wxWindows (slightly OT)
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GTK-- vs. QT
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· Score: 5, Informative
You may also want to take a look at the wxWindows toolkit. It's a wrapper over what's available on a given platform (the native API in Win32, GTK in the Unix world, and there's a Mac port in progress, I believe). Good stuff, definitely, especially if what you want is C++ and portability. Note that your apps will look totally windowsy on win32, so your users will not be confused by their look.
Yep, I know what Tkinter is, but thank you. This said, make menuconfig does need stuff installed too, namely the curses lib, to compile the interface. Does compiling the C file generated from a frozen CML2 differ majorly?
How does your comment justify the installation of a yet another shitfest like Python for kernel configuration?
It doesn't. In the past you needed either Tcl/Tk or the curses lib, now you need either Python or a version of CML2 frozen to vanilla C, but in both case you can edit the makefiles by hand if you prefer. Whee, aren't we happy now. Unhappy? Take it up to ESR and try to contest his choices if you can (if you really can, which I kind of doubt, considering you're an AC of the ilk that uses words such as 'shitfest' apparently for the sheer trolling value of it, please let me know -- I'd sincerely be most interested to hear of it).
If we're talking timeless, immortal authors, I'm highly surprised that nobody mentionned Michael Ende. Whether his writings qualify as fantasy or philosophy is anyone's guess, but The Neverending Story is just that, a timeless masterpiece. I think it's one of those books that will always live on, possibly through centuries, because as long as there will be someone putting words on paper, there will be neverending stories, and Ende's book is about them, and why they matter. I know I'll keep re-reading it all my life long. It's worth it.
Good point. But it actually didn't surprise me much that she wasn't mentionned more. Her first books were good, and I loved them dearly, but is she as immortal as masters such as Tolkien, Asimov? I don't think so. Especially as Pern is pretty much becoming a franchise, with goodies of dubious quality thrown in (don't get me started on the Pern video game). Wouldn't surprise me much if Todd (her son) went on writing Pern stuff after she leaves this world.
Good author? Definitely. You don't win the Hugo prize easily, mind you. But immortal? Nope. Sometimes I think that Pern died along with Robinton. Sad.
Believe it or not, QuickTime runs alright with recent builds of WINE. Buggy interface, but then, I never found the interface that great to start with.:)
... You know, I was about to go on answering lengthily, but since it would seem you are for some reason unable to understand that 'allowing the free market to work the problem out' is putting money above all other values, which is an artefact of YOUR culture that you seem to think should be applied everywhere else, I think I'm not gonna lose my time any further. Thanks for the discussion! It was interesting, and it also gave me an interesting insight on certain sides of your culture, as well as on why a certain number of other cultures take issue with it.
Thirdly, you are utterly vague and incoherant in respect to your use of "lowest common denominator".
Indeed. I'm not exactly sure how to name it, so maybe examples will clarify what I mean: what I call 'lowest common denominator stuff' is, McDonalds, as opposed to some restaurant (preferably French); Starbucks (which I tried once -- and I'm not gonna try again) as opposed to your standard expresso coffee (preferably Italian); Windows as opposed to any *nix flavour (I debate adding, 'preferably Finnish':)); your average Hollywood flick as opposed to a movie by Ingmar Bergman (not that I dig Danish movies that much, but it's an example). Etc.
I called that 'lowest common denominator stuff' because all things cited as such above are designed to appeal to the masses, to the center of the Gaussian bell curve, which implies, of course, eradication of anything with enough of a 'taste' to potentially displease a certain number of people (frog legs, strong coffee, command line tools, etc, to give admittedly approximative examples of what I mean). I hope I'm being a bit clearer?
It has economic value just like a piece of land has economic value. There is no intrinsic value in either.
I disagree. A land has an economical value, because you can grow things on it (ie, produce). While a culture, per se, doesn't produce much (outside the aforementionned folklore commerce, which is anecdotic).
The lands worth is determined by what society is willing to pay for it.
Nope, that's the price of land. Not its value. The difference is subtle, but important.
