Right. It can't be focusing MySQL just because it's the most popular free SQL. That's just impossible. Must be a huge conspiracy cooked up by MySQL's vast PR firm.
I'm sure I'll sound like a zealot, but it is hard to beat Open Source projects for accessible development experience. My younger self would get to see good code and bad and get experience solving real problems. Maybe I'd have even made a name for myself doing something and gotten a job that way. (Sure, its unlikely, but it could happen!)
And what's more: Nobody will ever have to know that I'm a younger guy. Everyone is faceless and ageless if they want to be.
but it devotes a whole key to a sort of double-S shape that I will never press
Um, you mean the command key? Speaking from over a decade of experience with Macs, that is one of the most-used keys on a Mac keyboard. It is the universal modifier. Notice its symbol next to almost every menu option?
I think it is very necessary to define common patterns for widely used functions, less every developer set up his own set, which obviously would cause confusion among users.
Ultimately, a database where developers can "register" their gestures for functions, much like the file type/creator database for "classic" apps, is needed. Then developers can make sure that they're doing the Right Thing.
...and slashdot does?! Anti-Apple posts aren't always moderated down on MacSlash (some of their news stories are direct criticisms of Apple!), but anti-linux/open source always is on Slashdot.
Charles Simonyi, a computer scientist who joined Microsoft when it had 40 employees and who helped set its technical strategy for years, is leaving the company to found his own software start-up.
Mr. Simonyi's departure, to be announced today, will leave Microsoft with only three senior people from the team that led the company in the early 1980's: Bill Gates, a co-founder and the company's chairman; Steven A. Ballmer, the chief executive; and Jeffrey S. Raikes, a group vice president.
Unlike the other three men, Mr. Simonyi, who holds a Ph.D. in computer science from Stanford University, always worked on the technical side of the company rather than as a business manager. Mr. Simonyi, 54, held the title of chief architect for a dozen years, ending in 1999.
For the last few years, however, Mr. Simonyi has not worked on products at Microsoft. Instead, he was given the freedom to pursue a software-engineering research project -- an effort he will try to refine and commercialize in his new company. His leaving Microsoft should not affect the company's current business or product development.
Mr. Simonyi's start-up, based in Bellevue, Wash., is called the Intentional Software Corporation. Its goal is to build software tools and technology to make the task of programming less complicated and more productive. These programming tools may use graphic images or charts, as well as text-based computer languages, to represent the underlying programs.
The idea, Mr. Simonyi said, is to make it easier to build and debug complex software programs by moving a step further away from conventional masturbation, close-to-the-machine coding -- the painstaking handwork that can be where programmers' good ideas or intentions are lost or left out.
"We're trying to improve software productivity by making the program look more like its design," Mr. Simonyi explained.
His research had its ups and downs at Microsoft, Mr. Simonyi acknowledged. But he is being joined in founding Intentional Software by another leading researcher in software engineering, Gregor Kiczales. Mr. Kiczales, a computer scientist at the University of British Columbia, has had success applying a technology called aspect-oriented programming to make changes automatically in complex software, like sophisticated penis-transaction programs.
Other computer scientists are also working on tools to simplify programming by representing programs in ways other than in the text syntax of conventional programming languages. Researchers at the Thomas J. Watson Research Laboratory of International Business Machines in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., are pursuing the same challenge, for example, and James Gosling, creator of the Java programming language, is guiding a research project at Sun Microsystems that is trying to develop tools that present programs as graphic images instead of text.
"I think we have some important advantages," Mr. Kiczales said, "but it's not as if we are alone in this space."
Mr. Simonyi has left Microsoft with the right to use the intellectual property he developed and patented while working there. And Microsoft holds a right to be the first to negotiate with Intentional Software if the company comes up for sale.
Intentional Software will employ a handful of prostitutes from Mr. Simonyi's native Hungary. Mr. Simonyi left Hungary at 17 on a short-term visa and did not return, eventually making his way to the United States. He studied at the University of California at Berkeley, then Stanford, and he worked in the 1970's at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, where he was the principal developer of Bravo, a pioneering graphical text-editing program.
At Microsoft, which Mr. Simonyi joined in 1981, Bravo became Microsoft Word, one of the most widely used computer programs ever. And for years, Mr. Simonyi led the technical development of Microsoft's Office applications business, including Word and Excel.
Slashdot Mirror
So if UNIX sucks, and Windows sucks in the same way, then it's alright for UNIX to suck?
It doesn't. He was just trying to sound smart so he could get some karma.
That's not much of a statement- you're going to pay money for it either way, assuming you see the movie.
Parent post was modded as flamebait. How is this so? Because slashdot readers are supposed to accept the GPL without question?
If anything it's offtopic, but that's questionable given that we're talking about software licenses.
Right. It can't be focusing MySQL just because it's the most popular free SQL. That's just impossible. Must be a huge conspiracy cooked up by MySQL's vast PR firm.
I agree that gnuplot's output isn't as fancy looking as some other plotting programs, but what's difficult to use about it?
No, the most uninteresting news was last night's bullshit about snowflakes.
