Does anyone have information on whether someone is working on having Cruesoe run Java bytecode? It was said that due to Cruesoe's adaptability features it/could/ do so, but that's just theory.
Seriously though, if Microsoft wanted to make it more security, give it user premissions like Unix,
NT has those permissions. For Win9x to have them, they had to change the file system (FAT) and some other things, breaking their whole we-remake-DOS-once-a-year-and-you-better-buy-it compatibility. So, nothing will change.
are major features currently in development - like genericity/parameterized types. These things haven't crystallized yet. Sun already has published specs which are enough (AFAIK) to make your own implementation, and nobody is stopping you.
Can you point me to those specs? I can't find anything on Sun's Java site.
You make a lot of statements on the programming languages you enumerate. Maybe you could explain why Pascal is crap for large projects but Modula is OK (do you know Object Pascal as in Delphi or Free Pascal?).
What is Java missing?
Not meant as flamebait, there were gazillions of discussions on programming languages on slashdot (naturally;-)), and I always got something out of them.
I think that the availability of the Independent JPEG Group's free cross-platform library was crucial for the success of the JPEG image file format.
It was available before continuous-tone images were in everyday-use, so it was pretty stable at the time everyone needed good lossy image compression. And only the parts of the many JPEG variants were used that offered a) superior performance compared to other formats and b) were free to use (so, not arithmetic coding).
Do you know of any plans to create a similar library for JPEG2000?
There is Win95/98 and there is NT/2000. They differ a lot.
As for Linux being such a superior OS -- that must be compared on an issue-to-issue basis. It's true for some, not true for others (usability).
A little bit less generalization, please.
If all's good, there won't be any Windows twenty years from now and nothing left to argue. And yes, I want everyone to use Linux because then my family will use it and I will be able keep everyone from deleting important system files.
Well, in some countries it's forbidden to own certain items. Can't speak for France, but in Germany it is like that. You're not allowed to have a Swastika flag on your house, or the Reichskriegsflagge, or something similar. That's a restriction of personal rights, but I'm totally for it. They're symbols for a part of German history that should be presented in the right context only. And the right context is one that explains what these items stood for. I could understand how Jews, whether from Germany or someplace else, would feel when they see people having the above mentioned flag presented. What possible interpretations of that presentation are there if not support for Nazism? And that's something a huge majority doesn't want here anymore.
But I see the problem that it's difficult to draw the line.
It's not going against German items in general but against items that represent the Nazi part of its past. These belong in a museum, together with some explanations for the visitors, and nowhere else.
It's Phil's site where I for the first time really saw FlashPix used;-)
For FPX support on Linux, Image Magick seems to have read support and it is supported by JIMI (Java image file I/O library) and JAI (Java Advanced Imaging). I have some FPX codec source code from JAI that I want to look at when I have some time left.
Meyer makes a clear difference between C programmers and C hackers. He even states that he expects everyone to know C (at least back in '95, when they had that discussion), he knows C himself very well and he points to the fact that some C hackers are not well-suited for the creation of huge, complex systems that must be reliable because they (=the hackers) chase for runtime and memory efficiency and lose sight of the more important points maintainability, readability etc. I think he has a point there.
He does not use the term 'C hacker' for someone who is a good programmer and uses C, as you might assume.
There is a mixture of PNG and JPEG called JNG which is supposed to support JPEG compression and an alpha channel. But a short search on the PNG homepage didn't bring any results for me. Maybe if you use a search engine.
In theory, one can simply add an alpha channel to a JPEG file (a second channel for a grayscale or a fourth for a YCbCr color image) -- there is just no software that supports this. The JPEG standard also doesn't say anything about color spaces... Maybe one could wrap the alpha channel into a custom marker. This all makes sense only if it is standardized in some way (so that all major applications support it), which is a very painful and long process. But JPEG2000 is on the way, maybe it adds transparency support of some kind.
I also know Kodak Flashpix, which uses JPEG compression, I don't know about alpha channel support.
I was wondering about the same thing! But while Ada certainly is superior to many other languages, it's not a panacea -- the exploded Ariane 5 rocket mentioned in the article failed because of an unhandled exception in some Ada code which was simply taken over from the Ada 4 (3?) control system without checking it against the new requirements. At least that's what they told us in the first lecture of our software engineering class;-)
I'm not sure how the show will be without the Scully / Mulder interaction. However, there were episodes before with one or the other missing, and they weren't all bad (remember the Scully-in-Maine episode?).
