ATMs etc were working long before "The Internet" was being used for that purpose. In fact, in the old days electronic transactions were far more secure since most unauthorized persons couldn't get physical access to the network.
"Everyone understands that the Internet is crucial for the functioning of modern economies, societies, and even governments, and everyone has an interest in seeing that it is secure and reliable."
The Internet has been in wide-spread use for about 10 years. It isn't crucial and if disappeared tomorrow, economies, societies, and governments would be able to function quite nicely without it.
Having said that, I don't think the US should have too much control over it unless they intend to disconnect the US portion from the rest of the world.
OK. So what's the strong marketing message that MS is delivering in "carefully determined verticals"? Good marketing isn't just about spending a lot of money.
I was talking about percentages, not dollar amounts. Anti-MS folks love to talk about MS as a big marketing company, but actually their marketing is pretty weak no matter how much they spend on it.
"If any of them were to support Linux on an equal footing with Windows, in catalogs, on the front of the websites, etc, the would risk losing their OEM license or getting their rates changed"
Sorry, but this old excuse just won't fly any more. MS has already been threatened by the government since the monopoly case for doing much less than what you suggest. At this point they'd probably be fined over a billion for pulling that sort of stunt.
When you look at the kind of settlements they've been paying out the last few years it's clear they don't have the stomach for going that far.
I suspect that MS spends a pretty small percentage on marketing. Apple can get marketing quite cheap through Job's reality distortion field effect on the media.
Believing that it's all about marketing is to be in denial.
I think if you talk to programmers who are older than your professors you might be surprised to find how much support there is for GUIs.
This is because they were around in an era when Unix was just one of many CLI based OS's and they may have had to change which one they used quite often. This was particularly true in embedded system development because most of it was performed on development systems that were sold by the chip maker. Each of these systems had their own CLI and there was no long term value in memorizing a lot of commands since you might never use them again.
So the GUIs were welcomed since you could easily browse through a menu rather than trying to remember an obscure command (Unix of course having the most obscure commands of all).
"No, your argument is a misrepresentation of what I said. I'm not claiming that ID is acceptable because macro-evolution isn't verifiable, I'm claiming that neither should be taught as fact."
The problem is that there is no scientific theory that can absolutly proven true. That fact doesn't mean that all theories are equally valid or useful.
It's ironic that although ID is clearly being pushed by religious people, it could be 100% true in a godless universe with highly advanced aliens (Tom Cruise take note).
In addition, if evolution were proven 100% false it wouldn't be evidence that ID were true.
It seems fitting to me that those that are willing to accept a theory entirely without evidence are doing so under the flawed logic that it would prove their religious beliefs to be true.
Gods are called supernatural precisely because they are beyond natural law.
I guess faith is no longer enough, scientific support is required these days. Or perhaps I'm wrong on this last point, St. Thomas had to have proof too.
Then Sun should sue MS for another antitrust violation because C# isn't compatible with Java. Given the courts' history of gulliblity where Java is concerned they might actually win.
After all, the courts believed that J++ programmers were deceived into thinking their applications would be cross-platform - an argument only slightly less credible than thinking C# programmers believe their applications are cross-platform.
Since MS settled the case it seems likely that they did violate the terms of the agreement. MS did not however break the cross-platform capability of Java but rather created a version of Java (Visual J++)that was more useful to Windows programmers.
I doubt that any serious developer using J++ expected the resulting code to be platform independent. The fact is that there really wasn't much of a market for desktop applications on Unix at the time J++ was introduced so most J++ users couldn't care less about portability.
Many of the features from J++ were adopted by C#, if the purpose of these features was to break Java compatability, why put them in C#?
Actually, it was Sun who undermined it. They were more interested in the WORE fantasy then in the adoption of the language. If they hadn't sued MS, Java would probably have been second only to VB as the language of choice on Windows, C# would not exist, and the number of desktop Java apps would probably be an order of magnitude higher.
I believe that Sun wanted Java to be somewhat slow on all systems equally so they could sell Java processors that accelerated Java applications to native speeds. Having a Java implementation that optomized performance on Windows threatened that plan. Thus the suit.
