not talking about an honest mistake, we're talking about a deliberate lie. How could anyone other than the liar be responsible for the lie?
"What I meant was that anonymous libel does not do the same harm as attributed libel, because a reasonable person wouldn't be expected to believe something an anonymous person said."
I think that's a reasonable person created in the image of your argument. If a resonable person is that suspicious, why should that person believe that the name given is the writer's real name?
In any case, there's little evidence that anonymous libel is harmless despite what a "reasonable" person might think.
"So I would say that people who write under their real name have much more responsibility to be truthful and check their facts than people who write anonymously."
There's no connection between the probability of "getting away with something" and the amount of responsibility you bear for your acts. One may be able to slander someone on Slashdot as an AC and get away without losing karma, but if there's really Karma with a capitial "K", this ploy won't protect you.
Whether he actually said it or not is not the point. The point is that he didn't make the decision. As the grandfather post said, it was the direct result of the design of the 8088.
I think most blogging is just a low-cost version of vanity publishing, which has been around for at least 100 years. Instead of paying a publisher to print material they don't think will sell, you pay your hosting service.
Where would companies like Real Networks, Sun, AOL etc be today if they couldn't suck at MS's antitrust teat. I'll bet there's a lot of companies out there that would love for MS to bundle a clone of their non-profitable product in Windows so they could get some of that unearned cash.
Ethernet - Not invented by IBM (NIBIBM) Mouse - NIBIBM GUI - NIBIBM C/C++,Java and just about every computer language in use today - NIBIBM Unix - NIBIBM Laser Printers - NIBIBM . . IBM was a symbol of the computing age. Just not in the last 20 years.
Another IBM product you never heard of is going to use open document. Anyone who uses these obscure IBM products has been drinking so deep from IBM's koolaid well, that they will never use a non-IBM product anyway. Thus the adoption of open standards will have zero impact on those customers.
Activision was sued by Atari because the founders, including David Crane, were former Atari employees who signed nondisclosure agreements.
There were dozens of companies making Atari cartridges that weren't threatened by lawsuits. As long as you didn't hire former Atari employees (or had a clean-room reverse engineering effort), you were OK.
About a year before the crash, anyone could buy a reverse-engineered Atari spec for about $20,000.
So, while there were some companies that paid licensing fees to Atari, many did not (including the company I worked for in my 2600 programming days) and that was a key reason for the game glut and the crash.
There was a lot more to the 1984 crash then the actions of Warner Communications. The market was glutted with titles, many of such low quality that picture would roll. Mattel underestimated its inventory by 100%. Coleco tried to branch out in to home computers.
What Nintendo eventually brought to the marketplace was a console system with proprietary licensing that until that time was considered illegal. You had to have permission from Ninetendo to make NES cartridges. Had Warner employed such a legal tactic, it might still be selling consoles.
"It was created to allow those who use the software to do their work in a way it should be done.."
In other words, the way you believe it should be done. God forbid that the people using the tools should apply a different criteria than yours.
"convicted illegal monopolist"
Anybody who uses the word "convicted" with respect to MS doesn't know what they're talking about. As has been stated dozens of times on Slashdot, the MS monopoly case was a civil one so the word "convicted" isn't appropriate.
"It's actually about the policy makers making broad rules base on the specific ideology that lock-in does not meet the specific needs of the individuals and organizations."
If you had said "lock-in does not meet the long-term needs" etc than while I might disagree with the ideology, I think you would have captured the ideology correctly. I doubt that those creating the rules ever argued that is was going to meet the specific needs of particular organisations in the short term.
"It's an ideology that predicts that open standards will increase competition and therefore raise the quality and lower the cost of software in the long run, while simultaneously meeting the needs of state workers and lowering the cost to the state budget in the short run."
Competition might increase if MS decided to play along and support the open standards. If not, then the remaining companies can raise their price since they no longer have to make the price artificially low due to not being compatible with Office.
