>> Slashdot doesn't have much to do with the Net of "scientists and researchers"; in fact, most of the locals are mere Linux-hugging quasi-geeks.
Very accurate.
Slashdot USED to pay more attention to scientific stuff. These articles didn't generate 786 posts like the "Government Men In Black want to stand over your shoulder while you look at porn" stories.
As far as Linux-hugging, I'll just say this: It used to be I could come to Slashdot to get the whole story. By reading the articles and the posts, I could usually get past sound bites and bias and get some real facts.
Not anymore. Now I look for sites to give me the whole story beyond the "Microsoft sucks. Linux is awesome." stuff I read here.
I use Linux. It doesn't make me cool. It doesn't make me smart. I don't have to pat myself on the back for using it.
Now watch as every RAM-short slashdotter with a 486 or old pentium sends him e-mail saying, "Hey, I was a moderator today and I gave that guy's post a point. Here's my address."
You know, Computer Currents could run an article saying that Linux is the absolute be-all/end-all of server operating systems. They could also run reports saying that Windows NT 4 performs better than anything else under heavy loads.
Either way, I would ignore it. Computer Currents has zero credibility. If you read their print version, it's mostly ads for here-today-gone-tomorrow ISPs and product reviews along the lines of "Adobe Photoshop lets me change the color of my cat's eyes! Amazing!"
Seriously. I've picked up copies from time to time since ~1995 (gotta read something on the exercise bike). The quality is very uneven. If you can do "Hello, World!" in C, you can label yourself a "software expert" and they'll let you make a total fool of yourself in print.
As Mr. Gump says, "...and that's all I have to say about that."
You have experienced the "Six Degrees of Web Porn" Principle.
It's similar to "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon". "Six Degrees of Web Porn" simply states that, no matter where you are on the web, you can get to porn with six clicks or less.
The open letter should have been answered. No question about it. But you gave her an out -- you took for granted that nobody pays attention to the wise-ass "Dept" line in every slashdoof article. You totally forgot that 99% of your audience has never heard of this little ol' URL.
Now, you rush to use the, "I didn't mean that kind of boobies!" defense.
Please -- at least be honest. It was a double entendre. Everyone knows it. It was silly 6th-grader humor. That passes ok in a group of self-proclaimed geeks, but doesn't work in real world politics. It shouldn't have been in the open letter.
Her excuse was the lame "I'm too offended to reply" of someone on the losing end of an argument. Everyone uses it. Out-reason a fundamentalist Christian and you may find yourself accused of Christian-bashing. Out-reason a civil rights leader and you're a racist. (There -- have I offended everyone now? Good.)
But you gave her the out -- and you did it by failing to *proofread* of all things! (Failing to proofread a Slashdot article? Who'da thunk it?)
So, please don't come along after the fact and wail, "I didn't mean that!" You sound like Bart Simpson saying, "Can we go to the DAM?" or the 12-year-old who keeps referring to a female dog as a "bitch". It was done deliberately and everyone knows it.
It was careless. It was probably embarassing. It may have cost you the debate. You have no one to blame but yourself.
I'm not sure if an XML grammar for GUIs will solve the problems listed in the article. Absent user feedback or real standards, there will always be a temptation for programmers to be lazy and take the easy way out when creating graphical UIs.
However, I firmly believe that an XML grammar for GUI definition is right around the corner. It's just one of those ideas that makes sense.
Consider, for example, a MSVC++ project. When you create a form and start dropping widgets on it, the IDE builds a.rc file that contains the description of the form.
If you open a.rc file, it's just ASCII text. The format is human-readable. It could have just as easily been done in XML -- it's just that XML wasn't on the map when Microsoft designed it.
My uninformed hunch is that we will eventually see "GUIML" libraries which translate markup into native widgets. The concept is similar to Java VMs, but much easier to implement. It should allow GUI apps written in "compiled to native" languages to have a lot more portability than they do right now.
I have yet to see cut/copy/paste shortcuts implemented consistently among apps and desktops in X. The KDE apps usually use Ctrl-X/Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V, but Netscape uses Alt-C/Alt-V/Alt-P. Other programs use other things, if they support it at all.
I personally prefer X desktops -- virtual desktops/workspaces are addictingly convenient. At the same time, it makes me nuts when I highlight something, want to paste it into something else, and have to spend time figuring out how to do it.
It really burns me when I see technical pundits talking about "enterprise-class" systems when they clearly have no idea what an "enterprise" is.
Here's a big, fat, spelled-out clue for them: "Enterprise" means more than just "really big". "Enterprise" means more than "lots of bundled pretty lights".