We should allow people to determine for themselves how they want to weigh the relative worth of their pursuits (e.g., this language), rather than forcing it on them.
I never said otherwise. My point, however, was that we should protect those regions inhabitants' right to decide for themselves, as opposed to forcing them to switch to some 'global' culture. Which is, of course, the issue at hand.
Let the free market decide rather than trying to impliment some archaic and overly complex top-down system; it's far more democratic.
Only if you put money (engine and purpose of the free market) above all other values. Which is a trait of the American culture that the rest of the world doesn't necessarily share, in case you didn't know.
If your "cultural" lifestyle demands that your entire country misses out on the opportunity to enjoy a higher quality of life
Define 'quality of life'. You're thinking in terms of money again. I have a friend (about as Welsh as it goes) who dropped everything and moved to France (rural Brittany, to be precise) to breed goats, basically. And he's very happy about the improvement of his quality of life. What does that tell you? Bingo, quality of life is a relative notion, exactly like values. Cope. He's got exactly the same right to seek his definition of quality of life as you do.
What you suggest is that a small minority's preference to maintain their culture should override the majority's preferences. That is simply ridiculous.
Nope, I suggest that regional cultures have a right not to let economical powers obliterate them in the name of values that may not be theirs.
Besides, you're once again thinking within the limited confines of your country. Because, mind you, there's a world outside your boundaries, and to that world's scale, your culture IS a minority. Hell, to Asia's scale alone, your culture is a minority. Would you switch to another culture and other values, just because the majority of mankind thinks differently from you? I think not. And it's your right!
So stop looking at your own navel, and get a look at the broader picture. Try to force your values and your culture on people, or even to obliterate those people's culture in the name of yours, and they WILL want to fight your oppression.
I got to discover OpenWindows' many qualities (sigh) when working in Denmark. My machine, a SPARC, was oooold as hell. So old that I actually saw a configure script tell me:
System type: SunOS version x.y
(Wow! I didn't even know those still existed!)
Humiliating.:)
This said, it's OpenWindows that got me hooked on the 'focus follows mouse pointer' scheme. Guess it wasn't entirely bad after all.:)
People don't go and do business with corporations that they think are worse; they shop the shops that do the best by them on the aggregate. These choices are made on a wide variety of grounds: speed, price, selection, quality of service, novelty, consistency, and so on.
Nope. People (as a whole) go for the cheapo commodity stuff. Or, more precisely, the 'lowest common denominator' stuff (which isn't exactly the same -- Windows is, for example, the lowest common denominator in its category, while only being cheapo in its technical side, not its price).
It sells well because it's 'common denominator'. It's crap because it's 'lowest'. Curiously, though, the issue with regionalism isn't that it's crap, even if it provides regionalists with easy arguments against it.
It is because it's a common denominator, that it DOES harm local cultural specificities. But I understand that the very concept of regionalism can be difficult to understand in America. In the old world, several (many?) countries have regions with rich cultural ancestry: for example, regions that have, beside the national language, their own tongue, that is in some case not even of the same language family as the national tongue (in the case of the small region across the Spanish/French border, it's not even an Indo-European language!).
What economical value do those local cultures have? Little to none (outside the simple folklore market). Hence their decline in the face of globalization. Does it mean they're not worth protecting?
Before you try answering that one, please try to give the following point due consideration: what makes you an individual as a human being? (Or, to take a broader instance of the matter, since it may be easier to process if you're not willing to spend some time thinking of it, why would you be upset if, say, the Afghani lifestyle started spreading rapidly in your country for some logical reason, economical or other, thus forcing you to either 1) adopt it too and abandon your own lifestyle, 2) accept being marginalized, then wiped out, or 3) fight back?)
Now, should McDonald-like corps be wiped out? Nope, definitely not. Should they be prevented to wipe out locality businesses and cultures for their own global corporate purposes? That's left as an exercise to the reader.
Programming languages are tools. Trying to nail a screw with a hammer and trying to write a CGI script in Java are two instances of the same problem (the latter generally of managerial origin, it would seem *sigh*). Right?
