While those numbers are true, I don't think they are a fair comparison. The school expenditure numbers referenced above also include the state and local spending for schools (where the majority of school funding comes from). Here is the relevant quote directly from your quoted source:
"By far, the greatest part of education revenues came from nonfederal sources (state, intermediate, and local governments), which together provided about $346 billion, or 92.7 percent of all revenues."
I think the original poster was wishing that the federal government would put as much emphasis on education (financially at least) as it does on the military. Whether more money would fix the educational system in America is open for debate of course.
Yes, dead trees and libraries are great. However, you seem to miss out on some of the benefits from the Safari/e-book system. eBooks are great for technical areas because you can cut and paste code examples while you're working on your project. Also, it's much easier to use a computer to search for terms in a book than to try to scan them by eye/hand. Furthermore, one of the great benefits of Safari is that errata/updates are linked directly on the pages. Paper books are great, but you shouldn't underestimate the convenience of ebooks.
Wow, it seems that you also have a problem with the guys that sell Resin or with all of the Linux distros.:)
Does Grub want to make money? Yes, there's no way Grub can afford the overhead of the service without passing the costs on to someone somewhere. However, that in and of itself does not make Grub an opportunist. In this current market, investors couldn't care if you claimed your project was powered by Jesus if it didn't have a solid business model under it.
The reasons Grub is opensource are varied. Kord comes from an ISP and BSD background. He knows from his own experience that a sys admin is not going to install networked software on a box when that network software can't be inspected. Having Grub be open source is insurance for the wise sysadmins. Kord being a FreeBSD freak from the start, I'm pretty sure closed source doesn't do it for him. Also, if you analyze the business model, there's no compelling reason to make it closed source. The money is in the data, not the ins and outs of how the clients and servers work.
Wow, I'm surprised to see Grub on Slashdot this morning. The first client beta was _just_ released last night!
Anyways, I know the Grub guys and was there when Grub was just an idea being discussed over coffee. Although I can't speak with 100% authority, I feel that I can give some insight and perhaps some clarification to a few concerns/questions floating around. It appears that Kord and Iggy may have left a bit to be desired on the FAQ:)
From my understanding, the initial desired audience is the ISP admin. As an ISP, you'd be able to have your grub client index and crawl sites that you host. In turn, those sites will be available on whatever search engine Grub is supplying data to. Those running an ISP or hosting websites know how often clients request that you make sure they get crawled and listed in a search engine; this is a pretty nice value-add for your ISP service then. In this case, it's a win-win scenario. Grub gets up to date information on sites and the ISP gets to provide a much requested service to its customers.
Later, I believe the plan to encourage individuals on broadband connections is to provide rewards for a certain number of sites crawled and also prizes for top crawlers.
There are some concerns about the licensing of the database. It's my understanding that Grub is taking a commercial-pay/non-commercial-free approach. That means for instance, if you started an opensource search engine like aspseek.org you could use the Grub data for free. But if you're Google or Inktomi, you'll have to pay for access.
The data will not be free to everyone. There's just no way anybody can provide the overhead costs for that kind of service free to everyone. I think charging only for commercial use is the best option in this case. Also, keep in mind that the server will eventually be released as well. This means that individuals could run their own grub servers and stockpile their own data.
As far as the few statements regarding the stock options payment, I'm pretty sure all of the in house full-time developers get paid real money. However, Kord is really determined to make sure that those people kicking in 5-10hrs a week in their spare time get to share in some of the success when Grub hits it big. Once again, that's a win-win situation. The contributors get to work on a promising, useful OS project and if the world comes knocking for this better mouse trap, the contributors also get a bit of cash for their troubles.
I'd encourage those that have concerns or are curious about the project to go ahead and download the client now while it's in such early development. Take a look at the code. Email Kord and Iggy and tell them what you think. Even email them if you think Grub is a stupid idea, but tell them why. I don't think wanting to make a successful commercial P2P application is a bad idea in and of itself.
Are the moderators blind? Only one moderator had the sense to mod this as overrated. Do the rest just see a long post and instantly think it's informative or interesting? Don't any of the moderators understand what a troll is?!? I'm just surprised that this guy isn't a Major troll.
