As far as I can tell the rebuttals from 'scientist' are just about as informative and trustworthy as most of the quotes from celebrities. Sometimes even less informative. I find it disturbing at how biased the slashdot crowd is towards 'established' academia and people who managed to score an academic degree. The arrogant and wiseass remarks here display clear and unreflected bias very much as any UFO forum or somethign.
The scariest pieces of bullshit I've heard came from academics and scientists, and just because people in general fall for the one or other crackpot notion once in a while I find it unsettling that people usually consider statements from academics more truthfull and academics less prone to crackpot notions, even if they lack objectivity and are merely an expression of antipathy. Which actually indicates the exact oposite.
I do web & IT stuff for pharmaceutical corporations and medical facilities and have times where I get into contact with many acredited academics in various fields of medicine that review scientific IT projects or evaluate e-learning content. After 6 years of work in a field that is the firm grip of academics I can say for shure: The pure-and-utter-bullshit to solid-and-proven-fact ratio in that field is 80 to 20, just like everywhere else. I've met homeopaths with more solid medical knowledge than medicine professors and academic dermatologists that couldn't tell a malign melanome from a pimple if you pushed their face into it. I've seen the medical academic put out obscene amounts of paper and sign it with a straight face, just because their pharmaceutical sponsors want to push a new PPI-drug on to the market, despite a wide array of perfectly suitable existing treaments that have no side-effects.
Thus when a Professor Toy says "There is no definitive evidence that controlled food additives cause cancer." my first gut reaction is to think "Is this guy sponsored by the food industry or does he have a solid trackrecord of purely pulic funded FDA investigations to back his statement on the subject?". I'd go so far and take a statement like that indication that the opposite may be true.
On top of that, some of the comments don't even directly relate to the opposing statements facts.
Bottom line: Just because the statement is from an academic doesn't mean it's less prone to the possibility of being bullshit. People should keep that in mind.
I guess since the two units are on free time, they figure it is ok to screw them up now.
As far as I know the On-Board Shuttle Software Group has a track record of 3 (in words: 'three') software bugs in installed operating code within 30 years of writing code. That's all the code running on the Orbiters regular systems, exept only the third-party experiments with own systems and a non-critical original mid-nineties Thinkpad or two they take along... which - believe it or not - run a version of Windows 95, a frozen setup from back in the nineties, of which the software guys know every bit by it's first name. To give you a picture of what they have to deal with: A timing mistake in some piece of the shuttles navigation code by one cpu clockcount would put the shuttle 3 miles off course. The Voyager Software Team reprogrammed a 20 year old device 3-quarters across the solar system to send color pictures instead of black and white - with a system that was only built to picture and send black and white.
You have not the slightest idea what these spacecraft-software guys are capable of and how insanely bulletproof their code is.
For Heavens sake, please build an Apple Stile Tablet + mac style on board scetch and notes software. That would rock. Who needs a iPhone? Built a 10" iNewton or whatever with a small solid state HDD and sell it for 650$ or so. People would chop their right arm of to get one.
I remember a scene from a followup season of 24 where Jack visits his friend and former collegue (who's now off the job) and they use his private cheap-looking off-the-shelf PC. It was running Linux with XFCE iirc. While the gibberish they phrase is pointless most of the time I think they do a pretty good job at emulating tech-talk. I like the KDE and Enlightenment (modified blueheart theme) Desktops they use troughout the series aswell:-) . Even if they don't get the terms correct they are at least pro enough not to use Windows:-) .
Xbox is a no-go. To expensive, proprietary networking (Xbox Live) and a serious negative "dark-side" bonus from the PC OS division at MS. Wii *and* PS3 both don't have VGA or DVI output. Which I personally find really hard to believe but it appears to be the truth. PS3 is one of the rare home devices capable of non-compressed HD output - why it doesn't even have optional VGA/DVI at a retail price of 600 Euros is totally beyond me. I really don't know what the Sony board was thinking, but I do know I'd be doing a rabid fit and chopping of heads with a genuine japanese sword over at Sony HQ if I had any larges stakes in the PS3 business. Nintendo not adding VGA/DVI against all announcements really disapoints me too. I have a bunch of GameCube games I inherited from a friend and would've like to try the one or other new Wii title. Especially with a console only costing 200 Euros. Whatever. I'm a modern 36 year old geek, I don't have a TV. I watch 'computer'. No VGA/DVI == not my console. There you go, you just lost yourself one customer by skimping on parts that cost something close to 20 cents per issue. For my part you can all go broke.
