I've been using BeOS lately because I'm working on Haiku and it boots from POST into the full BeOS GUI, ready to use, in about 9 seconds. It shutdowns in about 4 seconds. This is on an Athlon 1.33 GHz with 512 MB RAM, a system that Windows XP takes a minute or two to boot up and shutdown on.
As others have mentioned this isn't really an issue for most other operating systems.
I really have to wonder what the hell Windows is doing at boot-up to be so freaking slow. Keep in mind that BeOS (unlike Windows) can quickly adapt to hardware changes at boot-up, so it isn't like some crazy hardware driver caching is happening or anything.
I used to always joke that the Windows boot-up included a couple million no-ops to be so damn slow. Anyhow this is one reason of many I'm helping with Haiku.
I also find it fascinating that the new "performance features" touted in Vista are really all just kludges to work around Windows' inefficiencies. The fact that other systems (like, ahem, BeOS and Haiku) don't need such kludges shows this is a Microsoft Windows problem.
Released for download 18 May 2006, currently at over 500,000 downloads. There were 2000 DVDs sold as of 11 May, before it was even released for download. This is just for a 10 minute short.
In our eternal quest for cooler and newer and neater, we're burning dollars like crazy throwing our perfectly working machines and software. When will we learn...
I think there is and will continue to be a good "market" (in the sense of need, not necessarily dollars) for lightweight, modern operating systems that can run on these older boxes. I'm thinking things like a kitchen web-browsing/email box, or maybe a lightweight media center PC, or even just something for little Billy to use instead of Daddy's computer. Heck for most people a 1.2 GHz box with 256 megs of RAM and a 40 GB hard-drive from 4 years ago is plenty, as long as the OS is not a beast.
There are already plenty of options here, like a lightweight Linux distro, any of the BSDs, or in my taste BeOS and it's successor, the open source Haiku.
So what: a well-dressed polite white man gets through a shorter (yet more thorough) security line because of a lack of ID. First, the airlines have to account for people not having IDs. Wallets get stolen, IDs are lost or forgotten, in other words, shit happens. Second, this lack of ID is a rare occurence so of course the line will be shorter, and even if the actual screening takes 3-4 times as long than the "normal" screening you will get through faster.
Incidentally, a little politeness can go a long way when dealing with government workers, especially in places like an airport or the DMV. Just think: these people deal with complaining a**holes all day for crappy pay, you might actually make their day a little brighter by being polite, or, God forbid, almost friendly. The time for civil disobedience in not after waiting 2 hours in the DMV line.
I have one of these Lenovos and I'm not too worried.
But with all the latest NSA spying crap we are hearing about, I'm not so sure I can trust US manufacturers, who could leave a nice little backdoor for their NSA friends. If they will illegally spy on our phone calls, why not illegally spy on our PCs?
Somehow the latter scenario seems a more valid conspiracy theory than Rep. Wolf's concerns.
While reading this article I decided to go ahead and download WASTE, but oops, 404 on the download page. I then reloaded the main WASTE page...oops, 404. I then reloaded the main Nullsoft page and poof, no more WASTE.
Looks like someone at AOL Time Warner didn't like this, despite it being more of an enterprise IM tool instead of a P2P file sharing tool...
Anyone care to mirror the compiled app and the source?
This is a good thing. Someone had to take the risk of trying something like this, and now that we have this initial success the record labels really have to reconsider some of their decisions regarding internet distribution.
Most of us may not agree with the use of DRM and AAC files, but progress is best made by a series of compromises. Considering what the music labels really want to shove down our throats, I think Apple has provided a pretty consumer-friendly compromise. Now that they have set this precedent, I think we can feel a little more secure that things can't get any worse, but hopefully better.
Now they just need to begin the slow process of removing the big evil record labels from the picture by offering independent artists that are self-produced or produced by small labels. Of course since becoming redundant is the real fear held by the RIAA and their ilk, this "compromise" may be harder to achieve.
Oops, I should have browsed below 3. The AC's HTMLized version is better anyhow. Call me a Karma whore if you want, but I barely post and my self esteem is not dependent on my Slashdot Karma.
