"... and then you get all their oil as a bonus for your good deeds. Coincidentally, of course."
The figures I have seen, as far as what we have spent, we can pump for a long time at a huge premium and we will never pay back the cost of the war with their oil. Why do you think the govt. is edgy even about 20 million dollar LOAN in rebuilding, but leaning against it. That argument is pretty ignorant.
All I meant by my comment.. I got through the first 100 pages and enjoyed it. At first I was a bit lost, but now I am having fun. If you don't enjoy it don't play it. that easy.
And by all means, if you don't have the money to risk a bad game, don't spend it. I bought it prepared to not like it, but 44 dollars wasn't a big deal to me.
i guess the difference is , i am having fun right now. It's a nice change from what I have been playing. I am definately getting 15 dollars worth of enjoyment a month from it.
Is it perfect, no.
Am I having fun... Yes.
I bought the game expecting the worst. I was more curious than anything. 44 dollars didn't kill me, thankfully.. but I bought it expecting that I very well may be dissapointed. thus far I have seen nothing but fun and adventure. maybe in 6 months, I will no longer have fun.. but at that point, I will try something else.
I am not a star wars fanboi, just someone who is wanting to play a fun game.. right now SWG suites that, and it doesn't require 16 hours a day to do such.
Linux might of been born around the x86 architecture, to give a Unix like OS for the rest of us. But, Unix(tm) on non-x86 is hardly a second class citizen. Take a look at Solaris or Irix, x86 on solaris is by far a stepchild over it's brother that runs on sparc CPU's. Irix doesn't even run on x86 afaik.
Basically comes down to what your expectations are. I tried the game and rolled a brawler. Got sorta bored sorta quick, until I looked into making an droid technician. I have been in love with the game since.
I guess I didn't buy lookin for an alternative to eve or earth and beyond. The space parts will come, but I am enjoying what I have found thus far. Combat is a bit stale, but that will improve. The Dev's have shown that they are making daily progress and things are getting fixed quick.
I see SWG like a book, you might have to get through the first 100 pages before it starts to get interesting.. Sounds like you have given up on page 3.
Hmm... i have left DAoC to play it. I find that it's better suited for those with lifes. It's the first MMORPG I have played that a casual gamer can enjoy. I protested the game first when my friend talked me into getting it just for the reason it was full of fanboi's.
I think that the people screaming that it stinks the loudest are the people trying to convince those that are leaving their current games. That's at least been my experience.
Sorry if this has been answered somewhere else, but wouldn't something like Eclipse be a perfect foundation for development of C# on Linux? I haven't seen another development tool that has the extensive cross-platform and cross-language support and seem to be outside the scope of a religion.
I am currently doing a lot of C# development, using visual studio.Net naturally, but being a native Java developer and a fan of Eclipse, it wouldn't be a monumental task to turn Eclipse via plugins into a decent C# development environment. For console type applications.
Of course this is just about writing C# console and server side type apps, not about the features of things like code generation of Windows Form code is what makes Visual Studio.NET such an interesting solution. I can't imagine that until Mono has solid WindowsForm compatibility , it's not going to be a compeling option over Java or microsofts own solutions. I personally would jump up and down to be able to run my windows-form code in mono on linux, and even more so do my development in linux.
I guess this rant is leading to the point of, better to build on something than build it yourself. Maybe with a widely adapted editor such as Ecplipse, and a solid plugin and CIL support, you will get wider adaption of C# on linux for console and server tasks. Wider adoption will bring a stronger userbase and hopefully accelarated development (which is what we are all praying for).
Dude, all I have to say is I was laughing my ass when I read your post. I can't think of a better way to describe that guy.
Re:"One Linux operator can manage 45 computers whi
on
Linux in High School Labs
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
I agree with what your saying, you have paid your due's and now your probably being compensated well for it. After four years of trial and error, your probably quite proficient with your craft.
Seems that getting things setup and working is only 20% of the task tho, and keeping things running is the other 80%.. or the real work. I don't see system administration any more untrue to the 80/20 rule that programming.
I wouldn't be surprised if someone who has 4 years experience in Linux really 'knows' the underworking of the OS and the critical components much better than someone who has been admining a NT server for four years. I wouldn't be surprised if that same person has ability to easier manage more servers because of the profound skill and knowledge he has of the environment than a shallow understanding of how high-level gui's work.