This article can be applied to any kind of programming paradigm. Basically, the author concludes that OOP isn't any good because some developers and managers aren't applying it correctly. Well, that's the case for procedural programming, declaritive, functional, etc. Yes, OOP will not solve the problem of rushed projects, poor management, or stupid programmers; neither will any other programming style though.
Programmers just need to be familiar with multiple programming practices and languages. Programmers need to know when just hammering out some _properly_ planned procedural code will fit the case better than some _properly_ planned OO code. There is no magic bullet and because of this, I think it's a bit pointless to say that one programming style is leaps and bounds better or worse than another.
I really wish the author had the confidence in the claims to actually site some hard facts and not some made up claims. Most of the article just seems like old rehashed FUD from the dawn of the OOP movement. The author mentions all of these failed business apps and blaims OOP for their problems. I guess IBM, Oracle, NASA, and some of the other big software shops are a bunch of idiots for doing any OOP. But of course this guy must be an expert on software design practices and that's why he has a Bell Labs URL.
Stop buying these devices. It's that simple. These companies want to make money; they're only going to make products that people will buy. No one _needs_ a TV or a DVD player so you can opt not to buy one. Alternatively, you can also just buy a TV from overseas or somewhere that doesn't have this technology. Please remember that these companies don't owe you anything. That don't love you, they just want your money. If you think they're jerking you around, take your money elsewhere.
WTF? I still don't see how Microsoft has taken away your rights. What right says that you have the right to use Macromedia and Adobe products on any computer? You have the right to write your own personal copy of that software. You don't have the right for things to be easy for you.
Has Microsoft taken away your right to form a militia? Has Pepsi told you what religion to practice? Has Exxon tried to force you to harbor soldiers against your will? Which basic rights have the corporations take away from you? Yes, companies are suing individuals left and right over so-called intellectual property rights. However, these suits have yet to be challenged in the Supreme Court and set as precedent. To answer your question, yes, there are possible countries that are more free than the US. However, I believe you'll be hard pressed to find one. Exactly what rights are looking for?
You know what? I can't go to Toys R Us and buy
a copy of Debbie Does Dallas. Am I being persecuted because of this? Are my rights being violated? No. Toys R Us, has the right to decide what they sell, not the consumer. Yahoo, Amazon, your ISP, etc. are all businesses, not governments. They don't have to respect your right to buy Nazi propoganda, Confederate flags, etc. They only have to respect the market and occasionally their stock holders. When Yahoo comes knocking on doors and imprisoning people for trying to sell these things, then rights are being violated. Otherwise, just go somewhere else and purchase it. That's your right as a consumer and ultimately, Yahoo will respect those almighty dollars.
I know that everyone hates lawyers; however, commercial entities will not respect the GPL unless there are consequences. Just look at how hard it was to get companies to respect "closed" patents and "closed" copyrights. Yes, we want everyone to use GPL code, but some companies will have to be dragged kicking and screaming into compliance with everything using GPL'd code means.
What can really be concluded from Nader's responses to the "questionnaire"? The questions are clearly slanted. I'm sure that Bush and Gore would have the same replies to those questions! Who is going to say that they are against people controlling their privacy?? It's kind of like the surveys that ask if you're in favor of reduced taxes. Well, of course everyone is in favor of fewer taxes. However, the issues are more complex than questions this simple can convey. Please disregard such propoganda and base your opinions on the candidates leadership record.
I think you are a bit misinformed on Java. Java
does allow you to seperate your class interface
declaration from your class definition. You simply
declare your interface declaration to be an interface rather than the actual class. Then your
actual implementation of that class declares that
it implements the interface.
Example:
Foo.java:
public interface Foo
{
public int getBar();
public void setBar(int Bar);
}
FooImpl.java:
public class FooImpl implements Foo
{
int Bar;
public int getBar(){return this.Bar;}
public void setBar(int Bar)
{ this.Bar=Bar;}
}
On the topic of Java for big applications, you're
also misinformed. There are several large,
feature-rich applications written in Java. Take
a look at NetBeans, JBoss, or Tomcat. The list
goes on and on.
The syntax is intentionally modelled after the
C/C++ syntax. I don't see what issue you have
with the syntax.
It appears that either I'm just really gullible
and jumped at your nice troll. Or you need to do
a little more Java research. Let's just hope
I'm gullible; my ego can take it:).
