No, and as I've just spent half an hour trying to get a USB drive to unmount from a Win2K machine without popping up continuous error messages, MS clearly doesn't have a proper QA system either. That said, the Linux distro world would benefit from more stringent testing too. An automated GUI testing kit would be an enormous benefit, I think.
Microsoft commits resources to do comprehensive QA and testing; the open source model leaves that to chance.
I'd say both sides need to improve here. Clearly many Linux distros don't do much testing before release. When was the last time you installed a modern distro and didn't find at least a two or three annoying, obvious bugs within a few hours?
Linux already has this - it's called Access Control lists. From a SuSE manual I found in 30 seconds with Google:
ACLs can be used for situations where the traditional file permission concept is insufficient. They allow the assignment of permissions to individual users. Access Control Lists are a feature of the Linux kernel and are currently supported by ReiserFS, Ext2, Ext3, JFS, and XFS.
There's a difference between not coding perfectly and missing end tags! Given that there are free, easy to use tools to fix broken HTML before publication, you have to be pretty damn daft to allow seriously broken HTML out onto the public web. Don't many web page text editors include basic HTML error checking?
CD player: - $40 for a cheap one, probably more like $80 for a reasonable one that doesn't weigh a tonne - Stores 1 album internally, additional albums means some sort of external storage (Case, CD folder etc) - At least 12.5cm in diameter, 1-2cm thick - Doesn't fit in anything but super-sized pockets - Can only play from one album at once. Mixing requires burning CD-R(W)
Flash player(512Mb) - ~$110 - Stores around 10 albums internally - around 4x7x1.5cm, 40g - Actually fits in normal size pockets - Can play one album at a time or a mix
The advantages are pretty clear, really. The large flash players seem to be nice middle ground between CD and an iPod.
Firstly, that's not the table-rendering behaviour I see in Firefox (not Netscape - does anyone even use Netscape these days?). A missing TD ,/TR ,/TD has no effect on the display. Secondly, why is response to broken HTML an issue? What kind of idiot publishes broken HTML on the web? Running validator.w3.org takes 30 seconds - you could even script something to check all of a site for you. If that's too much effort, HTML tidy will do a fair bit of checking and auto-fixing as well. Running tidy probably takes less time than ftping the HTML onto the server. You could even put a tidy run in your ftp script.
What if you've got no internet connection? How do you acquire a playback-license - is there a freephone number to call and get a playback key? Or is "Internet connection" listed in the system requirements on the back of the box?
Yes, I think it's just that the customer doesn't know any better. I mean, my local PCWorld is selling gold-plated USB cables for £30($50?) or so and is clearly doing pretty well out of clueless computer-buyers.
If their target market is Starbucks customers, I doubt that taste is a big worry. I have never had a coffee-based drink from Starbucks that didn't taste horrible, acidic and watered down. And over priced too - why is it always the crappy companies that do so well (MS, Starbucks, Dixons, PCWorld...).
Isn't this article just classic FUD from MS? Find some issue at which your product gives the impression of being better and attack the competition with it. Play on the "you can't trust these open source people" angle and indirectly equate them with spammers. Throw in a couple of spurious error messages caused by a corrupt download and his anti-virus software, make a few complaints about "missing features" that aren't really missing at all, just not immediately obvious.
It all adds up to a classic piece of FUD, sowing in the minds of readers just enough doubt to make them think twice before switching.
From what I've seen of people using OS X, it seems to have some sort of subliminal effect on users. They just love it.
I think it's the effect of the sum of all the nice touches. Expose, the dock, the menu bar at the top of the screen, the nice graphics effects, the quality of the built-in apps. The fact that you can drag-and-drop everything: drag text off a web page and not only does a ghost of the text appear and move with the mouse cursor, you can drop it anywhere - stick it on the desktop and it appears as a snippet. Everything just works as you would expect it to, somehow.
Clearly that does have value to a lot of people.
Spyware and viruses are a serious problem, too. Let one slip through and that could be a day's productivity gone: that's the price difference between a Dell and a Mac made up in one day. I've seen it happen several times to my parents, intelligent people who've been using computers since the days of daisy-wheel printers.