I am sure that as distributions get more and more advanced, not as many Linux users will know how to write their own custom init scripts, watchdog monitors, runlevel options, boot into single user mode, etc.
I can't believe that just because Windows is easy to use that these same tricks of the trade are any easier. If anything, in my experience, getting things going in windows is quite easy, but when something goes wrong, really wrong, is when I seem to get quite frustrated. Now, the only experience I have had managing windows software was a small NT server at a company I was at that used it for exchange and file serving. I admit, I am a programmer and not an admin, but small companies.. you do what you have to do:).
I have spent about 4-5 years myself working on linux.. VERY long nights of hacking and playing, twiddling and recompiling.. endless greps through uesless mailing lists, etc. But in the end it has paid off BIG time, I am landing more a year than any windows admin I know and am using a tool set that I control and understand.
Your much better off having taken the harder path my friend, I am sure when something goes wrong you understand the problem, and not just the symptom. You will be much more effective in solving problems when shit really hits the fan. I dont think you keep 1 NT admin per 10 servers for when things are going good... or getting setup, but going bad and having problems. Maybe thats why you don't need so many people to manage linux boxes.. not for deployment, but for post deployment trauma.:)
Enjoyed your post tho.. I agree that Linux does need a standard base for configuration. But don't worry, we will get there:)
The head programmers have gone on to bigger and better things it seems. One of them at apple now working on Safari. As a programmer, it would probably be hard to work on Safari during the day and Mozilla/Phoenix at night. (For me it would be hard)... who knows, hopefully someone else will pick up the project as it's a great brower.
If general computing becomes norm on console, Sony will do it long before microsoft. MS only has a monopoly to use if PC becomes totally commododized into an appliance.
As TV's w/High Def become more of a standard, it won't be such a big deal to surf, read email, etc from the TV. The Mom/Grandma option becomes more real.
I personally believe it would be sweet to have a PS2 powered Palm Pilot type device.:) w/Standard TV out but a simple interface to do basic things, like contact managment, IM , etc. Don't know how games would plug into it... Flash Rom? Who knows.
A while ago I read a post here on slashdot that has stuck with me. Had to do with Slackware, and them not having the success that RedHat and SuSE, even Mandrake have had.
Basically the poster has said that just because their definition of success (being Patric & Co. at Slackware) isn't the same as say, RedHats, doesn't mean that they are not a success. Reaching their goal is what defines success. I found the original author of that comment quite insightful and really tweaked my perspective on things after that.
From what I have seen , readhat is actually doing group testing for their interfaces starting with RedHat 8.0. They have gone around to various user groups, and gotten feedback based on the users of their software.
I imagine it's going to take a strong and unified group of engineers under a commercial hat (such as a red one) to get things looking nice.
Ximian has done a great deal to help the user interface on Linux. Great applications will eventually come. Crap will slide off the wall, but some of it will stick.
That said, the KDE project seems to have done a good job of building a common set of applications with a common look and feel.
I would give me left nut if a group could pull together like Apple has w/OSX for a solid.. and more importantly consistent feel to the applications.
3-4 years ago I downloaded the first online revision of his ebook. I printed out all 200+ pages and went through it one chapter at a time. After about 2-3 weeks, I was working away in JAVA and that book was probably one of the more influential elements in my career as a programmer. I am glad that Bruce has made his material free for use. I have since purchased copies of thinking in JAVA and thinking in C++. The Thinking in JAVA book has probably taught me more about OOP than any other book I have read on the subject.
I recommend that books to anyone that would like to venture into the wild world of JAVA, whether you be an experienced programmer or someone who would like to be one some day.:) Bruce has a way of putting his concepts and lessons across in ways that are comprehensible and easily graspable. At the time when I picked up that book, I had considered JAVA as a language to add to my plate, but found the task of teaching myself JAVA quite daunting. Since I have been working exclusively with JAVA and am still learning new things all the time.
All of which is right on-track. No, I don't program in Java, though I'm forced to use it occasionally. From a programmer's perspective, Java may well be the cat's pajamas, but from a user's perspective (mine), Java sucks.
