That is a very valid point. When you think you Java, you have several different VM implementation. Just like you have several different OS. So, instead of having to wonder if the program will run on Windows, Linux etc, I'll have to wonder which VM it will run under. I really don't see any gain there.
FORTH was smaller, lighter, and faster. It was overly self-important, considering its reinvention of the subroutine to something new and radical, but if you wanted to program toasters or telescopes it was the language to use. Postscript was somewhat of a Forth derivative.
Oh FORTH. The wonder language for automation. I remember programing a robot using forth, on the Z-80 days.
I might be wrong here, but a good number of telescopes still run on FORTH systems these days.
There is a very important point you are overlooking. The code was created by the owner of the company. He understands VB. And so, there is a very important business reason for the keep to continue on VB: if you leave, the owner can maintain it. From your post it seems it is a fairly small company, at least from the IT point of view. I get the feeling you are the only programer there. If you leave, there is no one to take care of the code until someone else is hired, and that can take some time. Who will manage it during that period ?
I don't like VB _at_all_, but it make a lot of sense to keep using it for the reasons I pointed above.
We need to get a truly working pluggable driver model.
I really hope you mean a driver abstraction layer. In that case, I tend to agree. That is more or less what we have with ndiswrapper, btw.
We need to have a registry to track applications, and their installation paths, and installation parameters. (This will help with the install, uninstall, and dependency headaches)
Give me a break. Have you ever heard of package managers ? A registry, on the model you are implying, is just stupid.
We need a unified configuration system and configuration user interface.
We do. It is called VI. People really should not try driving a car without knowing how to drive. Why should computers be different ?
Half of the problems I have seen happening on Windows servers happen because it is "so easy to configure", so any half-moron think he can do it.
Configuring Windows is not easier than configuring Linux, at least if you want to do it correctly. It is just easier to pretend you know how to.
We need a great GUI development IDE
Like Eclipse ?
We need to not release products with 200 dependencies that change every 4 weeks
What distro are you using ? You should try an enterprise oriented one some day. I suggest CentOS, but YMMV.
The only thing Linux has over other operating systems right now, is price. The Flexibility open source should provide is hampered too much by the above listed problems.
Or by people who have no idea what they are talking about making statements like those.
Seriously, except for your first point, which is partially true, the others are just nonsense.
Sheesh, what planet are you living on? Generally speaking, small business are much more desperate for business than large companies, hence rules are bent much more in my experience.
Well, lets see. I think as a owner of a small company (7 people) I qualify for a comment here, right ?
All my employees: - have health coverage - can take full vacation time every year - are payed better than on 90% of the other companies on my field in this region of the state - get annual salary raises - get paid overtime (which they are always first asked if is ok for them to do) - can ask to be moved to another project if they are no longer happy on the current one (usually takes 2 months to move them) - can discounts on other business in town - get extra credit for food purchases (that can be used on most supermarkets in the town) - get an automatic pay raise whenever the contract they are working under gets a raise
The result: - 100% happy employees - 100% happy owners (me and a partner) - 40%+ annual grown for the company
The rules here are clear. I'm not here to be a good guy. I'm here to make money, and happy employees will make me more money than unhappy ones. That is a very simple truth that many business owners have problems gasping.
By the way, that "extra" money I spend on my employees is marked as "marketing" on my budget. If any business owner or manager is reading this and can't understand the reason, you better go look for something else to do.
You are making a very mistaked assumption. What you are calling "marketing" is actually "advertising". And advertising is only a tiny fraction of marketing.
Without marketing, you would have no product (or service). At all.
And yes, the kind of advertisement we have these days also annoys me. And yes, I too think they spend too much money on it.
The Realm 2 had a very good balance between the tech and the community sides of the game. Actually, the tech side was just a fun interlude to community events.
Then came The Realm 3, where the balance disapeared. The community side was forgotten, with Norseman putting the final nail on the coffin.
The Realm was a Sierra game. Sierra was never about bleding edge graphics, hence the "Sierra Classics" look and feel of the game. When the game shifted from that line, it became easy pray for the other software houses and their "bleding edge graphical" engines.
The Realm 1 was focused on the community aspect mostly. The Realm 3, on the tech side. The real golden era of The Realm was version 2. These days, The Realm (I refuse to call it Realm Online) is pretty much "kill & gather", filled with teenagers who can't even type.
The Gabriel Knight trilogy is by far my loved games.
