I'm used every milestone release since M10 or so, and I have found them to be mostly stable. I suspect that I have experienced something like 20 crashes with Mozilla since M10 - that's a tiny number for pre-release software. What's more, the number of crashes I have experienced since M14 or so is a tiny fraction of that - perhaps 3 or 4?
Obviously, YMMV, but for me, Mozilla is already more stable that NN4, and really really close to IE stability - all this in pre-release software!
AFAIK, Netscape Navigator 4 has a pretty poor implementation of CSS and JavaScripting/DHTML. IE is probably the best out right now, assuming you ignore the fact that it renders incorrect HTML, and is loaded with proprietary extensions (like the new HTML components crap.)
Mozilla is currently more compliant with the spec than IE, but it's still pre-release quality. There are a few things that it doesn't do yet, but rest assured they will come along soon - the power of open source is immense.
Thus, your comment about Mozilla clueing in about DHTML is pretty much incorrect - Mozilla is consistently shown to have the most compliant implementation available - even in pre-release form.
Microsoft actually stole/purchased IE from Spyglass originally - another piece in the patchwork quilt of MS 'innovations'.
Second, as to displaying poorly-written HTML 'correctly', I think that statement has no real meaning. A browser should not correct for people's fuckups that deviate from the standard. This deviation is what got us into the entire mess of browser incompatibilities in the first place. Lauding IE for deviance is not admirable.
Finally, you state that IE is widely supported. That's hardly true; IE doesn't run on any unix except Solaris (and I have heard varying reports regarding the quality of the Solaris implementation.) Netscape runs on any platform IE runs on, and then some. Mozilla is slated to do the same; and lynx most likely has all the browsers beat. In short, IE is among the least-supported browsers. It only really runs well on Win32 and Mac (And ironically, better on the Mac too.)
Sure, the OS has to be GPL, but that doesn't mean that the development tools, libraries, and drivers for the thing have to be.
Indrema can easily make money by licensing special development kits (likely packaged as RPMs) that turn a standard Linux box (with the right hardware) into an Indrema development workstation. They have to give the OS and any kernel patches away, sure, but don't expect to see libraries and documentation for free. Those will cost an arm and a leg, and rightfully so. It's not easy to put together a gaming platform like this.
In short, just because they use Linux, doesn't mean they need to GPL everything.
Something I think many people, benchmarkers included, forget is that the drivers are important too. What I mean is, if I am going to use a piece of hardware/RDBMS/etc... then what drivers I can use with it are going to be an integral part of my overall experience with the product.
If one DBMS/3D Card has better drivers, even though it is "slower in theory", then that means that my overall experience will be a better one than the "theoretically faster, but with crappier drivers" product.
What does this mean? Trying to equalize products on drivers is often an exercise in finding which product has the most tuned driver. IN the case of Postgres, it appears their ODBC driver is tuned much better than the others. However, very few people I know use ODBC drivers for MySQL, and not many use them for Oracle either. They all use the native drivers. Thus, this benchmark doesn't mean anything to them, because a non-real-world situation was benchmarked.
I wish people would perform real-world benchmarks: i.e., run what people would actually run. That's one thing that I really like about the gamer-oriented hardware review sites. They post a bunch of meaningless BusinessMark2000 and AppMark2k scores, but they also go in and show you how fast the actual games will play on the hardware. That is CRUCIAL to my purchasing decisions. RDBMS vendors should benchmark one database with its best-performing driver vs. another database with its bets performing driver. Then we could really get an inkling of an idea as to how the thing will really perform in the field.
Testing with the same drivers only looks fair; in reality, as in this Postgres benchmark, it was likely the deciding factor to making Postgres "trounce" the competition.
This isn't surprising - everything I have ever read/seen/experienced about MySQL says that it's a pretty fast and simple database for smaller applications, but isn't very scalable (both in terms of features and performance).
I am quite surprised that the Postgres results are almost 3 times that of proprietary databases. That seems kind of fishy - surely the big proprietary databases aren't THAT slow.
But either way, it confirms what lots of people already knew: MySQL is a nice, simple fast database for smaller applications. But for larger stuff, there are better RDBMS' out there.