Agreed. I haven't really found a java-based application that I love to use (from the user-interface standpoint).. other than a few development environments. (JBuilder + IDEA)...
Really, I see JAVA as nothing more than a todays COBOL. It's GREAT for business based software, and really is quite easy to maintain and manage. But, middleware doesn't really have much to do with UserInterface. (There is probably hundreds of millions of lines of JAVA code sitting in the back-end of windows-based native applications, that you would never guess...)
I don't want to start a flame war here, but I have ported some VERY large java applications to various OS's, and for the most part.. things went VERY well. I also don't consider myself a 'new convert' to JAVA either. I appreciate your rant as a Windows/Linux user.. but 90% of the coding work I do with java is in the COBOL sense of business middle-ware.
Usually the only thing that really bit-the-bot was someone hard coding paths into the code, rather than using a configuration file or something of the sort or referencing an external JNI call to a native library. This is VERY uncommon in the code that I have worked with.
Maybe with Swing/AWT applications, your right.. but on the server, which it doesn't sound like you have done much programming w/JAVA on, JAVA has lived up to it's promise. It's EXTREMELY portable. Over the last year I have switched my build managment to ANT, and if done correctly, will help even further in keeping things clean across multiple platforms.
As with ANY cross-platform tool.. (I run into this myself with my own Python code occasionally), will have problems w/cross platform if you don't think cross platform. Usually non-cross-platform JAVA code is either HIGHLY specialized or poorly written.
also, don't be afraid to run some load tests on your app while profiling. you'll need a fast machine to run tomcat+cocoon under a profiler, but the results are often very helpful in finding bottlenecks. in particular, you'll probably find a lot of time spent in StringBuffers, which is normal for an app like yours, but it's a good place to start when you're interested in shaving a few seconds here and there.
Don't you mean on Strings? Unless I am HUGELY mistaken, Strings are much higher overhead than StringBuffers and StringBuggers should be used unless features of String are needed.
Not to be nit-pickley, but just thought I would point that out.
Agreed, I have the image content serving from apache, and mod_caucho is quite smart. I knows not to push and proxy static content over to an application server.
I have not had much luck load balancing more than 3 or 4 servers with mod_caucho tho, anything bigger than that get a real load balancer. (Even Scott at caucho has mentioned that he doesn't know of any production sites running more than 3-4 servers in a single zone...) and to move to a hardward load balancer at that point.
I have found that I have made the Python round-trip.
I haven't used Zope, but for general programming..I have found my programs to build up quicker using python.. but , even when push comes to shove.. my java apps are more maintainable. Agreed that JAVA is a bit of a pig, but it's a VERY structured language. Having soft-types in Python seems to be what kills me in the long run, my programs tend to be more 'brittle'.
Also, using tools like ANT and now my new golden-child of IDE's , Eclipse.. I find JAVA wasn't as bad as I thought..
I can also use Jython anywher ein my java apps if desired.
With MOST of the JAVA Based projects I have worked on, it is almost ambiguous which platform you work on as long as you follow good standards and don't step too deeply into proprietary land.
Most of the gotchas will be w/the database pooling which each vendor seems to handle w/their own style. As long as re-usable class components where used, and a solid MVC model is in place, you should be able to move from one vendor to another without loosing much time.
I have bounced from Resin to Jetty to Websphere to Tomcat and had few problems.
So, he probably won't loose 5 months worth of work if he moves to another platform, but maybe 5 days of reconfiguring and possible bug fixes that may have been hidden or exposed by one platform or another.
I have taken 2 production environments from Tomcat to Resin.. I have Resin to be more robust and easier to develop w/than Tomcat for various reasons. (First and formost the error message points you strait to the line of JSP rather than the error code linking back to the servlet. Resin does have some performance perks over Tomcat, but unless it's a VERY high volume site w/lots of load balanced servers, it's not going to probably matter much.
The thing I would say #1 is what you know. I know Resin inside and out, and when something goes wrong.. I know how to deal with it. Tomcat, I can't say the same thing. For this reason, it's been well worth the 500 dollars per server to deploy resin, as it's cheeper for us to maintain.
But, I have been working with resin for 3 some years now.
If tomcat works for you, go for it.. if it holds up under the stress tests , etc.. use it!:) You have had it in testing for a LONG time, at least by my experience..
