No. People use MS because their company already has the client licenses, the admins are cheaper, their desktops and servers use a single set of security procedures and, for web hosting, they can port their desktop vb apps to IIS in no time.
If you already own 400 Win boxes, there is a pretty compelling argument for using a Win server product.
That said, I would be real careful what I used IIS for. I don't think I would expose confidential data to the extranet.
>most admins for windows system don't patch their machines
Actually, Code Red shows that most admins do patch their machines, but that even a small number of unpatched systems can still wreak havoc.
Anyone cluefull enough to know that Exchange could be broken by some patches is probably cluefull enough to disable default (!) IIS on boxes that aren't actually serving as web servers.
Anyone who runs Exchange and IIS on the same box (make that Exchange and anything, or maybe I should just leave that at anyone who runs Exchange) has some explaining to do.
A third possibility is that MS just obeys the "Penfield-Jackson test." He deleted the IE icon and then announced that he had removed IE from his system. They could ship a version without the icons if you like. Given the tech savvy of the courts, that might end up being the most they demand of MS in reference to the bundling issue.
The missile defense is based on the assumption that America's adversaries will make the worst possible decisions about how to attack the US. Very few states have access to heat shields, multi stage rockets, sophisticated guidance systems and the ability to miniaturize nuclear weapons. The latter is particularly difficult to achieve. So why bother?
If I wanted to kill Americans with a weapon of mass destruction, it would be an old freighter, a bomb in a shipping container and a trigger set to go off when US Customs opens the container looting for pot. Or, if you prefer, the far cheaper alternative of the same shipping container with breakaway sides, four guys, an old howitzer and a stack of nerve gas shells. Make sure that the shell they are instructed to fire last has a big crack in it to eliminate these four brave err, witnesses.
Even if it was worth the technological effort, why would any world leader fire an easily tracked missile at the world's most powerful military power?
Can you imagine political circumstances in which the US would not respond with force of near genocidal proportions?
I would love to make render weapons of mass destruction no threat to anywhere I or my loved ones live, but NMD just won't do that.
I wish, but I mostly do develop for Bill's platform because that's what my clients use and well, they are the one's paying me. One of the benefits of Bill's monopoly has been a good living for those who write boring custom business applications for folks who can't afford to keep a platoon of programmers around.
Accomplished programmer? Try adequate.
The college lecturer gig is a sideline that I do every two years since getting out of grad school. (We all know how those folks get paid.)
When did I claim to know jack about networking? I have only the vaguest notion of how all that works.
As a side note, there ought to be a clinical term for the tendency of Slashdot readers to perceive a less than blinding hatred of (MS, Copyright, insert other bad thing here) as direct evidence that one is a corporate shill, sexual partner of Bill Gates, etc.
My only theory is that if you deal with binary conditions enough in your work, complex value judgements are hard to make. It is religious war for a large number of slashdotters, and an inquisition to discover apostates is the order of the day.
This thing is an embarrassment to Microsoft's many and often articulate critics.
The complaint charges that MS ties support to product registration.
Yeah, so does my toaster warranty, and my VCR, and my TV, and my washer and dryer, etc.
It implies that users get tricked into signing up for Passport. Is a Passport registration necessary for non-MS Internet sites? If not, then what is the big fuss?
It suggests you sign up; you tell it no, and that is it.
None of this tracking seems to be mandatory if one doesn't choose to use their second rate online sites.
Their online sites monitor user activity and sell that information for marketing purposes. What "free" online service doesn't?
All of this stuff is in the various license click-throughs. At least they ask. Doubleclick never asked if they could profile me across the whole net.
On a side note, who doesn't lie when portals ask for personal information? I tell one I am a hog farmer, the next that I am an exotic dancer, etc.
So why is MS evil here again? Oh, that's right, that whole evil incarnate thing.
They complain that the product manufacturer requires registration as a condition of support, then they complain about a suggested Passport registration, then about practices standard in the portal industry, finally complaining about potential security problems at a largely non-functional MS mega-portal.
On that note, if security becomes a major problem at Hailstorm, it won't be the FTC that stops it. It will be the companies that pay for credit card fraud. We would get a ringside seat on VISA vs. Microsoft. I wonder who would win.
I have a feeling that the limited # of installs/hardware watchdog is going to be a disaster.
People are going to add/change hardware reinstall, etc. then get locked out, telephone an expensive call center, bitch and moan about the problem, write nasty complaint letters that have to be read by expensive people and replied to, etc. Someone at MS is going to look at the costs of piracy protection features, look at the cracked versions of XP (which will probably be available on nice looking cds by then, if they aren't already)and just chuck the whole hardware watchdog scheme as too much money in support costs and too much ill will with consumers for too little piracy protection.
MS is very good at backpeadaling when they need to.
Does VB need to be fast in an environment where computing power doubles every eighteen months?
I am writing a VB database app (back end is MSSQL, 20 users) that is so fast people don't believe that it is really saving the data. I have to write a one second delay into every single save routine so people actually believe that it is working.
Sure, it isn't graphics or heavy computation, but VB really shines is in these boring, quick and dirty business apps, and those only need to be as fast as the end user.
Um, are you sure that you are talking about VB here, not VBS?
JS and VBS are roughly similar in that neither supports any kind of variable typing, don't compile in the least, etc.
In VB the difference between a Sub and a Function is pretty clear. A Function returns a value and a Sub doesn't. What is so arcane about that?Likewise ByVal and ByRef aren't exactly rocket science.