The masqueradiong/NAT prohibiting clauses are mostly intended to ensure that the service provider can't be liable for running your network. If you do something in trying to set up a IPMasq/NAT LAN behind the cable modem, and find out that you can't get it to work, they don't want to be in the position to have to support your setup. To do so would be unreasonable. This way, when you set up masq/NAT and can't get it to work, crying to @Home will only get you a big "See? It's prohibited by the TOS."
I'm sure there is also a motivation to try and get people to pay for extra IPs, but I suspect that support issues are the main motivation.
This guy's argument is based on a fallacy: that the bugs in one distribution, or in a collection of distributions, imply that ALL distributions are insecure.
You can't look at a single Linux distribution with exploits and say "See, Linux is insecure!" You have to look at ALL of them. Furthermore, you can't simply add up the number of bugs in all Linux distros. There are shared bugs there, because there are shared software components.
What this guy is doing is sort of like comparing a single bad apple to a whole box of good oranges. It's just plain wrong.
Please refer me to a URL that is standards compliant that doesn't work in Mozilla.
Mind you, I expect a few problems since it is still alpha/beta/unreleased quality code. But you make it sound like you haven't used a modern (ie, M16 or later) build of the thing.
Old Netscape 4.x, yes it had lots of those problems. But the new, modern Mozilla builds just work so well. Every page I had developed that didn't work in NN4 but did in IE, worked fine in Mozilla. EVERY ONE.
As for JavaScript, of course some of the Microsoft hacks like innerHTML aren't going to work in Mozilla (though I did see a mention of a relatively simple JavaScript snippet that simulated innerHTML well enough that most scripts could be compatible with minimal effort, and a rumor that this might be included by default.)
But write some 100% standards compliant code, use it with a modern Mozilla build, and you'll find that it works.
As for rendering a page like IE does, why should it? There are standards, and there are some elements of the standard that are open to vendor interpretation. But why should a browser emulate something that doesn't follow the standard, especially when the stated goal is to be 100% standards compliant?
Folks, the browser wars are not over. Microsoft may be the leader now, but once Mozilla is complete (only a few more months to go!) then things are going to change. Sure lots of avid Windows Netscape fans will rejoice with the newe browser, and sure a lot of Mac fans will use it, and you can be certain that a lot of the Unix crowd will be afire. But what's the real reason Mozilla is going to save the web from being dominated by Microsoft?
2 things actually: embedded apps, and AOL.
The embedded space is only going to get bigger, and it needs a small, stable, fast, and standards-compliant browser. Mozilla can deliver on those promises. I really think we are going to see that the embedded browser makers will flock to using Mozilla, because it's so well done. I know if I were designing a console or a web pad, Mozilla would be my first choice.
But the real story here is AOL - they are the largest ISP in the world. They bought Netscape for a reason; they wanted to have the best browser available for their customers, without having to be tied to another vendor (who is a competitor, even!). When AOL includes Netscape in their client, the tide will turn. Suddenly there's another 22 million users you have to take into account. That comfortable, "lazy" approach of desinging for the IE extensions just won't cut it anymore.
I really don't understand the motivation behind using a smaller screen. IMO the screen is already as small as it can be without sacrificing usability; I can't imagine shirnking it would make the thing better. I really hope they just resized the screen, making everything smaller. Reducing the resolution of the thing would be silly, IMO.
I guess they are trying to compete with Handspring on cost, but I think they missed the boat. These things look ugly, have smaller screens, and are only marginally better than entry level Visor (I understand the M100 has more RAM). We're supposed to think its that much better?
I really think that one of the reasons that the Perl modules are SO useful is due to the lack of strong typing ala Java.
A PERFECT example of this is the DBI library. In Perl, it's simple. You can even do
($id, $firstname, $lastname) = $sth->fetch_row();
In Java, with the JDBC, you have to do this:
(assuming rs is a ResultSet object) int id = rs.getInteger(1); String firstname = rs.getString(2); String lastname = rs.getString(3);
(forgive the syntax if it isn't 100% correct; you should be able to understand the point though.)
The point? Because of Perl's lack of strong typing, it's a hell of a lot simpler to get what I need done: extract a userid, first and last name from a database.
