A better point would be that these languages have features that make it easier to write code, such as garbage collection.
And, my personal favorite... generics.
God, I love being able to declare a hash table of without needing to care any more about how one would write the innards of a hash table.
For me, having data structures on tap is one of the best features of modern languages. That and the huge libraries of code which I can just use to accomplish my task instead of starting from scratch. I'm not interested in writing an XML parser -- I just need it parsed in as few lines of code as possible.
Java isn't perfect, but I fear Oracle is ruining it.
When given feedback and connected to a system which responds to certain brain activity, your brain will over time adapt to allow controle over that activity and the end result is that you "just do it" without consiously understanding how you do it.
Oh, sure. Suck all the fun out of it why don't you?
Hell Im only 26 but I'll be damned if I go jacking my brain up into machine interfaces. Give me an old fashion mouse with a side of keys and stay off my lawn
Attaboy. Us old timers won't be around for long, so someone has to keep the youngun's in line.
I'd want to be sure I have some pretty good filtering... otherwise BOOBIES stray thoughts BOOBIES are going to be injecting BOOBIES themselves into BOOBIES what I'm doing and really BOOBIES mess things up.
Humans are SQUIRREL easily distracted, so if you're not BOOBIES careful, you're going to get MMMM... CAKE some random activity.
Anyone else thinking Oracle buying Sun was a calculated move to destroy Android by killing Java?
Nope. I'm of the opinion that Java and Android are casualties to "business as usual" at Oracle.
I believe they really did want to be able to market an Oracle appliance set up specifically for running Oracle DBs. In fact, they will likely eventually move to a mode where Oracle is only supported on Oracle machines with a support contract. Since even the most trivial install of Oracle on the enterprise level requires a staggering amount of machines and processors, there's huge money in selling you a couple of million in hardware/software with tens of millions in built in support costs over the lifetime.
My wife works for a large company that does enterprise backups and the like. They have some aging Sun equipment -- but, since the machine isn't on a maintenance agreement with Oracle for bazillions of dollars each year, they suddenly can't get even the most basic stuff they used to be able to get. Oracle has locked everything down, and basically says "no contract, no peeking" -- needless to say, that is accelerating replacing Sun equipment with something else.
Oracle are as evil and closed as Microsoft, and ran by megalomaniacs on the same scale. Java is a casualty, but it wasn't a strategic goal of buying Sun. They had bigger fish to fry there.
In the long run, I think Oracle might devalue themselves overall -- they're gutting the brand value and good will of Sun, they're destroying Java, and generally not playing nice. I don't think people will want the taint of Oracle around their Sun platforms and Java.
The people who buy for different reasons than you aren't necessarily cringe-worthy. Perhaps they are just gamblers or contrarian investors.
They're welcome to do so. But, it was major brokerage houses who were betting on the funny money that led to the meltdown of financial markets. Gamble with your own money if you're willing/can afford it -- don't mingle my money in with the monopoly money though.
Perhaps the fundamentals of valuation are out of date, based on antiquated ideas of how companies operate.
Having a viable, long-term business model, operations, assets, and profits isn't antiquated. Though, over the last 10-15 years, stock-holders have come to expect unreasonable growth, leading to companies making bad decisions to make the numbers for this quarter match what is expected -- usually at the expense of future results as they gut their operations so they can "improve efficiencies".
So you cut your workforce now, show an improved profit, get your bonuses and run. And, in five years, you no longer have the ability to make product.
His solution is to give the shows away for free, without any restrictions, with minimal advertising before and after the show, and all money being made my merchandizing? Sorry, but that just won't work.
That's pretty much what I thought when I read TFA.
It's pure drivel, and it would do nothing to create better shows and keep them on the air. Other than giving it away DRM free, I'm not sure of WTF it would accomplish.
You want to know how to make better shows? Copy what HBO is doing -- make good programming, with good scripts and not pandering to the "prime time" audience or worrying about adult-themed content. Wait for the other networks to want to syndicate your critically acclaimed show. Watch the money roll in, and use some of that to bankroll more good shows.
