Maybe the/. editors are just noticing the implication of 477 & permissions: we no longer have control of what we own. Outsiders like the RIAA have gained control through DRM, abuse of laws, etc.
Yes. I was a DM from 1982 to 1989. I don't know which of these things is more sad about my time playing D&D:
I actually had all my players sign a release form saying that they understood that D&D was fantasy and that I was not liable for any antisocial/destructive behavior they might exhibit.
One of my players actually did descend into fantasy-world, and began bringing swords and other weapons to the games. He was asked to leave our group when he got a little too eager about acting out the scenes, weapons & damage included.
None of the parents, not even the parents of psycho-boy, ever asked about my release forms, asked about their kids, or in most cases even knew where the hell their kids were. There were some good parents, sure. But for the most part, these kids were on their own, directionless.
Despite all that, I still had fun. Since I wasn't into sports or cars, it was one of the only ways I had to interact with other guys. When that ended, my circle of friends shrank down to my wife and a friend of hers. I miss it, if for no other reason than the social interaction.
Except for the whole copy-by-reference thing. Of course the new way is better, but people who relied on the old way might be surprised by some unexpected values.
There's no reason not to switch to PHP5, everyone please do it now!
Except that "it is still not recommended for mission-critical use," right?
It seems Exim 4 was released Feb 2002. It includes IPV6, TLS, and SMTPAUTH via PAM, LDAP, MYSQL, PostgreSQL and more.
I wrote a Perl-based whitelist program. My biggest problem in the Exim vs. Postfix wars is that Exim (at the time I wrote the whitelist app) doesn't offer all the status codes that Postfix does. So my ability to bounce email with informative messages is limited in Exim. Postfix, no problem. But since you seem to know all about Exim's features, what can you tell me about the last 18 months of development? Do it offer more in the way of response codes?
The writer of the article slams Linux for not having free automated updates, enabling services in default installations, and not warning users when they are using 'root'.
SUSE gives me free updates via YAST, comes with all services disabled in the "minimal graphical install" default that I use (well, networkable services are not enabled, but things like cron are), and when I log in via root, the desktop is a red graphic with a pattern of large bombs all over it. Sound fairly perfect to me. The only other thing would be a warning at the command line for a non-GUI root login, and in fact I sorta get that, because the default for the root shell prompt is different.
...is not that the CDs will decay and become unusable. The real problem will be that the file formats of today will be replaced in 10 years, and will be a legacy file format only readable with a compatibility layer in 20 years. In 50 years, that CD will be unreadable. Of course, storing it in ISO 9660 format would offer some protection. If nothing can read the CD 50 years from now, you could at least fall back to the standard spec write your own code to read it.
Oddly enough, I note that UDF is getting pushed as a replacement to 9660. So maybe even 9660 will be outdated faster than I expect.
Will CD drives exist then? I certainly can't get an old cassette tape drive these days, and that's only been 20 years. Hmm. I think in 100 years, the decay of your CD will be only 1 of many problems.
MySQL's cached results are only of value when the result sets rarely change. This proves that it was a select only operatoin.
I'm sorry, what proves it? The fact that MySQL has a cache means that only SELECT statements are used in the test? Or are you just hoping that your assertion is enough, even though e-Week asserts otherwise? Hmm. What authority do I trust? A Slashdot random with the name "Goober" or e-Week? Hmm. How about I just download the test materials and see for myself? OK. Looking at newUser.jsp, final.jsp and other files used in the Nile testing application, I'm seeing INSERT and UPDATE statements. I guess that must be mighty inconvenient for your "proof" so I'm sure you find some explanation for it.
Specifically, it does not appear that they properly converted their queries to prepared queries.
I don't think PreparedStatement is the home run you imagine it to be. In fact, I and many others might prefer to let the dynamic SQL ride. But if you're so gung ho, grab the code and rerun the test with your changes. I look forward to the published, reproducible results.
The only conclussion that anyone who actually understands RDBMS can draw from this is that MySQL is still a slow performer and that the results are horribly biased toward MySQL.
Ooohhh. Anyone who actually understands a RDBMS would agree with you. And suddenly we're in Junior High debate class. You can't honestly think that I'm going to fall for an amateurish version of the No True Scotsman fallacy? How old are you?