Lots of other modules are like this as well. The result? A looseky bound language that makes it really simple to put different modules together to get something done. In my years of experience in using C++, this is pretty difficult to do: everyone does the data storage differently, leading to a variety of problems. This is still true in Java, but to a much lesser degree.
This is why Perl will never be burdened with strong typing.
I don't think I could stomach a series with The Lone Gunmen.
They are fake geeks, spouting off some half-baked lines that sound just real enough to fool the average Joe into thinking they are the real deal.
X-Files' problem is that the show is built around the mystery surrounding the conspiracy. That's the best part of the show, but also it's biggest problem: it is in the studio's best interest to keep the show going (thus, make relatively few relevant episodes to the real story), but the fans want to see more of the "real" episodes.
You end up with a show that has two distinct sides: "conspiracy" episodes, and the "x-file" episodes. I find the x-file episodes boring, because 1) they don't matter in the long-run, and 2) they are frequently silly/inane (witness that rediclous FPS episode, or the sad, sad, sad end-of-last-season episode involving Scully and Mulder being the subject of a Tea Leoni and Gary Shandling movie). There are a few exceptions (I think this season's baseball-loving alien was one of the show's best ever) but all in all, the conspiracy episodes are the only ones worth watching. Too bad those only air during sweeps, and then only a total of 4 or 5 this year.
Expect to see Mulder during each of the major sweeps seasons this year, and the rest of the season to just suck.
It will be sad to see the X Files die this, the most horrible of deaths.
Theatres should just make and annoucement for the audience to silence there cell phones and pagers. The main reason the occasional phone rings is that people forget to turn them off not because they are aspholes.
They do make announcements. Those silly little fake-trailers you watch before the movie always say "Enjoy our popcorn - please silence pagers and phones."
As for I need to get a call, well, don't go to a movie then. It's that simple.
By far the most annoying place for mobile phones is the restaurant though. I find it incredibly rude to sit at a table and eat while someone else at the table yaks on the phone. At least get up and go outside, damnit.
Sounds good - not for health reasons, but because they are *irritating* in cinemas, churches, anywhere really....
I wish more places would install Cellular Firewalls like this one. I think every theatre should have one - if you want to make a call, go outside dammit.
XEmacs is a particularly bad offender. I can cut data from one program fine. When I go to XEmacs, and I press paste, I don't get the data I cut. I instead get the last thing I cut and pasted in XEmacs. I have to click the middle mouse button (which executes a function that I don't know about) to get the data in.
Every time I try to move data between apps, I'm stick clicking middle buttons, right buttons, hitting paste, Ctrl+V. Usually one combination of those works, but it's far from "works fine."
To some Extent, GNOME and KDE are helping to solve the problem, but IMO it's the wrong approach.
We really need a more sensible GUI system; getting an app up and running shouldn't be this difficult; sadly, all the futzing with Xresources and stuff is all too real.
One thing I think a replacement GUI toolkit needs is a standard window manager with standard widgets. This is probably the biggest barrier to most people ever accepting Unix as their desktop (even technical people where I work dislike X, because every program looks, feels, and works differently.)
Furthermore, a revised GUI system needs to recognize that today's clients are high-powered machines, not dumb monitor+keyboard+terminals. It need to let the client do most of the processing. It also needs to have working functionality for basic concepts like the clipboard (cutting and pasting between X apps is just silly....which cut buffer do I use?!?)
I hope Berlin truly improves upon the ideas presented in MSWindows/Aqua to deliver a new GUI system that is usable. Making any concessions to X for (compatibility) would be such a disappointment.
What Corel really needs to do is code the apps NATIVELY, and then use an emulation/porting library/compatibility layer to port to Windows.
Why? It's clear that they can't break the Windows lock on office-type software. Thus, they need to try and make the Linux software a priority. Using libwine (or even running it hosted under Wine, wich is what I heard Corel Office does) is just unacceptable. It's inherently buggy, not because Wine sucks, but because it's an ENRMOUS task to re-implement the huge and muddled Win32 library.
If Corel would simply junk the existing code and rewrite it to use QT/KDE or GTK/GNOME, they'd be a lot better off. It doesn't make sense to focus your efforts on an emulated/compaitibility mode-enabled pieces of software.