I thought that too. I've just spent the weekend fiddling with my gf's parent's new eMac and it's a really good computer. It's easily fast enough for most uses, easy to use, looks good, has a far superior mouse and keyboard to any low-end dell I've used and has an operating system that makes WindowsXP look like something from the dark ages.
I'm about as far from your average Mac zealot as you can get (typing this on a home-built dual-boot Fedora/win2K system), but I'd be perfectly happy with an eMac on my desk.
Set "File->Preferences->Window Management->Window Type Hint for the Toolbox" and "Docks" to "Utility Window". At least, that works in the X11 version, so that the toolboxes float above the images.
Re:Mac Version dissected
on
GIMP 2.2 Released
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Man, Mac users are a bitchy lot, aren't they. "Why haven't the developers of the GNU Image Manipulation Program spent their valuable development time making their program work on my non-Free platform?"
But "useful for web graphics" means useful to hundreds of thousands of people. Hardly a toy, considering the number of features it *does* have which many people do find useful.
The developers have a limited amount of time to spend, and they quite rightly use it firstly on implementing those features that *they* want to see, and only secondly on those features requested by users.
Trying to do it any other way will lead to developers burning out, losing interest and stopping developing. It takes a lot of effort to develop OSS - you have to really want to do it.
Re:They're improving the file dialogs...
on
GTK 2.6.0 Released
·
· Score: 1
The Fedora core 3 has a text input on the file chooser that pops up when you start typing and progressively searches the directory as you type.
AFAIK, it's not really well defined. Generally, I think the hyphen is essential only when there might be some confusion about which part the second word belongs too.
Ah - Wikipedia to the rescue. An example from there: "a man-eating shark" is a carnivorous fish, while "a man eating shark" might be taken to mean a carnivorous male human.
As there's not really such a thing as a "source web browser", there's no confusion over the word grouping without the hyphen.
Slashdot Mirror
No, and as I've just spent half an hour trying to get a USB drive to unmount from a Win2K machine without popping up continuous error messages, MS clearly doesn't have a proper QA system either.
That said, the Linux distro world would benefit from more stringent testing too. An automated GUI testing kit would be an enormous benefit, I think.
Microsoft commits resources to do comprehensive QA and testing; the open source model leaves that to chance.
I'd say both sides need to improve here. Clearly many Linux distros don't do much testing before release. When was the last time you installed a modern distro and didn't find at least a two or three annoying, obvious bugs within a few hours?
Linux already has this - it's called Access Control lists. From a SuSE manual I found in 30 seconds with Google:
ACLs can be used for situations where the traditional file permission concept is insufficient. They allow the assignment of permissions to individual users. Access Control Lists are a feature of the Linux kernel and are currently supported by ReiserFS, Ext2, Ext3, JFS, and XFS.
There's a difference between not coding perfectly and missing end tags! Given that there are free, easy to use tools to fix broken HTML before publication, you have to be pretty damn daft to allow seriously broken HTML out onto the public web. Don't many web page text editors include basic HTML error checking?
Compare the CD with a flash player:
CD player:
- $40 for a cheap one, probably more like $80 for a reasonable one that doesn't weigh a tonne
- Stores 1 album internally, additional albums means some sort of external storage (Case, CD folder etc)
- At least 12.5cm in diameter, 1-2cm thick
- Doesn't fit in anything but super-sized pockets
- Can only play from one album at once. Mixing requires burning CD-R(W)
Flash player(512Mb)
- ~$110
- Stores around 10 albums internally
- around 4x7x1.5cm, 40g
- Actually fits in normal size pockets
- Can play one album at a time or a mix
The advantages are pretty clear, really. The large flash players seem to be nice middle ground between CD and an iPod.
Firstly, that's not the table-rendering behaviour I see in Firefox (not Netscape - does anyone even use Netscape these days?). A missing TD , /TR , /TD has no effect on the display.
Secondly, why is response to broken HTML an issue? What kind of idiot publishes broken HTML on the web? Running validator.w3.org takes 30 seconds - you could even script something to check all of a site for you. If that's too much effort, HTML tidy will do a fair bit of checking and auto-fixing as well. Running tidy probably takes less time than ftping the HTML onto the server. You could even put a tidy run in your ftp script.