Hate to burst your bubble, but that test highlights MySQL's greatest strength. Which is, what pretty much everyone openly admits. That is, readonly (select) environment.
I call bullshit. Again. According to the article, the test "stressed all facets of typical DBMS operation, including insertions, deletions, updates and searches."
Were they allowed to turn the benchmarks to target each database or did they all run the exact same code? If the answer is, they all ran the exact same code, then the test is immediatley invalidated as it ignores many, many significant features that are pretty much standard on all modern RDBMS, save only MySQL. Did they use the default tables or did they use Inno tables?
You can read it for yourself, and even download their code and run the tests yourself. The answer is that each database was custom-tuned. They used both default tables and Inno tables.
Really, Steve Jobs can decide what he wants. But it's bad PR to be that cocky. He might as well shout out, "I'm king of the hill, try to knock me off!" Here's a hint in PR, Steve: act contrite and humble even as you crush your opponents. They won't realize what you're doing until it's too late. But if you are unapologetically domineering, you'll find you get three responses:
some people capitulate
some people resent you, seethe quietly, and welcome any leader who will undermine you
some people rise up to the occasion and ready their plan of attack
Hmmm. I wonder which one is Microsoft? And which one is Real?
You're not cattering only to smart people. You're cattering only to people who have no life and are glad to spend some ludicrious time just getting your unfinished crap to work.
Why are you posting this in response to my post? In any case, I was talking about what I'd advocate for the future which has not yet come to pass. So you have no idea how it will turn out. I certainly never suggested that we should cater to people who have no life. What is that called, again? Oh yeah, a straw man: "when a person simply ignores a person's actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position."
I'm getting tired of your type spewing insults. No, it's not the users who are stupid, it's you who can't write a good program. It's that simple. Now go fsck yourself next time you feel like insulting a user.
Huh? You're sick of developers spewing insults, but two sentences later you say "go fsck yourself." It sounds like you're part of the problem.
To paraphrase you, nothing pisses me off more than someone so damned unbending and stubborn that they're willing to take a platform I believe in (Linux) and refuse to allow it to mature into something that could displace Microsoft.
I'm pretty sure even Linus isn't that religious about this. I don't think your goal for Linux can be imposed on volunteers who might have other goals.
In the past, I'd make a concession at this point and say "it's a good goal anyway." Lots of people have that goal. But nowadays, I can't even concede that. I'm really thinking that Linux needs to extend its reach to power users and stop there. I don't think Linux should try to displace Microsoft. Instead, I think it should get comfortable being used by the 25% of the population that is fairly tech-savvy. Leave the other 75% alone. They come with too much baggage.
You'd rather we just slap them around and chastise them for not picking up a C++ and learning how to program. Elitist, indeed. And ultimately self destructive.
Well now this I agree with. I think the rudeness and discourtesy some developers show others is a big problem. I just don't think the solution is to be doormats. For better or worse, the Open Source model puts developers on par with end-users. This becomes collaborative, and both sides must cooperate. If one side is rude or demanding, the other has every right to walk away. If that means a project run by assholes ends up stuck in a niche of a niche and never gains market share, so be it. If that means a project gains huge market share but deliberately draws the line at 50% of the population and says "we're fine with the smart half, but we're not going to be able to accomodate the other half" then so be it.
As usual, I think there are courteous ways to say no (such as "I'm sorry, but that's a lot of development time and we have no one to spare") and there are rude ways (such as "build it yourself noob").
Amendment 10 says not delegated to the feds nor prohibited to it by the states. Contrary to federal belief State law preempts federal law if there's a conflict.
No. By flipping a couple small words, you've made it appear that way. But the actual text is different. Here is the actual text of Amendment 10:
The power not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited
by itto the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
In other words, it's the Feds, not the States, that gets to do the prohibiting. That's a trump card, however badly worded.