So I say to Corel: focus on Linux and provide compatibility to Windows - you'll have a lot better product!
Netscape did this quite a lot years ago: the introduction of cookies, numerous tags like and all the stuff.
Nobody seemed to cry "you're not standards compliant" then; instead, they hailed Netscape for their "innovation" (now a tainted word after Microsoft abused it so.)
The thing is, both companies have always shirked the standards bodies, if for no other reason than they are slow. The Web moves fast, especially web technology. In just the past year I've learned or been exposed to at least 7 new web-development technologies/frameworks. I can't think of another industry that even comes close in terms of speed.
I believe it is wrong to shrug off the standards bodies until you have already implemeneted/forced your standard on the world. But we aren't going to change that corporate mindset (at least, not until we get rid of the single-vendor dominance of web browsers.)
I don't support Microsoft's actions (in fact, I am ideologically opposed to using IE because I detest their behavior surrounding it so much) but I do think we should remember that Netscape did this too; they aren't the innocent here. And sadly enough, they will have to continue to do it in order to win market share back. A pure standards compliant browser just isn't enough to make it these days, I'm afraid.
You state that most Windows software is made with VC++, not Delphi. Then later on you say that you don't want the Windows software mindset to creep into Linux by having Delphi programmers migrate to the platform. However, The "style that they developed on Windows" that you speak of is therefore from the VC++ programmers, not the Delphi ones.
Have you ever actually used an app programmed with Delphi? I've found them to be cleaner since the OO libraries are much simpler. I've found them to be less intrusive on the system, and in general, better behaved.
If you read the web-site, you'll see this also happens to double as a promotional stunt for the guy's wife, Stephanie Fix.
This is a bait and switch tactic folks. Musicians shouldn't have to rename their music to look like popular artists' work to get it out there. It's just unethical.
There's some FUD going on in here - we need to clear some things up.
Kylix is going to be a big help to a lot of Windows-only shops that are now looking to migrate their development to Linux. Imagine; spend a few days modifying your app, and now it works on Linux. Of course, that assumed that you haven't used any COM stuff, but there are a LOT of apps that don't. Besides, in the Windows community, database access is one of the major reasons to use COM anyways. Sounds like Kylix/Delphi 6 will have that covered with the new database library. Exciting stuff.
Second, some Slashdotters are concerned about being able to only compile stuff with non-free tools. While it is true that you will have to have a copy of Kylix to compile stuff for it, I don't really see why this is an objection: lots and lots of commercial vendors are now going to be shipping stuff for Linux. This is another way to accelerate that. Perhaps some Free Software vendors can get some good usage out of it too. Who knows. I don't understand the logic behind complaining about havign more than one compiler, as one Slashdotter did. We have more than one everything else (soon, more than one kernel even.) Competition is good, right?
On a side note, what is an SKU? I haven't heard that term before, and it's use in the article stumps me. What does it mean, especially in the author's context?
Some of the/. posts complain about it being a Software patch to fix the Handspring problem. This is no surprise why?
Palm has announced a fix for their affected units which requires flashing the Palm. This is a software upgrade. They aren't replacing units.
Handspring has no flash memory. Instead, the OS is loaded into DRAM like everything else. Why? So that they can easily issue software patches to people that don't require flashing! Software patching to fix something like this is not only what Palm is doing, but also, one of the reasons why Handspring went with their design in the first place.
There's absolutely no reason to complain that Handspring sucks because you have to software patch for this problem, and the patch will be coming out in July (July starts tomorrow people.)
As for the Spriongboard modules some posters complained about, ya it sucks that relatively few have come out yet, but that was mostly because of the hardware partners overcommiting themselves. Handspring was left out to dry. Not to fear; for those of us paying attention to PC Expo, we know that a whole slew of modules were shown, and are slated for release Real Soon Now (TM).
So, don't worry, Handspring owners. This software patch to fix a bug is BY DESIGN how Handspring intended this to work.
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Your comment about stability is puzzling.