I think a pretty good chunk of the really good TV I remember from the last decade is attributable to HBO. And, even the stuff I didn't/don't watch I've likely heard of.
As to the quality of BSG, can't say. Never got into the show; not even a little. I remember the original series, and, frankly, I didn't care enough to care.
Zynga isn't public and doesn't even have a nominal value.
Yeah, like I said, monopoly money. Might as well say Zynga is worth "one billion trillion dollars". It's completely meaningless.
Of course, that doesn't mean that someone won't sell the company for obscene sums of money and run like hell before the investors realize they've bought magic beans.
Zynga, on the other hand, are growing about as quickly as a company can grow and their margins have to be crazy high. That's very attractive to investors, that attracts speculators, and that builds a bubble.
Yeah, but getting into something you know is a bubble is like getting in on a pyramid scheme and hoping you get out before it collapses.
I've seen this numerous times over the years. Anybody who actually believes there is value there is either going to get burned, or is basically trying to scoop out the fictional money before everyone realizes that it doesn't really have any value. (Or, in exceedingly rare cases, a somewhat viable entity might emerge, but I'm doubtful of that.)
The problem is, as the big stock meltdown of the last couple of years shows... when the funny money gets mingled in with the real money, everyone else gets burned. I wouldn't want the people managing my investment portfolio to be stupid enough to treat Zynga like an actual thing which should be considered real and of value.
I always cringe when people who are supposed to understand the fundamentals of valuation go zany and buy into utter hype. IMO, that's all Zynga is. If in a month everyone gets bored of Facebook, their market collapses.
This says more about market analysts and valuation than either company. Remember back when AOL bought Time Warner with essentially monopoly money? Same thing here.
The valuation of something becomes detached from their revenue, assets, long-term prospects, and other things. You get a completely fictional valuation that in a couple of months or years won't be worth a damn. In the mean time, someone will cash out a huge amount of actual dollars, and leave everyone else holding the bag when the value of this stuff becomes worthless.
Unless you're a day trader from the 90s, or were involved in selling Asset Backed Paper Commodities, you should treat this like a temporary blip that has nothing to do with actual money.
Basically, this is equating a fad with no real tangible value with real assets and revenues. Only the suckers buy into this.
OK, I realize this is posted by an AC, but the reality of it is, a lot of us don't have a choice about using Microsoft Office.
It's standard issue, installed by IT, and you're going to be seeing documents in that format. You think I'm going to our CEO to say we shouldn't use Power Point or Word? Hell, when we're bidding for work, often there's a requirement to deliver the docs in Word format.
Open Office is simply not a realistic alternative. If you're working on stuff in isolation, or only with other OSS geeks, or if only your printed work ends up in someone else's hand.
What am I going to do, *not* use the installed version of MS Office so I can use Open Office and hope that it doesn't mangle the formatting of something? To heck with that.
You must live in a bubble if you don't think those of us who work for large organizations have any choice in using Office or not.
You know, I truly can't tell if you're serious. You delayed buying a toy because the color made it look...like...a...toy...
No. He's admitting to a very long established geek bias towards black hardware.
Black hardware is just so... black... and smooth... and shiny. *ahem*
For a long time, we had beige, in a matte finish no less; IBM is well documented to be at fault here. We had so utterly much beige, it was mind-numbing. Beige monitor, beige tower, beige keyboard -- oh, sure, you could mix it up with a mouse of a mousepad, but everything else was beige. Geeks used to have black-hardware envy because nobody had any -- a NeXT station was the sexiest thing on the planet in '92, and SGI made a really funky indigo colour. Apple popularized Tangerine for a while, but it wasn't black.
Now, you almost don't see beige at all. All black. 'Cuz black is cool and shiny, and... faster. Hell, even Nintendo has learned that everybody wants black hardware... the Wii is now available in black. I'm sure black costs more... it used to. It's supposed to.