Note that there are other ways a State can fight the government though. One of the big problems our governments have is that they like to pass laws but not fund them. So here in California, some doctors are fine with medicinal Marajuana, and the State is fine with that too. The gamble is that the Feds don't have the budget (or the will to endure a possible backlash) to enforce a "no pot" law. The Feds have passed such a law, and Constitutionally, they can prohibit the States from doing otherwise, but they have no cash to enforce it. So we give 'em the finger.
Which particular section of the US constitution are they referring to?
Well, I have a pocket-sized version of the Declaration of Independence and US Constitution that I carry with me. I'm flipping through it right now to see what it has to say. Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution says that Congress (at the Federal level) has the right to regulate Commerce among States. It doesn't mention what the State level can do, but it's an interesting precendent. Amendment 1 says our right to free speech cannot be abridged. Amendment 10 give power to the States to make new laws as long as they do not step on Federal law.
I guess they're going for the free speech claim. They'll have a hell of a time going up against Article 1 and Amendment 10, though. Anyone have anything more?
Will making Linux more user friendly result in it becoming less secure?
Stupidest. Question. Ever.
Look, can you honestly suggest that making things UNfriendly will somehow secure Linux? By making settings confusing and leaving things undocumented, you only serve to work against the user. Do you want defeated users deploying Linux systems? In fact, it looks like that is happening already -- the BSDs, MacOS, even Windows has fewer security problems than Linux (of course, I dispute the Windows part of it, since they didn't bother to count viruses). MacOS is the most user-friendly system in the world, and yet it has fewer issues than Linux. You might wonder about the BSDs, but at least in my experience, I don't see them getting deployed everywhere. So whatever 1337 system is in place now for Linux isn't working.
The problem is that Linux is now accessible to a huge chunk of the population, but only half that chunk of the population can slog though the proper administration of a Linux box. This has to balance out -- if we want to push Linux out to everyone, then everyone ought to be able to figure out how to secure it. If we want to limit Linux's penetration to "power users and above" then we have to be sure Linux can be secured by them. Whatever line we draw in the sand, we need to cater to those people. If that means better or more robust help systems, great. If that means more people need to volunteer to document the apps, great. If that means that we should program defensively, defaulting to the more conservative options and putting the dangerous settings under a tab labeled "advanced" then so be it. We have to accept the reality of where Linux is and tackle that head-on, not heads-in-sand.
There is an amazing, difficult battle where the Jedi are decimated, including Windu. But in an stunning display of the force, the lightsabers of the fallen jedi rise up and continue the fight, brutally wiping out the remaining enemies. The battle ends with a single survivor... Yoda.
PS: the above is not real. I just thought it was a logical use of the force that would make Yoda appear to be a badass.:)
Gimp 2.0 is a super step foreward but it is moving very slow and does not fill the need for a pure DRAWING app specifically a vector drawing app like corel draw.
Hmm. Sodipodi is a free vector-drawing program that is cross-platform and quite functional. It's not perfect or feature-filled. But what it can do is great. I made all my NetBSD logos using Sodipodi. I think Corel will have a difficult time getting even a vector drawing program to have traction on Linux (although it would certainly do better than Word Perfect).
The majority of the posts I'm seeing that are 'anti-gnome' stem from the sheer fact that all of you out there are more than just computer users; you are programmers, devleopers, engineers, students, enthusiests, etc. Gnome is not directly targeted toward you.
Oh. I see. It's not for us. OK. Hmm. I guess we shouldn't criticize.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe the /. editors are just noticing the implication of 477 & permissions: we no longer have control of what we own. Outsiders like the RIAA have gained control through DRM, abuse of laws, etc.
I hope I'm still in the running. Anyone else enter? I sure wish I could see my competition.
Yes. I was a DM from 1982 to 1989. I don't know which of these things is more sad about my time playing D&D:
Despite all that, I still had fun. Since I wasn't into sports or cars, it was one of the only ways I had to interact with other guys. When that ended, my circle of friends shrank down to my wife and a friend of hers. I miss it, if for no other reason than the social interaction.
Damien, clue me in? Links? References? Explanations?
Except for the whole copy-by-reference thing. Of course the new way is better, but people who relied on the old way might be surprised by some unexpected values.
Except that "it is still not recommended for mission-critical use," right?