Since I seem to have gotten to the article before it was hit by the rest of you, here you go, in plain text (warning, it is pretty long):
-- It's time for another interview here on Curmudgeon and this time we have with us Brian Hook, president of Pyrogon Games and former developer at id Software and Verant/Sony Online Entertainment. Before working on the seminal shooters Quake 2 and Quake 3: Arena, Brian was the original architect of the Glide API used by the 3dfx Voodoo line of video cards. After departing id, Brian worked as a Senior Technology Architect at Verant, concentrating on development of technology for next-generation massively-multiplayer online games (MMOGs). After founding Pyrogon in 2000, he created the puzzle game Candy Cruncher, which we reviewed earlier this year. Two additional Pyrogon games have appeared since then, NingPo MahJong and Letter Linker, both available for Windows and MacOS X. (A Linux version of NingPo MahJong will be shipping in the near future.)
This interview covers a wide range of topics: game design criticism, OpenGL/D3D, making money as a smaller game developer, and the importance of porting software to different platforms. Indeed, something for just about everyone. It's quite long, so you might want to bookmark it and consume it in more than one reading.
The interview questions were prepared with the assistance of regular CG authors ruffin and michael.
jvm: What kinds of games do you enjoy playing the most?
Hook: That's a tough question. I guess in some ways I just have very high expectations about software these days, so most games pretty much turn me off within the first 5 minutes when I spot egregious design flaws.
That said, the games I've played and enjoyed the most recently have been No One Lives Forever 2, which I felt had some of the best production value I've ever seen in a game, and Ghost Recon, which is a hoot in multiplayer.
jvm: So you play mostly on a PC, as opposed to a console?
Hook: I should really get some consoles and play console games, but it's hard to justify the time.
jvm: Could we get an example of a game with these egregious design flaws, complete with a breakdown of those flaws? The more popular the game, the better.
Hook: That's dangerous ground =)
But a typical example I have is what I call "simulations that think they're games". To me, a game should be fun and exciting, which means that I should be making interesting decisions that lead to success based on the data I have at that time. Too many games today STILL punish you by just killing you because that's "realistic".
Hitman 2 is a good example of this. Starting with the very first mission, you can pretty much expect to go through and play that mission 20 times before you complete it, because there are timed events that you don't know about a priori. Which is a shame, because the actual mechanics in Hitman 2 were extremely fun. It was probably the one game in recent memory that I really wanted to like but which ended up being so frustrating and tedious that I couldn't enjoy it. Obviously it's a popular game, so I'm in the minority on this.
I think the games that really got a lot of this down were the 1980s LucasArts adventure games like Loom and Secret of Monkey Island.
Those games were fun. When you were frustrated it was because you couldn't figure something out, not because you felt the game was just arbitrarily screwing with you.
Another example are games that go into "inverse feedback loops".
Hitman 2 does this as well. The better you are, the more cool stuff you get, and thus the easier the game. If you make "Silent Assassin" on the first mission, you get some really nice weapons that make much of the rest of the game easier.
But the problem is that if you're a good enough player to get those weapons, you don't need the bonuses as much as the guy that was struggling like mad to complete the mission at all
I attended a speech by Brian Hook at the University of Florida a few years back. He had once been a student there before dropping out to work at 3Dfx. As I recall he was still at 3Dfx at that time (which was well before 3Dfx melted down.) It was an interesting speech, relating how he went from a student half-way through his studies to the creator of the Glide API.
One thing that is interesting is that I think has become much less arrogant as he has gotten older (he seems quite humble in this interview.) I mean he did create Glide almost single-handedly. Of course I imagine that getting humble with age is a pretty standard trend, especially among software developers. How many developers in the audience remember how arrogant they were when younger? I know I was. Ah, the ignorance of youth...
Your generation will grow up, and become like the old, for evil is insidious, and most people don't resist it.
Yes I do agree with this and don't doubt that there will always be evil, power-hungry and greedy people in this world.
But come on, the internet and the information age we are currently in is different than the environmentalism that was started in the 1960s.
Enviromentalism tends to actually DEGRADE your life, in the short term. It is a pain in the butt to conserve gas and electricity. It sucks to drive a slow and cramped economy car when a gas-guzzling SUV is so much more powerful, larger, safer, more comfortable, etc. Recycling takes time and apparently even costs more for society (monetarily.) But we can hope that the long term benefits will be worth it. Of course most people prefer to benefit in the short term, which can be exemplified in all the SUVs on the road and how must trash is produced each day.