Good luck either way, but if you do look to a commercial product, definately give Resin a serious look. http://www.caucho.com
It would take a week to install gentoo on a 486 / P1 class machine.
Source base distro's aren't for installing onto a lab of machines, I know you can take binary builds and re-distribute.. but come on.. how much work is that? Redhat or Mandrake would make 100x more sense in this scenerio.
Slashdot Mirror
" ... and then you get all their oil as a bonus for your good deeds. Coincidentally, of course."
The figures I have seen, as far as what we have spent, we can pump for a long time at a huge premium and we will never pay back the cost of the war with their oil. Why do you think the govt. is edgy even about 20 million dollar LOAN in rebuilding, but leaning against it. That argument is pretty ignorant.
this a joke? you can't be for real.
Seems like this is about as interesting to the average slashdoter as the Barbie Makeup and Hair Studio.
Honestly.... come on guys.
All I meant by my comment.. I got through the first 100 pages and enjoyed it. At first I was a bit lost, but now I am having fun. If you don't enjoy it don't play it. that easy.
And by all means, if you don't have the money to risk a bad game, don't spend it. I bought it prepared to not like it, but 44 dollars wasn't a big deal to me.
i guess the difference is , i am having fun right now. It's a nice change from what I have been playing. I am definately getting 15 dollars worth of enjoyment a month from it.
... Yes.
Is it perfect, no.
Am I having fun
I bought the game expecting the worst. I was more curious than anything. 44 dollars didn't kill me, thankfully.. but I bought it expecting that I very well may be dissapointed. thus far I have seen nothing but fun and adventure. maybe in 6 months, I will no longer have fun.. but at that point, I will try something else.
I am not a star wars fanboi, just someone who is wanting to play a fun game.. right now SWG suites that, and it doesn't require 16 hours a day to do such.
Linux might of been born around the x86 architecture, to give a Unix like OS for the rest of us. But, Unix(tm) on non-x86 is hardly a second class citizen. Take a look at Solaris or Irix, x86 on solaris is by far a stepchild over it's brother that runs on sparc CPU's. Irix doesn't even run on x86 afaik.
Basically comes down to what your expectations are. I tried the game and rolled a brawler. Got sorta bored sorta quick, until I looked into making an droid technician. I have been in love with the game since.
I guess I didn't buy lookin for an alternative to eve or earth and beyond. The space parts will come, but I am enjoying what I have found thus far. Combat is a bit stale, but that will improve. The Dev's have shown that they are making daily progress and things are getting fixed quick.
I see SWG like a book, you might have to get through the first 100 pages before it starts to get interesting.. Sounds like you have given up on page 3.
cheers
Hmm... i have left DAoC to play it. I find that it's better suited for those with lifes. It's the first MMORPG I have played that a casual gamer can enjoy. I protested the game first when my friend talked me into getting it just for the reason it was full of fanboi's.
I think that the people screaming that it stinks the loudest are the people trying to convince those that are leaving their current games. That's at least been my experience.
Sorry if this has been answered somewhere else, but wouldn't something like Eclipse be a perfect foundation for development of C# on Linux? I haven't seen another development tool that has the extensive cross-platform and cross-language support and seem to be outside the scope of a religion.
I am currently doing a lot of C# development, using visual studio
Of course this is just about writing C# console and server side type apps, not about the features of things like code generation of Windows Form code is what makes Visual Studio
I guess this rant is leading to the point of, better to build on something than build it yourself. Maybe with a widely adapted editor such as Ecplipse, and a solid plugin and CIL support, you will get wider adaption of C# on linux for console and server tasks. Wider adoption will bring a stronger userbase and hopefully accelarated development (which is what we are all praying for).
Thanks Miguel
Dude, all I have to say is I was laughing my ass when I read your post. I can't think of a better way to describe that guy.
I agree with what your saying, you have paid your due's and now your probably being compensated well for it. After four years of trial and error, your probably quite proficient with your craft.
Seems that getting things setup and working is only 20% of the task tho, and keeping things running is the other 80%
I wouldn't be surprised if someone who has 4 years experience in Linux really 'knows' the underworking of the OS and the critical components much better than someone who has been admining a NT server for four years. I wouldn't be surprised if that same person has ability to easier manage more servers because of the profound skill and knowledge he has of the environment than a shallow understanding of how high-level gui's work.
