Before you commit to JDO or entity beans, do yourself a favor and also look at OJB [apache.org] and Hibernate [bluemars.net].
Okay, everyone, get it out of your system: reply, now, with the other 1,345 APIs that we should consider in addition to EJB, JDO, and, now, OJB and Hibernate. Don't be shy, now. Post!
"In brief, Java Data Objects (JDO) insulates you from needing to know a lot about databases."
First of all, I wouldn't want to hire that developer.
Agreed. The quote about JDO above is like saying VisualBasic frees programmers from needing to know, well, basically anything. It's marketing statements like this that get embedded in the minds of project managers, who, then, send a project free-wheeling into a pit of despair. I find it immensly disappointing that for each step the software industry takes forward, there is an equal step back.
Sigh, are we (society) really truly moving forward with software? I don't really mean to be cynical, but I don't know the answer to that question any more.
Who wants to put money on the first Linux port being rolled out with the name Sparta?
No, no, no... This is Microsoft's marketing machine at its best. Name something Athens, which itself should have been named Sparta. Lock up the ideology now in the brand so those Linux people can't latch onto it later.
Microsoft are the cunning ass-wipes of humanity, and they never suprise me with their ingenuity. This "Athens" PC is no exception.
About one week before you get your Cease and Desist issued under the DMCA, because you had to crack the "protection mechanisms" of the box in order to boot an unsigned OS on it.
What if they simply embedded an RFID circuit in a piece of tape that read "If you break this seal, you are in violation of the DMCA. Have a nice day." They could simply put this tape over the case seams, and the computer could call the FBI when powered up if it doesn't detect the RFID.
Funny, the 970s MHz of 1.4 and 1.8 are equal to the MHz of the new Opterons. Also, isn't IBM building the new Opterons for AMD?
This probably has more to do with the manufacturing processes used rather than some weird conspiracy theory about the Opteron and the 970.
Regardless, the Opteron and this new PPC chip are a damn good thing for 64-bit computing. The Opteron appears to hit a real sweet spot for price, performance, and reliability featurs--let's hope the 970 will do the same.
Since when is it a "feature" to take away something that is not only more secure, but also the default in the latest version of every OS (from Windows XP to Mac OS X)?
I just installed Win XP "Home Edition" for the first time recently...administrator access appears to be the default. At least as far as I can tell.
XP comes with a really slick multi-user interface...
Are you sure it's as multi-user as you think it is? Just because there are multiple names to log on as doesn't ensure it's a true multi-user system.
Ironically, in this case, Microsoft is the one giving choice to users...
Whenever Microsoft appears to be offering you a choice, you'd better watch your back. Have you read the Win XP EULA, lately?
Michael, I don't know where you're buying your software, but I picked up my copy of Microsoft Office for $180.
That sort of price used to be educational-only. I wonder if Microsoft is actually responding to market pressures rather than creating them. If this is true, then Lindows.com, OpenOffice.org, Mozilla, Apple, and others are really making a greater impact than I thought.
But his version of Linux for the home user is not only less secure than Windows XP...
It's certainly more secure against microsoft.com. Have you double-checked your automatic updates configuration...how about your media player configuration? I saw a few rather disturbing default settings in there, especially in the media player. Trust me, Microsoft is not your friend.
Lindows, however, is a joke...
Time will tell. I'm just glad there's at least one more choice beyond MS and Apple for "joe six-pack".
It did nothing new. Evolutionary, not revolutionary or innovative.
Allowing thousands of scientists to create very high-quality publications cheaply is nothing new? We're talking about the days of "big iron" leading into workstations, here. TeX and LaTeX allowed typsetting PostScript on Sun workstations and even PCs. This is way ahead of Word, WordPerfect, AmiPro, or any other wann-a-be word processor from back then. It was and is a big deal.
TeX didn't come out of the fabled 'Free Software Movement' though. It came about because one brilliant individual, Donald Knuth, needed a typesetting system for his books.
It is true that TeX isn't GNU software, but it was created very much in the spirit of Free Software. Free versions of it are very much available today.
It was a case of 'scratch an itch' to be certain, but it was definitely NOT an example of the kind of "peer-written" software that gets called 'Free Software'. Namely because it's just too damn good for that label.
TeX was invented by Knuth, but it is also actively maintained by its user community (e.g., tug.org, et. al.). LaTeX, a macro package for TeX, was created by people who are not Knuth. There are lots of software tools for TeX and LaTeX that came about independently of Knuth.
TeX and its decendents are very much "peer-written"; although it transitioned from a "cathedral" into a "bazaar" over time. This is typical of many open source projects, including the Linux kernel itself (the first version was produced by Linus and later distributed to his peers).