But on the contrary, having rights with our media and information is a great BENEFIT!!! No one REALLY wants to have all the restrictions, unless having those restrictions makes them more money in the short term (or in the case of politicians makes their contributors and lobbyists money.) So there is a short term benefit for some when we have these restrictions, but in the long term society as a whole suffers (which will also affect those who benefit in the beginning, whether they realize it or not.)
Also I just think the information age is a much more important and far reaching societal change than the environmentalism started in the 60s. People who have grown up with computers will be much less likely to restrict them than the old farts currently in office who can't even write an email and are actually AFRAID of computers and all the power it gives us.
So sure there will be evil people in the future, but even evil people want to be able to listen to their CDs wherever they want and be able to send email without a DRM publishing license.
Like most of you, I've been a bit worried about the way things have been going lately in regards to copyright and "intellectual property." I read all the stories related to this, and try my best to keep up to date on the issues. At Christmas this year I discussed these topics a bit with my family, to try and educate them on issues they may know nothing about.
But lately the more I've thought about it, the more I've realized the media monsters are fighting a losing battle. They just can't win (in the long run.) Here are reasons why I think this:
They are getting more and more brazen as their fear mounts. At some point the crap they pull will be noticed by Joe Public and that is when they will be in trouble. Once Joe can't use his CDs where he wants, or record his favorite show on his VCR, there WILL be an outcry.
The old die. YAY! This is an obvious fact of humanity of course, but its significance is in the fact that the legislators and judges who are currently working against us on these issues will die one day. The entire generation currently running our government, which in large part seem to support the media monsters and their agenda, will one day be completely replaced by new blood. This new blood will have grown up in this information age we are now in, and won't be so friendly to those who seek to limit our intellectual rights. When myself or my 8 year old cousin (who teaches his Mom how to use the computer) are in a senate office or a courtroom as judge, the media companies won't fair so well.
Most people aren't theives. Despite what the media people think, we are all not thieves. If given a good product at a fair price people will pay for it. I think the issue that they fail to notice is that the people who download music instead of buying it do not think that the better quality audio and cover art of the CD are worth the $16+ price. This is simple economic theory. There IS added value in a CD versus a collection of mp3s gotten from Kazaa. It just isn't worth $16. As an example I recent bought a CD for $10. For the past few months I've been listening to a few mp3s from the album, and I have really enjoyed them. When I saw the album for $10, I snapped it up, and have been very pleased with it. I've probably listened to it 10 times in the past week, and I feel I've really gotten my money's worth. But there are many other cases in the past where I've bought an album based on one song heard on the radio and I've been very disappointed. I'm sure we all have these kind of stories. But now we have the option of trying an album first before buying, and if the media companies think this is a bad thing, maybe they should consider offering music that is actually good.
The nature of capitalism will ensure that alternatives will eventually develop as people see markets. There WILL be a market in non-restrictive media. Those that choose to embrace this versus trying to control everything will succeed and eventually overrun those who don't.
So overall I think we, the people, will win in the long run. But it won't happen overnight and in the meantime we may be in for some rough times.
In my experience you do indeed have to wait a month for the line to be released. I'm not sure why it takes that long, though the likely reason is the ILECs being slow on purpose (or just general bureaucracy.) I also plan to keep the DTV DSL until they switch me over, if for no other reason than I got in on the $20/month for 3 months deal;)
Regarding the gateways, I've heard other people also saying they would like to keep them to mess around (since they are actually routers, not just plain old ADSL modems.) But let's be realistic, I doubt DTV DSL will just give away 160,000+ pieces of equipment that probably cost a couple hundred dollars each. But it would be cool...imagine a Beowolf cluster of these!:)
I'm in a similar situation. I ordered DTV DSL a week ago (based on recommendations from friends) and literally just got it installed and running yesterday. I have really been pleased: the ordering process was easy, I got the modem quickly, and installation was a breeze (of course I'm a computer engineer and have had many kinds of broadband, but still, it is nice.)