Obviously, the first 3 X-COM games are worth mentioning. They were really awesome.
Sierra's The Realm, before it became Realm Online was a great game (version 2, mostly), which I spend countless hours playing
And last, but not least, Neverwinter Nights. Unfortunately, I don't have the spare time to play it these days, but I spend about 3 years online with this one.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't Power and PowerPC two completely different cpu families ? From my Risc6000 days, I would think they are. PowerPC was a Morotola CPU, while Power was developed by someone else (maybe IBM itself ?).
If this is really the case, these news have nothing to do with Apple's future, present or past.
Doing the right thing for the wrong reasons is still wrong.
You have to be careful about your future. What does staying on your current job represents in 10 years time ? What about the new job ?
Just because your current job gives you loads of money today, doesn't mean it will be so in the future. What if you have to leave your job, how will your current experience reflect on your resumé ? Does it open or close doors ?
As you said, you have a low cost of living right now, so you can afford to make decisions. Just make sure you do looking at the future.
I have both accept and refused paycuts in the past. My decisions was always based on a single question: "What does it represent for my future?". Today I own a company, and make some good money. I still get proposals to quit it and become an employee sometimes. But, as far as I'm concerned, my future prospect with my own company (grown rate around 43%/year) is much better. But, when I started it, I've got a 60% paycut (technicaly, income reduction). But it was the correct decision.
I would say that your assessement is correct based on the description they provided. The point is that either they are providing an incorrect description, or are doing it in a more complicated way that needed, which is entirely possible.
Most of the reviews are about wrappers for the non-native drivers.
What's the point of having a scale of 1-10 if most reviewers assign a score of "10" for such cruddy products?
Yes, ndis drivers are non-native. But they are not cruddy products. Contrary to popular belief from lateday users, ndis are not windows' drivers.
We have been using them for a long time, on systems randing from DOS, OS/2 and Netware. The idea for NDIS drivers is (was?) to make platform independant drivers. So having NDIS support on Linux is a very good idea. Obviously, UDI and ODI are also interesting, tho not so widespread, specially with the new ideas regarding "proprietary interface" on NDIS.
In any case, it makes much more sense to have a single multiple platform driver, and having proprietary "native" versions for each system.
You are lucky. If you had gone from 2.6.9 to 2.6.10 you would see a lot of changes on the internal structure. This is specially painful for RHEL, where you have a kernel that identifies itself as 2.6.9 and has the internal structure from 2.6.10 (thus breaking a lot of #ifdef on source modules).
People should treat IT just like they treat the medical science. If you have a mild headache, you just take an aspirin. However, if you have a somewhat more serious simptom(sic?), you go to a doctor. Just because you know how to pop open a case of aspirin you don't fool yourself that you know medicine.
On IT, people think that just because they can move the mouse around, they know computers. And that is where all the problem comes from.
With that in mind, I find your proposed book a VERY serious problem. It will give people the flawed idea that by reading your book they know computers. There are other books like that around.
I know you have the best intentions possible, but please don't do it. Unless you are doing it just for the money. In that case, there is nothing I can say. But, then again, if that was the case, you would not be asking around here, would you ?
Or maybe people who know what they are talking about ? Backup professionals have been saying this for years.
We are not talking about "storing the 3117 mp3's just downloaded", but about company data that means money.
You can store your MP3s files on a SS/SD floppy for all anyone cares. But when it comes to company data, you better make sure you have a reliable backup media.
So some CDRs will last for 10 years. How many ? 1 in 10 ? 1 in 2 ? Unless you can show that more than 99% of them will have that lifespan, they are useless for real backup.
Slashdot Mirror
That is a very valid point.
When you think you Java, you have several different VM implementation. Just like you have several different OS.
So, instead of having to wonder if the program will run on Windows, Linux etc, I'll have to wonder which VM it will run under.
I really don't see any gain there.
Oh FORTH. The wonder language for automation. I remember programing a robot using forth, on the Z-80 days.
I might be wrong here, but a good number of telescopes still run on FORTH systems these days.
Actually, you are right:
Metoroid -> Atmosphere -> Meteor -> Ground -> Meteorite
Actually, it is not simply an hyperbole.
There are many kinds of war, including political and economical wars.
Not all wars are military ones.
If you consider those other kinds of war, the possibility doesn't sound so far fetched anymore, does it ?
I don't know. With a 25% price difference, customers are bound to start asking questions.
