In a big department meeting, I asked the department head whether we will do something with C# besides Java. The room actually laughed.
I can see supporting MS, as in making their software run on that platform. I can't see them locking themselves into MS's proprietary development system, though. What possible benefit would that have for them?
I can tell you that machine (512MB RAM/80GB HDD) is probably capable of some great DTP (Scribus) could be great for illustration (Inkscape) and really serious office work (OOo). It may not be fast at doing such things, but we should never say it is not capable.
I always have to shake my head in amazement when people write off these machines. By every performance metric, they're many times better than the servers we ran a whole ISP off of in the late 90s. We could route email for 5,000 users on a Pentium 166, but some wonder if a 1.5GHz machine with half a freakin' gig of RAM may be enough for more than "light" word processing?!? People need to revisit their ideas of what these little machines are capable of.
At home, scratch out any clause that you don't agree to, and initial the strike-outs.
Asking out of ignorance: is there any reason why you couldn't re-type the contract to be favorable to yourself and turned in the altered version, so long as you absolutely do not represent it as the copy they handed you?
Along those lines, is there any way to prove that a given contract is actually the one you signed, short of initialing every page and getting them to do the same, then giving both parties photocopies?
No, which is why you set SQL_MODE to something sane.
...as opposed to the completely freakin' insane default settings. As long as the defaults are totally broken, many people will regard it as a toy database. Whether it is or not, these are the issues that give it that reputation.
Fuck it, if the Mexicans can keep product quality under control I vote we prioritize buying stuff from them. At least they're on the same damned continent.
I'm with you there. I don't think the same thing could happen here. "Hey, why is that big drum of paint labelled 'Hazard: Contains lead'? My nephew wants one of these for his birthday..." Sure, some people would go along, but I doubt you could get everyone in a factory to willingly use known-toxic chemicals on children's toys.
I'm not prone to conspiracy theories, except in the fun "Illuminatus! Trilogy" way. Therefore, this is (mostly) "what-if" speculation:
China seems to be the lead dog in the running for taking over from the USA as a hyperpower. And now, coincidentally, there are a whole rash of protects being exported from China to America that - oh, my bad! - just happen to contain chemicals that make children stupid. I suppose there are worse ways to take over a country than to ruin its youngest generation. Sit back and watch as its future workforce and military gets the IQ of a cocker spaniel. Observe how school systems collapse as they try in vain to deal with a population-wide intelligence drop. Note how the crime rate reverses its previous decline. Watch an already-overworked economy try to finance solutions for all of the above.
So, is China too stupid to remember not to use lead paint on toys, or smart enough to make it look like an accident?
Nah, I probably don't believe all that. Still, I'll be lead-testing every single Christmas toy my kids get this year, and I'm dead serious about that.
I was referring to the Volume Shadow thingy. I don't use Windows but I've heard really great things about it, except that it's very poorly marketed and not really integrated with anything.
Note: Drupal works with PHP 4 & 5. If you need support for the newest PHP 5.2, however, you must use Drupal 5.1 (and higher) or Drupal 4.7.5 (and higher)
Beyond that, why would you care? Either it has the features you're looking for or it doesn't. It's expected that the majority of users of such a thing will just want to install and use it, not hack on it. Put another way, off the top of my head I don't know whether Firefox is written in C or C++ and don't really care. As an end user, it doesn't matter to me. So it is with Drupal for most of its audience.
Do not read that as a defense of PHP. I personally can't stand the language. That doesn't stop me from thinking that Drupal itself is a brilliant solution for the needs I had, any more than I'd stop liking Firefox if I found out that it was written in Visual Cobol--.
Zope, a widely-used Open Source web application server and development system.
Zope is kind of like Cold Fusion. It defines a lot of components that you can link together to build a website. For example, you have page template objects that contain all of the HTML you will be sending to visitors. Those templates have fill-in-the-blanks parts that you can populate with the output of a Python (or Perl) script or with the results of a database query. It also includes all the authentication software pre-written so that you don't have to cobble together your own, and a security system that gives you fine-grained control over which visitors can access which objects. With us so far? OK...
Plone is a content management framework
Plone is an application written in Zope, more or less. It's a "content management system", meaning that it's designed to let users upload data to it and make changes. There's an almost infinite number of ways to say which users can perform which actions. For example, say you're running a newspaper website. You can say that users in the "reporter" group can access to upload content, but not to actually make that content available to random visitors off the Internet. People in another group, "editor", don't have permission to upload new content but they can make changes to what "reporter" users have added and then mark the content as "ready for publishing". Then people in the "section editor" group can look at content that has the "ready for publishing" flag set, and if it's truly ready for the world to read, they can set it to "published". Otherwise, they can send it back to the junior editors.
Maybe in your organization, you only have "reporters" and "section editors". A good CMS would let you remove the "editor" role so that it's no longer used. Also, Bob Smith may be a "section editor" for the Sports section, but a "reporter" in the local news section. Again, a good CMS will let you set this up.