I am sure that as distributions get more and more advanced, not as many Linux users will know how to write their own custom init scripts, watchdog monitors, runlevel options, boot into single user mode, etc.
I can't believe that just because Windows is easy to use that these same tricks of the trade are any easier. If anything, in my experience, getting things going in windows is quite easy, but when something goes wrong, really wrong, is when I seem to get quite frustrated. Now, the only experience I have had managing windows software was a small NT server at a company I was at that used it for exchange and file serving. I admit, I am a programmer and not an admin, but small companies.. you do what you have to do
I have spent about 4-5 years myself working on linux.. VERY long nights of hacking and playing, twiddling and recompiling.. endless greps through uesless mailing lists, etc. But in the end it has paid off BIG time, I am landing more a year than any windows admin I know and am using a tool set that I control and understand.
Your much better off having taken the harder path my friend, I am sure when something goes wrong you understand the problem, and not just the symptom. You will be much more effective in solving problems when shit really hits the fan. I dont think you keep 1 NT admin per 10 servers for when things are going good... or getting setup, but going bad and having problems. Maybe thats why you don't need so many people to manage linux boxes.. not for deployment, but for post deployment trauma.
Enjoyed your post tho.. I agree that Linux does need a standard base for configuration. But don't worry, we will get there
Cheers
The head programmers have gone on to bigger and better things it seems. One of them at apple now working on Safari. As a programmer, it would probably be hard to work on Safari during the day and Mozilla/Phoenix at night. (For me it would be hard)... who knows, hopefully someone else will pick up the project as it's a great brower.
:)
I personally have grown to like Safari.
If general computing becomes norm on console, Sony will do it long before microsoft. MS only has a monopoly to use if PC becomes totally commododized into an appliance.
As TV's w/High Def become more of a standard, it won't be such a big deal to surf, read email, etc from the TV. The Mom/Grandma option becomes more real.
I personally believe it would be sweet to have a PS2 powered Palm Pilot type device.
Well put,
A while ago I read a post here on slashdot that has stuck with me. Had to do with Slackware, and them not having the success that RedHat and SuSE, even Mandrake have had.
Basically the poster has said that just because their definition of success (being Patric & Co. at Slackware) isn't the same as say, RedHats, doesn't mean that they are not a success. Reaching their goal is what defines success. I found the original author of that comment quite insightful and really tweaked my perspective on things after that.
From what I have seen , readhat is actually doing group testing for their interfaces starting with RedHat 8.0. They have gone around to various user groups, and gotten feedback based on the users of their software.
I imagine it's going to take a strong and unified group of engineers under a commercial hat (such as a red one) to get things looking nice.
Ximian has done a great deal to help the user interface on Linux. Great applications will eventually come. Crap will slide off the wall, but some of it will stick.
That said, the KDE project seems to have done a good job of building a common set of applications with a common look and feel.
I would give me left nut if a group could pull together like Apple has w/OSX for a solid
3-4 years ago I downloaded the first online revision of his ebook. I printed out all 200+ pages and went through it one chapter at a time. After about 2-3 weeks, I was working away in JAVA and that book was probably one of the more influential elements in my career as a programmer. I am glad that Bruce has made his material free for use. I have since purchased copies of thinking in JAVA and thinking in C++. The Thinking in JAVA book has probably taught me more about OOP than any other book I have read on the subject.
:) Bruce has a way of putting his concepts and lessons across in ways that are comprehensible and easily graspable. At the time when I picked up that book, I had considered JAVA as a language to add to my plate, but found the task of teaching myself JAVA quite daunting. Since I have been working exclusively with JAVA and am still learning new things all the time.
I recommend that books to anyone that would like to venture into the wild world of JAVA, whether you be an experienced programmer or someone who would like to be one some day.
All of which is right on-track. No, I don't program in Java, though I'm forced to use it occasionally. From a programmer's perspective, Java may well be the cat's pajamas, but from a user's perspective (mine), Java sucks.
Agreed. I haven't really found a java-based application that I love to use (from the user-interface standpoint)
Really, I see JAVA as nothing more than a todays COBOL. It's GREAT for business based software, and really is quite easy to maintain and manage. But, middleware doesn't really have much to do with UserInterface. (There is probably hundreds of millions of lines of JAVA code sitting in the back-end of windows-based native applications, that you would never guess...)