"However, the codebase of Windows XP is from the 21st century, particularly since they've released SP2 in the last year, which contained significant upgrades to all of Windows."
Sure, MS dumped all the legacy code and COM components they used in Win2k and earlier and wrote all new code for Windows XP.
"A HANDLE can have any number of methods, some underlying implementations behind handles have different methods and inherit from others. That's all a form of OO; just not the kind of OO that everybody thinks of when they hear OO."
A handle is really just a pointer. I don't see anything OO about it. In any case, the issue at hand is the value of writing OO style source code using C instead of C++. Surely one can implement a run-time environment that has object-oriented features in C using only K&R style code, but that says nothing about the value of writing C code in an object-oriented style.
"Gtk+ and by extension Gnome is object oriented and always have been. So are parts of Win32."
I don't know about Gtk+ and Gnome, but I believe Win32 is only object-oriented it the sense that your application can create display objects at run-time that are subclassed from standard Windows display objects. That's not the same as saying that the Win32 source code is C written in an object-oriented manner.
"It is very possible to do object orientation in C."
Yes, you can write object-oriented code in C or even assembly language, but the set of problems that are best solved using that approach are very small. The vast majority of C-only programs are not object-oriented and are probably better off that way.
"The earliest C++ compilers took C++ code and turned it into C, then passed it into a C compiler."
Yes, early C++ programs were compiled this way. The reason they went to all that trouble was because they believed that C was inadequate for solving large complex problems, not because they didn't believe an OO approach was possible in C.
"Microsoft claims that newer versions of MS Office can import older MS Office files, but they don't do so successfully 100% of the time."
Actually, I'm not sure if MS actually makes such a claim, but it has nothing to do with the claims that OpenOffice makes.
"Incidentally, I've had quite a few users come to me with damaged Word documents that no version of Microsoft Office could open - but which I successfully salvaged using OpenOffice. "
Great, if I have damaged Word documents, I'll keep OpenOffice in mind, if they're undamaged I'll use Word.
"The fact that OO is unable to import and export undocumented file types protected by patents and other intellectual property is not their fault."
You're right, but the fact that they claim they can import and export MS Office files and don't sucessfully is 100% their own fault. Nobody is forcing them to make these claims.
"but go to a public place and shout "Linux is so cool!" and note all the blank stares you get"
Well, first of all OS's are not considered cool by the general public. Add to this that Linux is a clone of an 70's OS and it becomes even less cool. You might as well shout out "bellbottoms and long sideburns are so cool".
IBM spokesperson: There were 10 million desktops running Linux in 2004.
Business week: All at the same time?
IBM spokesperson: Well, no. We were going to take 5 million PCs out of stock and load Linux on them before installing Windows, but then we decided to load Linux on a single PC and move it from desktop to desktop. It was much cheaper.
"Generally that means working hard and looking out for the company in that this generally results in raises and promotions for you in the long run."
You're generally correct, but it's also important to keep in mind that looking out for the company isn't always the same as looking out for your managment and the latter is much more important to keeping your job than the former.
Your post also disputes the belief of some Slashdotters that only the incompetent get laid off, so they are safe (does any Slashdotter believe that he/she is anything less than a star performer?)
There should be a required course at universities that warns students of the dangers of becoming too committed to your job. I can just imagine the howl that would shortly ensue from the corporate community if such a policy were put in place.
"A pain in the ass to the IT department is an increased cost to the business."
Sure, and like all costs it has to be balanced against what it buys. But cost-cutting can't be the focus of your business if you want to survive.
"I don't see how administering thousands of PCs could ever be better than administering a few dozen Citrix servers."
Well, again, you're focusing on the difficulty of the task rather than the value of the task. The lowest cost solution from an IT perspective is to stop supporting users altogether and firing the IT staff. An extreme example that nevertheless illustrates the point that an IT staff has value and that value is worth paying for as long as it helps people be more productive.
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"You obviously have no idea what you are talking about...."
So obvious that you didn't bore us with an argument to support your position.
ATMs etc were working long before "The Internet" was being used for that purpose. In fact, in the old days electronic transactions were far more secure since most unauthorized persons couldn't get physical access to the network.