So. Is Perl6 the same darn fine '(formatted text -> data) && (data -> formatted text)' tool Perl5 is? If so, then it's great. Don't whine, you'll get used to the new syntax. (Note, I'm not a Perl junkie, so my appreciation of its aim as a tool may be inaccurate, I'll admit)
I'd be more concerned if the aim of the language itself shifted significantly. The mention of Python in the quote, "Yeah, and Perl 5 doesn't give us anything that a Universal Turing Machine, Intercal, or Python don't." makes me pause. Python in the same bag as Intercal. Hmm. Resentment? I hope Perl6 isn't trying to compete with Python out of resentment. That'd be stupid -- both languages rock, each in its own ecological niche (which don't seem to overlap much, BTW).
Bottom line: if Perl6 is a better (faster, more flexible, etc) tool for the same task, well, the new syntax is no big deal. However, if it starts undergoing featuritis just to compete with different tools, I'd start to worry.
The latest source is version 3.3.1 I think. Great idea!:) Maybe not worth putting too much time and code into, since it won't be triggered all that often, but still funny!
It's not like NetHack doesn't do the Zelazny thing already anyway, with Grayswandir and everything...:)
Linux has enjoyed strong penetration into the server market, accounting for 24 percent of server operating-system shipments in 1999 and 27 percent in 2000, Kusnetzky said. That's second to Windows, which went from 38 percent in 1999 to 42 percent in 2000.
27% of shipments?! Wow! Considering that you can install Linux on n+ machines with only one CD... As opposed to the Windows world, I mean, where a machine is accounted for iff its license was paid. Wow. Am I overreacting, or is it really meaningful?
Do you know what the most popular restaurant in Paris is? McDonalds.
Do you know what the most popular OS in NYC is? Windows.
Flawed logic? Yes. Serving shit for a low cost will get you many customers who want to fill their bellies (as opposed to, say, 'have dinner'). Perhaps defining 'popular' as "whee, I'm hungry but on a low budget, let's enter there" as opposed to, say, "Okay, I'll meet you guys at that place across the town, it's worth the trip, you'll see" is an interesting bias in itself. Globalized shit may look popular because it's globalized, but the culture thus invaded WILL see it as shit first and foremost. Mind you.
Stop applying American logic to other cultures if you don't want them to hate you.
Bleh, and the worst is that I know this post will be modded (-1, flamebait) in less time it takes to say "Two royal cheese and a big coke please". Oh, to hell with it.
The problem is that Windows XP redirects users to MSN is all sorts of situations. I guess that's why MSN was 'relooked' on the very day Win XP was released.
How many additional postitions would have to be created to train students (even rudimentary training) for an infrastructure they are not accustomed to?
Excellent question.
From my experience of how things work at my school, the answer is: None.
Our environment is mostly Linux desktops (with Win NT on a multiboot for some, since some tools -- mostly those used for management courses -- don't have *nix versions), with OSF/1 boxes as servers plus an ooooold VAX VMS (that is to be replaced Real Soon Now, as it has been for the last few years:)) for a few things. Well, every year, we (the students) put together a newbie's guide to how things work, and have the administration give us some time to teach the freshmen the basics. They get to discover the specifics when working on the stations over the course of the year. It works fairly well that way. But then, it may also be because there's a strong do-it-yourself culture attached to that school, granted. YMMV.:)
And I hereby declare that bundling lilo into RedHat is evil because it kills competition in the boot manager market.
Spare us the BS, will you?
To start with, Lilo isn't owned by RH, nor is it commingled into RH -- you don't want it? Removing it is trivial. Plus, if you're not happy with RH, you can go with Mandrake, which comes with GRUB, and which is still fully interoperable with RH.
MS may not be the Absolute Evil/. tends to make them, but trying to compare their practices with the way Linux works is not -quite- a smart move.:)
So .NET = selling CORBA to suits?
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J#
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· Score: 3, Insightful
.NET solves this by making all languages share a virtual machine that defines a bunch of basic data types, and a base 'object'. This means that any object created in one.NET language can be accessed by another.NET language.
