A graph of $/MHz for a particular CPU quickly reveals that pricing is non-linear. CPU manufacturers and/or retailers are very aware of the "feel good" value of owning the latest and greatest.
The best values are always a couple notches down from top-of-the-line. Once I learned this, I always buy older technology. The money savings can be put to important stuff like a professional-grade monitor, which is more important to my computing experience than having a few extra MHz to lie idle.
Java is more than up to the task of building a zippy desktop with a footprint smaller than either Gnome or KDE.
I remain skeptical, unless Sun leverages gcj or some in-house equivalent to improve performance. OS-visible memory consumption really needs improvement (40MB of RAM for simple tools, such as a volume control, just doesn't cut it).
Please note that Starship Trooper is working with SPARCstations, which are based on Sun's older 32-bit SPARCv8 processors. Your Ultra 5 is a supercomputer relatively and probably has better video hardware.
I, also, tried GNOME on a 9-year-old SPARCstation. I could watch the widgets get drawn on the screen one at a time. Even the CPU-meter-thing on the toolbar used half of the CPU (sort of ironic). I tried to trim down GNOME as much as possible but eventually went back to CDE with no regrets.
I would recommend GNOME for nothing less than an UltraSPARC-based machine (or perhaps some of those nifty 200MHz SPARCstations, but those are hard to come by).
how can we expect them to be able to hack a 386 running windows 3.1 on a network running win NT with no patches applied?
It doesn't matter. I'll be running <an OS the RIAA has never heard of> behind <a firewall the RIAA wouldn't know what to do with>.
I really don't see how they could get to my files without a legal warrant and physically entering my home. I believe that there is a burden of proof before a warrant can be obtained, where, perhaps, the RIAA could cite sniffer logs or web server logs (how obtained without more warrants???). It seems innocent until proven guilty is still intact.
How many of you actually own a retail version of a previous version of Windows?
I bought one so that I would feel "legitimate". When I look back in time making a list of those things I wasted money on, Windows 95 just might be number one.
You also get into the sob stories of people wasting their money on a copy of Windows that doesn't work on their PC because it's actually a recovery CD or a special load.
Actually, even the real thing doesn't work that well. "A new experience with every system boot" must have been the dev team's motto.
Microsoft are experts at creating a few "feel good" marketing devices to confuse us. We should be smart enough to see through such propoganda to see the greedy goliath behind it.
No large corporation is innocent of trying to grapple for a market touting their own products. I believe this is called "competitive spirit". Sun and Oracle would love to see the ID card system based on their technology. So would Microsoft. However, if I had to choose a mega corporation to build an ID card system, Sun, at least, would be a much more comfortable partner than Microsoft. I don't know much about Oracle other than their DBMS is very capable.
If everyone is so edgy about MegaCorporationABC being behind an ID card system, has anyone seen this as a good application for Open Source software?
If there are real implications for Open Source software if this stuff becomes law, then has anyone heard if IBM or Sun is voicing an opinion about this? After all, they are gambling part of their business on Open Source software (Linux, StarOffice, GNOME).
...letting the vendors and contractors ram Microsoft, Solaris, and other proprietary stuff down their throats...
This condemnation seems to equate Solaris with Microsoft products, which, at least in recent years, is definitely not the case.
The source code to Solaris can be downloaded and compiled. There is a book, called "Solaris Internals" that contains a thorough discussion of how Solaris works and why it is designed the way it is. Sun publishes a great deal of documentation for Solaris and its other products for little or no cost to the consumer. This documentation is also fair, in that the pros and cons of the products are discussed. Sun doesn't make things out to be what they aren't (perhaps exluding pertinent Java hype).
I feel comfortable working with Solaris knowing what it is and what it is made of. This makes Solaris about as close to Open Source as a proprietary OS can be. This is something that is unlikely to ever be said about anything produced by Microsoft.
And no one who buys a car fixates on horsepower above all else.
Offtopic:
After watching recent car advertisements, I'm convinced that the marketing deptartments are convinced that people do fixate on horsepower above all else. It is obvious that the auto makers are in a horsepower war. Seriously, are 230HP family sedans and 350HP SUVs really that neccessary in getting the kiddies to preschool?
What really sucks is that those 230HP cars come with automatic transmissions that keep the engine below 2500RPM nearly all the time (and the 230HP lies untapped at 5000+RPM). I drove a nice sporty rental car recently (with an auto. trans.), and I was constantly disappointed by it performing like a dying horse. The auto makers tout these high numbers and then detune the tranny into fuel-economy-above-all-else slush.
I, also, had these initial exeperiences with XFree86, but it really didn't take much "learning the hard way" to realize that one is best served buying hardware using the compatibility lists. A few months back, it appears iffy whether the ATI Rage 128 was even supported (depending on the version of XFree86).