I also hope for the conspiracy-crap being dumped forever -- I can't stand that subplot.
But I guess I'll miss the humour in the dialogue between the two.
Does this mean VOB playback even in the 'evaluation copy'? Or does VOB contain anything beyond 'pure' MPEG-2?
Highlights of the new version include MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 codec support, both encoding and decoding, as well as support for both local and streaming playback of those formats.
Does anyone here already have an evaluation copy of the Java 2 SDK? Any benchmarks? Opinions?!
Hmm, I didn't know that, and my copy of Windows Media Player also knows QuickTime files. Unfortunately, it seems to be unable to deal with any modern codec;-( Even the annyoing I-contact-home-without-asking feature doesn't work:
Unable to download an appropriate decompressor. (Error=80040200)
No, the original comment is not flamebait. It is/extremely/ annoying having to deal with this stupid nag screen if you have to watch multiple QuickTime movies.
Normally, commercial software has some sort of remind-me-later checkbox that will make the buy-me window pop up only at some rare occasions. Nobody will buy the software only because they don't like those screens, people just get a bad opinion of QuickTime. That's where MS Media Player wins -- no problems, no price, just works.
There must be some ISO source code for MPEG-4, just like there is some for an MP3 encoder. Patching the ISO code and get a free player would be a similar thing like some people did it with LAME for MP3 encoding.
How much does Microsofts ASF's and AVI/DivX's/content/ differ from raw MPEG-4? The parsing of the chunked ASF / AVI structure is very easy and well-documented, I've done that part myself for another app.
Fact: Who cares anymore? This kindof shit will continue to happen for as long as we have computers. It is human nature to figure out ways to screw up the system.
That's right for some home user's system. But I disagree on enterprises, they should have an admin that sets up things so that users cannot destroy anything but their own data. And their own data should be backed up automatically for them - period. The system must be idiot-proof. If you cannot do this with Windows in combination with Outlook, use something else.
The problem with some of the file systems is the missing documentation -- take NTFS. There is write support, but it's still not stable. Microsoft just doesn't give away good specs. I can't see anyone but them helping there, and they probably have no interest in good NTFS drivers for free Unices. Bad luck...
. "anywhere" is now defined as Windows and Solaris (note: Windows first!).
True, Sun only releases JDK's for Win32, Solaris and Linux. But there are tons of JDK's by other enterprises, e.g. for HP-UX, Digital's Unix, Irix etc., most of them 1.2. They get used but nobody makes a lot of noise about it.
As I said earlier, I like Java *as a language*. It would be nice if someone (*ghm* Sun?) released a Java-like language that actually compiles to native binaries (i.e. getting rid of this jvm junk). But Sun has a different agenda...
There are Java source/bytecode-to-native code compilers. You'll get the speed there. On JVM, it has other advantages as pointed out by others (dynamically creating machine code that is suitable for the CPU found at startup, the sandbox principle etc.).
So, if you're that much into CS, try doing some background research on what exists and why it exists. You're right about the Java/university thing, though.
The problem can be overcome, and has been overcome uncountable times, using ISO C.
Of course these problems are avoidable, but practice shows that all errors that a language allows you to be done will be done by someone, even if every good book on software engineering tells you not to.
The example may have been a poor one, but it's something everybody probably has seen in some ugly code snippet.
On the portability issue, I'm not sure how difficult it is to create a new VM / compiler. I guess it depends on how much the new platform differs from the other ones. Is it easier to create a Unix XY port if you already have a VM for Unix YZ? I would say so, but I don't know exactly, maybe one of the Blackdown people can answer this (some of them are reading slashdot comments on Java IIRC).
Sun has defined three different Java editions, including a micro edition, to address the problem of embedded systems and handheld devices. The micro edition only includes a subset of the functionality of the standard or enterprise edition. A description can be found on Sun's website.
On the number of platforms for which there are compilers and virtual machines, there are many. Kaffe alone has more than 30 OS / processor combinations supported.
Also take a look at this list of compilers and virtual machines, there are VM's and compilers for all kinds of systems. But for the older and more exotic systems the porting of a VM / compiler may not be worth the effort. Maybe the Java part of the GNU compiler collection can do something for them -- I don't know much about the status of Java support there.
Slashdot Mirror
His reaction to the decision, read the transcript here.
Does anyone have information on whether someone is working on having Cruesoe run Java bytecode? It was said that due to Cruesoe's adaptability features it /could/ do so, but that's just theory.