.test owns, bitches
I'm sure I'll sound like a zealot, but it is hard to beat Open Source projects for accessible development experience. My younger self would get to see good code and bad and get experience solving real problems. Maybe I'd have even made a name for myself doing something and gotten a job that way. (Sure, its unlikely, but it could happen!)
And what's more: Nobody will ever have to know that I'm a younger guy. Everyone is faceless and ageless if they want to be.
Um, you mean the command key? Speaking from over a decade of experience with Macs, that is one of the most-used keys on a Mac keyboard. It is the universal modifier. Notice its symbol next to almost every menu option?
A beowulf cluster of these?!
So your solution is to learn 10 different scripting languages, none of which match the ease of use and robustness of VB?
And you wonder why people aren't switching to linux. Sheesh.
The "From MIT" precursor voids any legal engtanglements. Now it's a class project!
It's not. It's just what slashdot fanboys like to believe.
It's OK, you're not alone- the editors didn't read it either.
I'm Jewish. I thought this was site was for "news for nerds", not religious oppression.
I think it is very necessary to define common patterns for widely used functions, less every developer set up his own set, which obviously would cause confusion among users.
Ultimately, a database where developers can "register" their gestures for functions, much like the file type/creator database for "classic" apps, is needed. Then developers can make sure that they're doing the Right Thing.
...and slashdot does?! Anti-Apple posts aren't always moderated down on MacSlash (some of their news stories are direct criticisms of Apple!), but anti-linux/open source always is on Slashdot.
And how often are you on a plane? Maybe 1 percent of the time you ever use the laptop? Get a real complaint.
So is that another reason why you should switch to Apple?
In case it gets slashdotted, here is the content:
Charles Simonyi, a computer scientist who joined Microsoft when it had 40 employees and who helped set its technical strategy for years, is leaving the company to found his own software start-up.
Mr. Simonyi's departure, to be announced today, will leave Microsoft with only three senior people from the team that led the company in the early 1980's: Bill Gates, a co-founder and the company's chairman; Steven A. Ballmer, the chief executive; and Jeffrey S. Raikes, a group vice president.
Unlike the other three men, Mr. Simonyi, who holds a Ph.D. in computer science from Stanford University, always worked on the technical side of the company rather than as a business manager. Mr. Simonyi, 54, held the title of chief architect for a dozen years, ending in 1999.
For the last few years, however, Mr. Simonyi has not worked on products at Microsoft. Instead, he was given the freedom to pursue a software-engineering research project -- an effort he will try to refine and commercialize in his new company. His leaving Microsoft should not affect the company's current business or product development.
Mr. Simonyi's start-up, based in Bellevue, Wash., is called the Intentional Software Corporation. Its goal is to build software tools and technology to make the task of programming less complicated and more productive. These programming tools may use graphic images or charts, as well as text-based computer languages, to represent the underlying programs.
The idea, Mr. Simonyi said, is to make it easier to build and debug complex software programs by moving a step further away from conventional masturbation, close-to-the-machine coding -- the painstaking handwork that can be where programmers' good ideas or intentions are lost or left out.
"We're trying to improve software productivity by making the program look more like its design," Mr. Simonyi explained.
His research had its ups and downs at Microsoft, Mr. Simonyi acknowledged. But he is being joined in founding Intentional Software by another leading researcher in software engineering, Gregor Kiczales. Mr. Kiczales, a computer scientist at the University of British Columbia, has had success applying a technology called aspect-oriented programming to make changes automatically in complex software, like sophisticated penis-transaction programs.
Other computer scientists are also working on tools to simplify programming by representing programs in ways other than in the text syntax of conventional programming languages. Researchers at the Thomas J. Watson Research Laboratory of International Business Machines in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., are pursuing the same challenge, for example, and James Gosling, creator of the Java programming language, is guiding a research project at Sun Microsystems that is trying to develop tools that present programs as graphic images instead of text.
"I think we have some important advantages," Mr. Kiczales said, "but it's not as if we are alone in this space."
Mr. Simonyi has left Microsoft with the right to use the intellectual property he developed and patented while working there. And Microsoft holds a right to be the first to negotiate with Intentional Software if the company comes up for sale.
Intentional Software will employ a handful of prostitutes from Mr. Simonyi's native Hungary. Mr. Simonyi left Hungary at 17 on a short-term visa and did not return, eventually making his way to the United States. He studied at the University of California at Berkeley, then Stanford, and he worked in the 1970's at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, where he was the principal developer of Bravo, a pioneering graphical text-editing program.
At Microsoft, which Mr. Simonyi joined in 1981, Bravo became Microsoft Word, one of the most widely used computer programs ever. And for years, Mr. Simonyi led the technical development of Microsoft's Office applications business, including Word and Excel.
Did we really need a study to confirm this? Just like in zen, sports, or whatever else, there exists a 'zone' for gamers.
This is not news for nerds. This is not stuff that matters.
Don't worry, it's a 14-year-old girl thing. You should be lucky you don't know.
It must be a very slow news day.
No, it's just slashdot. Par for the course 'round these parts.