Ensuring compatible hardware from the onset makes life not only easier but possible. Then, 10 minute installs are the norm. This is mainly due to each OS (Windows, Linux, etc.) supporting what hardware it can (or getting vendors to do it). This is a practical reality.
I recommend building new computers by hand following the lists published by XFree86 and your OS vendor of choice (RedHat, *BSD, etc.). I know some people scoff at the thought of building computers by hand. However, my hand built computers always seem rock-solid and easy to work with, while many mass-marketed computers from <big name company> always seem pretty flaky with built-in upgrade barriers.
I would estimate that something is considered mainstream when it reaches either "buzzword" status or "household name" status.
For example, MS Windows and MacOS are household names (one due to market dominance and one due to sheer longevity). Linux, on the other hand, still seems to be in the buzzword phase, but it is becoming more and more a household name over time. The BSD-based OSes are becoming buzzwords and are a little further from becoming household names. The lesser-known OSes, such as AtheOS and BeOS, have either not yet gained buzzword status or have lost it after gaining it.
There are different audiences, too. Solaris is a household name among some corporations but just a niche among home computer users. Another example is Windows NT/2K in corporations, which can be either a household name, a buzzword, or a joke, depending on the context.
Re:The Palm is already dying
on
Pocket PC 2002
·
· Score: 1
Yes, and M$ will conveniently not mention battery life and hype everything else so much that people will become brainwashed yet again.
I like the idea that my Palm will need only a couple Energizers every couple of months. Also, I'm not sure I'll need much more than 1MB to store my data...,but, then again, I don't need to store M$ Office files, either.
The Solaris kernel, for example, is "object oriented." There is just an absence of formal "classes," which is mostly due to modern OO thinking coming after the original UNIX.
Although declaring a video card as a file doesn't seem to fit too well, it does provide something tangible to direct the OS to the correct driver. The file abstractions also provide some very powerful tools when working with I/O in command pipelines. Everything-is-a-file is a compromise, but my shell scripts are better for it.
Win2K is "object oriented," too, but even its design is debatable in some respects. For example, the multi-rooted directory hierarchy has always created a great deal of trouble, especially when drive letters get hard wired into the Registry. This is often why uninstalling or moving software can be tremendously difficult in Windows. Therefore, neither Windows nor UNIX is free from historical baggage.
The eventual replacement for UNIX, whatever it is, really needs to be a revolution in technology. The replacement needs to increase the OS's usefulness and effectiveness by an order of magnitude without increasing complexity accordingly. MS Windows is, at best, a side-step from UNIX, and it is a step behind in complexity.
Solaris stinks--Sun seems to go out of their way to hide security patches from visitors to their website.
I don't understand what you mean. Try this: SunSolve. Then, try clicking on "Recommended & Security Patches". Getting Solaris up-to-date is just a download and a "patchadd" away!
Look at the default install of OpenBSD, and you'll find most of the "Top 20" are already addressed. Linux is generally very good, but I wouldn't put the default install of RedHat between my business and the world. It's just too risky.
javac is a true compiler. javac is to the JVM as gcc is to the platforms gcc supports. Even gcc, now, is able to compile Java code into JVM code or even a true-to-life ELF file.
Java is often called an interpreted language, because it often executes within a user process, the JVM. However, the JVM specification is a true machine specification as much as the SPARC or IA32 ISAs are.
This is very true. Those pointy-haired people don't understand just how much a UNIX/Linux/*BSD server can do before it screeches to a halt (note that I didn't say "crash").
I have been consistently impressed by how much raw abuse a UNIX server can take. A while ago, I wrote a test program that consumed all virtual memory and CPU and kept asking for more, and the machine got slow but kept on trucking. Where I work, the admin runs multiple web services on a single-CPU UltraSPARC box, and it never complains--not even a "hiccup."
The truth is that it takes one UNIX machine to replace N Windows machines, where N is a large positive integer. Do you want quality or quantity?
Some diversification is always important, even critical. However, in a small office like mine, everyone gets to do a bit of everything from architecture to programming. I'm not trying to argue for a retiring work force, just an experienced one. That way, the relatively small number of people are capable of doing a lot of work and doing it well.
The reason experienced people cost more is that they can give educated opinions when fresh college grads often give blank stares. Responsibilty can be delegated to experienced people for this reason.
I don't have experience with extremely large projects, but I can see that sometimes there are simply not enough experienced people to go around. In this case, I guess inexperienced people can take on low-risk things, like implementing methods, proofreading documents, etc.
Slashdot Mirror
Not to mention that the extra moving parts are a liability for reliability. The CPU fan is often the first thing to break down in my computers.