Linux Desktop has not yet reached international critical mass. That's a fact. In Germany critical mass is closest I'd presume and it's still a bit away. The barriers for mass adoption yet are falling one by one. We finally have an frontline OSS enduser distro that isn't subject to the whims of a single corporation - Ubuntu - and that needs to break the "Linux == SuSE" notion in Germany at least. Add in "Winmodem support" and simular end-user issues, zero-fuss USB for the get-go and rid linux of some other quirks and Linux is ready for primetime. Windows screwing up their customerbase with Vista might help, but generally it's the Linuxquirks itself still holding it back. It's only a handfull now, but they are still showstoppers. Once all of them are gone Linux will fly. And it won't be a bubble. Linux will simply take over as the lead plattform. Since there's no money involved there's no economic bubble that can burst.
JavaScript has lots of respect. It has allways been a very modern scripting language, even back in the day when Perl was the only free thing running on the server side and others where still building webapps in VB4 and flash was little more than an extended gif animator or something. It's the browser DOM frustration that puts people of and takes the wind out of JavaScripts big multi-plattform asset. It allways has. If for once the browserbuilders could get that in line JS would be adopted instantly everywhere. Until that happens we'll have the festering broswerwars constantly breaking JS consitency and pushing off people to Flash/AS, Java and whatever other plugin stuff people decide to toy with. Ajax hasn't changed that. Building neat stuff with JS (aka "Ajax") has allways sucked - even back in the nineties - and will continue to suck for quite some time. Growing JS ("Ajax") Frameworks that try to tackle incompatabilites with sheer truckloads of code only work as far as the JS engines don't buckle under the load. Open a few tabs and start a egroupware or some Google RIA app in another one to see what I mean. Unless we finally get some OSS RIA capable plugin (XULRunner, Gnash or whatever) JavaScript won't be able to show it's full potential. I don't see MS teaming up with Mozilla to build a unified JS engine anytime soon.... Now that Java is fully open sourced I'm not holding my breath anyway. Could be that Java finally takes on in the RIA ballpark and causes Flash and Co. some real heat. Would make things interesting again.
Win2k is genrally regarded as MS best product to date. All my Windows Fanboy friends use it. All Win2k users I know have announced that they'll be moving to Linux once Windows is unmaintainably abandoned and Linux is easyer to handle (which it by now is). Some are considering the move to OS X, but in generall it's the DRM and register/lockin shit MS put's it's customers through that has put off a lot of MS users and was the last nail in the coffin for MS.
PHP has many eyes, yes. That's one of it's great advantages. But it also is prone to security issues. Any grown up PHP dev will admit that flat out. Fault tolerance, Reverse proxy, URL dispatching, close ties with the Framework/CMS team, basic brain functions when configging Apache and the underlyin OS, common ground standards of secured client server communication and some other details are part of the regular toolkit of PHP developers to deal with these issues. The versatility of PHP comes with that tradeoff, one has to deal with it, period.
Root. Root owns it. Root keeps everything that doesn't come from us running. Root, Chief Senior Root, Senior Root and 2nd Root keep a Binder and a Booklett with all procedures and Accounts written down, in case they all die in a planecrash. Dev builds the stuff deployable and is assitant to Root on deployment and irons out the glitches as Root orders. During Developement it's the other way around. Dev tells Root what it needs, Root delivers. If the System goes down, Root takes blame. Dev owns Root, but Root owns everything. That includes exclusice Root access (hence the name)... That thing standing on your desk is called a monitor. You use it by looking into the glowing end. That thing with all the buttons is a keyboard. That round thing with the few buttons is called a mouse. Pick up "Idiots Guide to Managing more that 2 Computers in a Work Enviroment" for further details.
BTW: You asking that question here means only one thing: Your companies IT-frastructure needs a complete reedo. Trust me, I've seen it a million times. Stop right now, no need going an further. Fire anybody who doesn't basically understand the above (including yourself, if needed) and have somebody come in and do a setup for you. OSS geeks are OK if they are articulate and competent. Check their clothes - if they are unkempt and less than quality casual don't deal with them. They should have a few years of admin experience up their sleave and be good workers. Which means they should be able to give precise estimates of all factors and need no other than 8 hour days in a classic 5 day workweek to fullfill their estimates. If they can't do that, they are not professionals.... Are you?.... That'll be 200$ geek-buddy-price for consulting services. Thank you....:-)
Now how come I strongly suspect you guys are Windows (Junk)shop?
