Your description of needs is almost word-for-word how Informix (now IBM) describes Cloudscape. A quote from the cloudscape info page:
Cloudscape is a full-function database that requires zero administration, is scalable and secure. These features allow Cloudscape to deliver a lower total cost of ownership to customers who want to anonymously embed databases into their Java-based applications.
It is not free, but it's not outrageously expensive either. I believe that it costs in the low hundreds of dollars.
He also messed up when he said that there were no consumer-grade networked games until 10 years ago. I remember playing a commercial FPS maze shoot-em-up on Mac over appleTalk in 1988, and I remember hearing about networked games years before that.
In general, I think the author didn't do enough research. He seems to have only heard of games that are still well known and talked about today.
I graduated from CMU 9 years ago and left Pittsburgh. I had a good time there in college but knew there was no way I would stay. Why? Mostly because the job situation sucked, but also because once you leave campus there is little to do compared to other cities. Sure, it has research jobs in the colleges, but those pay very little compared to companies, and your choices are very limited. 5 research groups in a city is *not* a big choice of jobs! Much happier where I am (Portland OR, which has Intel, Tek, Mentor Graphics, Sequent (now IBM), Informix, Oracle, etc., plus a much bigger & younger & more fun city, plus better skiing, plus you can buy beer+wine in a supermarket (has PA repealed that stupid law yet?), etc.)
The "VI" system mentioned in the article is probably one of the changes. I have never used VI under Linux, or VI with the Giganet hardware, but I wrote the original VI prototypes for Windows NT. It's a communication system that gets lower latency than the kernel TCP/IP stack by exporting some hardware registers directly to the user applications, allowing them to send and recieve network data without ever doing a kernel call. You need special hardware to do this without creating huge security holes of course! You also need an extra kernel interface to allow the user program to pin/lock some amount of virtual memory, and a special user-level communications stack. This can't be used to talk to computers across the internet because it doesn't use IP protocols. But if you have a cluster application where message latency is critical, it can give you a big performance boost.
PS - This was a much bigger benefit under Windows NT, where the system call overhead was much higher than it is under Linux. But it should still help out Linux.
Good idea!...I just went to the Apple web page. After wading through about a dozen links off of "Contact Us", I *STILL* couldn't find an email address that was remotely applicable. Anybody know who we should complain to?
(Usually I complain to the site that has the.mov file and ask for a Real version...but in this case, the site is/., and I think the point has been made).
I switched to Dvorak about 6 years ago. At first I put little stickers with the dvorak label on my keyboard. When they fell off I found I didn't need them any more. Now I'm faster on Dvorak than I ever was on Qwerty (and I'm 100% a touch typist since the labels on the keys match Qwerty instead of dvorak), and I can easily switch between Dvorak and Qwerty. The only problem is when somebody needs to use my machine and I forget to put the keyboard back to Qwerty for them. I'd recommend learning it, but realize that for two weeks you will be a hunt and peck typist again...it's excruciatingly painful to go back to that, even though it is only for a little while.
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It is not free, but it's not outrageously expensive either. I believe that it costs in the low hundreds of dollars.
He also messed up when he said that there were no consumer-grade networked games until 10 years ago. I remember playing a commercial FPS maze shoot-em-up on Mac over appleTalk in 1988, and I remember hearing about networked games years before that.
In general, I think the author didn't do enough research. He seems to have only heard of games that are still well known and talked about today.
I graduated from CMU 9 years ago and left Pittsburgh. I had a good time there in college but knew there was no way I would stay. Why? Mostly because the job situation sucked, but also because once you leave campus there is little to do compared to other cities. Sure, it has research jobs in the colleges, but those pay very little compared to companies, and your choices are very limited. 5 research groups in a city is *not* a big choice of jobs! Much happier where I am (Portland OR, which has Intel, Tek, Mentor Graphics, Sequent (now IBM), Informix, Oracle, etc., plus a much bigger & younger & more fun city, plus better skiing, plus you can buy beer+wine in a supermarket (has PA repealed that stupid law yet?), etc.)
The "VI" system mentioned in the article is probably one of the changes. I have never used VI under Linux, or VI with the Giganet hardware, but I wrote the original VI prototypes for Windows NT. It's a communication system that gets lower latency than the kernel TCP/IP stack by exporting some hardware registers directly to the user applications, allowing them to send and recieve network data without ever doing a kernel call. You need special hardware to do this without creating huge security holes of course! You also need an extra kernel interface to allow the user program to pin/lock some amount of virtual memory, and a special user-level communications stack. This can't be used to talk to computers across the internet because it doesn't use IP protocols. But if you have a cluster application where message latency is critical, it can give you a big performance boost.
PS - This was a much bigger benefit under Windows NT, where the system call overhead was much higher than it is under Linux. But it should still help out Linux.
Good idea!...I just went to the Apple web page. After wading through about a dozen links off of "Contact Us", I *STILL* couldn't find an email address that was remotely applicable. Anybody know who we should complain to?
.mov file and ask for a Real version...but in this case, the site is /., and I think the point has been made).
(Usually I complain to the site that has the
I switched to Dvorak about 6 years ago. At first I put little stickers with the dvorak label on my keyboard. When they fell off I found I didn't need them any more. Now I'm faster on Dvorak than I ever was on Qwerty (and I'm 100% a touch typist since the labels on the keys match Qwerty instead of dvorak), and I can easily switch between Dvorak and Qwerty. The only problem is when somebody needs to use my machine and I forget to put the keyboard back to Qwerty for them. I'd recommend learning it, but realize that for two weeks you will be a hunt and peck typist again...it's excruciatingly painful to go back to that, even though it is only for a little while.