I will agree with you once the free software subculture actually comes out with something that is NOT A CLONE of a commercial product.
- Emacs (arguably a commercial legacy, but not really) - GCC (name any commercial compiler with as many languages and platforms) - TeX (mentioned in an eariler post) - Mozilla (it has features that are actually cloned by others. Go figure.) - Apache - Tomcat + JBoss (they implement standard APIs and are not clones) - Perl (new twist on sh, sed, and awk) - Enlightenment (unusually agressive GUI) - CVS (does a lot that commercial SCCS can't do) - KDE and GNOME are really only superficial clones of Windows, anyway.
People who say things like you say above are most likely taking Open Source and Free software for granted. Open up your eyes, look around, and be suprised.
TeX? Yeah... That appears to actually be free software, but i don't know how revolutionary or innovative it ever was, though.
TeX is 100% Free Software that brought high-quality typesetting to the masses in the 1980's. The quality of its output is unparalleled by most popular commercial software, especially for mathematics. Even today, if I were to write a textbook, I would very strongly consider using LaTeX (a macro package for TeX). I would definitely not use something like MS Word, which produces crappy-looking output, IMO.
I think there is an attitude adjustment occuring in the software industry, where anything-goes shitty software is more often being seen for what it is. This may be another reason why JavaScript-coder-kiddies are having trouble finding work.
Unfortunately, we still have a very long way to go, but things are moving forward. I think a lot of credit goes to Open Source and Free software, because most corporate software had become a lost cause. Apple and Sun deserve some credit, too, for OS X and OpenOffice.org, respectively. Slowly but surely, the cult of the "one people, one country, one leader" philosophy of Microsoft.
Actually disney is pretty well diversified [cjr.org] among entertainment-related products.
This is true. I was thinking about the Disney brand, where everything is either rock-n-roll Donald Duck or the same characters and music reused in a half-dozen movies. My impression is that they found something that "works" and stuck to it. The risk-taking appears to be gone. I would like to be proven wrong, however.
Since they are claiming Trade Secret status on the System V code...
Didn't many systems ship with source code back in the day, or am I mistaken? I do admit I'm a bit too young to know first-hand.
If someone has an actual copy of UNIX(TM) source code, could a comparison be made to Linux independently of the SCO lawsuit.
BTW, what is copyrighted regarding source code, anyway? What if a person changed all the variable names, transformed all the conditions into boolean-equivalent--but different--statements, switched a for loop into a do-while loop, etc.? How far does the copyright really go before it just becomes absurd?
Kids these days... curses is a terminal control library...
I've actually used curses(3CURSES)...not bad for simple console apps. Regarding XP, blank stares are the typcial response I've seen when someone advocates Extreme Programming in a meeting.
Make the default three years. That'll cover software and its documentation. Once something stands no chance of generating revenue, the company should just chuck it into the public domain by default. Make them pony up the cash if they want to keep their power over their customers.
Also, ramp up the prices faster. Make the big super-corporations pay through the nose in exhange for the right to be assholes.
I dunno about you guys, but all these things make me look at Oreilly books before any other.
It's called the "we're not uncompromising assholes" business model. It's an indication that O'Reilly is a good businessman, who understands how to keep those paychecks coming in for the long-term.
Companies like Microsoft (grow, grow, grow; stomp, stomp, stomp) or American Airlines (their crappy CEOs) or Disney (bribing SC senators) or Radio Shack (damned expensive adaptors...) or ENRON (again, shitty CEOs) or any one of thousands of other crappy companies can learn a few lessons, here.
Hey, I am going to really look forward to when the copyright runs out on Perl 3 books, Windows 95 annoyances and appleworks 6: the missing manual. In 14 years I will be able pick up all these and write some derivative work without having to worry about the copyright.
More importantly, you will have access to those manuals in 14 years without having to chase down out-of-print hardcopys or worrying about defunct publishers that can't even make a new copy if they wanted to. You would be suprised how often people need old documentation, whether it is for some old files found on a tape in a cabinet somewhere or that computer in the backroom that cannot be upgraded from Windows 95 for whatever reason.
Personally, I have been in desperate need for software documentation that really is only five years old, but the software company stopped distributing it to "encourage adoption of their new software". To hell with them, I need that documentation! Even five years, not fourteen, is plenty for copyright in the tech industry.
He is not publishing Steamboat Willie...
OT: I hope Disney goes out of business. They've really turned into a one-product company, and that product's not even very compelling, anymore.
If the same amount of time and effort was spent making the gui ergonomic and "keyboard accessible", I suspect that you would find that their speeds were about equivalent.