Sorry, but your out of luck. If there is anything where PHP has outrun Java by nearly a decade, then it's the CMS game. PHP CMSes are so mature you don't even need to do any programming anymore to have a reasonably configurable setup. You might just join a project and work on the Java Clients they are starting to build. Joomla and Typo3 both using Java for exactly that. THe last thing I remember that was up to date with PHP was the Cocoon framework and that was like 7 years ago or so. Time has passed since then. I recommend you get a PHP CMS, secure it at webserver level (reverse proxy and all that) and build any extra functionality that's not covered by modules or extensions with java, using standard in/standard out at the backside and a little conector-layer in PHP. Then you've got the best of both worlds. Any way you do it, there's no way a ready made Java Solution or Framework is going to beat PHP, Python or - since it's being hyped so much - Ruby.
C++ can do wonders when used by highly experienced people. But most of the time, it is more cost effective to get entry level coders and use PHP/Java/C#/whatever. You will get a (somewhat) working product cheaper and possibly faster. And time to market and cost is often more important than maintainability/quality.
Sorry, but you're an Arrogant Assh*le. I mostly do webstuff for a living right now and have been programming for 20 years. I use PHP for webstuff because the available pipeline and it's toolset are mature and I don't want to compile every 2 minutes. I'd use Java if I needed a GUI-app that is cross-platform. Which are the exact reasons for most people using PHP or Java. With you bullshitting about the o-so-experienced C++ programmers and the o-so-n00b PHP and/or Java people I doubt that you have the knowlege or experience to judge who's experienced and who's not. Show me the equivalent of jEdit in C++/QT or the equivalent of Typo3 in C++. Until then I suggest you change your tone of voice towards people choosing other PLs than your favorite.
P.S.: Just the other day I heard of this guy who wants to build a complex browsergame in C++. For performance reasons. LOL! We all know where that's going to end. Talking about choosing the right tool for the job. Now who's the unexperienced developer? Me or he who uses C++?... Thought so.
I call this the LineOfView (as in PoV) Problem
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Tim Bray Says RELAX
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· Score: 4, Insightful
I call this the Line of View (as in PoV) or 'Horizon' Problem. The general problem is this: In XML we've got a standard that is universal for displaying n-dimensional structures in a basically 1-dimensional enviroment. (For the time being, we're ignoring that XML text ususally goes from left to right and top to bottom, making that something 2D to look at) The question now is: where do you draw the line of view? Along which line do I take my knife to cut open my n-dimensional structure to unravel it and flatten it out into a 1-dimesional string of characters? This is a problem that is impossible to solve satisfactory for all possible PoVs or - as I say - Lines of View, or better yet, Horizons to the structure. Will I unravel my DB of books by authors? By issues? By vendors? By publishers or by weight and size?... At some point you will have to look at in which way you want to handle your stuff and which way you're going to unravel it. This will undoubtly influence on how much XML clutter you will have to construct. With XML it's the same as with databases: It/they will allways be pathetic crutches for us to latch on to the real work. Undispensable, but crutches nontheless.
What I'm getting to is this: mapping n-dimensional stuff to 1-dimensional structures will allways suck one way or the other. It's just that with XML we all start agreeing upon in which way it's supposed to suck. I don't think that changing the Schema standard (or worse: introducing additional standards) will actually attack this hard problem. I have a strong suspicion that Relax NGs relief is illusional, short term and re-introduces downsides that XML Schema allready has takled with it's pesky and strict nature. For one it would be consistency with the View-Horizon once chosen all the way through the given data-structure. I don't know for shure - go test and find out - but I do know that universal serialization will allways come with downsides and RelaxNG (or any other schema) won't change that.
Wether.Net is a VM or not couldn't matter less. Since it only runs on one plattform. Annihilating all other 'advantages' mentioned with one stroke. Rich Web won't roll on MS only stuff. If I expect MS only eviroments, I build a DX9 app. No need for web hacks there.