Boy was I surprised when I browsed to http://www.directvdsl.com tonight and saw this news. This is just annoying. I would rather have no home internet or flounder on dial-up before getting stuck with BellSouth again (PPPoE can go to hell.)
To those of you like myself who would like to find another provider with similar features to DTV DSL, here are a few to look into (I work for none of these):
I think most of you would agree that using smaller companies like these instead of the HelLECs is just smarter: the customer service is bound to be better (hey, it can't get much worse), plus you are helping out one of the little guys. Big nasty corporate monopoly monsters are just evil.
By the way, before you up and cancel your DTV DSL service, wait at least until Tuesday (December 17), when another announcement will be posted on http://www.directvdsl.com which may indicate the provider they will be migrating us to. Hopefully it will be one of the above (or similar.)
As enterprises improve their understanding of the different information needs of their users and customers at various touchpoints, a shift will occur--from the current "push" mode to a "pull" mode.
Which would be a good thing, since as you say, "push" sucks. Just tell me what I want to know, damn it, no more!
Excellent point. The lack of an extensive library is certainly a problem for those looking for such a thing.
But truly, does a lack of said library really make a language bad, or just indicate that it is young? If the language itself is good (which I definitely think Ruby is) and it is given a chance, the language will eventually bloom and have as extensive a library as Perl and other curreny mainstream languages.
Now for your example: Ruby already has Getoptlong. I'm not sure about the non-echo support (it should since we have readline.) There are some digest classes being worked on. Oddly enough, I'm actually coding ZLib libraries in pure Ruby as we speak. I may also code some encryption algoritms. And Base64 is already in Ruby.
So, once the above libraries are created, yes Ruby could be used to produce software just like yours (and probably file compatible as well) in 100 lines or less. But, right now, it couldn't, and they may be enough of a reason for some people. Personally I like being able to actually make a useful contribution to a community and help shape the future of that community. That is one of the things that draws me to Ruby, but I doubt many others will feel the same way.
Concerning the lack of a huge, easy to access library archive, well I'm coding the beginnings of my own Ruby module system which may eventually become the CPAN of Ruby. Who knows. But the thought of being able to actually create something like that and have it accepted and used is enough impetus for me to create it.
In my case, I came to Ruby from the Java world. A friend forwarded me an email announcing the release of the Programming Ruby book and so I decided to check out the language. Since I enjoy learning about new programming languages I wasn't agaist learning "yet another language." A search on Google yielded the main Ruby-lang web-site, and after some reading I decided it was worthwhile to take the time to really learn it. That was about 4 months ago.
Since then, I've read through the on-line version of Programming Ruby as well as the printed version, which I recommend very highly. It is one of the best computer language books I have ever read (and I have a Computer Engineering degree.) I have also gotten very good at programming Ruby after only a month and half of serious study. In fact, I'm probably as good (or better) at programming Ruby as I am in Java (which I've been using for 3 years.) Now that is impressive. Of course I will admit I've been somewhat obsessive with Ruby and have studied it very extensively over this last month and a half, so your mileage may vary. But still: 3 years versus 1.5 months? Hmmm....
Of course I can't say the same wouldn't happen if I seriously studied Perl or Python, but I will say I don't intend to learn those languages now. They are fine and dandy for what they do, but just like all those out there who don't want to switch to Ruby since they know Perl (or Python), I don't want to switch to them because I know Ruby. So given that, I can probably respect those who decide not to learn Ruby for this reason.
But I have heard other Ruby users who have used Perl or Python say it is an improvement to them in some ways, so it may actually be worthwhile to at least take an hour or so to give Ruby a good look. I would say the same for Java programmers. If you've never touched a so called "scripting language", learning Ruby will change how you think about programming permanently. I'm sure former Java users now using Perl or Python could say the same thing. Of course Ruby is much more than a scripting language. In fact, I really wish I could just totally stop programming Java and just use Ruby (since it can solve the same problems), but I really don't think that is possible now since Ruby is so new (to the United States.) And of course Java is pretty much the corporate mantra these days.