I'm used every milestone release since M10 or so, and I have found them to be mostly stable. I suspect that I have experienced something like 20 crashes with Mozilla since M10 - that's a tiny number for pre-release software. What's more, the number of crashes I have experienced since M14 or so is a tiny fraction of that - perhaps 3 or 4?
Obviously, YMMV, but for me, Mozilla is already more stable that NN4, and really really close to IE stability - all this in pre-release software!
AFAIK, Netscape Navigator 4 has a pretty poor implementation of CSS and JavaScripting/DHTML. IE is probably the best out right now, assuming you ignore the fact that it renders incorrect HTML, and is loaded with proprietary extensions (like the new HTML components crap.)
Mozilla is currently more compliant with the spec than IE, but it's still pre-release quality. There are a few things that it doesn't do yet, but rest assured they will come along soon - the power of open source is immense.
Thus, your comment about Mozilla clueing in about DHTML is pretty much incorrect - Mozilla is consistently shown to have the most compliant implementation available - even in pre-release form.
Microsoft actually stole/purchased IE from Spyglass originally - another piece in the patchwork quilt of MS 'innovations'.
Second, as to displaying poorly-written HTML 'correctly', I think that statement has no real meaning. A browser should not correct for people's fuckups that deviate from the standard. This deviation is what got us into the entire mess of browser incompatibilities in the first place. Lauding IE for deviance is not admirable.
Finally, you state that IE is widely supported. That's hardly true; IE doesn't run on any unix except Solaris (and I have heard varying reports regarding the quality of the Solaris implementation.) Netscape runs on any platform IE runs on, and then some. Mozilla is slated to do the same; and lynx most likely has all the browsers beat. In short, IE is among the least-supported browsers. It only really runs well on Win32 and Mac (And ironically, better on the Mac too.)
Sure, the OS has to be GPL, but that doesn't mean that the development tools, libraries, and drivers for the thing have to be.
Indrema can easily make money by licensing special development kits (likely packaged as RPMs) that turn a standard Linux box (with the right hardware) into an Indrema development workstation. They have to give the OS and any kernel patches away, sure, but don't expect to see libraries and documentation for free. Those will cost an arm and a leg, and rightfully so. It's not easy to put together a gaming platform like this.
In short, just because they use Linux, doesn't mean they need to GPL everything.
Something I think many people, benchmarkers included, forget is that the drivers are important too. What I mean is, if I am going to use a piece of hardware/RDBMS/etc... then what drivers I can use with it are going to be an integral part of my overall experience with the product.
If one DBMS/3D Card has better drivers, even though it is "slower in theory", then that means that my overall experience will be a better one than the "theoretically faster, but with crappier drivers" product.
What does this mean? Trying to equalize products on drivers is often an exercise in finding which product has the most tuned driver. IN the case of Postgres, it appears their ODBC driver is tuned much better than the others. However, very few people I know use ODBC drivers for MySQL, and not many use them for Oracle either. They all use the native drivers. Thus, this benchmark doesn't mean anything to them, because a non-real-world situation was benchmarked.
I wish people would perform real-world benchmarks: i.e., run what people would actually run. That's one thing that I really like about the gamer-oriented hardware review sites. They post a bunch of meaningless BusinessMark2000 and AppMark2k scores, but they also go in and show you how fast the actual games will play on the hardware. That is CRUCIAL to my purchasing decisions. RDBMS vendors should benchmark one database with its best-performing driver vs. another database with its bets performing driver. Then we could really get an inkling of an idea as to how the thing will really perform in the field.
Testing with the same drivers only looks fair; in reality, as in this Postgres benchmark, it was likely the deciding factor to making Postgres "trounce" the competition.
This isn't surprising - everything I have ever read/seen/experienced about MySQL says that it's a pretty fast and simple database for smaller applications, but isn't very scalable (both in terms of features and performance).
I am quite surprised that the Postgres results are almost 3 times that of proprietary databases. That seems kind of fishy - surely the big proprietary databases aren't THAT slow.
But either way, it confirms what lots of people already knew: MySQL is a nice, simple fast database for smaller applications. But for larger stuff, there are better RDBMS' out there.