Okay, so, in terms of functionality, how does that differ from CORBA, where you can very easily call a complex method written in Java on an Alpha box running OSF/1 from an object written in Python on an x86 box running Linux?
Outside, of course, the fact that CORBA is a fully documented specification, meant to be completely open and interoperable, complete with mappings for data types and everything, and that you don't need a virtual machine to make it run where you want, the way you want?
Please note -- it's not a troll. I'd just really want to know.
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You may also want to take a look at the wxWindows toolkit. It's a wrapper over what's available on a given platform (the native API in Win32, GTK in the Unix world, and there's a Mac port in progress, I believe). Good stuff, definitely, especially if what you want is C++ and portability. Note that your apps will look totally windowsy on win32, so your users will not be confused by their look.
Yep, I know what Tkinter is, but thank you. This said, make menuconfig does need stuff installed too, namely the curses lib, to compile the interface. Does compiling the C file generated from a frozen CML2 differ majorly?
How does your comment justify the installation of a yet another shitfest like Python for kernel configuration?
It doesn't. In the past you needed either Tcl/Tk or the curses lib, now you need either Python or a version of CML2 frozen to vanilla C, but in both case you can edit the makefiles by hand if you prefer. Whee, aren't we happy now. Unhappy? Take it up to ESR and try to contest his choices if you can (if you really can, which I kind of doubt, considering you're an AC of the ilk that uses words such as 'shitfest' apparently for the sheer trolling value of it, please let me know -- I'd sincerely be most interested to hear of it).
And yet you didn't mind having to install Tcl/Tk to be able to configure the kernel before?
If by memorabilia you mean, "a reminder of what mankind should not forget", then, sure; exactly like NYC is a terrorism memorabilia.
If we're talking timeless, immortal authors, I'm highly surprised that nobody mentionned Michael Ende. Whether his writings qualify as fantasy or philosophy is anyone's guess, but The Neverending Story is just that, a timeless masterpiece. I think it's one of those books that will always live on, possibly through centuries, because as long as there will be someone putting words on paper, there will be neverending stories, and Ende's book is about them, and why they matter. I know I'll keep re-reading it all my life long. It's worth it.
Good point. But it actually didn't surprise me much that she wasn't mentionned more. Her first books were good, and I loved them dearly, but is she as immortal as masters such as Tolkien, Asimov? I don't think so. Especially as Pern is pretty much becoming a franchise, with goodies of dubious quality thrown in (don't get me started on the Pern video game). Wouldn't surprise me much if Todd (her son) went on writing Pern stuff after she leaves this world.
Good author? Definitely. You don't win the Hugo prize easily, mind you. But immortal? Nope. Sometimes I think that Pern died along with Robinton. Sad.
Believe it or not, QuickTime runs alright with recent builds of WINE. Buggy interface, but then, I never found the interface that great to start with. :)
... You know, I was about to go on answering lengthily, but since it would seem you are for some reason unable to understand that 'allowing the free market to work the problem out' is putting money above all other values, which is an artefact of YOUR culture that you seem to think should be applied everywhere else, I think I'm not gonna lose my time any further. Thanks for the discussion! It was interesting, and it also gave me an interesting insight on certain sides of your culture, as well as on why a certain number of other cultures take issue with it.
I called that 'lowest common denominator stuff' because all things cited as such above are designed to appeal to the masses, to the center of the Gaussian bell curve, which implies, of course, eradication of anything with enough of a 'taste' to potentially displease a certain number of people (frog legs, strong coffee, command line tools, etc, to give admittedly approximative examples of what I mean). I hope I'm being a bit clearer?
I disagree. A land has an economical value, because you can grow things on it (ie, produce). While a culture, per se, doesn't produce much (outside the aforementionned folklore commerce, which is anecdotic).
Nope, that's the price of land. Not its value. The difference is subtle, but important.
I never said otherwise. My point, however, was that we should protect those regions inhabitants' right to decide for themselves, as opposed to forcing them to switch to some 'global' culture. Which is, of course, the issue at hand.