But in the long run I could certainly forsee Ruby replacing Java in the enterprise. In fact, I think this should in some way unite Perl, Python and Ruby users, since we have a "common enemy" in Java, heh. Of course Java has it's uses too I suppose. And before Java advocates flame me, consider that I hold this view after 3 years of being a Java advocate and switching to Ruby for about 1.5 months (as noted above.) That's how much better I think Ruby is compared to Java.
Now other complaints about Ruby usually revolve around it's newness:
It's doesn't have a big library like Perl's CPAN.
No one uses it.
I can't get paid to use it.
I don't know it and won't learn it.
Now the first argument is valid (in fact I'm working on my take on the solution), though of course like the others it is kind of a self-fullfilling prophecy. If people had used these arguments and logic with Linux, this web site wouldn't be here right now, and the world would be a much different (and probably worse) place. So given this, at least give Ruby a chance before you just bash it because it is new and you perceive it as a "threat" to your own personal favorite programming language (why are languages so much like religions to programmers?)
So, to conclude, at least give Ruby a chance and try not to be so fanatical about programming languages:)
Slashdot Mirror
WebKit will be your
Haiku way to get your porn
so please don't worry
But it will be slightly less evil DRM than Microsoft's (if there can be such a thing.)
c ost.txt
For those who haven't heard about the Vista DRM "features", please read this:
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_
I've been using BeOS lately because I'm working on Haiku and it boots from POST into the full BeOS GUI, ready to use, in about 9 seconds. It shutdowns in about 4 seconds. This is on an Athlon 1.33 GHz with 512 MB RAM, a system that Windows XP takes a minute or two to boot up and shutdown on.
As others have mentioned this isn't really an issue for most other operating systems.
I really have to wonder what the hell Windows is doing at boot-up to be so freaking slow. Keep in mind that BeOS (unlike Windows) can quickly adapt to hardware changes at boot-up, so it isn't like some crazy hardware driver caching is happening or anything.
I used to always joke that the Windows boot-up included a couple million no-ops to be so damn slow. Anyhow this is one reason of many I'm helping with Haiku.
I also find it fascinating that the new "performance features" touted in Vista are really all just kludges to work around Windows' inefficiencies. The fact that other systems (like, ahem, BeOS and Haiku) don't need such kludges shows this is a Microsoft Windows problem.
When will the powers that be realize that prohibition, in any form, just does not work?
This is just another example of the lengths they will go to prop up a broken prohibition system.
Unless you make all people mind-controlled robots you cannot tell them what they can and can't do with their own money, time and bodies!
Really?
Released for download 18 May 2006, currently at over 500,000 downloads. There were 2000 DVDs sold as of 11 May, before it was even released for download. This is just for a 10 minute short.
I think there is and will continue to be a good "market" (in the sense of need, not necessarily dollars) for lightweight, modern operating systems that can run on these older boxes. I'm thinking things like a kitchen web-browsing/email box, or maybe a lightweight media center PC, or even just something for little Billy to use instead of Daddy's computer. Heck for most people a 1.2 GHz box with 256 megs of RAM and a 40 GB hard-drive from 4 years ago is plenty, as long as the OS is not a beast.
There are already plenty of options here, like a lightweight Linux distro, any of the BSDs, or in my taste BeOS and it's successor, the open source Haiku.
So what: a well-dressed polite white man gets through a shorter (yet more thorough) security line because of a lack of ID. First, the airlines have to account for people not having IDs. Wallets get stolen, IDs are lost or forgotten, in other words, shit happens. Second, this lack of ID is a rare occurence so of course the line will be shorter, and even if the actual screening takes 3-4 times as long than the "normal" screening you will get through faster.
Incidentally, a little politeness can go a long way when dealing with government workers, especially in places like an airport or the DMV. Just think: these people deal with complaining a**holes all day for crappy pay, you might actually make their day a little brighter by being polite, or, God forbid, almost friendly. The time for civil disobedience in not after waiting 2 hours in the DMV line.
I have one of these Lenovos and I'm not too worried.
But with all the latest NSA spying crap we are hearing about, I'm not so sure I can trust US manufacturers, who could leave a nice little backdoor for their NSA friends. If they will illegally spy on our phone calls, why not illegally spy on our PCs?
Somehow the latter scenario seems a more valid conspiracy theory than Rep. Wolf's concerns.