But that's only one example. Blogging software is another kind of special-purpose CMS, often giving the blogger permission to allow comments to his posts and edit or delete them. My company uses an internal CMS for blogs, a message board, and a vacation board. Only certain users can add "vacation" events to the calendar. Other users can write blog entries. Everyone can comment on the message board.
Basically, a CMS does exactly what it says: it allows you to manage (typically user-generated) content. If you find yourself writing a site that allows visitors to upload data for other people to see, you're probably better off installing a CMS and letting it handle all the details you're likely to forget.
So there, Zope and Plone explained. Does that clarify matters?
That's almost where we're at. We have exactly one Windows-only app that the majority of our employees use, and it's developed in-house. We're moving towards replacing it with a web app, or possibly a Python+QT/GTK GUI. When that happens, there will be no technological reason for us to stay on Windows.
If you like FFT, then pick up a PSP RIGHT NOW. There are incredible games for that system in that genre; it's literally got the best RPGs and strategy games on the market.
Awesome! I didn't realize they'd ported "Zelda: Phantom Hourglass" and "Final Fantasy III" from DS to the PSP.
If Drupal has that, I'd love to be able to evaluate it. If it doesn't have the desktop (yes, Windows) integration piece to easily open and save files, I'm not interested as this is an essential piece.
Well, you bring up an interesting point: everyone has different requirements. Desktop integration is completely unneeded in my company, so its (apparent) lack in Drupal doesn't matter to us. Similarly, I'm sure there are Drupal modules that don't have Plone equivalents that somebody depends on every day. I have nothing at all against Plone - if anything, being a Zope shop I'd like to see it come out of hiding and build a big developer community.
It just doesn't meet our needs today, that's all. If it works for you, great! That's one more shop that can count on FOSS software instead of proprietary equivalents.
I love Python. In fact, I wrote a short magazine article about how much I like it (although I admit that the promised sequel never materialized; sorry Tony). Having said that, working with Plone was like pulling teeth. It's obviously a nice system with huge potential and excellent customization options, but the learning curve is enormously steep.
We ended up abandoning our Plone intentions and moving toward Drupal for pre-made CMS stuff; even if I don't like hacking in PHP, hundreds of other people have already done most of the work for just about anything we might conceivably want to do. For true web application development beyond content management, we switched to Django and haven't looked back. If you already know Python, Django's learning curve is exceedingly shallow.
I don't hate Plone. It's just that it didn't seem to offer anything more than its competition, and that's from someone who already built a large web application in Zope (which is the platform Plone is built upon). Having said that, this book and others like it can hopefully make it a lot easier to get started with Plone development. It has great possibilities if you can get past the startup cost.
Slashdot Mirror
I can see supporting MS, as in making their software run on that platform. I can't see them locking themselves into MS's proprietary development system, though. What possible benefit would that have for them?
I always have to shake my head in amazement when people write off these machines. By every performance metric, they're many times better than the servers we ran a whole ISP off of in the late 90s. We could route email for 5,000 users on a Pentium 166, but some wonder if a 1.5GHz machine with half a freakin' gig of RAM may be enough for more than "light" word processing?!? People need to revisit their ideas of what these little machines are capable of.
"It's fleeing from our Database Harpoon. So how we frighten it? It can't get away! And that's why you should use my plan."
Sometimes you have to stoop to their level.
Mirror? I'm on a roll.
Asking out of ignorance: is there any reason why you couldn't re-type the contract to be favorable to yourself and turned in the altered version, so long as you absolutely do not represent it as the copy they handed you?
Along those lines, is there any way to prove that a given contract is actually the one you signed, short of initialing every page and getting them to do the same, then giving both parties photocopies?
On behalf of every Linux user that's ever had to listen to Windows users making fun of /etc: <nelson>Ha-ha!</nelson>
...as opposed to the completely freakin' insane default settings. As long as the defaults are totally broken, many people will regard it as a toy database. Whether it is or not, these are the issues that give it that reputation.
It's spelled "grammar".
I may never sleep soundly again.
I'm with you there. I don't think the same thing could happen here. "Hey, why is that big drum of paint labelled 'Hazard: Contains lead'? My nephew wants one of these for his birthday..." Sure, some people would go along, but I doubt you could get everyone in a factory to willingly use known-toxic chemicals on children's toys.
I'm not prone to conspiracy theories, except in the fun "Illuminatus! Trilogy" way. Therefore, this is (mostly) "what-if" speculation:
China seems to be the lead dog in the running for taking over from the USA as a hyperpower. And now, coincidentally, there are a whole rash of protects being exported from China to America that - oh, my bad! - just happen to contain chemicals that make children stupid. I suppose there are worse ways to take over a country than to ruin its youngest generation. Sit back and watch as its future workforce and military gets the IQ of a cocker spaniel. Observe how school systems collapse as they try in vain to deal with a population-wide intelligence drop. Note how the crime rate reverses its previous decline. Watch an already-overworked economy try to finance solutions for all of the above.
So, is China too stupid to remember not to use lead paint on toys, or smart enough to make it look like an accident?
Nah, I probably don't believe all that. Still, I'll be lead-testing every single Christmas toy my kids get this year, and I'm dead serious about that.
