First, let me say that I don't like shoving COM objects into web pages either.
Now, looking through the article:
He uses 'activeX' to mean specifically the deployment of COM components to a browser, apparently in blissful ignorance of the actual meaning (ie synonymous with COM). He uses expressions 'the ActiveX API' as if ActiveX was a product rather than a standard.
He uses MFC by choice.
He uses MFC to write COM components, in 2005. The sheer "please stop doing that, and by the way you're fired" factor of this may not be obvious to non-COM developers, but believe me, it's high.
He does not pause to learn COM before using it / whining about it / writing articles about it. Not even little baby steps.
As an academic matter, he also doesn't learn/think about the situations for which activex components on the web may be suitable, such as when delivering complex functionality in a browser in a sealed, trusted environment. But really, this plain old crack in his common-sense pales into insignificance beside the deep, yawning crevasses in his technical knowledge. When information content is zero, higher-level errors don't really matter.
It means no change for Internet user's privacy, but confirms that the FBI weren't up to managing a large project, even in their core area.
Which leads me to the inescapable conclusion:
Privatize the FBI! I'm sure Halliburton would love that contract, but McDonald's would surely also be in the bidding. After all, who would suspect a few Ronald McDonalds wandering around the neighbourhood of being agents? Nobody, that's who! And by the time you notice their guns and badges -- TOO LATE, criminal!
Aside from the mistakes pointed out by others, you also forgot to reference the xmlbinary namespace, the xmlbyte namespace, and the xmlboredcommentinparentheses namespace, and to qualify all attributes accordingly. You also didn't include anything in or any magic words like CDATA, and you didn't define any entities. You also failed to supply a DTD and an XSL schema.
This is therefore still not _true_ XML. It simply doesn't have enough inefficiency. Please add crap to it:)
It's a markup language, it's not supposed to be ideal for general purpose data transfer.
People should stop trying to optimize it for a task it wasn't designed for. Focus on making XML better for markup, and for pity's sake come up with something else that's concise and simple and efficient for general purpose use.
It is precisely because of Ballmers orientation toward marketing and finance that MS's real potential is WEAKER than it was in 2000. For every temporary balance sheet win he has made, there has been permanent 'hearts and minds' damage.
Communication is the issue; MS no longer listens to clients at the tech level. Up until a few years ago I rated MS very high in terms of listening to the marketplace and creating technology to match -- in fact, where governmental bodies and cross-industry standards groups constantly failed, and giant companies simply didn't give a good gosh damn, MS habitually actually listened to people who knew technology and produced what the world needed. This might have been more striking in my area than in some others, but it was certainly a general rule.
Fast forward to the present day. The world asks MS , "What is your.NET product anyway?" and MS NEVER ANSWERS. Ballmer chants "XML! XML! XML!" for six months while programmers, managers and investors across the globe stare blankly at him. That was the quality of communication, on the subject of MS's own product.
So financially, I agree that Ballmer has really done a lot. But putting the emphasis on extracting money from clients, rather than delivering benefits to clients, can only work for so long:(
Ghod, she couldn't make even a simple, obviously valid comment like that one without everything being a Big Conspiracy To Oppress Those Who Love Freedom, could she?
If I (and others) use the inferior free software, that's the end of the story. It sits there on version 0.9.8 forever. Woohoo.
If I (and others) use the pay software, the people making it are incentivized and able to create more software. Since they have already shown themselves good at producing software, this is a Good Thing.
It is not only more practical but more responsible to reward the better software.
Despite a poor showing initially, the lettuce DID win, taking advantage of a light breeze to flutter over the finish line! Some of the lettuce wound up off the track but I feel this is acceptable.
I am sorry to say that the celery finished second equals with the other vegetables -- a poor showing for a plant touted as 'the fastest of all vegetables'.
I would like to point out to other posters that the performance of the jumping bean and asparagus is not relevant -- the claim being tested is that celery is 'the fastest of all vegetables' and it is NO FASTER THAN AN ORDINARY COMMODITY ARTICHOKE.