The masqueradiong/NAT prohibiting clauses are mostly intended to ensure that the service provider can't be liable for running your network. If you do something in trying to set up a IPMasq/NAT LAN behind the cable modem, and find out that you can't get it to work, they don't want to be in the position to have to support your setup. To do so would be unreasonable. This way, when you set up masq/NAT and can't get it to work, crying to @Home will only get you a big "See? It's prohibited by the TOS."
I'm sure there is also a motivation to try and get people to pay for extra IPs, but I suspect that support issues are the main motivation.
This guy's argument is based on a fallacy: that the bugs in one distribution, or in a collection of distributions, imply that ALL distributions are insecure.
You can't look at a single Linux distribution with exploits and say "See, Linux is insecure!" You have to look at ALL of them. Furthermore, you can't simply add up the number of bugs in all Linux distros. There are shared bugs there, because there are shared software components.
What this guy is doing is sort of like comparing a single bad apple to a whole box of good oranges. It's just plain wrong.
what is a HTML 4 quoting entity? I don't see anything strange on the test page you sent.
BTW many thanks for the above link, I just posted 2 bug reports for Mozilla with that link as a reference. We've just made the browser better.
Please refer me to a URL that is standards compliant that doesn't work in Mozilla.
Mind you, I expect a few problems since it is still alpha/beta/unreleased quality code. But you make it sound like you haven't used a modern (ie, M16 or later) build of the thing.
Old Netscape 4.x, yes it had lots of those problems. But the new, modern Mozilla builds just work so well. Every page I had developed that didn't work in NN4 but did in IE, worked fine in Mozilla. EVERY ONE.
As for JavaScript, of course some of the Microsoft hacks like innerHTML aren't going to work in Mozilla (though I did see a mention of a relatively simple JavaScript snippet that simulated innerHTML well enough that most scripts could be compatible with minimal effort, and a rumor that this might be included by default.)
But write some 100% standards compliant code, use it with a modern Mozilla build, and you'll find that it works.
As for rendering a page like IE does, why should it? There are standards, and there are some elements of the standard that are open to vendor interpretation. But why should a browser emulate something that doesn't follow the standard, especially when the stated goal is to be 100% standards compliant?
Folks, the browser wars are not over. Microsoft may be the leader now, but once Mozilla is complete (only a few more months to go!) then things are going to change. Sure lots of avid Windows Netscape fans will rejoice with the newe browser, and sure a lot of Mac fans will use it, and you can be certain that a lot of the Unix crowd will be afire. But what's the real reason Mozilla is going to save the web from being dominated by Microsoft?
2 things actually: embedded apps, and AOL.
The embedded space is only going to get bigger, and it needs a small, stable, fast, and standards-compliant browser. Mozilla can deliver on those promises. I really think we are going to see that the embedded browser makers will flock to using Mozilla, because it's so well done. I know if I were designing a console or a web pad, Mozilla would be my first choice.
But the real story here is AOL - they are the largest ISP in the world. They bought Netscape for a reason; they wanted to have the best browser available for their customers, without having to be tied to another vendor (who is a competitor, even!). When AOL includes Netscape in their client, the tide will turn. Suddenly there's another 22 million users you have to take into account. That comfortable, "lazy" approach of desinging for the IE extensions just won't cut it anymore.
And Mozilla will have saved us all.
I really don't understand the motivation behind using a smaller screen. IMO the screen is already as small as it can be without sacrificing usability; I can't imagine shirnking it would make the thing better. I really hope they just resized the screen, making everything smaller. Reducing the resolution of the thing would be silly, IMO.
I guess they are trying to compete with Handspring on cost, but I think they missed the boat. These things look ugly, have smaller screens, and are only marginally better than entry level Visor (I understand the M100 has more RAM). We're supposed to think its that much better?
I really think that one of the reasons that the Perl modules are SO useful is due to the lack of strong typing ala Java.
A PERFECT example of this is the DBI library. In Perl, it's simple. You can even do
($id, $firstname, $lastname) = $sth->fetch_row();
In Java, with the JDBC, you have to do this:
(assuming rs is a ResultSet object)
int id = rs.getInteger(1);
String firstname = rs.getString(2);
String lastname = rs.getString(3);
(forgive the syntax if it isn't 100% correct; you should be able to understand the point though.)