If the networks can no longer count on people watching at least some ads, how are they to pay for content?
They will continue doing what they already do, but more intensively: inserting the ads INSIDE the programs/movies.
Or, if they want to continue to insert ads outside, let them PLEASE remove the parts of the shows that are nothing more than advertising.
There is a very important point you are overlooking.
The code was created by the owner of the company. He understands VB.
And so, there is a very important business reason for the keep to continue on VB: if you leave, the owner can maintain it.
From your post it seems it is a fairly small company, at least from the IT point of view. I get the feeling you are the only programer there.
If you leave, there is no one to take care of the code until someone else is hired, and that can take some time. Who will manage it during that period ?
I don't like VB _at_all_, but it make a lot of sense to keep using it for the reasons I pointed above.
We need to get a truly working pluggable driver model.
I really hope you mean a driver abstraction layer. In that case, I tend to agree. That is more or less what we have with ndiswrapper, btw.
We need to have a registry to track applications, and their installation paths, and installation parameters. (This will help with the install, uninstall, and dependency headaches)
Give me a break. Have you ever heard of package managers ? A registry, on the model you are implying, is just stupid.
We need a unified configuration system and configuration user interface.
We do. It is called VI. People really should not try driving a car without knowing how to drive. Why should computers be different ?
Half of the problems I have seen happening on Windows servers happen because it is "so easy to configure", so any half-moron think he can do it.
Configuring Windows is not easier than configuring Linux, at least if you want to do it correctly. It is just easier to pretend you know how to.
We need a great GUI development IDE
Like Eclipse ?
We need to not release products with 200 dependencies that change every 4 weeks
What distro are you using ? You should try an enterprise oriented one some day. I suggest CentOS, but YMMV.
The only thing Linux has over other operating systems right now, is price.
The Flexibility open source should provide is hampered too much by the above listed problems.
Or by people who have no idea what they are talking about making statements like those.
Seriously, except for your first point, which is partially true, the others are just nonsense.
Sheesh, what planet are you living on? Generally speaking, small business are much more desperate for business than large companies, hence rules are bent much more in my experience.
Well, lets see. I think as a owner of a small company (7 people) I qualify for a comment here, right ?
All my employees:
- have health coverage
- can take full vacation time every year
- are payed better than on 90% of the other companies on my field in this region of the state
- get annual salary raises
- get paid overtime (which they are always first asked if is ok for them to do)
- can ask to be moved to another project if they are no longer happy on the current one (usually takes 2 months to move them)
- can discounts on other business in town
- get extra credit for food purchases (that can be used on most supermarkets in the town)
- get an automatic pay raise whenever the contract they are working under gets a raise
The result:
- 100% happy employees
- 100% happy owners (me and a partner)
- 40%+ annual grown for the company
The rules here are clear. I'm not here to be a good guy. I'm here to make money, and happy employees will make me more money than unhappy ones. That is a very simple truth that many business owners have problems gasping.
By the way, that "extra" money I spend on my employees is marked as "marketing" on my budget. If any business owner or manager is reading this and can't understand the reason, you better go look for something else to do.
You are making a very mistaked assumption. What you are calling "marketing" is actually "advertising". And advertising is only a tiny fraction of marketing.
Without marketing, you would have no product (or service). At all.
And yes, the kind of advertisement we have these days also annoys me. And yes, I too think they spend too much money on it.
OSF/1 was based on Mach.
Ok, you lost me. Which point of view are you defending here ? From this single statement, I would guess Linus'.
The Realm 2 had a very good balance between the tech and the community sides of the game. Actually, the tech side was just a fun interlude to community events.
Then came The Realm 3, where the balance disapeared. The community side was forgotten, with Norseman putting the final nail on the coffin.
The Realm was a Sierra game. Sierra was never about bleding edge graphics, hence the "Sierra Classics" look and feel of the game. When the game shifted from that line, it became easy pray for the other software houses and their "bleding edge graphical" engines.
The Realm 1 was focused on the community aspect mostly. The Realm 3, on the tech side. The real golden era of The Realm was version 2. These days, The Realm (I refuse to call it Realm Online) is pretty much "kill & gather", filled with teenagers who can't even type.
I read somewhere that will be no more GK games, ever. Maybe someone else has a pointer about it, or something contradicting it.
... someone ...
I really hope I'm wrong on this one, so PLEASE correct me
Oh, it is still running. It simply stinks these days. Things started going down the drain the day Sierra sold it.