The argument for raising the quality is even weaker. With MS as a competitor the others had to work that much harder to convince people to use their software. Now they can kick back and relax.
Finally, it's quite unlikely that costs will be lowered in the short run. Retraining costs will be much, much higher than the cost of the software.
"Everyone has ideology."
The problem with ideologies is that they favor faith over fact. People who have this kind of faith generally believe that they know better than everybody else and they need to force others to do what they want.
There is no need to create a rule if those who purchase products for their organisation already share the same beliefs. Obviously, the intent of the rule is substitute the rule makers judgement for the judgement of those who actually use the tools.
We can argue about the merits of the rule, but it is absurd to argue that it was created to meet the specific needs of all those who who use software within the government of Massachusetts.
Slashdot Mirror
"Jettison all those crappy old AT&T utilities and replace them with their GNU counterparts."
Yeah, what the hell does AT&T know about Unix anyway? It's not like they invented it or anything.
"Python is being used by top notch hackers everywhere, specially there where people know something about programming, like Google."
Well, I'm glad you listed some other reasons later in your post. The fact that "top notch hackers" and Google use isn't too convincing. There's a lot of people at Google that received good grades in school and are clever at puzzles, but I don't see much evidence that Google knows more about programming than the average software company.
"I took a "GUI programming with C++" class years ago, and basically all it involved was learning how to use the Visual C++ 4.0 GUI and memorising the MFC class structure."
Sounds like another case of the myth that "C++ on Windows == MFC". MFC was convenient for certain types of applications, but for many others C++ and the Windows API was a more appropriate choice.
Older workers are not usually downsized because of obsolete skills. It's usually about higher salaries and cultural differences with the younger majority.
Of course, managers don't like to be told that their new idea was tried a few years back and failed. Experience can potentially help companies, but keeping your job is about keeping your boss happy, not necessarily about doing what's best for the company.
"experience counts, but productivity counts a hell of a lot more."
Are you postulating that experience has a negative effect on productivity?
"He who doesn't learn UNIX is doomed to reinvent it. Poorly."
So you're saying Linus didn't learn UNIX?
Sure. If only they could use the Unix CLI and type "ls" instead of "dir" and "cat" instead of "print" they'd be much happier.
The fact is that most people have never used any CLI and never will.
Actually McCain is walking a fine line between doing what he thinks is right while not making it impossible to get his party's nomination for President. Given the tricks the Bush campaign did to him in the past, when McCain says he supports the President it's 100% political.
Hey, you won the prize among hundreds of entries on Slashdot for the dumbest use of the incorrect phrase "convicted monopoly". If you actually read the document you linked to you would see at the top the phrase "Civil Action No. 98-1232 (TPJ)". I don't have to explain the definition of "Civil Action", I hope.
"This has been touched on elsewhere in this thread, but why should all the responsibility for evaluating the credibility of a statement rest on the speaker?"
We're not talking about an honest mistake, we're talking about a deliberate lie. How could anyone other than the liar be responsible for the lie?
"What I meant was that anonymous libel does not do the same harm as attributed libel, because a reasonable person wouldn't be expected to believe something an anonymous person said."
I think that's a reasonable person created in the image of your argument. If a resonable person is that suspicious, why should that person believe that the name given is the writer's real name?
In any case, there's little evidence that anonymous libel is harmless despite what a "reasonable" person might think.
"So I would say that people who write under their real name have much more responsibility to be truthful and check their facts than people who write anonymously."
There's no connection between the probability of "getting away with something" and the amount of responsibility you bear for your acts. One may be able to slander someone on Slashdot as an AC and get away without losing karma, but if there's really Karma with a capitial "K", this ploy won't protect you.
Whether he actually said it or not is not the point. The point is that he didn't make the decision. As the grandfather post said, it was the direct result of the design of the 8088.
Discount coupons for MS software?
I think most blogging is just a low-cost version of vanity publishing, which has been around for at least 100 years. Instead of paying a publisher to print material they don't think will sell, you pay your hosting service.