In the light of this test, I have decided not to put celery in my computer.
The article is factually wrong. I took a stick of celery, a beetroot, an artichoke, and a handful of lettuce and put them at one end of a track. At the other was a bowl of water and a sunlamp, to give them an incentive.
After 5 minutes, they were all STILL moving at the SAME speed! One hour later, they are still neck and neck although the lettuce is beginning to look a little worn-out.
I've had about enough of people pumping up one particular fruit or vegetable, with NO BASIS in actual testing. MOST vegetables travel at the SAME SPEED (unless you drop one, or fire it from a gun, or something) and there is no point paying more for a faster one.
Of course! After all, an article about 'PSP' in the 'games' section of Slashdot is really very likely to be about a small Dutch political organization!
It couldn't possibly be about a well-known and much-debated games platform called the PSP!
Oh, wait, actually it could. After all, that would be the sensible, obvious and non-silly option.
Problem: Server side java performance. Result: More money for servers. Vendors happy. IT department happy. Users happy. Enterprise 'standardizes on Java on server side'.
...you actually said what went wrong, rather than 'humpty dumpty fell off the wall'. You _do_ see how that statement doesn't tell me about why.NET didn't work?
Sure, it's a terrible idea being pushed with wild religiously-tinged hubris -- but is it the best we can do? I think not.
This calendar guy has the dullest, most trivial obsession of any net kook I can remember. Now, google for Archimedes Plutonium to hear about some REAL pseudoscience!
Even Archie, though, wasn't as downright terrifying as that guy from the physics groups wayyyy back when whose sig was something like:
"I tell girls that I will not kiss a girl who has the blood of dead animals in her mouth and the bodies of dead animals between her teeth."
I am not an expert on security -- could someone just tell me in 1 sentence whether PPTP can be considered 'secure' for a VPN at the moment? Or is it worth going to some other VPN infrastructure?
Remember, this is the country that routinely dropped colour from video taken "behind the iron curtain", leaving the impression that everything there was black-and-white.
Er, surely leaving the impression that film there was black and white?
I suspect that even the TV viewing public might hesitate to go "oh, the video's black and white... that means that THE REDS ARE MONOCHROME!!"
IIRC, the NSC statistics for dying in an air or space transport accident include way more than what are typically considered 'plane crashes'. For instance, military accidents are included. And for 2001, I suppose it's possible the 911 passengers are included.
Actual deaths by commercial plane accident in that year were 300, I think. Generally the risk is very roughly in the ballpark of 1 in 50,000 per flight (for commercial international carriers).
Yay, we can stop worrying about actual pressing problems that we can fix, and focus on remote possibilities that we can do nothing about! Why, this could take our minds off pollution, climate change, and the failure of antibiotics for _years_!
Oh, no, wait, it's just random numbers created by this one guy who used to do something or other.
On WinMX (which isn't as good as it used to be, which is why I dare mention it on/.), recently I have started to get automatic messages sent to me (in Japanese) saying something like:
"The Recording Industry Association of Japan has noticed that you are sharing files whose names match artists or recordings owned by our members. You are reminded that such..." and so on and so on.
I got a couple of these in one day -- haven't run WinMX recently though so I don't know if they are still happening. It would be interesting to try sharing only files with ASCII names and see if that makes a difference.
Re:Scary (saracasm)
on
A .Net CPU
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
I'd say that I see more.NET projects starting than any other single platform in my industry, although the lead over Java is slim and obviously there is far more Java already running. I wouldn't say that.NET has reached the 'will be with us forever' point that Java and C have, but it's certainly been very popular with devs and had a number of successful early projects. In the end it will probably stand or fall on the success of Longhorn (which everyone is quite skeptical about). But buy-in has been good.
Slashdot Mirror
First, let me say that I don't like shoving COM objects into web pages either.