I think you are a bit misinformed. Ralph Nader
is the candidate for the Green Party. He is also
a huge consumer advocate is partially responsible for bringing the Microsoft anti-trust trial to
court(as early as 1997). The "parent" hosting site, http://www.essential.org, hosts other "progressive"
sites as well. After reading through some of the
web sites, it becomes clear that free software probably is a political issue for them as well as
performance issue. Please read up on the subject before commenting.
Unless I misunderstood the question, I think the poster may want to look at the OpenLDAP project. It's been around quite a while and offers some of the services requested. Check out www.openldap.org.
These guys don't need to compete with Oracle, DB2, Sysbase or any other enterprise class database. There's a huge market for people needing/wanting a full RDBMS system for small/mid-level database work. PostgreSQL fills this niche nicely. It passes the ACID test; has fairly decent ODBC, JDBC, Perl DBI, and PHP support; acceptable speed performance; and all of the benefits of being an open source project. Now that it will have Great Bridge doing development and offering commercial support, companies will be able to get reliable(read blammable) support for this product. This is great for more open source penetration into the corporate world.
It's great to see all these game companies hopping on the Linux bandwagon. Loki is doing an excellent job with porting Win games to our platform and the announcement of JA2 for linux is awesome. However, I think Linux needs more simultaneously released games such as Q3 or UT.
Since more and more games are integrating multiplayer options, it'd be nice to actually have a linux game that still has an online following. I find it's easier to find online opponents following the initial release of a game as opposed to several months down the road when the hype has either died down or the game has been upgraded.
In summary, it's great that companies are porting to linux, but it'd be even better to get simultaneous releases. Please stop treating linux like the red-headed stepchild of gaming.
The problem isn't with the various methodologies. Rather, the problem is with the implementation of these methodologies. Just like anything else in the work environment, you can force your employees to learn these practices, but if they don't actually follow them then of course the results will be poor. The root of the problem is generally something much greater than the programming methodology though; plain poor upper-management comes to mind. If you look at software shops that people do respect(i.e. IBM, NASA, etc.), you'll find that these practices do work but they work because these organizations already have a good infratructure in place. These shops also realize that these practices aren't magic bullets unlike some of the smaller shops. Sorry for the rambling.
Slashdot Mirror
While those numbers are true, I don't think they are a fair comparison. The school expenditure numbers referenced above also include the state and local spending for schools (where the majority of school funding comes from). Here is the relevant quote directly from your quoted source:
"By far, the greatest part of education revenues came from nonfederal sources (state, intermediate, and local governments), which together provided about $346 billion, or 92.7 percent of all revenues."
I think the original poster was wishing that the federal government would put as much emphasis on education (financially at least) as it does on the military. Whether more money would fix the educational system in America is open for debate of course.
Yes, dead trees and libraries are great. However, you seem to miss out on some of the benefits from the Safari/e-book system. eBooks are great for technical areas because you can cut and paste code examples while you're working on your project. Also, it's much easier to use a computer to search for terms in a book than to try to scan them by eye/hand. Furthermore, one of the great benefits of Safari is that errata/updates are linked directly on the pages. Paper books are great, but you shouldn't underestimate the convenience of ebooks.
Wow, it seems that you also have a problem with the guys that sell Resin or with all of the Linux distros. :)
Does Grub want to make money? Yes, there's no way Grub can afford the overhead of the service without passing the costs on to someone somewhere. However, that in and of itself does not make Grub an opportunist. In this current market, investors couldn't care if you claimed your project was powered by Jesus if it didn't have a solid business model under it.
The reasons Grub is opensource are varied. Kord comes from an ISP and BSD background. He knows from his own experience that a sys admin is not going to install networked software on a box when that network software can't be inspected. Having Grub be open source is insurance for the wise sysadmins. Kord being a FreeBSD freak from the start, I'm pretty sure closed source doesn't do it for him. Also, if you analyze the business model, there's no compelling reason to make it closed source. The money is in the data, not the ins and outs of how the clients and servers work.
Wow, I'm surprised to see Grub on Slashdot this morning. The first client beta was _just_ released last night!