I tried going back a couple years ago, and stayed for a month. I classify it as a money wasting effort.
The Gabriel Knight trilogy is by far my loved games.
Obviously, the first 3 X-COM games are worth mentioning. They were really awesome.
Sierra's The Realm, before it became Realm Online was a great game (version 2, mostly), which I spend countless hours playing
And last, but not least, Neverwinter Nights. Unfortunately, I don't have the spare time to play it these days, but I spend about 3 years online with this one.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't Power and PowerPC two completely different cpu families ? From my Risc6000 days, I would think they are.
PowerPC was a Morotola CPU, while Power was developed by someone else (maybe IBM itself ?).
If this is really the case, these news have nothing to do with Apple's future, present or past.
Answer: No.
I think it's time we just start ignoring RMS.
Long past, if you ask me.
RMS has outlived his usefulness to the FOSS movement. He is, I might add, an obstacle, which can very easily make people move AWAY from FOSS.
RMS, we are all greateful for what you have done in the past, but please shut up.
Doing the right thing for the wrong reasons is still wrong.
You have to be careful about your future. What does staying on your current job represents in 10 years time ? What about the new job ?
Just because your current job gives you loads of money today, doesn't mean it will be so in the future. What if you have to leave your job, how will your current experience reflect on your resumé ? Does it open or close doors ?
As you said, you have a low cost of living right now, so you can afford to make decisions. Just make sure you do looking at the future.
I have both accept and refused paycuts in the past. My decisions was always based on a single question: "What does it represent for my future?". Today I own a company, and make some good money. I still get proposals to quit it and become an employee sometimes. But, as far as I'm concerned, my future prospect with my own company (grown rate around 43%/year) is much better. But, when I started it, I've got a 60% paycut (technicaly, income reduction). But it was the correct decision.
Maybe you mean Fiber Channel ?
I would say that your assessement is correct based on the description they provided. The point is that either they are providing an incorrect description, or are doing it in a more complicated way that needed, which is entirely possible.
Most of the reviews are about wrappers for the non-native drivers.
What's the point of having a scale of 1-10 if most reviewers assign a score of "10" for such cruddy products?
Yes, ndis drivers are non-native. But they are not cruddy products.
Contrary to popular belief from lateday users, ndis are not windows' drivers.
We have been using them for a long time, on systems randing from DOS, OS/2 and Netware. The idea for NDIS drivers is (was?) to make platform independant drivers. So having NDIS support on Linux is a very good idea. Obviously, UDI and ODI are also interesting, tho not so widespread, specially with the new ideas regarding "proprietary interface" on NDIS.
In any case, it makes much more sense to have a single multiple platform driver, and having proprietary "native" versions for each system.
You are lucky. If you had gone from 2.6.9 to 2.6.10 you would see a lot of changes on the internal structure. This is specially painful for RHEL, where you have a kernel that identifies itself as 2.6.9 and has the internal structure from 2.6.10 (thus breaking a lot of #ifdef on source modules).
People should treat IT just like they treat the medical science.
If you have a mild headache, you just take an aspirin. However, if you have a somewhat more serious simptom(sic?), you go to a doctor. Just because you know how to pop open a case of aspirin you don't fool yourself that you know medicine.
On IT, people think that just because they can move the mouse around, they know computers. And that is where all the problem comes from.
With that in mind, I find your proposed book a VERY serious problem. It will give people the flawed idea that by reading your book they know computers. There are other books like that around.
I know you have the best intentions possible, but please don't do it. Unless you are doing it just for the money. In that case, there is nothing I can say. But, then again, if that was the case, you would not be asking around here, would you ?
Are you sure you factored in maintenance and administration costs into your calculation ?
Last time I checked it, the breakeven point was 200GB/month.
Also, you are considering a static amount of data. Are you planning on adding 200GB/month of NAS/SAN storage space each month ?
Remember historical data is important. If you just want a live copy, then yes, RAID is the way to go.
Or maybe people who know what they are talking about ?
Backup professionals have been saying this for years.
We are not talking about "storing the 3117 mp3's just downloaded", but about company data that means money.
You can store your MP3s files on a SS/SD floppy for all anyone cares. But when it comes to company data, you better make sure you have a reliable backup media.
So some CDRs will last for 10 years. How many ? 1 in 10 ? 1 in 2 ? Unless you can show that more than 99% of them will have that lifespan, they are useless for real backup.