The point? Because of Perl's lack of strong typing, it's a hell of a lot simpler to get what I need done: extract a userid, first and last name from a database.
Lots of other modules are like this as well. The result? A looseky bound language that makes it really simple to put different modules together to get something done. In my years of experience in using C++, this is pretty difficult to do: everyone does the data storage differently, leading to a variety of problems. This is still true in Java, but to a much lesser degree.
This is why Perl will never be burdened with strong typing.
I don't think I could stomach a series with The Lone Gunmen.
They are fake geeks, spouting off some half-baked lines that sound just real enough to fool the average Joe into thinking they are the real deal.
X-Files' problem is that the show is built around the mystery surrounding the conspiracy. That's the best part of the show, but also it's biggest problem: it is in the studio's best interest to keep the show going (thus, make relatively few relevant episodes to the real story), but the fans want to see more of the "real" episodes.
You end up with a show that has two distinct sides: "conspiracy" episodes, and the "x-file" episodes. I find the x-file episodes boring, because 1) they don't matter in the long-run, and 2) they are frequently silly/inane (witness that rediclous FPS episode, or the sad, sad, sad end-of-last-season episode involving Scully and Mulder being the subject of a Tea Leoni and Gary Shandling movie). There are a few exceptions (I think this season's baseball-loving alien was one of the show's best ever) but all in all, the conspiracy episodes are the only ones worth watching. Too bad those only air during sweeps, and then only a total of 4 or 5 this year.
Expect to see Mulder during each of the major sweeps seasons this year, and the rest of the season to just suck.
It will be sad to see the X Files die this, the most horrible of deaths.
They do make announcements. Those silly little fake-trailers you watch before the movie always say "Enjoy our popcorn - please silence pagers and phones."
As for I need to get a call, well, don't go to a movie then. It's that simple.
By far the most annoying place for mobile phones is the restaurant though. I find it incredibly rude to sit at a table and eat while someone else at the table yaks on the phone. At least get up and go outside, damnit.
I wish more places would install Cellular Firewalls like this one. I think every theatre should have one - if you want to make a call, go outside dammit.
XEmacs is a particularly bad offender. I can cut data from one program fine. When I go to XEmacs, and I press paste, I don't get the data I cut. I instead get the last thing I cut and pasted in XEmacs. I have to click the middle mouse button (which executes a function that I don't know about) to get the data in.
Every time I try to move data between apps, I'm stick clicking middle buttons, right buttons, hitting paste, Ctrl+V. Usually one combination of those works, but it's far from "works fine."
Or the cut buffers....try cutting and pasting between an xterm, XEmacs, and Netscape. It's a mess.
It's time to bring a new GUI system to the world.
To some Extent, GNOME and KDE are helping to solve the problem, but IMO it's the wrong approach.
We really need a more sensible GUI system; getting an app up and running shouldn't be this difficult; sadly, all the futzing with Xresources and stuff is all too real.
One thing I think a replacement GUI toolkit needs is a standard window manager with standard widgets. This is probably the biggest barrier to most people ever accepting Unix as their desktop (even technical people where I work dislike X, because every program looks, feels, and works differently.)
Furthermore, a revised GUI system needs to recognize that today's clients are high-powered machines, not dumb monitor+keyboard+terminals. It need to let the client do most of the processing. It also needs to have working functionality for basic concepts like the clipboard (cutting and pasting between X apps is just silly....which cut buffer do I use?!?)
I hope Berlin truly improves upon the ideas presented in MSWindows/Aqua to deliver a new GUI system that is usable. Making any concessions to X for (compatibility) would be such a disappointment.
What Corel really needs to do is code the apps NATIVELY, and then use an emulation/porting library/compatibility layer to port to Windows.
Why? It's clear that they can't break the Windows lock on office-type software. Thus, they need to try and make the Linux software a priority. Using libwine (or even running it hosted under Wine, wich is what I heard Corel Office does) is just unacceptable. It's inherently buggy, not because Wine sucks, but because it's an ENRMOUS task to re-implement the huge and muddled Win32 library.