I think GUIs take a lot more effort and time to do well than most people will admit. This is one reason the UNIX CLI is still around (it's quick, it's dirty, but it works reasonably well).
Mainstream GUIs often have these problems: the fonts tend to be small making them hard on the eyes, grey and white backgrounds with black text are hard on the eyes, there tends to be more information packed into one screen often requiring scrolling (time consuming and hard on the eyes), GUI layout managers are mastered by few leaving some pretty darn ulgy forms (again, hard on the eyes), many GUIs imply the mouse for intuitive navigation, etc.
It also doesn't help that GUIs are enormous programs, which are inherently unreliable and often not predictable. One reason Windows gets such a bad rap is that Microsoft produced a huge program in about 1% of the time it should have taken if they wanted to do it well.
No, you are just very special. Like me, I'm very special, too! Wheeeeeeeee!
Re:See, the Internet is good for something
on
SARS and the Internet
·
· Score: 1, Insightful
I often here friends and collegues disgusted by the Internet, or simply bored by it. There's nothing to do on it they claim except play some games, check a few popular web sites, instant message, etc.
I think a lot of people are taking the Internet for granted. E-Mail, in spite of SPAM, has revolutionized business (it's like a phone call with automatic transcription, very useful). Sites like Slashdot, in spite of trolls, stupid people, and repeat articles, are informative with quick feedback about problems with articles (taken as a whole, it is decent journalism when read properly). Websites are now the de facto method for distributing product documentation, user manuals, and catalogs (no more waiting 6 weeks for a lost user manual). Google can provide instant answers to questions (what kind of snake did we see at the park? what are the unofficial jumper settingss for my mobo? what are common experiences with product X?).
There is one downside to the internet: volume. Try searching for a particular type of software and find 1000 companies selling their "solution" for all your problems. Try searching for a job and realize that there are literally thousands of job websites out there.
Sometimes, the Internet makes me feel big; other times, it makes me feel really really small.
Slashdot Mirror
Before you commit to JDO or entity beans, do yourself a favor and also look at OJB [apache.org] and Hibernate [bluemars.net].
Okay, everyone, get it out of your system: reply, now, with the other 1,345 APIs that we should consider in addition to EJB, JDO, and, now, OJB and Hibernate. Don't be shy, now. Post!
"In brief, Java Data Objects (JDO) insulates you from needing to know a lot about databases."
First of all, I wouldn't want to hire that developer.
Agreed. The quote about JDO above is like saying VisualBasic frees programmers from needing to know, well, basically anything. It's marketing statements like this that get embedded in the minds of project managers, who, then, send a project free-wheeling into a pit of despair. I find it immensly disappointing that for each step the software industry takes forward, there is an equal step back.
Sigh, are we (society) really truly moving forward with software? I don't really mean to be cynical, but I don't know the answer to that question any more.
"Baby with a gun" isn't extreme enough to really describe the current situation...
So, who gave that baby the gun? EJB is hardly at fault, here.
Who wants to put money on the first Linux port being rolled out with the name Sparta?
No, no, no... This is Microsoft's marketing machine at its best. Name something Athens, which itself should have been named Sparta. Lock up the ideology now in the brand so those Linux people can't latch onto it later.
Microsoft are the cunning ass-wipes of humanity, and they never suprise me with their ingenuity. This "Athens" PC is no exception.
About one week before you get your Cease and Desist issued under the DMCA, because you had to crack the "protection mechanisms" of the box in order to boot an unsigned OS on it.
What if they simply embedded an RFID circuit in a piece of tape that read "If you break this seal, you are in violation of the DMCA. Have a nice day." They could simply put this tape over the case seams, and the computer could call the FBI when powered up if it doesn't detect the RFID.
Funny, the 970s MHz of 1.4 and 1.8 are equal to the MHz of the new Opterons. Also, isn't IBM building the new Opterons for AMD?
This probably has more to do with the manufacturing processes used rather than some weird conspiracy theory about the Opteron and the 970.
Regardless, the Opteron and this new PPC chip are a damn good thing for 64-bit computing. The Opteron appears to hit a real sweet spot for price, performance, and reliability featurs--let's hope the 970 will do the same.
Since when is it a "feature" to take away something that is not only more secure, but also the default in the latest version of every OS (from Windows XP to Mac OS X)?
I just installed Win XP "Home Edition" for the first time recently...administrator access appears to be the default. At least as far as I can tell.
XP comes with a really slick multi-user interface...
Are you sure it's as multi-user as you think it is? Just because there are multiple names to log on as doesn't ensure it's a true multi-user system.