Anyways, I know the Grub guys and was there when Grub was just an idea being discussed over coffee. Although I can't speak with 100% authority, I feel that I can give some insight and perhaps some clarification to a few concerns/questions floating around. It appears that Kord and Iggy may have left a bit to be desired on the FAQ :)
From my understanding, the initial desired audience is the ISP admin. As an ISP, you'd be able to have your grub client index and crawl sites that you host. In turn, those sites will be available on whatever search engine Grub is supplying data to. Those running an ISP or hosting websites know how often clients request that you make sure they get crawled and listed in a search engine; this is a pretty nice value-add for your ISP service then. In this case, it's a win-win scenario. Grub gets up to date information on sites and the ISP gets to provide a much requested service to its customers.
Later, I believe the plan to encourage individuals on broadband connections is to provide rewards for a certain number of sites crawled and also prizes for top crawlers.
There are some concerns about the licensing of the database. It's my understanding that Grub is taking a commercial-pay/non-commercial-free approach. That means for instance, if you started an opensource search engine like aspseek.org you could use the Grub data for free. But if you're Google or Inktomi, you'll have to pay for access.
The data will not be free to everyone. There's just no way anybody can provide the overhead costs for that kind of service free to everyone. I think charging only for commercial use is the best option in this case. Also, keep in mind that the server will eventually be released as well. This means that individuals could run their own grub servers and stockpile their own data.
As far as the few statements regarding the stock options payment, I'm pretty sure all of the in house full-time developers get paid real money. However, Kord is really determined to make sure that those people kicking in 5-10hrs a week in their spare time get to share in some of the success when Grub hits it big. Once again, that's a win-win situation. The contributors get to work on a promising, useful OS project and if the world comes knocking for this better mouse trap, the contributors also get a bit of cash for their troubles.
I'd encourage those that have concerns or are curious about the project to go ahead and download the client now while it's in such early development. Take a look at the code. Email Kord and Iggy and tell them what you think. Even email them if you think Grub is a stupid idea, but tell them why. I don't think wanting to make a successful commercial P2P application is a bad idea in and of itself.
Are the moderators blind? Only one moderator had the sense to mod this as overrated. Do the rest just see a long post and instantly think it's informative or interesting? Don't any of the moderators understand what a troll is?!? I'm just surprised that this guy isn't a Major troll.
This article can be applied to any kind of programming paradigm. Basically, the author concludes that OOP isn't any good because some developers and managers aren't applying it correctly. Well, that's the case for procedural programming, declaritive, functional, etc. Yes, OOP will not solve the problem of rushed projects, poor management, or stupid programmers; neither will any other programming style though.
Programmers just need to be familiar with multiple programming practices and languages. Programmers need to know when just hammering out some _properly_ planned procedural code will fit the case better than some _properly_ planned OO code. There is no magic bullet and because of this, I think it's a bit pointless to say that one programming style is leaps and bounds better or worse than another.
I really wish the author had the confidence in the claims to actually site some hard facts and not some made up claims. Most of the article just seems like old rehashed FUD from the dawn of the OOP movement. The author mentions all of these failed business apps and blaims OOP for their problems. I guess IBM, Oracle, NASA, and some of the other big software shops are a bunch of idiots for doing any OOP. But of course this guy must be an expert on software design practices and that's why he has a Bell Labs URL.
Stop buying these devices. It's that simple. These companies want to make money; they're only going to make products that people will buy. No one _needs_ a TV or a DVD player so you can opt not to buy one. Alternatively, you can also just buy a TV from overseas or somewhere that doesn't have this technology. Please remember that these companies don't owe you anything. That don't love you, they just want your money. If you think they're jerking you around, take your money elsewhere.
WTF? I still don't see how Microsoft has taken away your rights. What right says that you have the right to use Macromedia and Adobe products on any computer? You have the right to write your own personal copy of that software. You don't have the right for things to be easy for you.
Has Microsoft taken away your right to form a militia? Has Pepsi told you what religion to practice? Has Exxon tried to force you to harbor soldiers against your will? Which basic rights have the corporations take away from you? Yes, companies are suing individuals left and right over so-called intellectual property rights. However, these suits have yet to be challenged in the Supreme Court and set as precedent. To answer your question, yes, there are possible countries that are more free than the US. However, I believe you'll be hard pressed to find one. Exactly what rights are looking for?