The only 2 true non-ajax ways for rich web that I know are Flash and XUL. Java could be there too, but they somehow managed to leave Flash alone, albeit being it's strongest competitor. I expect that to change a bit now that Java is completely GPLd and expect rich web tools and piplelines to arise. XUL still needs a working universal XULRunner Plugin to be a serious alternative and Ajax is to much of a mess to offer anything beyond the one or other neat hack. Flash is arguably the most widespread VM in terms of installbase ever. Flash still is the VM of choice for anything rich web. And if Adobe doesn't screw up to hard and others don't catch on it will certainly stay that way. Given that the integration of PHP and Flash is growing stronger and stronger and that both are easy to use for n00bs and the de-facto standard in their field I'd say it'll be tough for anyone to take over their position.
OSS doesn't suffer from the lack of leadership or other, supposed 'Cathedral' qualities. In fact, it's the superior leadership, based on merrit and ideals, that turns OSS into the nightmare of anything cathedral - such as MS. In OSS much more than anywhere else, the best floats on top. That's why Outlook mail sucks and KMail sucks considerably less. Linux works because NOBODY doubts that Linus is the chief, Blender works because NOBODY doubts that Ton is the chief, because they both do an excellent job at what they do: leading large OSS projects. Of course there's weedy stuff in OSS that's buggier and more twisted than Autodesk Converter and Macromedia Director together, but that sinks to the lowest bottom, and does not get pushed onto the market by monopolies and marketing budgets of galactic proportions (Windows XP anyone?).
The article is bogus and has it all backwards. I want my 5 minutes back.
Theories are just that: Theories. While the US variant of creationisim (creation started smack x years ago, 'Gods' days are the same length as humand days, etc.) is bogus, presuming that humans and dinos coexisted is not to far fetched. We do not no enough to say for sure that all dinos and humans are bazillion years apart. Given that entire theories found upon single scrap findings I wouldn't dismiss this one as totally bogus.
Of course she carried plutonium in her pockets
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Top Ten Geek Girls
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We only know that radioaktivity is dangerous since she died of cancer.
The MS Office UI sucks anyway. It's basically historically grown, derived from ancient concepts. Same as with Outlook. The best Office UI I know is from Lotus SmartSuite. Classic but yet with streamlines usability. OpenOffice would be better of dropping their MS-rippoff anyway asap.
He has a point. Be it that he's a bigot prick and addicted to technology himself (i.e. telefones and telefone-sex with minors... so I've heard) but he has a point nevertheless.
The media technology that surrounds us and engulfs us more and more is nothing short of pure cyberpunk fast-forward simulated/emulated alternate reality and all-out escapisim. Social skills at low-levels, ADS, people taking longer and longer to grow up and get a grip of their life - rant all you want, but there *are* significant side effects to this tech-craze that are not desirable.
A healthy enviroment in which self-confident individuals can deal with all the habits modern media imposes on us is an ideal - but far more rarely the reality than most people here on/. would like to admit.
I basically agree with his point of view (Sidenote: I also agree that he may have prime asshole qualities). As a result I'm exposing my daughter to media-technology less than I was exposed to it in the 80s and 90s. She's 9 years old, get's to see a DVD or two a month (we've got no TV, it's all crap) and may toy around with Photoshop once in a while.
Most of the time we see to it that she play's outside, learns the guitar, draws, knitts, reads books and plays regular childplay in her spare time. As a result I have a daugther that is healthy, self-confident, well-mannered with a healthy slice of disobedience, has no ADS, no over-exposure to media, no concentration problems and will probably grow up and get a grip on life notably faster than I did. I could still smack my parents for taking me to the movies at the age of three(!).
Of course she'll also learn to handle IT and technology from her geek daddy. When the age is there. Which I can safely say is definitely not earlyer than 14.
Bottom line: The guy may be a dick, but he's telling the truth.
... Linus Torwalds would be an "unskilled worker", Ton Roosendaal an inexperienced dropout (with no experience in Java) and Steve Jobs a nutcase. We've heard it all before. As soon as demand rises a tad and payment get's normal again, the rubbish-talkers crawl out from under their rocks. They're all over the place again nowadays. It's all politics and commercials. I've come to ignore this upper-white-trash completly.
No need to waste a second of your time with these idiots.
'Germans believe in law and order' - that cliche holds a lot of truth. I read about this and could hardly believe that german counties are testing this out. I'm shure it will work though. Especially in the suburbs where we have 30km zones allready anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
As far as I can tell the rebuttals from 'scientist' are just about as informative and trustworthy as most of the quotes from celebrities. Sometimes even less informative. I find it disturbing at how biased the slashdot crowd is towards 'established' academia and people who managed to score an academic degree. The arrogant and wiseass remarks here display clear and unreflected bias very much as any UFO forum or somethign.