"Everyone understands that the Internet is crucial for the functioning of modern economies, societies, and even governments, and everyone has an interest in seeing that it is secure and reliable."
The Internet has been in wide-spread use for about 10 years. It isn't crucial and if disappeared tomorrow, economies, societies, and governments would be able to function quite nicely without it.
Having said that, I don't think the US should have too much control over it unless they intend to disconnect the US portion from the rest of the world.
OK. So what's the strong marketing message that MS is delivering in "carefully determined verticals"? Good marketing isn't just about spending a lot of money.
I was talking about percentages, not dollar amounts. Anti-MS folks love to talk about MS as a big marketing company, but actually their marketing is pretty weak no matter how much they spend on it.
"If any of them were to support Linux on an equal footing with Windows, in catalogs, on the front of the websites, etc, the would risk losing their OEM license or getting their rates changed"
Sorry, but this old excuse just won't fly any more. MS has already been threatened by the government since the monopoly case for doing much less than what you suggest. At this point they'd probably be fined over a billion for pulling that sort of stunt.
When you look at the kind of settlements they've been paying out the last few years it's clear they don't have the stomach for going that far.
I suspect that MS spends a pretty small percentage on marketing. Apple can get marketing quite cheap through Job's reality distortion field effect on the media.
Believing that it's all about marketing is to be in denial.
I think if you talk to programmers who are older than your professors you might be surprised to find how much support there is for GUIs.
This is because they were around in an era when Unix was just one of many CLI based OS's and they may have had to change which one they used quite often. This was particularly true in embedded system development because most of it was performed on development systems that were sold by the chip maker. Each of these systems had their own CLI and there was no long term value in memorizing a lot of commands since you might never use them again.
So the GUIs were welcomed since you could easily browse through a menu rather than trying to remember an obscure command (Unix of course having the most obscure commands of all).
"No, your argument is a misrepresentation of what I said. I'm not claiming that ID is acceptable because macro-evolution isn't verifiable, I'm claiming that neither should be taught as fact."
The problem is that there is no scientific theory that can absolutly proven true. That fact doesn't mean that all theories are equally valid or useful.
It's ironic that although ID is clearly being pushed by religious people, it could be 100% true in a godless universe with highly advanced aliens (Tom Cruise take note).
In addition, if evolution were proven 100% false it wouldn't be evidence that ID were true.
It seems fitting to me that those that are willing to accept a theory entirely without evidence are doing so under the flawed logic that it would prove their religious beliefs to be true.
Gods are called supernatural precisely because they are beyond natural law.
I guess faith is no longer enough, scientific support is required these days. Or perhaps I'm wrong on this last point, St. Thomas had to have proof too.
Then Sun should sue MS for another antitrust violation because C# isn't compatible with Java. Given the courts' history of gulliblity where Java is concerned they might actually win.
After all, the courts believed that J++ programmers were deceived into thinking their applications would be cross-platform - an argument only slightly less credible than thinking C# programmers believe their applications are cross-platform.
Since MS settled the case it seems likely that they did violate the terms of the agreement. MS did not however break the cross-platform capability of Java but rather created a version of Java (Visual J++)that was more useful to Windows programmers.
I doubt that any serious developer using J++ expected the resulting code to be platform independent. The fact is that there really wasn't much of a market for desktop applications on Unix at the time J++ was introduced so most J++ users couldn't care less about portability.
Many of the features from J++ were adopted by C#, if the purpose of these features was to break Java compatability, why put them in C#?
In practice, checked exceptions have turned out to be a bad idea. That's why no languages have followed Java's example.
Actually, it was Sun who undermined it. They were more interested in the WORE fantasy then in the adoption of the language. If they hadn't sued MS, Java would probably have been second only to VB as the language of choice on Windows, C# would not exist, and the number of desktop Java apps would probably be an order of magnitude higher.
I believe that Sun wanted Java to be somewhat slow on all systems equally so they could sell Java processors that accelerated Java applications to native speeds. Having a Java implementation that optomized performance on Windows threatened that plan. Thus the suit.
"a lot of the moderators and a loud cross-section of readers are vehemently pro-Microsoft.."