What he's saying is if the Game Cube had been its proper black in the first place, instead of being in bright, primary Fisher Price colours, they'd have sold more units. Because, once you go black...;-)
I just watched a commercial for the 2011 Ford Fiesta... and lo and behold it talked about Sync, Powered By Microsoft.
I guess that kind of debunks that myth.
Depends on how you look at it.
Independently, "Ford Festiva" and "Powered by Microsoft" aren't things that make me think "oooh, gotta get me some of that". Together, it's more of a "RUN!!" reaction.
I knew people who had Festivas back in the 90s -- they would have been better off resurrecting the Pinto name. Maybe even Edsel.:-P
The problem is, if you're largely a software-only company like Microsoft it's very hard to come out with something that makes people go "wow."
If Microsoft didn't spend billions on R&D every year, hadn't been working on that "Microsoft House of the Future", and all sorts of things which were supposed to achieve a "wow".. I might believe that.
Microsoft has spent billions on R&D each year for at least 20+ years. Microsoft has made branded hardware in the past. Microsoft could easily get involved in the design and production of more hardware. They were very involved in the design of XBox and Zune, and like some others along the way.
When you own the hardware and the software, you can truly innovate when it comes to gadgets - When you only own the software, you can't.
Don't act like Microsoft is at a disadvantage because, boo hoo, poor Microsoft only owns the software. There has never been a barrier to Microsoft creating hardware -- they've done it in the past. They've been spending a war chest in the hundreds of billions forever now.
If they've not kept up with what everybody else is doing, then it's their own damned fault. But, in terms of how much they should be able to innovate, there's no excuse of just saying "but we only own the software and unless someone makes something cool we can piggy back on, how are we ever to make something new".
I will not feel sorry for a company which was once one of the largest companies in the world because they don't have "access" to hardware. That just makes no sense whatsoever. People have innovated lots of cool things on much smaller budgets.
No, apparently you're alone with a marketing book from the 90's.
Or, as a consumer, he actually wants some more innovation and coolness in his products.
In terms of producing a "game changer" in any consumer segment, Microsoft isn't really doing much of that these days. Microsoft has become like IBM used to be... somewhat stodgy, a little stuck in their ways, a safe bet for IT, but not making anything "fun" or "innovative". Certainly, nothing you might call "cool".
Looking at what people want these days, it's tablets, smart-phones, and media players -- it's really hard to see Microsoft as having any real foothold in these markets. Between Google and Apple (and a few others) products are getting made that people want; Microsoft comes out with a "me too" product (eg Zune) that most people disregard. (OK, there was that fat guy who got the Zune logo tattooed on his arm, but even he's moved on.) I'm just not seeing the results of their "freedom to innovate".
Their XBox is still strong, but that's selling to a specific kind of gamer. Except for the OS on my computer, for personal stuff, I can't name a single Microsoft product that I use. Sure, I need Office for work, but they make neither hardware nor software that I want for in the home. In fact, if they do make something like that, I'm completely unaware of it.
For the most part, as a consumer (and not as someone who works in the industry and uses a lot of MS stuff), they don't make any shiny toys that appeal to me. They're just not that kind of company.
They could have assimilated them that around 1998 without much of a problem
I don't believe MS could have bought apple around 1998 even if they wanted to.
As I recall, they were giving Apple money to keep them afloat so that Microsoft could say "see, we have competition, we're not a monopoly".
Had they bought Apple, then as far as commercially available desktop operating systems, Microsoft would have truly been a monopoly, and might have risked being broken into different divisions.
Microsoft is now losing market share on a lot of fronts, and people are discovering that there are now several viable alternatives. I question how long before the losses become something they can't really recover from. I'm not saying they're going to go away any time soon, but some of the competing products are leaving Microsoft standing in the cold.
I'd hope not. For most of the papers and grants coming out of our lab, we use the same introduction, and many of the procedures are the same, so many sections are just cut and pasted with a few words changed here or there to fit the particular experiment or project we were working on.