You know what? I can't go to Toys R Us and buy
a copy of Debbie Does Dallas. Am I being persecuted because of this? Are my rights being violated? No. Toys R Us, has the right to decide what they sell, not the consumer. Yahoo, Amazon, your ISP, etc. are all businesses, not governments. They don't have to respect your right to buy Nazi propoganda, Confederate flags, etc. They only have to respect the market and occasionally their stock holders. When Yahoo comes knocking on doors and imprisoning people for trying to sell these things, then rights are being violated. Otherwise, just go somewhere else and purchase it. That's your right as a consumer and ultimately, Yahoo will respect those almighty dollars.
I know that everyone hates lawyers; however, commercial entities will not respect the GPL unless there are consequences. Just look at how hard it was to get companies to respect "closed" patents and "closed" copyrights. Yes, we want everyone to use GPL code, but some companies will have to be dragged kicking and screaming into compliance with everything using GPL'd code means.
What can really be concluded from Nader's responses to the "questionnaire"? The questions are clearly slanted. I'm sure that Bush and Gore would have the same replies to those questions! Who is going to say that they are against people controlling their privacy?? It's kind of like the surveys that ask if you're in favor of reduced taxes. Well, of course everyone is in favor of fewer taxes. However, the issues are more complex than questions this simple can convey. Please disregard such propoganda and base your opinions on the candidates leadership record.
I think you are a bit misinformed on Java. Java does allow you to seperate your class interface declaration from your class definition. You simply declare your interface declaration to be an interface rather than the actual class. Then your actual implementation of that class declares that it implements the interface.
Example:
On the topic of Java for big applications, you're also misinformed. There are several large, feature-rich applications written in Java. Take a look at NetBeans, JBoss, or Tomcat. The list goes on and on.
The syntax is intentionally modelled after the C/C++ syntax. I don't see what issue you have with the syntax.
It appears that either I'm just really gullible and jumped at your nice troll. Or you need to do a little more Java research. Let's just hope I'm gullible; my ego can take it :).
I think you are a bit misinformed. Ralph Nader
is the candidate for the Green Party. He is also
a huge consumer advocate is partially responsible for bringing the Microsoft anti-trust trial to
court(as early as 1997). The "parent" hosting site, http://www.essential.org, hosts other "progressive"
sites as well. After reading through some of the
web sites, it becomes clear that free software probably is a political issue for them as well as
performance issue. Please read up on the subject before commenting.
Unless I misunderstood the question, I think the poster may want to look at the OpenLDAP project. It's been around quite a while and offers some of the services requested. Check out www.openldap.org.
These guys don't need to compete with Oracle, DB2, Sysbase or any other enterprise class database. There's a huge market for people needing/wanting a full RDBMS system for small/mid-level database work. PostgreSQL fills this niche nicely. It passes the ACID test; has fairly decent ODBC, JDBC, Perl DBI, and PHP support; acceptable speed performance; and all of the benefits of being an open source project. Now that it will have Great Bridge doing development and offering commercial support, companies will be able to get reliable(read blammable) support for this product. This is great for more open source penetration into the corporate world.
It's great to see all these game companies hopping on the Linux bandwagon. Loki is doing an excellent job with porting Win games to our platform and the announcement of JA2 for linux is awesome. However, I think Linux needs more simultaneously released games such as Q3 or UT.
Since more and more games are integrating multiplayer options, it'd be nice to actually have a linux game that still has an online following. I find it's easier to find online opponents following the initial release of a game as opposed to several months down the road when the hype has either died down or the game has been upgraded.
In summary, it's great that companies are porting to linux, but it'd be even better to get simultaneous releases. Please stop treating linux like the red-headed stepchild of gaming.
The problem isn't with the various methodologies. Rather, the problem is with the implementation of these methodologies. Just like anything else in the work environment, you can force your employees to learn these practices, but if they don't actually follow them then of course the results will be poor. The root of the problem is generally something much greater than the programming methodology though; plain poor upper-management comes to mind. If you look at software shops that people do respect(i.e. IBM, NASA, etc.), you'll find that these practices do work but they work because these organizations already have a good infratructure in place. These shops also realize that these practices aren't magic bullets unlike some of the smaller shops. Sorry for the rambling.