Ironically, in this case, Microsoft is the one giving choice to users...
Whenever Microsoft appears to be offering you a choice, you'd better watch your back. Have you read the Win XP EULA, lately?
Michael, I don't know where you're buying your software, but I picked up my copy of Microsoft Office for $180.
That sort of price used to be educational-only. I wonder if Microsoft is actually responding to market pressures rather than creating them. If this is true, then Lindows.com, OpenOffice.org, Mozilla, Apple, and others are really making a greater impact than I thought.
But his version of Linux for the home user is not only less secure than Windows XP...
It's certainly more secure against microsoft.com. Have you double-checked your automatic updates configuration...how about your media player configuration? I saw a few rather disturbing default settings in there, especially in the media player. Trust me, Microsoft is not your friend.
Lindows, however, is a joke...
Time will tell. I'm just glad there's at least one more choice beyond MS and Apple for "joe six-pack".
Yeah, but it wasn't the first.
What came before it?
It did nothing new. Evolutionary, not revolutionary or innovative.
Allowing thousands of scientists to create very high-quality publications cheaply is nothing new? We're talking about the days of "big iron" leading into workstations, here. TeX and LaTeX allowed typsetting PostScript on Sun workstations and even PCs. This is way ahead of Word, WordPerfect, AmiPro, or any other wann-a-be word processor from back then. It was and is a big deal.
TeX didn't come out of the fabled 'Free Software Movement' though. It came about because one brilliant individual, Donald Knuth, needed a typesetting system for his books.
It is true that TeX isn't GNU software, but it was created very much in the spirit of Free Software. Free versions of it are very much available today.
It was a case of 'scratch an itch' to be certain, but it was definitely NOT an example of the kind of "peer-written" software that gets called 'Free Software'. Namely because it's just too damn good for that label.
TeX was invented by Knuth, but it is also actively maintained by its user community (e.g., tug.org, et. al.). LaTeX, a macro package for TeX, was created by people who are not Knuth. There are lots of software tools for TeX and LaTeX that came about independently of Knuth.
TeX and its decendents are very much "peer-written"; although it transitioned from a "cathedral" into a "bazaar" over time. This is typical of many open source projects, including the Linux kernel itself (the first version was produced by Linus and later distributed to his peers).
I will agree with you once the free software subculture actually comes out with something that is NOT A CLONE of a commercial product.
- Emacs (arguably a commercial legacy, but not really)
- GCC (name any commercial compiler with as many languages and platforms)
- TeX (mentioned in an eariler post)
- Mozilla (it has features that are actually cloned by others. Go figure.)
- Apache
- Tomcat + JBoss (they implement standard APIs and are not clones)
- Perl (new twist on sh, sed, and awk)
- Enlightenment (unusually agressive GUI)
- CVS (does a lot that commercial SCCS can't do)
- KDE and GNOME are really only superficial clones of Windows, anyway.
People who say things like you say above are most likely taking Open Source and Free software for granted. Open up your eyes, look around, and be suprised.
TeX? Yeah... That appears to actually be free software, but i don't know how revolutionary or innovative it ever was, though.
TeX is 100% Free Software that brought high-quality typesetting to the masses in the 1980's. The quality of its output is unparalleled by most popular commercial software, especially for mathematics. Even today, if I were to write a textbook, I would very strongly consider using LaTeX (a macro package for TeX). I would definitely not use something like MS Word, which produces crappy-looking output, IMO.
What I meant was: Slowly but surely, the cult of the "one people, one country, one leader" philosophy of Microsoft will go away.
I think there is an attitude adjustment occuring in the software industry, where anything-goes shitty software is more often being seen for what it is. This may be another reason why JavaScript-coder-kiddies are having trouble finding work.
Unfortunately, we still have a very long way to go, but things are moving forward. I think a lot of credit goes to Open Source and Free software, because most corporate software had become a lost cause. Apple and Sun deserve some credit, too, for OS X and OpenOffice.org, respectively. Slowly but surely, the cult of the "one people, one country, one leader" philosophy of Microsoft.
Actually disney is pretty well diversified [cjr.org] among entertainment-related products.
This is true. I was thinking about the Disney brand, where everything is either rock-n-roll Donald Duck or the same characters and music reused in a half-dozen movies. My impression is that they found something that "works" and stuck to it. The risk-taking appears to be gone. I would like to be proven wrong, however.
I know many places that do this already as a regular coding practice.
Why? What's their rationale?
Most companies do a cease-and-decist before a lawsuit, allowing the accused to make changes.
They clearly have an agenda in all this; let's just hope they don't rip down a whole industry in the process.