1. Enterprise systems have to be able to handle a tremendous load without sweating. This means lots of processes and lots of threads running smoothly at the same time. When overloaded, enterprise systems degrade gracefully.
Let me spell that out in caps -- ENTERPRISE SYSTEMS DEGRADE GRACEFULLY. They may refuse additional client connections, they may log error messages, but they may not EVER collapse under pressure. Anything less is not an enterprise system. It is a toy. Period.
2. Enterprise systems integrate with existing systems. A REAL enterprise often has legacy systems -- some of which have been running since before the new web developer was out of diapers. Companies offering enterprise solutions like to talk about how well their products work with your existing systems. Companies selling toys also want to help you with "updating", "migrating", or "replacing" your existing systems (which were working just fine before you strolled into my office, twerp). Consider that a red flag.
3. Enterprise systems stay up. In a real enterprise, rebooting costs money. Usually it costs BIG money. A company who doesn't understand that doesn't understand what an enterprise is. Beware -- toy-makers will try to sell you aftermarket add-ons for clustering, failover, or maintaing your "quality of service". Don't be fooled. You will pay more to maintain "quality of service" than you would pay to get a solid system in the first place.
I am so tired of magazines pandering to managers who think that they're running an "enterprise". Real enterprises already HAVE professionals to do these comparisons. They have no choice. In the long run, having a professional who is accountable is whole lot cheaper than trusting some twit at IDG, CNN, or ZDNet.
Now, with that perspective, I ask: do any of these NOS qualify as "enterprise-class"? If not, which ones come closest?
Holy shlamoly. I know I'm offtopic, but what has this site become when someone feels compelled to apologize for using a specific brand of computer?
"Forgive me, father Taco, but I have sinned. I really like Linux, but there's these games that run on the Mac. I really like them and, well, sometimes I play them. I'm terribly sorry. Once I get a Mac emulator running under the One True OS, I swear I'll never boot up a Mac again. Please don't hate me."
"My child, you have obviously been tempted by the bright case and easy interface of the Jobsian devil. Your penance shall be to read Hemos' essay 'Why I spelt stuff good' twice. You must also read every Jon Katz article for the next week. Do this and you will be forgiven. Now go in peace and configure your Debian box."
I get the impression from the press release that Be hopes to encourage development on the BeOS by making it available free of charge. They make the point that the compiler and development environment ARE included with the download.
My question: Once someone starts writing and selling software for BeOS, doesn't that qualify as "non-commercial" use? It seems that a prospective developer might download and try out the platform for free, but must pay the license fee before they go to market with a product.
Not that I have a problem with this. The $60 or so I paid for 4.5 was well worth it and I would probably pay for version 5 anyway.
"Directory" in this case has a different meaning than what Unix-heads are used to. Think "Telephone Directory", not "Present Working Directory".
A more accurate term would be "Lookup Service", but someone decided to go with "Directory". It amounts to a database optimized for fast read access. It is usually accessed with a (more or less) standardized protocol such as LDAP or X.500.
What's it good for? It pretty much started as a cool computerized way to look up the phone number of someone in your Big-Ass Company, Inc. Nowadays, it has been expanded to look up information on users (hence the "single logon" buzzword), program components, and anything else that someone wants to make "findable" in an organization.
DNS is a simple directory service. Imagine being able to do a DNS-style lookup for every person, printer, program, "object" in a company. That's what people are excited about.
Not to be a jerk here, but Logic for Be is still very vapor. Even when it comes out, I wonder what MIDI interface cards will be supported. For a Media OS, Be's support for serious MIDI interfaces (meaning MPU-401 UART or similar) seems a little light. Hopefully, the new USB MIDI interfaces will have more support -- I'll happily blow a hundred bucks on hardware to have a quality MIDI interface working in Be.
Slashdot Mirror
If I print out the entire Slash source, then shove it down someone's throat until they choke and die, is CmdrTaco responsible?
:)
If I tie someone up and force them to read all of Signal 11's posts while I scream "Karma! Karma! Karma!" in their ear, is Signal 11 responsible?
If I force someone to read every Jon Katz article until their brain (also) turns to Jell-O pudding, is Katz responsible?
Sorry, I've just read too many gun analogies on this thread. I went a little crazy there. It won't happen again....
>> Slashdot doesn't have much to do with the Net of "scientists and researchers"; in fact, most of the locals are mere Linux-hugging quasi-geeks.
Very accurate.
Slashdot USED to pay more attention to scientific stuff. These articles didn't generate 786 posts like the "Government Men In Black want to stand over your shoulder while you look at porn" stories.