A graph of $/MHz for a particular CPU quickly reveals that pricing is non-linear. CPU manufacturers and/or retailers are very aware of the "feel good" value of owning the latest and greatest.
The best values are always a couple notches down from top-of-the-line. Once I learned this, I always buy older technology. The money savings can be put to important stuff like a professional-grade monitor, which is more important to my computing experience than having a few extra MHz to lie idle.
Point taken--the whole desktop would be about 40MB (I was thinking about the latest volume control for CDE (a java app)).
An interesting idea would be next generation Sun workstations with picoJava/MAJC "desktop accelerator" coprocessors.
Java is more than up to the task of building a zippy desktop with a footprint smaller than either Gnome or KDE.
I remain skeptical, unless Sun leverages gcj or some in-house equivalent to improve performance. OS-visible memory consumption really needs improvement (40MB of RAM for simple tools, such as a volume control, just doesn't cut it).
Please note that Starship Trooper is working with SPARCstations, which are based on Sun's older 32-bit SPARCv8 processors. Your Ultra 5 is a supercomputer relatively and probably has better video hardware.
I, also, tried GNOME on a 9-year-old SPARCstation. I could watch the widgets get drawn on the screen one at a time. Even the CPU-meter-thing on the toolbar used half of the CPU (sort of ironic). I tried to trim down GNOME as much as possible but eventually went back to CDE with no regrets.
I would recommend GNOME for nothing less than an UltraSPARC-based machine (or perhaps some of those nifty 200MHz SPARCstations, but those are hard to come by).
how can we expect them to be able to hack a 386 running windows 3.1 on a network running win NT with no patches applied?
It doesn't matter. I'll be running <an OS the RIAA has never heard of> behind <a firewall the RIAA wouldn't know what to do with>.
I really don't see how they could get to my files without a legal warrant and physically entering my home. I believe that there is a burden of proof before a warrant can be obtained, where, perhaps, the RIAA could cite sniffer logs or web server logs (how obtained without more warrants???). It seems innocent until proven guilty is still intact.
How many of you actually own a retail version of a previous version of Windows?
I bought one so that I would feel "legitimate". When I look back in time making a list of those things I wasted money on, Windows 95 just might be number one.
You also get into the sob stories of people wasting their money on a copy of Windows that doesn't work on their PC because it's actually a recovery CD or a special load.
Actually, even the real thing doesn't work that well. "A new experience with every system boot" must have been the dev team's motto.
Imagine a world where credit card companies actually take to heart that everything they send me just gets shredded with my other garbage.
Imagine the resurgence of forests that were destroyed by these credit card companies and their junk-mailing brethren.
Perhaps the downfall of junk mail is not only a public health benefit but also a general improvement in our society and the environment.
My intention wasn't to criticize the charitable act itself, and, in hindsight, what I wrote did sound cold-hearted.
I do not feel blind hatred, as I genuinely hate no one. What I feel is persistent frustration about the state of the software industry.
Microsoft are experts at creating a few "feel good" marketing devices to confuse us. We should be smart enough to see through such propoganda to see the greedy goliath behind it.
No large corporation is innocent of trying to grapple for a market touting their own products. I believe this is called "competitive spirit". Sun and Oracle would love to see the ID card system based on their technology. So would Microsoft. However, if I had to choose a mega corporation to build an ID card system, Sun, at least, would be a much more comfortable partner than Microsoft. I don't know much about Oracle other than their DBMS is very capable.
If everyone is so edgy about MegaCorporationABC being behind an ID card system, has anyone seen this as a good application for Open Source software?
Sun's settlement with MS
Sun suing MS isn't the reason why MS removed Java from Windows XP. MS chose not to bundle Java; they were not forced into not bundling Java.
If there are real implications for Open Source software if this stuff becomes law, then has anyone heard if IBM or Sun is voicing an opinion about this? After all, they are gambling part of their business on Open Source software (Linux, StarOffice, GNOME).
This condemnation seems to equate Solaris with Microsoft products, which, at least in recent years, is definitely not the case.
The source code to Solaris can be downloaded and compiled. There is a book, called "Solaris Internals" that contains a thorough discussion of how Solaris works and why it is designed the way it is. Sun publishes a great deal of documentation for Solaris and its other products for little or no cost to the consumer. This documentation is also fair, in that the pros and cons of the products are discussed. Sun doesn't make things out to be what they aren't (perhaps exluding pertinent Java hype).
I feel comfortable working with Solaris knowing what it is and what it is made of. This makes Solaris about as close to Open Source as a proprietary OS can be. This is something that is unlikely to ever be said about anything produced by Microsoft.
Offtopic:
After watching recent car advertisements, I'm convinced that the marketing deptartments are convinced that people do fixate on horsepower above all else. It is obvious that the auto makers are in a horsepower war. Seriously, are 230HP family sedans and 350HP SUVs really that neccessary in getting the kiddies to preschool?