Seriously though, if Microsoft wanted to make it more security, give it user premissions like Unix,
NT has those permissions. For Win9x to have them, they had to change the file system (FAT) and some other things, breaking their whole we-remake-DOS-once-a-year-and-you-better-buy-it compatibility. So, nothing will change.
No, I was interested in genericity and how it is supposed to be integrated in Java. Maybe I misunderstood the original poster.
are major features currently in development - like genericity/parameterized types. These things haven't crystallized yet. Sun already has published specs which are enough (AFAIK) to make your own implementation, and nobody is stopping you.
Can you point me to those specs? I can't find anything on Sun's Java site.
You make a lot of statements on the programming languages you enumerate. Maybe you could explain why Pascal is crap for large projects but Modula is OK (do you know Object Pascal as in Delphi or Free Pascal?).
;-)), and I always got something out of them.
What is Java missing?
Not meant as flamebait, there were gazillions of discussions on programming languages on slashdot (naturally
I think that the availability of the Independent JPEG Group's free cross-platform library was crucial for the success of the JPEG image file format.
It was available before continuous-tone images were in everyday-use, so it was pretty stable at the time everyone needed good lossy image compression. And only the parts of the many JPEG variants were used that offered a) superior performance compared to other formats and b) were free to use (so, not arithmetic coding).
Do you know of any plans to create a similar library for JPEG2000?
There is Win95/98 and there is NT/2000. They differ a lot.
As for Linux being such a superior OS -- that must be compared on an issue-to-issue basis. It's true for some, not true for others (usability).
A little bit less generalization, please.
If all's good, there won't be any Windows twenty years from now and nothing left to argue. And yes, I want everyone to use Linux because then my family will use it and I will be able keep everyone from deleting important system files.
Well, in some countries it's forbidden to own certain items. Can't speak for France, but in Germany it is like that. You're not allowed to have a Swastika flag on your house, or the Reichskriegsflagge, or something similar. That's a restriction of personal rights, but I'm totally for it. They're symbols for a part of German history that should be presented in the right context only. And the right context is one that explains what these items stood for. I could understand how Jews, whether from Germany or someplace else, would feel when they see people having the above mentioned flag presented. What possible interpretations of that presentation are there if not support for Nazism? And that's something a huge majority doesn't want here anymore.
But I see the problem that it's difficult to draw the line.
It's not going against German items in general but against items that represent the Nazi part of its past. These belong in a museum, together with some explanations for the visitors, and nowhere else.
It's Phil's site where I for the first time really saw FlashPix used ;-)
For FPX support on Linux, Image Magick seems to have read support and it is supported by JIMI (Java image file I/O library) and JAI (Java Advanced Imaging). I have some FPX codec source code from JAI that I want to look at when I have some time left.
Meyer makes a clear difference between C programmers and C hackers. He even states that he expects everyone to know C (at least back in '95, when they had that discussion), he knows C himself very well and he points to the fact that some C hackers are not well-suited for the creation of huge, complex systems that must be reliable because they (=the hackers) chase for runtime and memory efficiency and lose sight of the more important points maintainability, readability etc. I think he has a point there.
He does not use the term 'C hacker' for someone who is a good programmer and uses C, as you might assume.
There is a mixture of PNG and JPEG called JNG which is supposed to support JPEG compression and an alpha channel. But a short search on the PNG homepage didn't bring any results for me. Maybe if you use a search engine.
In theory, one can simply add an alpha channel to a JPEG file (a second channel for a grayscale or a fourth for a YCbCr color image) -- there is just no software that supports this. The JPEG standard also doesn't say anything about color spaces... Maybe one could wrap the alpha channel into a custom marker. This all makes sense only if it is standardized in some way (so that all major applications support it), which is a very painful and long process. But JPEG2000 is on the way, maybe it adds transparency support of some kind.
I also know Kodak Flashpix, which uses JPEG compression, I don't know about alpha channel support.
simply taken over from the Ada 4 (3?) control system
Of course I mean Ariane 4!
I was wondering about the same thing! But while Ada certainly is superior to many other languages, it's not a panacea -- the exploded Ariane 5 rocket mentioned in the article failed because of an unhandled exception in some Ada code which was simply taken over from the Ada 4 (3?) control system without checking it against the new requirements. At least that's what they told us in the first lecture of our software engineering class ;-)
I'm not sure how the show will be without the Scully / Mulder interaction. However, there were episodes before with one or the other missing, and they weren't all bad (remember the Scully-in-Maine episode?).