Since they are claiming Trade Secret status on the System V code...
Didn't many systems ship with source code back in the day, or am I mistaken? I do admit I'm a bit too young to know first-hand.
If someone has an actual copy of UNIX(TM) source code, could a comparison be made to Linux independently of the SCO lawsuit.
BTW, what is copyrighted regarding source code, anyway? What if a person changed all the variable names, transformed all the conditions into boolean-equivalent--but different--statements, switched a for loop into a do-while loop, etc.? How far does the copyright really go before it just becomes absurd?
Kids these days... curses is a terminal control library...
I've actually used curses(3CURSES)...not bad for simple console apps. Regarding XP, blank stares are the typcial response I've seen when someone advocates Extreme Programming in a meeting.
Thoughts?
Make the default three years. That'll cover software and its documentation. Once something stands no chance of generating revenue, the company should just chuck it into the public domain by default. Make them pony up the cash if they want to keep their power over their customers.
Also, ramp up the prices faster. Make the big super-corporations pay through the nose in exhange for the right to be assholes.
Programming with Curses
Isn't this one of the new Extreme Programming methodologies?
I really like the other book about Extreme Programming: Programming with Blank Stares
I dunno about you guys, but all these things make me look at Oreilly books before any other.
It's called the "we're not uncompromising assholes" business model. It's an indication that O'Reilly is a good businessman, who understands how to keep those paychecks coming in for the long-term.
Companies like Microsoft (grow, grow, grow; stomp, stomp, stomp) or American Airlines (their crappy CEOs) or Disney (bribing SC senators) or Radio Shack (damned expensive adaptors...) or ENRON (again, shitty CEOs) or any one of thousands of other crappy companies can learn a few lessons, here.
Hey, I am going to really look forward to when the copyright runs out on Perl 3 books, Windows 95 annoyances and appleworks 6: the missing manual. In 14 years I will be able pick up all these and write some derivative work without having to worry about the copyright.
More importantly, you will have access to those manuals in 14 years without having to chase down out-of-print hardcopys or worrying about defunct publishers that can't even make a new copy if they wanted to. You would be suprised how often people need old documentation, whether it is for some old files found on a tape in a cabinet somewhere or that computer in the backroom that cannot be upgraded from Windows 95 for whatever reason.
Personally, I have been in desperate need for software documentation that really is only five years old, but the software company stopped distributing it to "encourage adoption of their new software". To hell with them, I need that documentation! Even five years, not fourteen, is plenty for copyright in the tech industry.
He is not publishing Steamboat Willie...
OT: I hope Disney goes out of business. They've really turned into a one-product company, and that product's not even very compelling, anymore.
If the same amount of time and effort was spent making the gui ergonomic and "keyboard accessible", I suspect that you would find that their speeds were about equivalent.
I think GUIs take a lot more effort and time to do well than most people will admit. This is one reason the UNIX CLI is still around (it's quick, it's dirty, but it works reasonably well).
Mainstream GUIs often have these problems: the fonts tend to be small making them hard on the eyes, grey and white backgrounds with black text are hard on the eyes, there tends to be more information packed into one screen often requiring scrolling (time consuming and hard on the eyes), GUI layout managers are mastered by few leaving some pretty darn ulgy forms (again, hard on the eyes), many GUIs imply the mouse for intuitive navigation, etc.
It also doesn't help that GUIs are enormous programs, which are inherently unreliable and often not predictable. One reason Windows gets such a bad rap is that Microsoft produced a huge program in about 1% of the time it should have taken if they wanted to do it well.
Yep. Figured I was alone.
No, you are just very special. Like me, I'm very special, too! Wheeeeeeeee!
I often here friends and collegues disgusted by the Internet, or simply bored by it. There's nothing to do on it they claim except play some games, check a few popular web sites, instant message, etc.
I think a lot of people are taking the Internet for granted. E-Mail, in spite of SPAM, has revolutionized business (it's like a phone call with automatic transcription, very useful). Sites like Slashdot, in spite of trolls, stupid people, and repeat articles, are informative with quick feedback about problems with articles (taken as a whole, it is decent journalism when read properly). Websites are now the de facto method for distributing product documentation, user manuals, and catalogs (no more waiting 6 weeks for a lost user manual). Google can provide instant answers to questions (what kind of snake did we see at the park? what are the unofficial jumper settingss for my mobo? what are common experiences with product X?).
There is one downside to the internet: volume. Try searching for a particular type of software and find 1000 companies selling their "solution" for all your problems. Try searching for a job and realize that there are literally thousands of job websites out there.
Sometimes, the Internet makes me feel big; other times, it makes me feel really really small.