Slashdot Mirror
People use MS for no reason
No. People use MS because their company already has the client licenses, the admins are cheaper, their desktops and servers use a single set of security procedures and, for web hosting, they can port their desktop vb apps to IIS in no time.
If you already own 400 Win boxes, there is a pretty compelling argument for using a Win server product.
That said, I would be real careful what I used IIS for. I don't think I would expose confidential data to the extranet.
>most admins for windows system don't patch their machines
Actually, Code Red shows that most admins do patch their machines, but that even a small number of unpatched systems can still wreak havoc.
Anyone cluefull enough to know that Exchange could be broken by some patches is probably cluefull enough to disable default (!) IIS on boxes that aren't actually serving as web servers.
Anyone who runs Exchange and IIS on the same box (make that Exchange and anything, or maybe I should just leave that at anyone who runs Exchange) has some explaining to do.
A third possibility is that MS just obeys the "Penfield-Jackson test." He deleted the IE icon and then announced that he had removed IE from his system. They could ship a version without the icons if you like. Given the tech savvy of the courts, that might end up being the most they demand of MS in reference to the bundling issue.
The missile defense is based on the assumption that America's adversaries will make the worst possible decisions about how to attack the US. Very few states have access to heat shields, multi stage rockets, sophisticated guidance systems and the ability to miniaturize nuclear weapons. The latter is particularly difficult to achieve. So why bother?
If I wanted to kill Americans with a weapon of mass destruction, it would be an old freighter, a bomb in a shipping container and a trigger set to go off when US Customs opens the container looting for pot. Or, if you prefer, the far cheaper alternative of the same shipping container with breakaway sides, four guys, an old howitzer and a stack of nerve gas shells. Make sure that the shell they are instructed to fire last has a big crack in it to eliminate these four brave err, witnesses.
Even if it was worth the technological effort, why would any world leader fire an easily tracked missile at the world's most powerful military power?
Can you imagine political circumstances in which the US would not respond with force of near genocidal proportions?
I would love to make render weapons of mass destruction no threat to anywhere I or my loved ones live, but NMD just won't do that.
There was an opinion piece in the New York Times on (Sunday?) and an article on 18 July.
Accomplished programmer? Try adequate.
The college lecturer gig is a sideline that I do every two years since getting out of grad school. (We all know how those folks get paid.)
When did I claim to know jack about networking? I have only the vaguest notion of how all that works.
As a side note, there ought to be a clinical term for the tendency of Slashdot readers to perceive a less than blinding hatred of (MS, Copyright, insert other bad thing here) as direct evidence that one is a corporate shill, sexual partner of Bill Gates, etc.
My only theory is that if you deal with binary conditions enough in your work, complex value judgements are hard to make. It is religious war for a large number of slashdotters, and an inquisition to discover apostates is the order of the day.
The complaint charges that MS ties support to product registration. Yeah, so does my toaster warranty, and my VCR, and my TV, and my washer and dryer, etc.
It implies that users get tricked into signing up for Passport. Is a Passport registration necessary for non-MS Internet sites? If not, then what is the big fuss? It suggests you sign up; you tell it no, and that is it. None of this tracking seems to be mandatory if one doesn't choose to use their second rate online sites.
Their online sites monitor user activity and sell that information for marketing purposes. What "free" online service doesn't?
All of this stuff is in the various license click-throughs. At least they ask. Doubleclick never asked if they could profile me across the whole net.
On a side note, who doesn't lie when portals ask for personal information? I tell one I am a hog farmer, the next that I am an exotic dancer, etc.
So why is MS evil here again? Oh, that's right, that whole evil incarnate thing.
They complain that the product manufacturer requires registration as a condition of support, then they complain about a suggested Passport registration, then about practices standard in the portal industry, finally complaining about potential security problems at a largely non-functional MS mega-portal.
On that note, if security becomes a major problem at Hailstorm, it won't be the FTC that stops it. It will be the companies that pay for credit card fraud. We would get a ringside seat on VISA vs. Microsoft. I wonder who would win.
I have a feeling that the limited # of installs/hardware watchdog is going to be a disaster.
People are going to add/change hardware reinstall, etc. then get locked out, telephone an expensive call center, bitch and moan about the problem, write nasty complaint letters that have to be read by expensive people and replied to, etc. Someone at MS is going to look at the costs of piracy protection features, look at the cracked versions of XP (which will probably be available on nice looking cds by then, if they aren't already)and just chuck the whole hardware watchdog scheme as too much money in support costs and too much ill will with consumers for too little piracy protection.
MS is very good at backpeadaling when they need to.
Does VB need to be fast in an environment where computing power doubles every eighteen months?
I am writing a VB database app (back end is MSSQL, 20 users) that is so fast people don't believe that it is really saving the data. I have to write a one second delay into every single save routine so people actually believe that it is working.
Sure, it isn't graphics or heavy computation, but VB really shines is in these boring, quick and dirty business apps, and those only need to be as fast as the end user.
Um, are you sure that you are talking about VB here, not VBS?
JS and VBS are roughly similar in that neither supports any kind of variable typing, don't compile in the least, etc.
In VB the difference between a Sub and a Function is pretty clear. A Function returns a value and a Sub doesn't. What is so arcane about that?Likewise ByVal and ByRef aren't exactly rocket science.
Pure it ain't but neither is it complicated.