If you mean "a lot" as in "the vast minority", I agree with you.
I suggest you tally-up the pro and anti MS moderation for a week and get back to us.
"However, the codebase of Windows XP is from the 21st century, particularly since they've released SP2 in the last year, which contained significant upgrades to all of Windows."
Sure, MS dumped all the legacy code and COM components they used in Win2k and earlier and wrote all new code for Windows XP.
"A HANDLE can have any number of methods, some underlying implementations behind handles have different methods and inherit from others. That's all a form of OO; just not the kind of OO that everybody thinks of when they hear OO."
A handle is really just a pointer. I don't see anything OO about it. In any case, the issue at hand is the value of writing OO style source code using C instead of C++. Surely one can implement a run-time environment that has object-oriented features in C using only K&R style code, but that says nothing about the value of writing C code in an object-oriented style.
"Gtk+ and by extension Gnome is object oriented and always have been. So are parts of Win32."
I don't know about Gtk+ and Gnome, but I believe Win32 is only object-oriented it the sense that your application can create display objects at run-time that are subclassed from standard Windows display objects. That's not the same as saying that the Win32 source code is C written in an object-oriented manner.
"It is very possible to do object orientation in C."
Yes, you can write object-oriented code in C or even assembly language, but the set of problems that are best solved using that approach are very small. The vast majority of C-only programs are not object-oriented and are probably better off that way.
"The earliest C++ compilers took C++ code and turned it into C, then passed it into a C compiler."
Yes, early C++ programs were compiled this way. The reason they went to all that trouble was because they believed that C was inadequate for solving large complex problems, not because they didn't believe an OO approach was possible in C.
You're right about the Win32 API having a C interface, but you can certainly use C++ for Windows applications without using MFC.
"Microsoft claims that newer versions of MS Office can import older MS Office files, but they don't do so successfully 100% of the time."
Actually, I'm not sure if MS actually makes such a claim, but it has nothing to do with the claims that OpenOffice makes.
"Incidentally, I've had quite a few users come to me with damaged Word documents that no version of Microsoft Office could open - but which I successfully salvaged using OpenOffice. "
Great, if I have damaged Word documents, I'll keep OpenOffice in mind, if they're undamaged I'll use Word.
"The fact that OO is unable to import and export undocumented file types protected by patents and other intellectual property is not their fault."
You're right, but the fact that they claim they can import and export MS Office files and don't sucessfully is 100% their own fault. Nobody is forcing them to make these claims.
"but go to a public place and shout "Linux is so cool!" and note all the blank stares you get"
Well, first of all OS's are not considered cool by the general public. Add to this that Linux is a clone of an 70's OS and it becomes even less cool. You might as well shout out "bellbottoms and long sideburns are so cool".
IBM spokesperson: There were 10 million desktops running Linux in 2004.
Business week: All at the same time?
IBM spokesperson: Well, no. We were going to take 5 million PCs out of stock and load Linux on them before installing Windows, but then we decided to load Linux on a single PC and move it from desktop to desktop. It was much cheaper.
"Generally that means working hard and looking out for the company in that this generally results in raises and promotions for you in the long run."
You're generally correct, but it's also important to keep in mind that looking out for the company isn't always the same as looking out for your managment and the latter is much more important to keeping your job than the former.
Your post also disputes the belief of some Slashdotters that only the incompetent get laid off, so they are safe (does any Slashdotter believe that he/she is anything less than a star performer?)
There should be a required course at universities that warns students of the dangers of becoming too committed to your job. I can just imagine the howl that would shortly ensue from the corporate community if such a policy were put in place.
"A pain in the ass to the IT department is an increased cost to the business."
Sure, and like all costs it has to be balanced against what it buys. But cost-cutting can't be the focus of your business if you want to survive.
"I don't see how administering thousands of PCs could ever be better than administering a few dozen Citrix servers."
Well, again, you're focusing on the difficulty of the task rather than the value of the task. The lowest cost solution from an IT perspective is to stop supporting users altogether and firing the IT staff. An extreme example that nevertheless illustrates the point that an IT staff has value and that value is worth paying for as long as it helps people be more productive.