The scariest pieces of bullshit I've heard came from academics and scientists, and just because people in general fall for the one or other crackpot notion once in a while I find it unsettling that people usually consider statements from academics more truthfull and academics less prone to crackpot notions, even if they lack objectivity and are merely an expression of antipathy. Which actually indicates the exact oposite.
I do web & IT stuff for pharmaceutical corporations and medical facilities and have times where I get into contact with many acredited academics in various fields of medicine that review scientific IT projects or evaluate e-learning content. After 6 years of work in a field that is the firm grip of academics I can say for shure: The pure-and-utter-bullshit to solid-and-proven-fact ratio in that field is 80 to 20, just like everywhere else. I've met homeopaths with more solid medical knowledge than medicine professors and academic dermatologists that couldn't tell a malign melanome from a pimple if you pushed their face into it. I've seen the medical academic put out obscene amounts of paper and sign it with a straight face, just because their pharmaceutical sponsors want to push a new PPI-drug on to the market, despite a wide array of perfectly suitable existing treaments that have no side-effects.
Thus when a Professor Toy says "There is no definitive evidence that controlled food additives cause cancer." my first gut reaction is to think "Is this guy sponsored by the food industry or does he have a solid trackrecord of purely pulic funded FDA investigations to back his statement on the subject?". I'd go so far and take a statement like that indication that the opposite may be true.
On top of that, some of the comments don't even directly relate to the opposing statements facts.
Bottom line: Just because the statement is from an academic doesn't mean it's less prone to the possibility of being bullshit. People should keep that in mind.
I guess since the two units are on free time, they figure it is ok to screw them up now.
... which - believe it or not - run a version of Windows 95, a frozen setup from back in the nineties, of which the software guys know every bit by it's first name.
As far as I know the On-Board Shuttle Software Group has a track record of 3 (in words: 'three') software bugs in installed operating code within 30 years of writing code. That's all the code running on the Orbiters regular systems, exept only the third-party experiments with own systems and a non-critical original mid-nineties Thinkpad or two they take along
To give you a picture of what they have to deal with: A timing mistake in some piece of the shuttles navigation code by one cpu clockcount would put the shuttle 3 miles off course.
The Voyager Software Team reprogrammed a 20 year old device 3-quarters across the solar system to send color pictures instead of black and white - with a system that was only built to picture and send black and white.
You have not the slightest idea what these spacecraft-software guys are capable of and how insanely bulletproof their code is.
For Heavens sake, please build an Apple Stile Tablet + mac style on board scetch and notes software. That would rock. Who needs a iPhone? Built a 10" iNewton or whatever with a small solid state HDD and sell it for 650$ or so. People would chop their right arm of to get one.
I remember a scene from a followup season of 24 where Jack visits his friend and former collegue (who's now off the job) and they use his private cheap-looking off-the-shelf PC. It was running Linux with XFCE iirc. While the gibberish they phrase is pointless most of the time I think they do a pretty good job at emulating tech-talk. I like the KDE and Enlightenment (modified blueheart theme) Desktops they use troughout the series aswell :-) . :-) .
Even if they don't get the terms correct they are at least pro enough not to use Windows
Xbox is a no-go. To expensive, proprietary networking (Xbox Live) and a serious negative "dark-side" bonus from the PC OS division at MS. Wii *and* PS3 both don't have VGA or DVI output. Which I personally find really hard to believe but it appears to be the truth. PS3 is one of the rare home devices capable of non-compressed HD output - why it doesn't even have optional VGA/DVI at a retail price of 600 Euros is totally beyond me. I really don't know what the Sony board was thinking, but I do know I'd be doing a rabid fit and chopping of heads with a genuine japanese sword over at Sony HQ if I had any larges stakes in the PS3 business. Nintendo not adding VGA/DVI against all announcements really disapoints me too. I have a bunch of GameCube games I inherited from a friend and would've like to try the one or other new Wii title. Especially with a console only costing 200 Euros.
Whatever. I'm a modern 36 year old geek, I don't have a TV. I watch 'computer'. No VGA/DVI == not my console.
There you go, you just lost yourself one customer by skimping on parts that cost something close to 20 cents per issue. For my part you can all go broke.