I wrote a Perl-based whitelist program. My biggest problem in the Exim vs. Postfix wars is that Exim (at the time I wrote the whitelist app) doesn't offer all the status codes that Postfix does. So my ability to bounce email with informative messages is limited in Exim. Postfix, no problem. But since you seem to know all about Exim's features, what can you tell me about the last 18 months of development? Do it offer more in the way of response codes?
SUSE gives me free updates via YAST, comes with all services disabled in the "minimal graphical install" default that I use (well, networkable services are not enabled, but things like cron are), and when I log in via root, the desktop is a red graphic with a pattern of large bombs all over it. Sound fairly perfect to me. The only other thing would be a warning at the command line for a non-GUI root login, and in fact I sorta get that, because the default for the root shell prompt is different.
Stop. You're making my tummy feel all giddy inside.
...is not that the CDs will decay and become unusable. The real problem will be that the file formats of today will be replaced in 10 years, and will be a legacy file format only readable with a compatibility layer in 20 years. In 50 years, that CD will be unreadable. Of course, storing it in ISO 9660 format would offer some protection. If nothing can read the CD 50 years from now, you could at least fall back to the standard spec write your own code to read it.
Oddly enough, I note that UDF is getting pushed as a replacement to 9660. So maybe even 9660 will be outdated faster than I expect.
Will CD drives exist then? I certainly can't get an old cassette tape drive these days, and that's only been 20 years. Hmm. I think in 100 years, the decay of your CD will be only 1 of many problems.
It's sad to see you disputing evidence and tested theories with nothing but rhetoric and name-calling. Oh well. On to more productive discussions.
I'm sorry, what proves it? The fact that MySQL has a cache means that only SELECT statements are used in the test? Or are you just hoping that your assertion is enough, even though e-Week asserts otherwise? Hmm. What authority do I trust? A Slashdot random with the name "Goober" or e-Week? Hmm. How about I just download the test materials and see for myself? OK. Looking at newUser.jsp, final.jsp and other files used in the Nile testing application, I'm seeing INSERT and UPDATE statements. I guess that must be mighty inconvenient for your "proof" so I'm sure you find some explanation for it.
I don't think PreparedStatement is the home run you imagine it to be. In fact, I and many others might prefer to let the dynamic SQL ride. But if you're so gung ho, grab the code and rerun the test with your changes. I look forward to the published, reproducible results.
Ooohhh. Anyone who actually understands a RDBMS would agree with you. And suddenly we're in Junior High debate class. You can't honestly think that I'm going to fall for an amateurish version of the No True Scotsman fallacy? How old are you?
I call bullshit. Again. According to the article, the test "stressed all facets of typical DBMS operation, including insertions, deletions, updates and searches."
You can read it for yourself, and even download their code and run the tests yourself. The answer is that each database was custom-tuned. They used both default tables and Inno tables.
Yes, and if we disable Oracle's indexes or compression schemes, its performance will drop too. What a bizarre argument.
I call bullshit. In e-Week's tests, Oracle and MySQL were dead even under load.
Really, Steve Jobs can decide what he wants. But it's bad PR to be that cocky. He might as well shout out, "I'm king of the hill, try to knock me off!" Here's a hint in PR, Steve: act contrite and humble even as you crush your opponents. They won't realize what you're doing until it's too late. But if you are unapologetically domineering, you'll find you get three responses:
Hmmm. I wonder which one is Microsoft? And which one is Real?
It's pathetic that I understood that without even thinking about it.
This is Slashdot. Your advice is useless here.
Why are you posting this in response to my post? In any case, I was talking about what I'd advocate for the future which has not yet come to pass. So you have no idea how it will turn out. I certainly never suggested that we should cater to people who have no life. What is that called, again? Oh yeah, a straw man: "when a person simply ignores a person's actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position."
Huh? You're sick of developers spewing insults, but two sentences later you say "go fsck yourself." It sounds like you're part of the problem.
I'm pretty sure even Linus isn't that religious about this. I don't think your goal for Linux can be imposed on volunteers who might have other goals.