Now, looking through the article:
He uses 'activeX' to mean specifically the deployment of COM components to a browser, apparently in blissful ignorance of the actual meaning (ie synonymous with COM). He uses expressions 'the ActiveX API' as if ActiveX was a product rather than a standard.
He uses MFC by choice.
He uses MFC to write COM components, in 2005. The sheer "please stop doing that, and by the way you're fired" factor of this may not be obvious to non-COM developers, but believe me, it's high.
He does not pause to learn COM before using it / whining about it / writing articles about it. Not even little baby steps.
As an academic matter, he also doesn't learn/think about the situations for which activex components on the web may be suitable, such as when delivering complex functionality in a browser in a sealed, trusted environment. But really, this plain old crack in his common-sense pales into insignificance beside the deep, yawning crevasses in his technical knowledge. When information content is zero, higher-level errors don't really matter.
BUT... his article is anti-MS in some way.
So here it is on
Whee!
It means no change for Internet user's privacy, but confirms that the FBI weren't up to managing a large project, even in their core area.
Which leads me to the inescapable conclusion:
Privatize the FBI! I'm sure Halliburton would love that contract, but McDonald's would surely also be in the bidding. After all, who would suspect a few Ronald McDonalds wandering around the neighbourhood of being agents? Nobody, that's who! And by the time you notice their guns and badges -- TOO LATE, criminal!
Aside from the mistakes pointed out by others, you also forgot to reference the xmlbinary namespace, the xmlbyte namespace, and the xmlboredcommentinparentheses namespace, and to qualify all attributes accordingly. You also didn't include anything in or any magic words like CDATA, and you didn't define any entities. You also failed to supply a DTD and an XSL schema.
This is therefore still not _true_ XML. It simply doesn't have enough inefficiency. Please add crap to it
It's a markup language, it's not supposed to be ideal for general purpose data transfer.
People should stop trying to optimize it for a task it wasn't designed for. Focus on making XML better for markup, and for pity's sake come up with something else that's concise and simple and efficient for general purpose use.
Hey, 'corepirate' guy, you're back!
And now you have a name! And THAT, my friend, is your FATAL MISTAKE!
Nah, just kidding, I love you. You remind me of my first girlfriend. Look, I used up karma making an offtopic post for you.
It is precisely because of Ballmers orientation toward marketing and finance that MS's real potential is WEAKER than it was in 2000. For every temporary balance sheet win he has made, there has been permanent 'hearts and minds' damage.
Communication is the issue; MS no longer listens to clients at the tech level. Up until a few years ago I rated MS very high in terms of listening to the marketplace and creating technology to match -- in fact, where governmental bodies and cross-industry standards groups constantly failed, and giant companies simply didn't give a good gosh damn, MS habitually actually listened to people who knew technology and produced what the world needed. This might have been more striking in my area than in some others, but it was certainly a general rule.
Fast forward to the present day. The world asks MS , "What is your
So financially, I agree that Ballmer has really done a lot. But putting the emphasis on extracting money from clients, rather than delivering benefits to clients, can only work for so long
Ghod, she couldn't make even a simple, obviously valid comment like that one without everything being a Big Conspiracy To Oppress Those Who Love Freedom, could she?
Truly the first Libertarian
If I (and others) use the inferior free software, that's the end of the story. It sits there on version 0.9.8 forever. Woohoo.
If I (and others) use the pay software, the people making it are incentivized and able to create more software. Since they have already shown themselves good at producing software, this is a Good Thing.
It is not only more practical but more responsible to reward the better software.
Despite a poor showing initially, the lettuce DID win, taking advantage of a light breeze to flutter over the finish line! Some of the lettuce wound up off the track but I feel this is acceptable.
I am sorry to say that the celery finished second equals with the other vegetables -- a poor showing for a plant touted as 'the fastest of all vegetables'.
I would like to point out to other posters that the performance of the jumping bean and asparagus is not relevant -- the claim being tested is that celery is 'the fastest of all vegetables' and it is NO FASTER THAN AN ORDINARY COMMODITY ARTICHOKE.