Oh, I get that you may do a series of experiments all with some commonality. That is fine.
I'm specifically talking about people who essentially recycle the same paper several times with no material changes to any of the research or conclusions. That to me is bordering on being a little dodgy.
I remember being told a long time ago that some researchers will basically make several permutations of the same paper to submit to a bunch of different places. It's essentially the same paper, with nothing new in it, but if you can get several places to publish it, you can pad out your publications list.
Slashdot Mirror
But ... but ... it's cake. Cake doesn't lie. =)
High speed trading is just brokerage houses skimming off the top.
I agree, it has the potential to really mess things up on a scale that couldn't be done by mere humans.
And, my personal favorite ... generics.
God, I love being able to declare a hash table of without needing to care any more about how one would write the innards of a hash table.
For me, having data structures on tap is one of the best features of modern languages. That and the huge libraries of code which I can just use to accomplish my task instead of starting from scratch. I'm not interested in writing an XML parser -- I just need it parsed in as few lines of code as possible.
Java isn't perfect, but I fear Oracle is ruining it.
Oh, sure. Suck all the fun out of it why don't you?
Attaboy. Us old timers won't be around for long, so someone has to keep the youngun's in line.
I'd want to be sure I have some pretty good filtering ... otherwise BOOBIES stray thoughts BOOBIES are going to be injecting BOOBIES themselves into BOOBIES what I'm doing and really BOOBIES mess things up.
Humans are SQUIRREL easily distracted, so if you're not BOOBIES careful, you're going to get MMMM ... CAKE some random activity.
Wow, I hope she doesn't read Slashdot. Or you're going to have to worry about holding something else in your hand.
Nope. I'm of the opinion that Java and Android are casualties to "business as usual" at Oracle.
I believe they really did want to be able to market an Oracle appliance set up specifically for running Oracle DBs. In fact, they will likely eventually move to a mode where Oracle is only supported on Oracle machines with a support contract. Since even the most trivial install of Oracle on the enterprise level requires a staggering amount of machines and processors, there's huge money in selling you a couple of million in hardware/software with tens of millions in built in support costs over the lifetime.
My wife works for a large company that does enterprise backups and the like. They have some aging Sun equipment -- but, since the machine isn't on a maintenance agreement with Oracle for bazillions of dollars each year, they suddenly can't get even the most basic stuff they used to be able to get. Oracle has locked everything down, and basically says "no contract, no peeking" -- needless to say, that is accelerating replacing Sun equipment with something else.
Oracle are as evil and closed as Microsoft, and ran by megalomaniacs on the same scale. Java is a casualty, but it wasn't a strategic goal of buying Sun. They had bigger fish to fry there.
In the long run, I think Oracle might devalue themselves overall -- they're gutting the brand value and good will of Sun, they're destroying Java, and generally not playing nice. I don't think people will want the taint of Oracle around their Sun platforms and Java.
They're welcome to do so. But, it was major brokerage houses who were betting on the funny money that led to the meltdown of financial markets. Gamble with your own money if you're willing/can afford it -- don't mingle my money in with the monopoly money though.
Having a viable, long-term business model, operations, assets, and profits isn't antiquated. Though, over the last 10-15 years, stock-holders have come to expect unreasonable growth, leading to companies making bad decisions to make the numbers for this quarter match what is expected -- usually at the expense of future results as they gut their operations so they can "improve efficiencies".
So you cut your workforce now, show an improved profit, get your bonuses and run. And, in five years, you no longer have the ability to make product.
That's pretty much what I thought when I read TFA.
It's pure drivel, and it would do nothing to create better shows and keep them on the air. Other than giving it away DRM free, I'm not sure of WTF it would accomplish.
You want to know how to make better shows? Copy what HBO is doing -- make good programming, with good scripts and not pandering to the "prime time" audience or worrying about adult-themed content. Wait for the other networks to want to syndicate your critically acclaimed show. Watch the money roll in, and use some of that to bankroll more good shows.