If Corel would simply junk the existing code and rewrite it to use QT/KDE or GTK/GNOME, they'd be a lot better off. It doesn't make sense to focus your efforts on an emulated/compaitibility mode-enabled pieces of software.
So I say to Corel: focus on Linux and provide compatibility to Windows - you'll have a lot better product!
I think this is a case of a double standard.
Netscape did this quite a lot years ago: the introduction of cookies, numerous tags like and all the stuff.
Nobody seemed to cry "you're not standards compliant" then; instead, they hailed Netscape for their "innovation" (now a tainted word after Microsoft abused it so.)
The thing is, both companies have always shirked the standards bodies, if for no other reason than they are slow. The Web moves fast, especially web technology. In just the past year I've learned or been exposed to at least 7 new web-development technologies/frameworks. I can't think of another industry that even comes close in terms of speed.
I believe it is wrong to shrug off the standards bodies until you have already implemeneted/forced your standard on the world. But we aren't going to change that corporate mindset (at least, not until we get rid of the single-vendor dominance of web browsers.)
I don't support Microsoft's actions (in fact, I am ideologically opposed to using IE because I detest their behavior surrounding it so much) but I do think we should remember that Netscape did this too; they aren't the innocent here. And sadly enough, they will have to continue to do it in order to win market share back. A pure standards compliant browser just isn't enough to make it these days, I'm afraid.
You logic is flawed though.
You state that most Windows software is made with VC++, not Delphi. Then later on you say that you don't want the Windows software mindset to creep into Linux by having Delphi programmers migrate to the platform. However, The "style that they developed on Windows" that you speak of is therefore from the VC++ programmers, not the Delphi ones.
Have you ever actually used an app programmed with Delphi? I've found them to be cleaner since the OO libraries are much simpler. I've found them to be less intrusive on the system, and in general, better behaved.
Why wouldn't we want to bring this to Linux?
If you read the web-site, you'll see this also happens to double as a promotional stunt for the guy's wife, Stephanie Fix.
This is a bait and switch tactic folks. Musicians shouldn't have to rename their music to look like popular artists' work to get it out there. It's just unethical.
There's some FUD going on in here - we need to clear some things up.
Kylix is going to be a big help to a lot of Windows-only shops that are now looking to migrate their development to Linux. Imagine; spend a few days modifying your app, and now it works on Linux. Of course, that assumed that you haven't used any COM stuff, but there are a LOT of apps that don't. Besides, in the Windows community, database access is one of the major reasons to use COM anyways. Sounds like Kylix/Delphi 6 will have that covered with the new database library. Exciting stuff.
Second, some Slashdotters are concerned about being able to only compile stuff with non-free tools. While it is true that you will have to have a copy of Kylix to compile stuff for it, I don't really see why this is an objection: lots and lots of commercial vendors are now going to be shipping stuff for Linux. This is another way to accelerate that. Perhaps some Free Software vendors can get some good usage out of it too. Who knows. I don't understand the logic behind complaining about havign more than one compiler, as one Slashdotter did. We have more than one everything else (soon, more than one kernel even.) Competition is good, right?
On a side note, what is an SKU? I haven't heard that term before, and it's use in the article stumps me. What does it mean, especially in the author's context?
Some of the /. posts complain about it being a Software patch to fix the Handspring problem. This is no surprise why?
Palm has announced a fix for their affected units which requires flashing the Palm. This is a software upgrade. They aren't replacing units.
Handspring has no flash memory. Instead, the OS is loaded into DRAM like everything else. Why? So that they can easily issue software patches to people that don't require flashing! Software patching to fix something like this is not only what Palm is doing, but also, one of the reasons why Handspring went with their design in the first place.
There's absolutely no reason to complain that Handspring sucks because you have to software patch for this problem, and the patch will be coming out in July (July starts tomorrow people.)
As for the Spriongboard modules some posters complained about, ya it sucks that relatively few have come out yet, but that was mostly because of the hardware partners overcommiting themselves. Handspring was left out to dry. Not to fear; for those of us paying attention to PC Expo, we know that a whole slew of modules were shown, and are slated for release Real Soon Now (TM).
So, don't worry, Handspring owners. This software patch to fix a bug is BY DESIGN how Handspring intended this to work.