Only if you put money (engine and purpose of the free market) above all other values. Which is a trait of the American culture that the rest of the world doesn't necessarily share, in case you didn't know.
Define 'quality of life'. You're thinking in terms of money again. I have a friend (about as Welsh as it goes) who dropped everything and moved to France (rural Brittany, to be precise) to breed goats, basically. And he's very happy about the improvement of his quality of life. What does that tell you? Bingo, quality of life is a relative notion, exactly like values. Cope. He's got exactly the same right to seek his definition of quality of life as you do.
Nope, I suggest that regional cultures have a right not to let economical powers obliterate them in the name of values that may not be theirs.
Besides, you're once again thinking within the limited confines of your country. Because, mind you, there's a world outside your boundaries, and to that world's scale, your culture IS a minority. Hell, to Asia's scale alone, your culture is a minority. Would you switch to another culture and other values, just because the majority of mankind thinks differently from you? I think not. And it's your right!
So stop looking at your own navel, and get a look at the broader picture. Try to force your values and your culture on people, or even to obliterate those people's culture in the name of yours, and they WILL want to fight your oppression.
I got to discover OpenWindows' many qualities (sigh) when working in Denmark. My machine, a SPARC, was oooold as hell. So old that I actually saw a configure script tell me:
Humiliating.
This said, it's OpenWindows that got me hooked on the 'focus follows mouse pointer' scheme. Guess it wasn't entirely bad after all.
Nope. People (as a whole) go for the cheapo commodity stuff. Or, more precisely, the 'lowest common denominator' stuff (which isn't exactly the same -- Windows is, for example, the lowest common denominator in its category, while only being cheapo in its technical side, not its price).
It sells well because it's 'common denominator'. It's crap because it's 'lowest'. Curiously, though, the issue with regionalism isn't that it's crap, even if it provides regionalists with easy arguments against it.
It is because it's a common denominator, that it DOES harm local cultural specificities. But I understand that the very concept of regionalism can be difficult to understand in America. In the old world, several (many?) countries have regions with rich cultural ancestry: for example, regions that have, beside the national language, their own tongue, that is in some case not even of the same language family as the national tongue (in the case of the small region across the Spanish/French border, it's not even an Indo-European language!).
What economical value do those local cultures have? Little to none (outside the simple folklore market). Hence their decline in the face of globalization. Does it mean they're not worth protecting?
Before you try answering that one, please try to give the following point due consideration: what makes you an individual as a human being? (Or, to take a broader instance of the matter, since it may be easier to process if you're not willing to spend some time thinking of it, why would you be upset if, say, the Afghani lifestyle started spreading rapidly in your country for some logical reason, economical or other, thus forcing you to either 1) adopt it too and abandon your own lifestyle, 2) accept being marginalized, then wiped out, or 3) fight back?)
Now, should McDonald-like corps be wiped out? Nope, definitely not. Should they be prevented to wipe out locality businesses and cultures for their own global corporate purposes? That's left as an exercise to the reader.
Just wondering...
Programming languages are tools. Trying to nail a screw with a hammer and trying to write a CGI script in Java are two instances of the same problem (the latter generally of managerial origin, it would seem *sigh*). Right?
So. Is Perl6 the same darn fine '(formatted text -> data) && (data -> formatted text)' tool Perl5 is? If so, then it's great. Don't whine, you'll get used to the new syntax. (Note, I'm not a Perl junkie, so my appreciation of its aim as a tool may be inaccurate, I'll admit)
I'd be more concerned if the aim of the language itself shifted significantly. The mention of Python in the quote, "Yeah, and Perl 5 doesn't give us anything that a Universal Turing Machine, Intercal, or Python don't." makes me pause. Python in the same bag as Intercal. Hmm. Resentment? I hope Perl6 isn't trying to compete with Python out of resentment. That'd be stupid -- both languages rock, each in its own ecological niche (which don't seem to overlap much, BTW).
Bottom line: if Perl6 is a better (faster, more flexible, etc) tool for the same task, well, the new syntax is no big deal. However, if it starts undergoing featuritis just to compete with different tools, I'd start to worry.