I think a pretty good chunk of the really good TV I remember from the last decade is attributable to HBO. And, even the stuff I didn't/don't watch I've likely heard of.
As to the quality of BSG, can't say. Never got into the show; not even a little. I remember the original series, and, frankly, I didn't care enough to care.
Yeah, like I said, monopoly money. Might as well say Zynga is worth "one billion trillion dollars". It's completely meaningless.
Of course, that doesn't mean that someone won't sell the company for obscene sums of money and run like hell before the investors realize they've bought magic beans.
Yeah, but getting into something you know is a bubble is like getting in on a pyramid scheme and hoping you get out before it collapses.
I've seen this numerous times over the years. Anybody who actually believes there is value there is either going to get burned, or is basically trying to scoop out the fictional money before everyone realizes that it doesn't really have any value. (Or, in exceedingly rare cases, a somewhat viable entity might emerge, but I'm doubtful of that.)
The problem is, as the big stock meltdown of the last couple of years shows ... when the funny money gets mingled in with the real money, everyone else gets burned. I wouldn't want the people managing my investment portfolio to be stupid enough to treat Zynga like an actual thing which should be considered real and of value.
I always cringe when people who are supposed to understand the fundamentals of valuation go zany and buy into utter hype. IMO, that's all Zynga is. If in a month everyone gets bored of Facebook, their market collapses.
This says more about market analysts and valuation than either company. Remember back when AOL bought Time Warner with essentially monopoly money? Same thing here.
The valuation of something becomes detached from their revenue, assets, long-term prospects, and other things. You get a completely fictional valuation that in a couple of months or years won't be worth a damn. In the mean time, someone will cash out a huge amount of actual dollars, and leave everyone else holding the bag when the value of this stuff becomes worthless.
Unless you're a day trader from the 90s, or were involved in selling Asset Backed Paper Commodities, you should treat this like a temporary blip that has nothing to do with actual money.
Basically, this is equating a fad with no real tangible value with real assets and revenues. Only the suckers buy into this.
I thought that's what he meant. :-P
OK, I realize this is posted by an AC, but the reality of it is, a lot of us don't have a choice about using Microsoft Office.
It's standard issue, installed by IT, and you're going to be seeing documents in that format. You think I'm going to our CEO to say we shouldn't use Power Point or Word? Hell, when we're bidding for work, often there's a requirement to deliver the docs in Word format.
Open Office is simply not a realistic alternative. If you're working on stuff in isolation, or only with other OSS geeks, or if only your printed work ends up in someone else's hand.
What am I going to do, *not* use the installed version of MS Office so I can use Open Office and hope that it doesn't mangle the formatting of something? To heck with that.
You must live in a bubble if you don't think those of us who work for large organizations have any choice in using Office or not.
No. He's admitting to a very long established geek bias towards black hardware.
Black hardware is just so ... black ... and smooth ... and shiny. *ahem*
For a long time, we had beige, in a matte finish no less; IBM is well documented to be at fault here. We had so utterly much beige, it was mind-numbing. Beige monitor, beige tower, beige keyboard -- oh, sure, you could mix it up with a mouse of a mousepad, but everything else was beige. Geeks used to have black-hardware envy because nobody had any -- a NeXT station was the sexiest thing on the planet in '92, and SGI made a really funky indigo colour. Apple popularized Tangerine for a while, but it wasn't black.
Now, you almost don't see beige at all. All black. 'Cuz black is cool and shiny, and ... faster. Hell, even Nintendo has learned that everybody wants black hardware ... the Wii is now available in black. I'm sure black costs more ... it used to. It's supposed to.
What he's saying is if the Game Cube had been its proper black in the first place, instead of being in bright, primary Fisher Price colours, they'd have sold more units. Because, once you go black ... ;-)
I don't think you understand ... the white iPhones are for the Victoria's Secret models. Nobody cares what you want. ;-)
Dude ... best dismount from a car analogy ever.