Linux Desktop has not yet reached international critical mass. That's a fact. In Germany critical mass is closest I'd presume and it's still a bit away. The barriers for mass adoption yet are falling one by one. We finally have an frontline OSS enduser distro that isn't subject to the whims of a single corporation - Ubuntu - and that needs to break the "Linux == SuSE" notion in Germany at least. Add in "Winmodem support" and simular end-user issues, zero-fuss USB for the get-go and rid linux of some other quirks and Linux is ready for primetime.
Windows screwing up their customerbase with Vista might help, but generally it's the Linuxquirks itself still holding it back. It's only a handfull now, but they are still showstoppers. Once all of them are gone Linux will fly. And it won't be a bubble. Linux will simply take over as the lead plattform. Since there's no money involved there's no economic bubble that can burst.
JavaScript has lots of respect. It has allways been a very modern scripting language, even back in the day when Perl was the only free thing running on the server side and others where still building webapps in VB4 and flash was little more than an extended gif animator or something. ... Now that Java is fully open sourced I'm not holding my breath anyway. Could be that Java finally takes on in the RIA ballpark and causes Flash and Co. some real heat. Would make things interesting again.
It's the browser DOM frustration that puts people of and takes the wind out of JavaScripts big multi-plattform asset. It allways has. If for once the browserbuilders could get that in line JS would be adopted instantly everywhere. Until that happens we'll have the festering broswerwars constantly breaking JS consitency and pushing off people to Flash/AS, Java and whatever other plugin stuff people decide to toy with. Ajax hasn't changed that. Building neat stuff with JS (aka "Ajax") has allways sucked - even back in the nineties - and will continue to suck for quite some time. Growing JS ("Ajax") Frameworks that try to tackle incompatabilites with sheer truckloads of code only work as far as the JS engines don't buckle under the load. Open a few tabs and start a egroupware or some Google RIA app in another one to see what I mean.
Unless we finally get some OSS RIA capable plugin (XULRunner, Gnash or whatever) JavaScript won't be able to show it's full potential. I don't see MS teaming up with Mozilla to build a unified JS engine anytime soon.
Win2k is genrally regarded as MS best product to date. All my Windows Fanboy friends use it. All Win2k users I know have announced that they'll be moving to Linux once Windows is unmaintainably abandoned and Linux is easyer to handle (which it by now is). Some are considering the move to OS X, but in generall it's the DRM and register/lockin shit MS put's it's customers through that has put off a lot of MS users and was the last nail in the coffin for MS.
PHP has many eyes, yes. That's one of it's great advantages. But it also is prone to security issues. Any grown up PHP dev will admit that flat out. Fault tolerance, Reverse proxy, URL dispatching, close ties with the Framework/CMS team, basic brain functions when configging Apache and the underlyin OS, common ground standards of secured client server communication and some other details are part of the regular toolkit of PHP developers to deal with these issues. The versatility of PHP comes with that tradeoff, one has to deal with it, period.
Root. Root owns it. Root keeps everything that doesn't come from us running. Root, Chief Senior Root, Senior Root and 2nd Root keep a Binder and a Booklett with all procedures and Accounts written down, in case they all die in a planecrash. Dev builds the stuff deployable and is assitant to Root on deployment and irons out the glitches as Root orders. During Developement it's the other way around. Dev tells Root what it needs, Root delivers. If the System goes down, Root takes blame. Dev owns Root, but Root owns everything. That includes exclusice Root access (hence the name) ... That thing standing on your desk is called a monitor. You use it by looking into the glowing end. That thing with all the buttons is a keyboard. That round thing with the few buttons is called a mouse. Pick up "Idiots Guide to Managing more that 2 Computers in a Work Enviroment" for further details.
... Are you? .... That'll be 200$ geek-buddy-price for consulting services. Thank you. ... :-)
BTW: You asking that question here means only one thing: Your companies IT-frastructure needs a complete reedo. Trust me, I've seen it a million times. Stop right now, no need going an further. Fire anybody who doesn't basically understand the above (including yourself, if needed) and have somebody come in and do a setup for you. OSS geeks are OK if they are articulate and competent. Check their clothes - if they are unkempt and less than quality casual don't deal with them. They should have a few years of admin experience up their sleave and be good workers. Which means they should be able to give precise estimates of all factors and need no other than 8 hour days in a classic 5 day workweek to fullfill their estimates. If they can't do that, they are not professionals.