In the light of this test, I have decided not to put celery in my computer.
The article is factually wrong. I took a stick of celery, a beetroot, an artichoke, and a handful of lettuce and put them at one end of a track. At the other was a bowl of water and a sunlamp, to give them an incentive.
After 5 minutes, they were all STILL moving at the SAME speed! One hour later, they are still neck and neck although the lettuce is beginning to look a little worn-out.
I've had about enough of people pumping up one particular fruit or vegetable, with NO BASIS in actual testing. MOST vegetables travel at the SAME SPEED (unless you drop one, or fire it from a gun, or something) and there is no point paying more for a faster one.
Of course! After all, an article about 'PSP' in the 'games' section of Slashdot is really very likely to be about a small Dutch political organization!
It couldn't possibly be about a well-known and much-debated games platform called the PSP!
Oh, wait, actually it could. After all, that would be the sensible, obvious and non-silly option.
Problem:
Client side java performance.
Result:
Furious users, desk items thrown around, highly visible percieved 'failure', enterprise 'bans Java on client side'.
Problem:
Server side java performance.
Result:
More money for servers. Vendors happy. IT department happy. Users happy. Enterprise 'standardizes on Java on server side'.
It's all a matter of what's visible.
Yes, it's so much better to accept a bad outcome rather than try and change it. Oh, wait...
The free market will do just fine.
Yeah, it's done a great job so far. Oh, wait...
Well said! -- my shortest ever slashdot post
Sure, it's a terrible idea being pushed with wild religiously-tinged hubris -- but is it the best we can do? I think not.
This calendar guy has the dullest, most trivial obsession of any net kook I can remember. Now, google for Archimedes Plutonium to hear about some REAL pseudoscience!
Even Archie, though, wasn't as downright terrifying as that guy from the physics groups wayyyy back when whose sig was something like:
"I tell girls that I will not kiss a girl who has the blood of dead animals in her mouth and the bodies of dead animals between her teeth."
I am not an expert on security -- could someone just tell me in 1 sentence whether PPTP can be considered 'secure' for a VPN at the moment? Or is it worth going to some other VPN infrastructure?
Thanks to anyone who replies.
Remember, this is the country that routinely dropped colour from video taken "behind the iron curtain", leaving the impression that everything there was black-and-white.
Er, surely leaving the impression that film there was black and white?
I suspect that even the TV viewing public might hesitate to go "oh, the video's black and white... that means that THE REDS ARE MONOCHROME!!"
IIRC, the NSC statistics for dying in an air or space transport accident include way more than what are typically considered 'plane crashes'. For instance, military accidents are included. And for 2001, I suppose it's possible the 911 passengers are included.
Actual deaths by commercial plane accident in that year were 300, I think. Generally the risk is very roughly in the ballpark of 1 in 50,000 per flight (for commercial international carriers).
Yay, we can stop worrying about actual pressing problems that we can fix, and focus on remote possibilities that we can do nothing about! Why, this could take our minds off pollution, climate change, and the failure of antibiotics for _years_!
Oh, no, wait, it's just random numbers created by this one guy who used to do something or other.
Back to worrying about actual issues, then.
On WinMX (which isn't as good as it used to be, which is why I dare mention it on
"The Recording Industry Association of Japan has noticed that you are sharing files whose names match artists or recordings owned by our members. You are reminded that such..." and so on and so on.
I got a couple of these in one day -- haven't run WinMX recently though so I don't know if they are still happening. It would be interesting to try sharing only files with ASCII names and see if that makes a difference.
I'd say that I see more
I love the way the article just says '36%' and people discuss it seriously as if it were an actual statistic.
36% of IT costs? Of software costs? Of TCO over a year? Over 5 years? Of initial cost? Of OS cost?
Presumably the original (unloadable for me)
But anyway, yeah, back to discussing it really seriously.
I'm amazed it's not at least 38.675%. 36% seems awfully low -- in fact if they had used Mandrake it could probably have been 39.825%!