While reading this article I decided to go ahead and download WASTE, but oops, 404 on the download page. I then reloaded the main WASTE page...oops, 404. I then reloaded the main Nullsoft page and poof, no more WASTE.
Looks like someone at AOL Time Warner didn't like this, despite it being more of an enterprise IM tool instead of a P2P file sharing tool...
Anyone care to mirror the compiled app and the source?
This is a good thing. Someone had to take the risk of trying something like this, and now that we have this initial success the record labels really have to reconsider some of their decisions regarding internet distribution.
Most of us may not agree with the use of DRM and AAC files, but progress is best made by a series of compromises. Considering what the music labels really want to shove down our throats, I think Apple has provided a pretty consumer-friendly compromise. Now that they have set this precedent, I think we can feel a little more secure that things can't get any worse, but hopefully better.
Now they just need to begin the slow process of removing the big evil record labels from the picture by offering independent artists that are self-produced or produced by small labels. Of course since becoming redundant is the real fear held by the RIAA and their ilk, this "compromise" may be harder to achieve.
Oops, I should have browsed below 3. The AC's HTMLized version is better anyhow. Call me a Karma whore if you want, but I barely post and my self esteem is not dependent on my Slashdot Karma.
Since I seem to have gotten to the article before it was hit by the rest of you, here you go, in plain text (warning, it is pretty long):
--
It's time for another interview here on Curmudgeon and this time we have with us Brian Hook, president of Pyrogon Games and former developer at id Software and Verant/Sony Online Entertainment. Before working on the seminal shooters Quake 2 and Quake 3: Arena, Brian was the original architect of the Glide API used by the 3dfx Voodoo line of video cards. After departing id, Brian worked as a Senior Technology Architect at Verant, concentrating on development of technology for next-generation massively-multiplayer online games (MMOGs). After founding Pyrogon in 2000, he created the puzzle game Candy Cruncher, which we reviewed earlier this year. Two additional Pyrogon games have appeared since then, NingPo MahJong and Letter Linker, both available for Windows and MacOS X. (A Linux version of NingPo MahJong will be shipping in the near future.)
This interview covers a wide range of topics: game design criticism, OpenGL/D3D, making money as a smaller game developer, and the importance of porting software to different platforms. Indeed, something for just about everyone. It's quite long, so you might want to bookmark it and consume it in more than one reading.
The interview questions were prepared with the assistance of regular CG authors ruffin and michael.
jvm: What kinds of games do you enjoy playing the most?
Hook: That's a tough question. I guess in some ways I just have very high expectations about software these days, so most games pretty much turn me off within the first 5 minutes when I spot egregious design flaws.
That said, the games I've played and enjoyed the most recently have been No One Lives Forever 2, which I felt had some of the best production value I've ever seen in a game, and Ghost Recon, which is a hoot in multiplayer.
jvm: So you play mostly on a PC, as opposed to a console?
Hook: I should really get some consoles and play console games, but it's hard to justify the time.
jvm: Could we get an example of a game with these egregious design flaws, complete with a breakdown of those flaws? The more popular the game, the better.
Hook: That's dangerous ground =)
But a typical example I have is what I call "simulations that think they're games". To me, a game should be fun and exciting, which means that I should be making interesting decisions that lead to success based on the data I have at that time. Too many games today STILL punish you by just killing you because that's "realistic".
Hitman 2 is a good example of this. Starting with the very first mission, you can pretty much expect to go through and play that mission 20 times before you complete it, because there are timed events that you don't know about a priori. Which is a shame, because the actual mechanics in Hitman 2 were extremely fun. It was probably the one game in recent memory that I really wanted to like but which ended up being so frustrating and tedious that I couldn't enjoy it. Obviously it's a popular game, so I'm in the minority on this.
I think the games that really got a lot of this down were the 1980s LucasArts adventure games like Loom and Secret of Monkey Island.
Those games were fun. When you were frustrated it was because you couldn't figure something out, not because you felt the game was just arbitrarily screwing with you.
Another example are games that go into "inverse feedback loops".
Hitman 2 does this as well. The better you are, the more cool stuff you get, and thus the easier the game. If you make "Silent Assassin" on the first mission, you get some really nice weapons that make much of the rest of the game easier.