What really sucks is that those 230HP cars come with automatic transmissions that keep the engine below 2500RPM nearly all the time (and the 230HP lies untapped at 5000+RPM). I drove a nice sporty rental car recently (with an auto. trans.), and I was constantly disappointed by it performing like a dying horse. The auto makers tout these high numbers and then detune the tranny into fuel-economy-above-all-else slush.
Xfree86: 4 full evenings
I, also, had these initial exeperiences with XFree86, but it really didn't take much "learning the hard way" to realize that one is best served buying hardware using the compatibility lists. A few months back, it appears iffy whether the ATI Rage 128 was even supported (depending on the version of XFree86).
Ensuring compatible hardware from the onset makes life not only easier but possible. Then, 10 minute installs are the norm. This is mainly due to each OS (Windows, Linux, etc.) supporting what hardware it can (or getting vendors to do it). This is a practical reality.
I recommend building new computers by hand following the lists published by XFree86 and your OS vendor of choice (RedHat, *BSD, etc.). I know some people scoff at the thought of building computers by hand. However, my hand built computers always seem rock-solid and easy to work with, while many mass-marketed computers from <big name company> always seem pretty flaky with built-in upgrade barriers.
For example, MS Windows and MacOS are household names (one due to market dominance and one due to sheer longevity). Linux, on the other hand, still seems to be in the buzzword phase, but it is becoming more and more a household name over time. The BSD-based OSes are becoming buzzwords and are a little further from becoming household names. The lesser-known OSes, such as AtheOS and BeOS, have either not yet gained buzzword status or have lost it after gaining it.
There are different audiences, too. Solaris is a household name among some corporations but just a niche among home computer users. Another example is Windows NT/2K in corporations, which can be either a household name, a buzzword, or a joke, depending on the context.
I like the idea that my Palm will need only a couple Energizers every couple of months. Also, I'm not sure I'll need much more than 1MB to store my data...,but, then again, I don't need to store M$ Office files, either.
Although declaring a video card as a file doesn't seem to fit too well, it does provide something tangible to direct the OS to the correct driver. The file abstractions also provide some very powerful tools when working with I/O in command pipelines. Everything-is-a-file is a compromise, but my shell scripts are better for it.
Win2K is "object oriented," too, but even its design is debatable in some respects. For example, the multi-rooted directory hierarchy has always created a great deal of trouble, especially when drive letters get hard wired into the Registry. This is often why uninstalling or moving software can be tremendously difficult in Windows. Therefore, neither Windows nor UNIX is free from historical baggage.
The eventual replacement for UNIX, whatever it is, really needs to be a revolution in technology. The replacement needs to increase the OS's usefulness and effectiveness by an order of magnitude without increasing complexity accordingly. MS Windows is, at best, a side-step from UNIX, and it is a step behind in complexity.
I don't understand what you mean. Try this: SunSolve. Then, try clicking on "Recommended & Security Patches". Getting Solaris up-to-date is just a download and a "patchadd" away!
Don't you know that IIS cannot be uninstalled? It's, like, co-mingled!
Than what?
OpenBSD???
Look at the default install of OpenBSD, and you'll find most of the "Top 20" are already addressed. Linux is generally very good, but I wouldn't put the default install of RedHat between my business and the world. It's just too risky.
Memory shmemory!
How about this: vi uses 216KB of memory, which becomes 1.9MB considering shared libraries. Also, it loads in nearly no time at all!
If had taken the time to learn ed, then I could quote even lower numbers. Word users, where are your priorities???
javac is a true compiler. javac is to the JVM as gcc is to the platforms gcc supports. Even gcc, now, is able to compile Java code into JVM code or even a true-to-life ELF file.
Java is often called an interpreted language, because it often executes within a user process, the JVM. However, the JVM specification is a true machine specification as much as the SPARC or IA32 ISAs are.
I have been consistently impressed by how much raw abuse a UNIX server can take. A while ago, I wrote a test program that consumed all virtual memory and CPU and kept asking for more, and the machine got slow but kept on trucking. Where I work, the admin runs multiple web services on a single-CPU UltraSPARC box, and it never complains--not even a "hiccup."
The truth is that it takes one UNIX machine to replace N Windows machines, where N is a large positive integer. Do you want quality or quantity?
The reason experienced people cost more is that they can give educated opinions when fresh college grads often give blank stares. Responsibilty can be delegated to experienced people for this reason.
I don't have experience with extremely large projects, but I can see that sometimes there are simply not enough experienced people to go around. In this case, I guess inexperienced people can take on low-risk things, like implementing methods, proofreading documents, etc.