I've always been interested in ways of tapping into the crowd as a resource.
Slashdot and Digg got a lot of attention as news filters, but these things are now being used everywhere. Trusted Places for restaurant reviews, Crowdstorm for shopping recommendations, wine sites, health sites, etc., etc. I can't wait to see where this is all headed. What's the next logical step?
"There's also a Bell Labs webpage with some more technical information about the project."
Great, but so far, you haven't provided any information. I thought that the purpose of the summary was to summarise. How is anyone supposed to know whether this article is worth reading if you don't tell us what it's about?
Right. Nobody's suggesting that *all* economic activity should stop on environmental grounds. What they're protesting is how and where logging happens.
Sure, we need wood and paper, but do we really need to cut down ancient redwood forests containing the tallest trees in the world? If managed correctly, tree farms can produce all the pulp that we need.
I've written a couple of computer books. On my first contract, there were a few clauses which made me uncomfortable. I raised these issues, certain that the publisher would just look elsewhere. To my surprise, they DID negotiate, and (after a month of stonewalling), they CAVED! This knowledge made negotiations for the second book much easier.
Don't just accept these terms. Without authors, publishers have nothing.
I'm not dismissing your opinion, but the fact is that there are laws in the US (as in other economically advanced capitalist countries) that restrict how a monopoly may behave. Breaking these laws, ipso facto, is a crime.
You obviously disagree with the law. That's your perogative. It's still a crime to break the law, regardless of your opinion of the law.
Personally, I think it's an imperfect rule, but necessary to prevent any one company from crippling the economy with its huge hold on power.
Many consumers (I'm not one of them) consider it unfeasible not to use Microsoft's operating systems and office software, thus the stranglehold.
Well, I for one do not find it boring. Microsoft has gotten away with crimes for which other corporations have been crucified. MS just played the politics better, betting big on a Bush victory.
I hope that the facts found in the government case will at least allow many other companies to successfully sue them now.
Good point, although it's still a good idea to look at your data from a PoV that doesn't include PHP, otherwise you end up doing what phpWiki does and having a database full of serialize()d PHP objects you can't even concider touching outside PHP.
I really disagree. I think that the benefits of a single code base for a given set of data outweigh the dubious benefit of seeing the data "from a PoV that doesn't include PHP". I don't see how the extreme that you mention (storing serialized PHP objects in the DB) is somehow the logical extension of re-using one's classes. One of the best selling points of OOP is code re-use. There is no reason not to re-use them if they do what you need. If that means having some stand-alone PHP scripts, fine.
"the only advantage of being able to use PHP outside the webserver is the ability to not learn anything else"
Actually, there's another reason: I've inherited a large web site that uses many well-written classes and functions specific to the site's data model and functionality. When I need some maintenance shell scripts to work with the same data, it makes much more sense for me to use PHP so I can re-use these blocks, rather than create new (and redundant) blocks in some other language.
Slashdot Mirror
I've always been interested in ways of tapping into the crowd as a resource.
Slashdot and Digg got a lot of attention as news filters, but these things are now being used everywhere. Trusted Places for restaurant reviews, Crowdstorm for shopping recommendations, wine sites, health sites, etc., etc. I can't wait to see where this is all headed. What's the next logical step?
Squirrels are rodents.
"It's interesting to note, that the whale is not actually a fish. It's and insect." -- Monty Python
Insert "Military Intelligence" joke here.
Read The Sirens of Titan or Cat's Cradle. Truly impressive and engaging books. Vonnegut's style is so refreshing and entertaining.
"There's also a Bell Labs webpage with some more technical information about the project."
Great, but so far, you haven't provided any information. I thought that the purpose of the summary was to summarise. How is anyone supposed to know whether this article is worth reading if you don't tell us what it's about?
Right. Nobody's suggesting that *all* economic activity should stop on environmental grounds. What they're protesting is how and where logging happens.
Sure, we need wood and paper, but do we really need to cut down ancient redwood forests containing the tallest trees in the world? If managed correctly, tree farms can produce all the pulp that we need.
I just installed Minix on my XBox, and now I find out that it's dead.
How does the pilot maintain the necessary altitude? It seems like a very small range to stay in.
B) I smell a poll!
Then we'll find out for sure that CowboyNeal built most of our computers.
"Granted, most of the /. crowd build their own boxes..."
I highly doubt the accuracy of this statement.
Pine does this. Oh, wait, you can't turn HTML on in Pine...
Dumbest move of my life...
When you want to sell the computer, is there a way that you can cheat and roll back the tachometer?
"Oh, this baby's practically brand new..."
When there's a lot of email, and your in a REAL hurry...
I'm not going if they don't show something exciting like "Miss Congeniality". Space travel can be SOOO boring.
I've written a couple of computer books. On my first contract, there were a few clauses which made me uncomfortable. I raised these issues, certain that the publisher would just look elsewhere. To my surprise, they DID negotiate, and (after a month of stonewalling), they CAVED! This knowledge made negotiations for the second book much easier.
Don't just accept these terms. Without authors, publishers have nothing.
I'm not dismissing your opinion, but the fact is that there are laws in the US (as in other economically advanced capitalist countries) that restrict how a monopoly may behave. Breaking these laws, ipso facto, is a crime.
You obviously disagree with the law. That's your perogative. It's still a crime to break the law, regardless of your opinion of the law.
Personally, I think it's an imperfect rule, but necessary to prevent any one company from crippling the economy with its huge hold on power.
Many consumers (I'm not one of them) consider it unfeasible not to use Microsoft's operating systems and office software, thus the stranglehold.
Well, I for one do not find it boring. Microsoft has gotten away with crimes for which other corporations have been crucified. MS just played the politics better, betting big on a Bush victory.
I hope that the facts found in the government case will at least allow many other companies to successfully sue them now.
So whatever happened to those Star Wars Underoos? Can you still buy them?
I want my Jar Jar Didgeridoo
I really disagree. I think that the benefits of a single code base for a given set of data outweigh the dubious benefit of seeing the data "from a PoV that doesn't include PHP". I don't see how the extreme that you mention (storing serialized PHP objects in the DB) is somehow the logical extension of re-using one's classes. One of the best selling points of OOP is code re-use. There is no reason not to re-use them if they do what you need. If that means having some stand-alone PHP scripts, fine.
"the only advantage of being able to use PHP outside the webserver is the ability to not learn anything else"
Actually, there's another reason:
I've inherited a large web site that uses many well-written classes and functions specific to the site's data model and functionality. When I need some maintenance shell scripts to work with the same data, it makes much more sense for me to use PHP so I can re-use these blocks, rather than create new (and redundant) blocks in some other language.
As long as we're making a list, let's add its lack of multi-threading. Drives me crazy!
And I'd love to use private methods.
It's memory usage is also spotty. For one-second web scripts, this doesn't matter so much. But for long-running apps, I've had trouble.
How can this be legal? Anyone know if it is?