But the problem is that if you're a good enough player to get those weapons, you don't need the bonuses as much as the guy that was struggling like mad to complete the mission at all
I attended a speech by Brian Hook at the University of Florida a few years back. He had once been a student there before dropping out to work at 3Dfx. As I recall he was still at 3Dfx at that time (which was well before 3Dfx melted down.) It was an interesting speech, relating how he went from a student half-way through his studies to the creator of the Glide API.
One thing that is interesting is that I think has become much less arrogant as he has gotten older (he seems quite humble in this interview.) I mean he did create Glide almost single-handedly. Of course I imagine that getting humble with age is a pretty standard trend, especially among software developers. How many developers in the audience remember how arrogant they were when younger? I know I was. Ah, the ignorance of youth...
Your generation will grow up, and become like the old, for evil is insidious, and most people don't resist it.
Yes I do agree with this and don't doubt that there will always be evil, power-hungry and greedy people in this world.
But come on, the internet and the information age we are currently in is different than the environmentalism that was started in the 1960s.
Enviromentalism tends to actually DEGRADE your life, in the short term. It is a pain in the butt to conserve gas and electricity. It sucks to drive a slow and cramped economy car when a gas-guzzling SUV is so much more powerful, larger, safer, more comfortable, etc. Recycling takes time and apparently even costs more for society (monetarily.) But we can hope that the long term benefits will be worth it. Of course most people prefer to benefit in the short term, which can be exemplified in all the SUVs on the road and how must trash is produced each day.
But on the contrary, having rights with our media and information is a great BENEFIT!!! No one REALLY wants to have all the restrictions, unless having those restrictions makes them more money in the short term (or in the case of politicians makes their contributors and lobbyists money.) So there is a short term benefit for some when we have these restrictions, but in the long term society as a whole suffers (which will also affect those who benefit in the beginning, whether they realize it or not.)
Also I just think the information age is a much more important and far reaching societal change than the environmentalism started in the 60s. People who have grown up with computers will be much less likely to restrict them than the old farts currently in office who can't even write an email and are actually AFRAID of computers and all the power it gives us.
So sure there will be evil people in the future, but even evil people want to be able to listen to their CDs wherever they want and be able to send email without a DRM publishing license.
But lately the more I've thought about it, the more I've realized the media monsters are fighting a losing battle. They just can't win (in the long run.) Here are reasons why I think this:
So overall I think we, the people, will win in the long run. But it won't happen overnight and in the meantime we may be in for some rough times.
In my experience you do indeed have to wait a month for the line to be released. I'm not sure why it takes that long, though the likely reason is the ILECs being slow on purpose (or just general bureaucracy.) I also plan to keep the DTV DSL until they switch me over, if for no other reason than I got in on the $20/month for 3 months deal ;)
:)
Regarding the gateways, I've heard other people also saying they would like to keep them to mess around (since they are actually routers, not just plain old ADSL modems.) But let's be realistic, I doubt DTV DSL will just give away 160,000+ pieces of equipment that probably cost a couple hundred dollars each. But it would be cool...imagine a Beowolf cluster of these!
I'm in a similar situation. I ordered DTV DSL a week ago (based on recommendations from friends) and literally just got it installed and running yesterday. I have really been pleased: the ordering process was easy, I got the modem quickly, and installation was a breeze (of course I'm a computer engineer and have had many kinds of broadband, but still, it is nice.)
Boy was I surprised when I browsed to http://www.directvdsl.com tonight and saw this news. This is just annoying. I would rather have no home internet or flounder on dial-up before getting stuck with BellSouth again (PPPoE can go to hell.)
To those of you like myself who would like to find another provider with similar features to DTV DSL, here are a few to look into (I work for none of these):
DSLi
Speakeasy
SnappyDSL
I think most of you would agree that using smaller companies like these instead of the HelLECs is just smarter: the customer service is bound to be better (hey, it can't get much worse), plus you are helping out one of the little guys. Big nasty corporate monopoly monsters are just evil.
By the way, before you up and cancel your DTV DSL service, wait at least until Tuesday (December 17), when another announcement will be posted on http://www.directvdsl.com which may indicate the provider they will be migrating us to. Hopefully it will be one of the above (or similar.)