Brilliant!
Which deserves the question ... just who the hell is drinking Foster's? It's not the Aussies, and nobody else will fess up to it.
But, someone has to be drinking it -- I've seen it her in Canada on numerous occasions. And, yes, I have to confess, it's not something I'm a fan of.
Depends on how you look at it.
Independently, "Ford Festiva" and "Powered by Microsoft" aren't things that make me think "oooh, gotta get me some of that". Together, it's more of a "RUN!!" reaction.
I knew people who had Festivas back in the 90s -- they would have been better off resurrecting the Pinto name. Maybe even Edsel. :-P
If Microsoft didn't spend billions on R&D every year, hadn't been working on that "Microsoft House of the Future", and all sorts of things which were supposed to achieve a "wow" .. I might believe that.
Microsoft has spent billions on R&D each year for at least 20+ years. Microsoft has made branded hardware in the past. Microsoft could easily get involved in the design and production of more hardware. They were very involved in the design of XBox and Zune, and like some others along the way.
Don't act like Microsoft is at a disadvantage because, boo hoo, poor Microsoft only owns the software. There has never been a barrier to Microsoft creating hardware -- they've done it in the past. They've been spending a war chest in the hundreds of billions forever now.
If they've not kept up with what everybody else is doing, then it's their own damned fault. But, in terms of how much they should be able to innovate, there's no excuse of just saying "but we only own the software and unless someone makes something cool we can piggy back on, how are we ever to make something new".
I will not feel sorry for a company which was once one of the largest companies in the world because they don't have "access" to hardware. That just makes no sense whatsoever. People have innovated lots of cool things on much smaller budgets.
Or, as a consumer, he actually wants some more innovation and coolness in his products.
In terms of producing a "game changer" in any consumer segment, Microsoft isn't really doing much of that these days. Microsoft has become like IBM used to be ... somewhat stodgy, a little stuck in their ways, a safe bet for IT, but not making anything "fun" or "innovative". Certainly, nothing you might call "cool".
Looking at what people want these days, it's tablets, smart-phones, and media players -- it's really hard to see Microsoft as having any real foothold in these markets. Between Google and Apple (and a few others) products are getting made that people want; Microsoft comes out with a "me too" product (eg Zune) that most people disregard. (OK, there was that fat guy who got the Zune logo tattooed on his arm, but even he's moved on.) I'm just not seeing the results of their "freedom to innovate".
Their XBox is still strong, but that's selling to a specific kind of gamer. Except for the OS on my computer, for personal stuff, I can't name a single Microsoft product that I use. Sure, I need Office for work, but they make neither hardware nor software that I want for in the home. In fact, if they do make something like that, I'm completely unaware of it.
For the most part, as a consumer (and not as someone who works in the industry and uses a lot of MS stuff), they don't make any shiny toys that appeal to me. They're just not that kind of company.
I don't believe MS could have bought apple around 1998 even if they wanted to.
As I recall, they were giving Apple money to keep them afloat so that Microsoft could say "see, we have competition, we're not a monopoly".
Had they bought Apple, then as far as commercially available desktop operating systems, Microsoft would have truly been a monopoly, and might have risked being broken into different divisions.
Microsoft is now losing market share on a lot of fronts, and people are discovering that there are now several viable alternatives. I question how long before the losses become something they can't really recover from. I'm not saying they're going to go away any time soon, but some of the competing products are leaving Microsoft standing in the cold.
Oh, I get that you may do a series of experiments all with some commonality. That is fine.
I'm specifically talking about people who essentially recycle the same paper several times with no material changes to any of the research or conclusions. That to me is bordering on being a little dodgy.
But, maybe that's the norm.
What about academic "recycling".
I remember being told a long time ago that some researchers will basically make several permutations of the same paper to submit to a bunch of different places. It's essentially the same paper, with nothing new in it, but if you can get several places to publish it, you can pad out your publications list.