Now how come I strongly suspect you guys are Windows (Junk)shop?
Tangerine Dream and a bunch of other krauts were doing this 30 years ago.
Yeah. A bunch of 'krauts and one o' them Frog-Eaters.
Thought so. (It's in the headline)
Sorry, but your out of luck. If there is anything where PHP has outrun Java by nearly a decade, then it's the CMS game. PHP CMSes are so mature you don't even need to do any programming anymore to have a reasonably configurable setup. You might just join a project and work on the Java Clients they are starting to build. Joomla and Typo3 both using Java for exactly that. THe last thing I remember that was up to date with PHP was the Cocoon framework and that was like 7 years ago or so. Time has passed since then.
I recommend you get a PHP CMS, secure it at webserver level (reverse proxy and all that) and build any extra functionality that's not covered by modules or extensions with java, using standard in/standard out at the backside and a little conector-layer in PHP. Then you've got the best of both worlds.
Any way you do it, there's no way a ready made Java Solution or Framework is going to beat PHP, Python or - since it's being hyped so much - Ruby.
C++ can do wonders when used by highly experienced people. But most of the time, it is more cost effective to get entry level coders and use PHP/Java/C#/whatever. You will get a (somewhat) working product cheaper and possibly faster. And time to market and cost is often more important than maintainability/quality.
... Thought so.
Sorry, but you're an Arrogant Assh*le.
I mostly do webstuff for a living right now and have been programming for 20 years. I use PHP for webstuff because the available pipeline and it's toolset are mature and I don't want to compile every 2 minutes. I'd use Java if I needed a GUI-app that is cross-platform. Which are the exact reasons for most people using PHP or Java. With you bullshitting about the o-so-experienced C++ programmers and the o-so-n00b PHP and/or Java people I doubt that you have the knowlege or experience to judge who's experienced and who's not. Show me the equivalent of jEdit in C++/QT or the equivalent of Typo3 in C++. Until then I suggest you change your tone of voice towards people choosing other PLs than your favorite.
P.S.: Just the other day I heard of this guy who wants to build a complex browsergame in C++. For performance reasons. LOL! We all know where that's going to end. Talking about choosing the right tool for the job. Now who's the unexperienced developer? Me or he who uses C++?
I call this the Line of View (as in PoV) or 'Horizon' Problem. The general problem is this: In XML we've got a standard that is universal for displaying n-dimensional structures in a basically 1-dimensional enviroment. (For the time being, we're ignoring that XML text ususally goes from left to right and top to bottom, making that something 2D to look at) ... At some point you will have to look at in which way you want to handle your stuff and which way you're going to unravel it. This will undoubtly influence on how much XML clutter you will have to construct. With XML it's the same as with databases: It/they will allways be pathetic crutches for us to latch on to the real work. Undispensable, but crutches nontheless.
The question now is: where do you draw the line of view? Along which line do I take my knife to cut open my n-dimensional structure to unravel it and flatten it out into a 1-dimesional string of characters? This is a problem that is impossible to solve satisfactory for all possible PoVs or - as I say - Lines of View, or better yet, Horizons to the structure. Will I unravel my DB of books by authors? By issues? By vendors? By publishers or by weight and size?
What I'm getting to is this: mapping n-dimensional stuff to 1-dimensional structures will allways suck one way or the other. It's just that with XML we all start agreeing upon in which way it's supposed to suck. I don't think that changing the Schema standard (or worse: introducing additional standards) will actually attack this hard problem. I have a strong suspicion that Relax NGs relief is illusional, short term and re-introduces downsides that XML Schema allready has takled with it's pesky and strict nature. For one it would be consistency with the View-Horizon once chosen all the way through the given data-structure. I don't know for shure - go test and find out - but I do know that universal serialization will allways come with downsides and RelaxNG (or any other schema) won't change that.
Wether .Net is a VM or not couldn't matter less. Since it only runs on one plattform. Annihilating all other 'advantages' mentioned with one stroke. Rich Web won't roll on MS only stuff. If I expect MS only eviroments, I build a DX9 app. No need for web hacks there.
The only 2 true non-ajax ways for rich web that I know are Flash and XUL. Java could be there too, but they somehow managed to leave Flash alone, albeit being it's strongest competitor. I expect that to change a bit now that Java is completely GPLd and expect rich web tools and piplelines to arise. XUL still needs a working universal XULRunner Plugin to be a serious alternative and Ajax is to much of a mess to offer anything beyond the one or other neat hack.