What if you've got no internet connection? How do you acquire a playback-license - is there a freephone number to call and get a playback key? Or is "Internet connection" listed in the system requirements on the back of the box?
It would make sense - "My documents", "My Network Places", "My Microsoft".
Wouldn't it be a piece of glass? I always assumed the one-way referred to the light traveling through it, not the refectivity.
Same result, anyway.
Erm, ever heard of this program called the Simpsons? It's quite a popular cartoon I've heard.
Yes, I think it's just that the customer doesn't know any better. I mean, my local PCWorld is selling gold-plated USB cables for £30($50?) or so and is clearly doing pretty well out of clueless computer-buyers.
If their target market is Starbucks customers, I doubt that taste is a big worry. I have never had a coffee-based drink from Starbucks that didn't taste horrible, acidic and watered down. And over priced too - why is it always the crappy companies that do so well (MS, Starbucks, Dixons, PCWorld...).
I'd guess it's the blog writer:
W3 Validator says 71 standard violations for HTML 4.0 transitional.
Isn't this article just classic FUD from MS? Find some issue at which your product gives the impression of being better and attack the competition with it. Play on the "you can't trust these open source people" angle and indirectly equate them with spammers. Throw in a couple of spurious error messages caused by a corrupt download and his anti-virus software, make a few complaints about "missing features" that aren't really missing at all, just not immediately obvious.
It all adds up to a classic piece of FUD, sowing in the minds of readers just enough doubt to make them think twice before switching.
From what I've seen of people using OS X, it seems to have some sort of subliminal effect on users. They just love it.
I think it's the effect of the sum of all the nice touches. Expose, the dock, the menu bar at the top of the screen, the nice graphics effects, the quality of the built-in apps. The fact that you can drag-and-drop everything: drag text off a web page and not only does a ghost of the text appear and move with the mouse cursor, you can drop it anywhere - stick it on the desktop and it appears as a snippet. Everything just works as you would expect it to, somehow.
Clearly that does have value to a lot of people.
Spyware and viruses are a serious problem, too. Let one slip through and that could be a day's productivity gone: that's the price difference between a Dell and a Mac made up in one day. I've seen it happen several times to my parents, intelligent people who've been using computers since the days of daisy-wheel printers.
So where is this "provide more value" you are talking about?
It's called OS X.
I thought that too. I've just spent the weekend fiddling with my gf's parent's new eMac and it's a really good computer. It's easily fast enough for most uses, easy to use, looks good, has a far superior mouse and keyboard to any low-end dell I've used and has an operating system that makes WindowsXP look like something from the dark ages.
I'm about as far from your average Mac zealot as you can get (typing this on a home-built dual-boot Fedora/win2K system), but I'd be perfectly happy with an eMac on my desk.
Set "File->Preferences->Window Management->Window Type Hint for the Toolbox" and "Docks" to "Utility Window". At least, that works in the X11 version, so that the toolboxes float above the images.
Man, Mac users are a bitchy lot, aren't they. "Why haven't the developers of the GNU Image Manipulation Program spent their valuable development time making their program work on my non-Free platform?"
But "useful for web graphics" means useful to hundreds of thousands of people. Hardly a toy, considering the number of features it *does* have which many people do find useful.
The developers have a limited amount of time to spend, and they quite rightly use it firstly on implementing those features that *they* want to see, and only secondly on those features requested by users.
Trying to do it any other way will lead to developers burning out, losing interest and stopping developing. It takes a lot of effort to develop OSS - you have to really want to do it.
The Fedora core 3 has a text input on the file chooser that pops up when you start typing and progressively searches the directory as you type.
AFAIK, it's not really well defined. Generally, I think the hyphen is essential only when there might be some confusion about which part the second word belongs too.
Ah - Wikipedia to the rescue. An example from there: "a man-eating shark" is a carnivorous fish, while "a man eating shark" might be taken to mean a carnivorous male human.
As there's not really such a thing as a "source web browser", there's no confusion over the word grouping without the hyphen.
Can you give me the URL for the source code repository then? I'd be interested to see the source, but Google doesn't bring up any useful hits.
Good, I was hoping FOSS would win that one eventually.
Isn't QED non-Free and only a DOC editor, not a text editor? It didn't appear to have any VFS ability when I looked at it back when I started SiEd.