As far as Linux-hugging, I'll just say this: It used to be I could come to Slashdot to get the whole story. By reading the articles and the posts, I could usually get past sound bites and bias and get some real facts.
Not anymore. Now I look for sites to give me the whole story beyond the "Microsoft sucks. Linux is awesome." stuff I read here.
I use Linux. It doesn't make me cool. It doesn't make me smart. I don't have to pat myself on the back for using it.
I thought I had my preferences set to filter out Katz stuff. Is there a bug in the filter?
Now watch as every RAM-short slashdotter with a 486 or old pentium sends him e-mail saying, "Hey, I was a moderator today and I gave that guy's post a point. Here's my address."
You know, Computer Currents could run an article saying that Linux is the absolute be-all/end-all of server operating systems. They could also run reports saying that Windows NT 4 performs better than anything else under heavy loads.
Either way, I would ignore it. Computer Currents has zero credibility. If you read their print version, it's mostly ads for here-today-gone-tomorrow ISPs and product reviews along the lines of "Adobe Photoshop lets me change the color of my cat's eyes! Amazing!"
Seriously. I've picked up copies from time to time since ~1995 (gotta read something on the exercise bike). The quality is very uneven. If you can do "Hello, World!" in C, you can label yourself a "software expert" and they'll let you make a total fool of yourself in print.
As Mr. Gump says, "...and that's all I have to say about that."
"...AIX is >> than Linux."
:-)
I don't understand -- are you trying to pipe the output of AIX to Linux?
Well, it's a geek site, isn't it?
You have experienced the "Six Degrees of Web Porn" Principle.
It's similar to "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon".
"Six Degrees of Web Porn" simply states that, no matter where you are on the web, you can get to porn with six clicks or less.
From the "don't-look-at-boobies-dept"
Way to go.
The open letter should have been answered. No question about it. But you gave her an out -- you took for granted that nobody pays attention to the wise-ass "Dept" line in every slashdoof article. You totally forgot that 99% of your audience has never heard of this little ol' URL.
Now, you rush to use the, "I didn't mean that kind of boobies!" defense.
Please -- at least be honest. It was a double entendre. Everyone knows it. It was silly 6th-grader humor. That passes ok in a group of self-proclaimed geeks, but doesn't work in real world politics. It shouldn't have been in the open letter.
Her excuse was the lame "I'm too offended to reply" of someone on the losing end of an argument. Everyone uses it. Out-reason a fundamentalist Christian and you may find yourself accused of Christian-bashing. Out-reason a civil rights leader and you're a racist. (There -- have I offended everyone now? Good.)
But you gave her the out -- and you did it by failing to *proofread* of all things! (Failing to proofread a Slashdot article? Who'da thunk it?)
So, please don't come along after the fact and wail, "I didn't mean that!" You sound like Bart Simpson saying, "Can we go to the DAM?" or the 12-year-old who keeps referring to a female dog as a "bitch". It was done deliberately and everyone knows it.
It was careless. It was probably embarassing. It may have cost you the debate. You have no one to blame but yourself.
Who said that trolls aren't very original anymore?
(Darth Vader) "Impressive!"
A truly masterful post, AC. You have my respect. Thanks for keeping things interesting.
I'm not sure if an XML grammar for GUIs will solve the problems listed in the article. Absent user feedback or real standards, there will always be a temptation for programmers to be lazy and take the easy way out when creating graphical UIs.
.rc file that contains the description of the form.
.rc file, it's just ASCII text. The format is human-readable. It could have just as easily been done in XML -- it's just that XML wasn't on the map when Microsoft designed it.
However, I firmly believe that an XML grammar for GUI definition is right around the corner. It's just one of those ideas that makes sense.
Consider, for example, a MSVC++ project. When you create a form and start dropping widgets on it, the IDE builds a
If you open a
My uninformed hunch is that we will eventually see "GUIML" libraries which translate markup into native widgets. The concept is similar to Java VMs, but much easier to implement. It should allow GUI apps written in "compiled to native" languages to have a lot more portability than they do right now.
"Copy" and "Paste"
I have yet to see cut/copy/paste shortcuts implemented consistently among apps and desktops in X. The KDE apps usually use Ctrl-X/Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V, but Netscape uses Alt-C/Alt-V/Alt-P. Other programs use other things, if they support it at all.
I personally prefer X desktops -- virtual desktops/workspaces are addictingly convenient. At the same time, it makes me nuts when I highlight something, want to paste it into something else, and have to spend time figuring out how to do it.
I feel better now.
(Big, frustrated rant ahead)
It really burns me when I see technical pundits talking about "enterprise-class" systems when they clearly have no idea what an "enterprise" is.