OK, so that makes Windows, .DOC(X?), and MSIE the standards. We can all pack up and go home now.
The reason for standards committees is that de facto standards often suck for everyone except the people who invented them.
I also see more PS3s on the shelves than Wiis, but that does not necessarily make them better sellers.
I am certain that my car has at least one component in common with a Ferrari, but that doesn't mean you can build a Ferrari for the same price.
FWIW, I agree with that literal statement. That's more of an indictment against Sony than a ringing endorsement of MS, *AA, etc.
>I was referring to the Volume Shadow thingy. I don't use Windows but I've heard really great things about it, except that it's very poorly marketed and not really integrated with anything.
From the download page:
Beyond that, why would you care? Either it has the features you're looking for or it doesn't. It's expected that the majority of users of such a thing will just want to install and use it, not hack on it. Put another way, off the top of my head I don't know whether Firefox is written in C or C++ and don't really care. As an end user, it doesn't matter to me. So it is with Drupal for most of its audience.
Do not read that as a defense of PHP. I personally can't stand the language. That doesn't stop me from thinking that Drupal itself is a brilliant solution for the needs I had, any more than I'd stop liking Firefox if I found out that it was written in Visual Cobol--.
Let me make this short and sweet:
Zope, a widely-used Open Source web application server and development system.Zope is kind of like Cold Fusion. It defines a lot of components that you can link together to build a website. For example, you have page template objects that contain all of the HTML you will be sending to visitors. Those templates have fill-in-the-blanks parts that you can populate with the output of a Python (or Perl) script or with the results of a database query. It also includes all the authentication software pre-written so that you don't have to cobble together your own, and a security system that gives you fine-grained control over which visitors can access which objects. With us so far? OK...
Plone is a content management frameworkPlone is an application written in Zope, more or less. It's a "content management system", meaning that it's designed to let users upload data to it and make changes. There's an almost infinite number of ways to say which users can perform which actions. For example, say you're running a newspaper website. You can say that users in the "reporter" group can access to upload content, but not to actually make that content available to random visitors off the Internet. People in another group, "editor", don't have permission to upload new content but they can make changes to what "reporter" users have added and then mark the content as "ready for publishing". Then people in the "section editor" group can look at content that has the "ready for publishing" flag set, and if it's truly ready for the world to read, they can set it to "published". Otherwise, they can send it back to the junior editors.
Maybe in your organization, you only have "reporters" and "section editors". A good CMS would let you remove the "editor" role so that it's no longer used. Also, Bob Smith may be a "section editor" for the Sports section, but a "reporter" in the local news section. Again, a good CMS will let you set this up.
But that's only one example. Blogging software is another kind of special-purpose CMS, often giving the blogger permission to allow comments to his posts and edit or delete them. My company uses an internal CMS for blogs, a message board, and a vacation board. Only certain users can add "vacation" events to the calendar. Other users can write blog entries. Everyone can comment on the message board.
Basically, a CMS does exactly what it says: it allows you to manage (typically user-generated) content. If you find yourself writing a site that allows visitors to upload data for other people to see, you're probably better off installing a CMS and letting it handle all the details you're likely to forget.
So there, Zope and Plone explained. Does that clarify matters?
That's almost where we're at. We have exactly one Windows-only app that the majority of our employees use, and it's developed in-house. We're moving towards replacing it with a web app, or possibly a Python+QT/GTK GUI. When that happens, there will be no technological reason for us to stay on Windows.
Awesome! I didn't realize they'd ported "Zelda: Phantom Hourglass" and "Final Fantasy III" from DS to the PSP.
Well, you bring up an interesting point: everyone has different requirements. Desktop integration is completely unneeded in my company, so its (apparent) lack in Drupal doesn't matter to us. Similarly, I'm sure there are Drupal modules that don't have Plone equivalents that somebody depends on every day. I have nothing at all against Plone - if anything, being a Zope shop I'd like to see it come out of hiding and build a big developer community.
It just doesn't meet our needs today, that's all. If it works for you, great! That's one more shop that can count on FOSS software instead of proprietary equivalents.
I understand all that, but why then is it on the front page of Slashdot today?
I bet "America's Funniest Home Videos" has you in stitches, doesn't it?
He never said that. He said straight Zope as opposed to working with the higher-level Plone layer.
I love Python. In fact, I wrote a short magazine article about how much I like it (although I admit that the promised sequel never materialized; sorry Tony). Having said that, working with Plone was like pulling teeth. It's obviously a nice system with huge potential and excellent customization options, but the learning curve is enormously steep.
We ended up abandoning our Plone intentions and moving toward Drupal for pre-made CMS stuff; even if I don't like hacking in PHP, hundreds of other people have already done most of the work for just about anything we might conceivably want to do. For true web application development beyond content management, we switched to Django and haven't looked back. If you already know Python, Django's learning curve is exceedingly shallow.
I don't hate Plone. It's just that it didn't seem to offer anything more than its competition, and that's from someone who already built a large web application in Zope (which is the platform Plone is built upon). Having said that, this book and others like it can hopefully make it a lot easier to get started with Plone development. It has great possibilities if you can get past the startup cost.