Which would be a good thing, since as you say, "push" sucks. Just tell me what I want to know, damn it, no more!
But truly, does a lack of said library really make a language bad, or just indicate that it is young? If the language itself is good (which I definitely think Ruby is) and it is given a chance, the language will eventually bloom and have as extensive a library as Perl and other curreny mainstream languages.
Now for your example: Ruby already has Getoptlong. I'm not sure about the non-echo support (it should since we have readline.) There are some digest classes being worked on. Oddly enough, I'm actually coding ZLib libraries in pure Ruby as we speak. I may also code some encryption algoritms. And Base64 is already in Ruby.
So, once the above libraries are created, yes Ruby could be used to produce software just like yours (and probably file compatible as well) in 100 lines or less. But, right now, it couldn't, and they may be enough of a reason for some people. Personally I like being able to actually make a useful contribution to a community and help shape the future of that community. That is one of the things that draws me to Ruby, but I doubt many others will feel the same way.
Concerning the lack of a huge, easy to access library archive, well I'm coding the beginnings of my own Ruby module system which may eventually become the CPAN of Ruby. Who knows. But the thought of being able to actually create something like that and have it accepted and used is enough impetus for me to create it.
Happing coding,
Ryan
In my case, I came to Ruby from the Java world. A friend forwarded me an email announcing the release of the Programming Ruby book and so I decided to check out the language. Since I enjoy learning about new programming languages I wasn't agaist learning "yet another language." A search on Google yielded the main Ruby-lang web-site, and after some reading I decided it was worthwhile to take the time to really learn it. That was about 4 months ago.
Since then, I've read through the on-line version of Programming Ruby as well as the printed version, which I recommend very highly. It is one of the best computer language books I have ever read (and I have a Computer Engineering degree.) I have also gotten very good at programming Ruby after only a month and half of serious study. In fact, I'm probably as good (or better) at programming Ruby as I am in Java (which I've been using for 3 years.) Now that is impressive. Of course I will admit I've been somewhat obsessive with Ruby and have studied it very extensively over this last month and a half, so your mileage may vary. But still: 3 years versus 1.5 months? Hmmm....
Of course I can't say the same wouldn't happen if I seriously studied Perl or Python, but I will say I don't intend to learn those languages now. They are fine and dandy for what they do, but just like all those out there who don't want to switch to Ruby since they know Perl (or Python), I don't want to switch to them because I know Ruby. So given that, I can probably respect those who decide not to learn Ruby for this reason.
But I have heard other Ruby users who have used Perl or Python say it is an improvement to them in some ways, so it may actually be worthwhile to at least take an hour or so to give Ruby a good look. I would say the same for Java programmers. If you've never touched a so called "scripting language", learning Ruby will change how you think about programming permanently. I'm sure former Java users now using Perl or Python could say the same thing. Of course Ruby is much more than a scripting language. In fact, I really wish I could just totally stop programming Java and just use Ruby (since it can solve the same problems), but I really don't think that is possible now since Ruby is so new (to the United States.) And of course Java is pretty much the corporate mantra these days.
But in the long run I could certainly forsee Ruby replacing Java in the enterprise. In fact, I think this should in some way unite Perl, Python and Ruby users, since we have a "common enemy" in Java, heh. Of course Java has it's uses too I suppose. And before Java advocates flame me, consider that I hold this view after 3 years of being a Java advocate and switching to Ruby for about 1.5 months (as noted above.) That's how much better I think Ruby is compared to Java.
Now other complaints about Ruby usually revolve around it's newness:
- It's doesn't have a big library like Perl's CPAN.
- No one uses it.
- I can't get paid to use it.
- I don't know it and won't learn it.
Now the first argument is valid (in fact I'm working on my take on the solution), though of course like the others it is kind of a self-fullfilling prophecy. If people had used these arguments and logic with Linux, this web site wouldn't be here right now, and the world would be a much different (and probably worse) place. So given this, at least give Ruby a chance before you just bash it because it is new and you perceive it as a "threat" to your own personal favorite programming language (why are languages so much like religions to programmers?)So, to conclude, at least give Ruby a chance and try not to be so fanatical about programming languages :)
--
Ryan