Flash is arguably the most widespread VM in terms of installbase ever. Flash still is the VM of choice for anything rich web. And if Adobe doesn't screw up to hard and others don't catch on it will certainly stay that way. Given that the integration of PHP and Flash is growing stronger and stronger and that both are easy to use for n00bs and the de-facto standard in their field I'd say it'll be tough for anyone to take over their position.
I suppose both of them would be glad to step in as soon as MS starts playing hardball in the patent game.
Old motor oil a wonderfull fertilizer.
Smoking keeps your lungs healthy.
CO^2 dampens greenhouse effect.
OSS doesn't suffer from the lack of leadership or other, supposed 'Cathedral' qualities. In fact, it's the superior leadership, based on merrit and ideals, that turns OSS into the nightmare of anything cathedral - such as MS.
In OSS much more than anywhere else, the best floats on top. That's why Outlook mail sucks and KMail sucks considerably less. Linux works because NOBODY doubts that Linus is the chief, Blender works because NOBODY doubts that Ton is the chief, because they both do an excellent job at what they do: leading large OSS projects.
Of course there's weedy stuff in OSS that's buggier and more twisted than Autodesk Converter and Macromedia Director together, but that sinks to the lowest bottom, and does not get pushed onto the market by monopolies and marketing budgets of galactic proportions (Windows XP anyone?).
The article is bogus and has it all backwards. I want my 5 minutes back.
Theories are just that: Theories. While the US variant of creationisim (creation started smack x years ago, 'Gods' days are the same length as humand days, etc.) is bogus, presuming that humans and dinos coexisted is not to far fetched. We do not no enough to say for sure that all dinos and humans are bazillion years apart. Given that entire theories found upon single scrap findings I wouldn't dismiss this one as totally bogus.
We only know that radioaktivity is dangerous since she died of cancer.
The MS Office UI sucks anyway. It's basically historically grown, derived from ancient concepts. Same as with Outlook. The best Office UI I know is from Lotus SmartSuite. Classic but yet with streamlines usability. OpenOffice would be better of dropping their MS-rippoff anyway asap.
He has a point. Be it that he's a bigot prick and addicted to technology himself (i.e. telefones and telefone-sex with minors ... so I've heard) but he has a point nevertheless.
/. would like to admit.
The media technology that surrounds us and engulfs us more and more is nothing short of pure cyberpunk fast-forward simulated/emulated alternate reality and all-out escapisim. Social skills at low-levels, ADS, people taking longer and longer to grow up and get a grip of their life - rant all you want, but there *are* significant side effects to this tech-craze that are not desirable.
A healthy enviroment in which self-confident individuals can deal with all the habits modern media imposes on us is an ideal - but far more rarely the reality than most people here on
I basically agree with his point of view (Sidenote: I also agree that he may have prime asshole qualities).
As a result I'm exposing my daughter to media-technology less than I was exposed to it in the 80s and 90s. She's 9 years old, get's to see a DVD or two a month (we've got no TV, it's all crap) and may toy around with Photoshop once in a while.
Most of the time we see to it that she play's outside, learns the guitar, draws, knitts, reads books and plays regular childplay in her spare time. As a result I have a daugther that is healthy, self-confident, well-mannered with a healthy slice of disobedience, has no ADS, no over-exposure to media, no concentration problems and will probably grow up and get a grip on life notably faster than I did. I could still smack my parents for taking me to the movies at the age of three(!).
Of course she'll also learn to handle IT and technology from her geek daddy. When the age is there. Which I can safely say is definitely not earlyer than 14.
Bottom line: The guy may be a dick, but he's telling the truth.
... Linus Torwalds would be an "unskilled worker", Ton Roosendaal an inexperienced dropout (with no experience in Java) and Steve Jobs a nutcase. We've heard it all before. As soon as demand rises a tad and payment get's normal again, the rubbish-talkers crawl out from under their rocks. They're all over the place again nowadays. It's all politics and commercials. I've come to ignore this upper-white-trash completly.
No need to waste a second of your time with these idiots.
'Germans believe in law and order' - that cliche holds a lot of truth. I read about this and could hardly believe that german counties are testing this out. I'm shure it will work though. Especially in the suburbs where we have 30km zones allready anyway.