Where would companies like Real Networks, Sun, AOL etc be today if they couldn't suck at MS's antitrust teat. I'll bet there's a lot of companies out there that would love for MS to bundle a clone of their non-profitable product in Windows so they could get some of that unearned cash.
between genes and other non-scientific measurements. We can't define intelligence, but we know how to measure it!
Maybe there's a gene that controls the length of your hand's lifeline! Then we can figure out how long you will live!
I'm not sure which things you are referring to:
Ethernet - Not invented by IBM (NIBIBM)
Mouse - NIBIBM
GUI - NIBIBM
C/C++,Java and just about every computer language in use today - NIBIBM
Unix - NIBIBM
Laser Printers - NIBIBM
.
.
IBM was a symbol of the computing age. Just not in the last 20 years.
Another IBM product you never heard of is going to use open document. Anyone who uses these obscure IBM products has been drinking so deep from IBM's koolaid well, that they will never use a non-IBM product anyway. Thus the adoption of open standards will have zero impact on those customers.
When the 1984 crash happened I was a 2600 programmer. Everybody I knew working on games lost their jobs regardless of platform.
Activision was sued by Atari because the founders, including David Crane, were former Atari employees who signed nondisclosure agreements.
There were dozens of companies making Atari cartridges that weren't threatened by lawsuits. As long as you didn't hire former Atari employees (or had a clean-room reverse engineering effort), you were OK.
About a year before the crash, anyone could buy a reverse-engineered Atari spec for about $20,000.
So, while there were some companies that paid licensing fees to Atari, many did not (including the company I worked for in my 2600 programming days) and that was a key reason for the game glut and the crash.
There was a lot more to the 1984 crash then the actions of Warner Communications. The market was glutted with titles, many of such low quality that picture would roll. Mattel underestimated its inventory by 100%. Coleco tried to branch out in to home computers.
What Nintendo eventually brought to the marketplace was a console system with proprietary licensing that until that time was considered illegal. You had to have permission from Ninetendo to make NES cartridges. Had Warner employed such a legal tactic, it might still be selling consoles.
"It was created to allow those who use the software to do their work in a way it should be done.."
In other words, the way you believe it should be done. God forbid that the people using the tools should apply a different criteria than yours.
"convicted illegal monopolist"
Anybody who uses the word "convicted" with respect to MS doesn't know what they're talking about. As has been stated dozens of times on Slashdot, the MS monopoly case was a civil one so the word "convicted" isn't appropriate.
"It's actually about the policy makers making broad rules base on the specific ideology that lock-in does not meet the specific needs of the individuals and organizations."
If you had said "lock-in does not meet the long-term needs" etc than while I might disagree with the ideology, I think you would have captured the ideology correctly. I doubt that those creating the rules ever argued that is was going to meet the specific needs of particular organisations in the short term.
"It's an ideology that predicts that open standards will increase competition and therefore raise the quality and lower the cost of software in the long run, while simultaneously meeting the needs of state workers and lowering the cost to the state budget in the short run."
Competition might increase if MS decided to play along and support the open standards. If not, then the remaining companies can raise their price since they no longer have to make the price artificially low due to not being compatible with Office.
The argument for raising the quality is even weaker. With MS as a competitor the others had to work that much harder to convince people to use their software. Now they can kick back and relax.
Finally, it's quite unlikely that costs will be lowered in the short run. Retraining costs will be much, much higher than the cost of the software.
"Everyone has ideology."
The problem with ideologies is that they favor faith over fact. People who have this kind of faith generally believe that they know better than everybody else and they need to force others to do what they want.
There is no need to create a rule if those who purchase products for their organisation already share the same beliefs. Obviously, the intent of the rule is substitute the rule makers judgement for the judgement of those who actually use the tools.
We can argue about the merits of the rule, but it is absurd to argue that it was created to meet the specific needs of all those who who use software within the government of Massachusetts.