Anyone care to enlighten a total Perl novice?
The latest source is version 3.3.1 I think. Great idea! :) Maybe not worth putting too much time and code into, since it won't be triggered all that often, but still funny!
:)
It's not like NetHack doesn't do the Zelazny thing already anyway, with Grayswandir and everything...
Wow! Tonight is Halloween AND full moon. How does NetHack handle that? Does it make it THE best possible night to be playing NH? :)
Most Stupid Death. :)
Given how viciously rich NetHack can be when it comes to getting killed, this ought to be fun. =)
Your choice. I personally find it highly satisfying to loot the corpse of some player who got killed stupidly without me even helping. =)
Linux has enjoyed strong penetration into the server market, accounting for 24 percent of server operating-system shipments in 1999 and 27 percent in 2000, Kusnetzky said. That's second to Windows, which went from 38 percent in 1999 to 42 percent in 2000.
27% of shipments?! Wow! Considering that you can install Linux on n+ machines with only one CD... As opposed to the Windows world, I mean, where a machine is accounted for iff its license was paid. Wow. Am I overreacting, or is it really meaningful?
Do you know what the most popular restaurant in Paris is? McDonalds.
Do you know what the most popular OS in NYC is? Windows.
Flawed logic? Yes. Serving shit for a low cost will get you many customers who want to fill their bellies (as opposed to, say, 'have dinner'). Perhaps defining 'popular' as "whee, I'm hungry but on a low budget, let's enter there" as opposed to, say, "Okay, I'll meet you guys at that place across the town, it's worth the trip, you'll see" is an interesting bias in itself. Globalized shit may look popular because it's globalized, but the culture thus invaded WILL see it as shit first and foremost. Mind you.
Stop applying American logic to other cultures if you don't want them to hate you.
Bleh, and the worst is that I know this post will be modded (-1, flamebait) in less time it takes to say "Two royal cheese and a big coke please". Oh, to hell with it.
And the problem is?
The problem is that Windows XP redirects users to MSN is all sorts of situations. I guess that's why MSN was 'relooked' on the very day Win XP was released.
How many additional postitions would have to be created to train students (even rudimentary training) for an infrastructure they are not accustomed to?
:)) for a few things. Well, every year, we (the students) put together a newbie's guide to how things work, and have the administration give us some time to teach the freshmen the basics. They get to discover the specifics when working on the stations over the course of the year. It works fairly well that way. But then, it may also be because there's a strong do-it-yourself culture attached to that school, granted. YMMV. :)
Excellent question.
From my experience of how things work at my school, the answer is: None.
Our environment is mostly Linux desktops (with Win NT on a multiboot for some, since some tools -- mostly those used for management courses -- don't have *nix versions), with OSF/1 boxes as servers plus an ooooold VAX VMS (that is to be replaced Real Soon Now, as it has been for the last few years
They can (and most likeliy will) also try to control the content.
They already have. Remember the Frontpage license?
And I hereby declare that bundling lilo into RedHat is evil because it kills competition in the boot manager market.
/. tends to make them, but trying to compare their practices with the way Linux works is not -quite- a smart move. :)
Spare us the BS, will you?
To start with, Lilo isn't owned by RH, nor is it commingled into RH -- you don't want it? Removing it is trivial. Plus, if you're not happy with RH, you can go with Mandrake, which comes with GRUB, and which is still fully interoperable with RH.
MS may not be the Absolute Evil
Okay, so, in terms of functionality, how does that differ from CORBA, where you can very easily call a complex method written in Java on an Alpha box running OSF/1 from an object written in Python on an x86 box running Linux?
Outside, of course, the fact that CORBA is a fully documented specification, meant to be completely open and interoperable, complete with mappings for data types and everything, and that you don't need a virtual machine to make it run where you want, the way you want?
Please note -- it's not a troll. I'd just really want to know.
News.com has a story describing Microsoft's plans to suck
Wow, and here I was thinking that was Slashdot's job...