Anyway, cheers!
I don't want to start a flame war here, but I have ported some VERY large java applications to various OS's, and for the most part.. things went VERY well. I also don't consider myself a 'new convert' to JAVA either. I appreciate your rant as a Windows/Linux user.. but 90% of the coding work I do with java is in the COBOL sense of business middle-ware.
Usually the only thing that really bit-the-bot was someone hard coding paths into the code, rather than using a configuration file or something of the sort or referencing an external JNI call to a native library. This is VERY uncommon in the code that I have worked with.
Maybe with Swing/AWT applications, your right.. but on the server, which it doesn't sound like you have done much programming w/JAVA on, JAVA has lived up to it's promise. It's EXTREMELY portable. Over the last year I have switched my build managment to ANT, and if done correctly, will help even further in keeping things clean across multiple platforms.
As with ANY cross-platform tool
Nice karma whoring tho mate.
also, don't be afraid to run some load tests on your app while profiling. you'll need a fast machine to run tomcat+cocoon under a profiler, but the results are often very helpful in finding bottlenecks. in particular, you'll probably find a lot of time spent in StringBuffers, which is normal for an app like yours, but it's a good place to start when you're interested in shaving a few seconds here and there.
Don't you mean on Strings? Unless I am HUGELY mistaken, Strings are much higher overhead than StringBuffers and StringBuggers should be used unless features of String are needed.
Not to be nit-pickley, but just thought I would point that out.
Agreed, I have the image content serving from apache, and mod_caucho is quite smart. I knows not to push and proxy static content over to an application server.
I have not had much luck load balancing more than 3 or 4 servers with mod_caucho tho, anything bigger than that get a real load balancer. (Even Scott at caucho has mentioned that he doesn't know of any production sites running more than 3-4 servers in a single zone...) and to move to a hardward load balancer at that point.
I have found that I have made the Python round-trip.
I haven't used Zope, but for general programming..I have found my programs to build up quicker using python.. but , even when push comes to shove.. my java apps are more maintainable. Agreed that JAVA is a bit of a pig, but it's a VERY structured language. Having soft-types in Python seems to be what kills me in the long run, my programs tend to be more 'brittle'.
Also, using tools like ANT and now my new golden-child of IDE's , Eclipse.. I find JAVA wasn't as bad as I thought..
I can also use Jython anywher ein my java apps if desired.
With MOST of the JAVA Based projects I have worked on, it is almost ambiguous which platform you work on as long as you follow good standards and don't step too deeply into proprietary land.
Most of the gotchas will be w/the database pooling which each vendor seems to handle w/their own style. As long as re-usable class components where used, and a solid MVC model is in place, you should be able to move from one vendor to another without loosing much time.
I have bounced from Resin to Jetty to Websphere to Tomcat and had few problems.
So, he probably won't loose 5 months worth of work if he moves to another platform, but maybe 5 days of reconfiguring and possible bug fixes that may have been hidden or exposed by one platform or another.
I have taken 2 production environments from Tomcat to Resin.. I have Resin to be more robust and easier to develop w/than Tomcat for various reasons. (First and formost the error message points you strait to the line of JSP rather than the error code linking back to the servlet. Resin does have some performance perks over Tomcat, but unless it's a VERY high volume site w/lots of load balanced servers, it's not going to probably matter much.
The thing I would say #1 is what you know. I know Resin inside and out, and when something goes wrong.. I know how to deal with it. Tomcat, I can't say the same thing. For this reason, it's been well worth the 500 dollars per server to deploy resin, as it's cheeper for us to maintain.
But, I have been working with resin for 3 some years now.
If tomcat works for you, go for it.. if it holds up under the stress tests , etc.. use it!
Good luck either way, but if you do look to a commercial product, definately give Resin a serious look. http://www.caucho.com
It would take a week to install gentoo on a 486 / P1 class machine.
Source base distro's aren't for installing onto a lab of machines, I know you can take binary builds and re-distribute.. but come on.. how much work is that? Redhat or Mandrake would make 100x more sense in this scenerio.
Frankly, I think ur full-o-shit.