In the past, I'd make a concession at this point and say "it's a good goal anyway." Lots of people have that goal. But nowadays, I can't even concede that. I'm really thinking that Linux needs to extend its reach to power users and stop there. I don't think Linux should try to displace Microsoft. Instead, I think it should get comfortable being used by the 25% of the population that is fairly tech-savvy. Leave the other 75% alone. They come with too much baggage.
Well now this I agree with. I think the rudeness and discourtesy some developers show others is a big problem. I just don't think the solution is to be doormats. For better or worse, the Open Source model puts developers on par with end-users. This becomes collaborative, and both sides must cooperate. If one side is rude or demanding, the other has every right to walk away. If that means a project run by assholes ends up stuck in a niche of a niche and never gains market share, so be it. If that means a project gains huge market share but deliberately draws the line at 50% of the population and says "we're fine with the smart half, but we're not going to be able to accomodate the other half" then so be it.
As usual, I think there are courteous ways to say no (such as "I'm sorry, but that's a lot of development time and we have no one to spare") and there are rude ways (such as "build it yourself noob").
No. By flipping a couple small words, you've made it appear that way. But the actual text is different. Here is the actual text of Amendment 10:
In other words, it's the Feds, not the States, that gets to do the prohibiting. That's a trump card, however badly worded.
Note that there are other ways a State can fight the government though. One of the big problems our governments have is that they like to pass laws but not fund them. So here in California, some doctors are fine with medicinal Marajuana, and the State is fine with that too. The gamble is that the Feds don't have the budget (or the will to endure a possible backlash) to enforce a "no pot" law. The Feds have passed such a law, and Constitutionally, they can prohibit the States from doing otherwise, but they have no cash to enforce it. So we give 'em the finger.
Well, I have a pocket-sized version of the Declaration of Independence and US Constitution that I carry with me. I'm flipping through it right now to see what it has to say. Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution says that Congress (at the Federal level) has the right to regulate Commerce among States. It doesn't mention what the State level can do, but it's an interesting precendent. Amendment 1 says our right to free speech cannot be abridged. Amendment 10 give power to the States to make new laws as long as they do not step on Federal law.
I guess they're going for the free speech claim. They'll have a hell of a time going up against Article 1 and Amendment 10, though. Anyone have anything more?
Stupidest. Question. Ever.
Look, can you honestly suggest that making things UNfriendly will somehow secure Linux? By making settings confusing and leaving things undocumented, you only serve to work against the user. Do you want defeated users deploying Linux systems? In fact, it looks like that is happening already -- the BSDs, MacOS, even Windows has fewer security problems than Linux (of course, I dispute the Windows part of it, since they didn't bother to count viruses). MacOS is the most user-friendly system in the world, and yet it has fewer issues than Linux. You might wonder about the BSDs, but at least in my experience, I don't see them getting deployed everywhere. So whatever 1337 system is in place now for Linux isn't working.
The problem is that Linux is now accessible to a huge chunk of the population, but only half that chunk of the population can slog though the proper administration of a Linux box. This has to balance out -- if we want to push Linux out to everyone, then everyone ought to be able to figure out how to secure it. If we want to limit Linux's penetration to "power users and above" then we have to be sure Linux can be secured by them. Whatever line we draw in the sand, we need to cater to those people. If that means better or more robust help systems, great. If that means more people need to volunteer to document the apps, great. If that means that we should program defensively, defaulting to the more conservative options and putting the dangerous settings under a tab labeled "advanced" then so be it. We have to accept the reality of where Linux is and tackle that head-on, not heads-in-sand.
There is an amazing, difficult battle where the Jedi are decimated, including Windu. But in an stunning display of the force, the lightsabers of the fallen jedi rise up and continue the fight, brutally wiping out the remaining enemies. The battle ends with a single survivor... Yoda.
PS: the above is not real. I just thought it was a logical use of the force that would make Yoda appear to be a badass. :)
Hmm. Sodipodi is a free vector-drawing program that is cross-platform and quite functional. It's not perfect or feature-filled. But what it can do is great. I made all my NetBSD logos using Sodipodi. I think Corel will have a difficult time getting even a vector drawing program to have traction on Linux (although it would certainly do better than Word Perfect).
Oh. I see. It's not for us. OK. Hmm. I guess we shouldn't criticize.