I also hope for the conspiracy-crap being dumped forever -- I can't stand that subplot.
But I guess I'll miss the humour in the dialogue between the two.
Does this mean VOB playback even in the 'evaluation copy'? Or does VOB contain anything beyond 'pure' MPEG-2?
Highlights of the new version include MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 codec support, both encoding and decoding, as well as support for both local and streaming playback of those formats.
Does anyone here already have an evaluation copy of the Java 2 SDK? Any benchmarks? Opinions?!
Hmm, I didn't know that, and my copy of Windows Media Player also knows QuickTime files. Unfortunately, it seems to be unable to deal with any modern codec ;-( Even the annyoing I-contact-home-without-asking feature doesn't work:
Unable to download an appropriate decompressor. (Error=80040200)
To the moderator:
/extremely/ annoying having to deal with this stupid nag screen if you have to watch multiple QuickTime movies.
No, the original comment is not flamebait. It is
Normally, commercial software has some sort of remind-me-later checkbox that will make the buy-me window pop up only at some rare occasions. Nobody will buy the software only because they don't like those screens, people just get a bad opinion of QuickTime. That's where MS Media Player wins -- no problems, no price, just works.
There must be some ISO source code for MPEG-4, just like there is some for an MP3 encoder. Patching the ISO code and get a free player would be a similar thing like some people did it with LAME for MP3 encoding.
/content/ differ from raw MPEG-4? The parsing of the chunked ASF / AVI structure is very easy and well-documented, I've done that part myself for another app.
How much does Microsofts ASF's and AVI/DivX's
How did they manage to make these images so big? 640 x 999 pixels, > 500 kb?!
Fact: Who cares anymore? This kindof shit will continue to happen for as long as we have computers. It is human nature to figure out ways to screw up the system.
That's right for some home user's system. But I disagree on enterprises, they should have an admin that sets up things so that users cannot destroy anything but their own data. And their own data should be backed up automatically for them - period. The system must be idiot-proof. If you cannot do this with Windows in combination with Outlook, use something else.
Read/Write for ALL non-RO filesystems
The problem with some of the file systems is the missing documentation -- take NTFS. There is write support, but it's still not stable. Microsoft just doesn't give away good specs. I can't see anyone but them helping there, and they probably have no interest in good NTFS drivers for free Unices. Bad luck...
. "anywhere" is now defined as Windows and Solaris (note: Windows first!).
True, Sun only releases JDK's for Win32, Solaris and Linux. But there are tons of JDK's by other enterprises, e.g. for HP-UX, Digital's Unix, Irix etc., most of them 1.2. They get used but nobody makes a lot of noise about it.
As I said earlier, I like Java *as a language*. It would be nice if someone (*ghm* Sun?) released a Java-like language that actually compiles to native binaries (i.e. getting rid of this jvm junk). But Sun has a different agenda...
There are Java source/bytecode-to-native code compilers. You'll get the speed there. On JVM, it has other advantages as pointed out by others (dynamically creating machine code that is suitable for the CPU found at startup, the sandbox principle etc.).
So, if you're that much into CS, try doing some background research on what exists and why it exists. You're right about the Java/university thing, though.
The problem can be overcome, and has been overcome uncountable times, using ISO C.
Of course these problems are avoidable, but practice shows that all errors that a language allows you to be done will be done by someone, even if every good book on software engineering tells you not to.
The example may have been a poor one, but it's something everybody probably has seen in some ugly code snippet.
On the portability issue, I'm not sure how difficult it is to create a new VM / compiler. I guess it depends on how much the new platform differs from the other ones. Is it easier to create a Unix XY port if you already have a VM for Unix YZ? I would say so, but I don't know exactly, maybe one of the Blackdown people can answer this (some of them are reading slashdot comments on Java IIRC).
Sun has defined three different Java editions, including a micro edition, to address the problem of embedded systems and handheld devices. The micro edition only includes a subset of the functionality of the standard or enterprise edition. A description can be found on Sun's website.
On the number of platforms for which there are compilers and virtual machines, there are many. Kaffe alone has more than 30 OS / processor combinations supported.
Also take a look at this list of compilers and virtual machines, there are VM's and compilers for all kinds of systems. But for the older and more exotic systems the porting of a VM / compiler may not be worth the effort. Maybe the Java part of the GNU compiler collection can do something for them -- I don't know much about the status of Java support there.