Here's a big, fat, spelled-out clue for them: "Enterprise" means more than just "really big". "Enterprise" means more than "lots of bundled pretty lights".
1. Enterprise systems have to be able to handle a tremendous load without sweating. This means lots of processes and lots of threads running smoothly at the same time. When overloaded, enterprise systems degrade gracefully.
Let me spell that out in caps -- ENTERPRISE SYSTEMS DEGRADE GRACEFULLY. They may refuse additional client connections, they may log error messages, but they may not EVER collapse under pressure. Anything less is not an enterprise system. It is a toy. Period.
2. Enterprise systems integrate with existing systems. A REAL enterprise often has legacy systems -- some of which have been running since before the new web developer was out of diapers. Companies offering enterprise solutions like to talk about how well their products work with your existing systems. Companies selling toys also want to help you with "updating", "migrating", or "replacing" your existing systems (which were working just fine before you strolled into my office, twerp). Consider that a red flag.
3. Enterprise systems stay up. In a real enterprise, rebooting costs money. Usually it costs BIG money. A company who doesn't understand that doesn't understand what an enterprise is. Beware -- toy-makers will try to sell you aftermarket add-ons for clustering, failover, or maintaing your "quality of service". Don't be fooled. You will pay more to maintain "quality of service" than you would pay to get a solid system in the first place.
I am so tired of magazines pandering to managers who think that they're running an "enterprise". Real enterprises already HAVE professionals to do these comparisons. They have no choice. In the long run, having a professional who is accountable is whole lot cheaper than trusting some twit at IDG, CNN, or ZDNet.
Now, with that perspective, I ask: do any of these NOS qualify as "enterprise-class"? If not, which ones come closest?
Holy shlamoly. I know I'm offtopic, but what has this site become when someone feels compelled to apologize for using a specific brand of computer?
"Forgive me, father Taco, but I have sinned. I really like Linux, but there's these games that run on the Mac. I really like them and, well, sometimes I play them. I'm terribly sorry. Once I get a Mac emulator running under the One True OS, I swear I'll never boot up a Mac again. Please don't hate me."
"My child, you have obviously been tempted by the bright case and easy interface of the Jobsian devil. Your penance shall be to read Hemos' essay 'Why I spelt stuff good' twice. You must also read every Jon Katz article for the next week. Do this and you will be forgiven. Now go in peace and configure your Debian box."
...would be a Beowulf cluster of these molecules! Wow!
("Bring it on. I don't care. I've got karma points to spare.")
God, I wish I had moderator points right now.... :)
This should be easy enough to get around. Just name your sheep something other than "Dolly".
....doesn't that qualify as "non-commercial" use?
Should read:
....doesn't that qualify as "commercial" use?
Apologies for any confusion.
I get the impression from the press release that Be hopes to encourage development on the BeOS by making it available free of charge. They make the point that the compiler and development environment ARE included with the download.
My question: Once someone starts writing and selling software for BeOS, doesn't that qualify as "non-commercial" use? It seems that a prospective developer might download and try out the platform for free, but must pay the license fee before they go to market with a product.
Not that I have a problem with this. The $60 or so I paid for 4.5 was well worth it and I would probably pay for version 5 anyway.
It's not a file system.
"Directory" in this case has a different meaning than what Unix-heads are used to. Think "Telephone Directory", not "Present Working Directory".
A more accurate term would be "Lookup Service", but someone decided to go with "Directory". It amounts to a database optimized for fast read access. It is usually accessed with a (more or less) standardized protocol such as LDAP or X.500.
What's it good for? It pretty much started as a cool computerized way to look up the phone number of someone in your Big-Ass Company, Inc. Nowadays, it has been expanded to look up information on users (hence the "single logon" buzzword), program components, and anything else that someone wants to make "findable" in an organization.
DNS is a simple directory service. Imagine being able to do a DNS-style lookup for every person, printer, program, "object" in a company. That's what people are excited about.
Not to be a jerk here, but Logic for Be is still very vapor. Even when it comes out, I wonder what MIDI interface cards will be supported. For a Media OS, Be's support for serious MIDI interfaces (meaning MPU-401 UART or similar) seems a little light. Hopefully, the new USB MIDI interfaces will have more support -- I'll happily blow a hundred bucks on hardware to have a quality MIDI interface working in Be.
Does anyone know when the release is expected?
Leave to a bunch of geeky scientists to create life as an science project. The way our parents did it is still a lot more fun. :)
Poised to Create Life -- I picture a scientist in his boxer shorts saying, "All right honey, let's get this experiment started."
Me too, but I found it behind the couch.
I recall first using JDK 1.0 in 1995. Where do you get 6 years?