I hear about people with RedHat and ATI that actually have no problems. I and a bunch of other people can't get the things to work. As of the last version of Wine 3.x nothing works. Wine 2.x worked somewhat but SLOW. Their solution was to use a "generic" kernel and change the video driver. Well RedHat doesn't like it when you make your own kernel, and upgrading the video driver was a nightmare. After the "upgrade" I found out that now Wine won't run at all. After some more checking I found that WINE has a problem with the new ATI driver...
If you read their message boards you will notice that a ton of people have major issues with the software. Some even with Nvidia cards! Having said that the coders do seem to be working hard on issues and creating what will become a great product. The issue is that this thing is equivilant to "beta" code. Perhaps even alpha code.
People seem to fall in to three catagories with WINE. 1. Everything works great, and they love it. They are just waiting for more game support. 2. It works but with some issues. Those issues are bad enough that they still use a Windows partiion. 3. It doesn't work at all.
My experience is that most Linux people that are trying to switch over from Windows fall in to category 2 and 3. This generally frustrates them enough and they bag Linux and go back to Windows.
Most new Linux users tend to pick a "standard" distro. RedHat seems to be the largest choice. I believe that they own something like 75% of the market, and I would bet it is far larger for Linux newbees. WINE should work hard to support SUSE and RedHat. They should work hard to support ATI AND Nvidia. Again I am a huge fan of these guys and believe that their product is going to be great. I just don't want any other new person to Linux to think that running games on Linux is as easy as Windows or the Mac.
As far as native games go the issues I have seen is something like the following. 1. Xwindows version 4.x 2. GCC library 3. Video driver blows 4. Kernel needs to be recompiled
I have yet to even get a "good" native game to run on RedHat linux 9.x. I don't want to give the impression that I have tried 20 games like you, but I have tried Unreal demo , Quake III and a few others and have had no luck. Most lock at startup. Now the EXACT same system on windows I have had little problem. (One exception was Never Winter Nights, the game was buggy). This is with RedHat 7.x-9.x
I realize that the issue could be all RedHats fault, but my GOD if you have a native port of your game shouldn't you test it on RedHat?
Re:Check out transgaming - was "No 3D?"
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Win4Lin 5.0 Reviewed
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Ok, I am a transgaming member, and love the idea of the software, but I feel that anyone who thinks that this software will solve the issue of not being able to play most "new" games on Linux is not solved at all.
First be warned that you should have a Nvidia video card. If you have anything else (like a faster ATI card) you could be in for some issues. It could turn in to a real science project. If you plan on running RedHat and still getting support from them then you will also have issues.
In short this is great software; BUT in my opinion if you are a hard core gamer then you will be better suited with a Windows partition or separate hard drive. Removeable hard drive bays are around $20 and a separate small hard drive for Windows isn't that much.
To be honest even Linux ported games still seem to have major issues. It appears that you can get most to work, but I have found that there is almost always a "catch-22" with software, something you will need that breaks something else.
Now I need to say that my experience has been with only RedHat. It is possible that RedHat is the main source of the problems with games, but you would think that developers would focus a little bit of effort on that Distro.
First. The PDA market is about dead, Palm was fortunate enough to get in it at the right time. They still own a lions share of that market. The loss to Microsoft was the HUGE investment in that market that is all but dead now, and the fact that their set top box failed AND nobody appears interested in their phone OS. Understand that Palm + Sony + Handspring still sells over 50% of the PDA's in the world. Also understand that sales today are no where near what they were two years ago.
SQL server IS growing fast, it isn't hard to grow from nothing to something, BUT that growth appears to be mostly in all Microsoft shops. DB2 and Oracle still hold the lions share of the market. The problem here is that Microsoft can't compete with Oracle and IBM on the high end, so that leaves them with the mid market. Ahhh but the mid market is STARTING to look at other systems like MySQL and PostGreSQL. Again, all Microsoft shops will choose it, and some people will be forced to use it because their "needed" app will only run on it, BUT those "Needed" apps are starting to show up on other platforms. At the end of the day, most people would have thought that Microsoft would have crushed out Oracle and IBM the way they did Novell and others. They have not done so, nor does it look like they are going to. In fact the closer they get to doing that the closer open source databases come to replacing them.
Java v.s..Net... The ONLY places that I see doing.Net development is Microsoft shops. Granted in todays market I don't see the development that was going on 2-5 years ago, but.Net appears to be winning little converts other than the typical Microsoft followers. Now there were a LOT of VB and ASP shops that were would NEVER switch to another platform, but wanted to do Java, they appear to be the ones doing a lot of.Net stuff.
All in all your arguments are somewhat valid, but they are the exact same that people used with IBM in the early 80's. By the mid 90's IBM was almost dead. If it wasn't for an awesome former CEO they would be dead.
Good point on file server and Web servers, but that battle is all but over. I also didn't mention Tivo.
My overall point is that people are cheap, if they can get something for free they will put up with a lot. It is impossible to compete with free, unless they want to pay us to use their product:-) And speaking of being paid to use a product, a few governments have mandated the use of open source code. Now how long do you think it will be before they "mandate" that their colleges teach development on that platform?
Well, after looking through the machine I can't find the script. Norton deleted everyting and the guy has tons of messages.
It is possible that he opened the attachment, but I believe that the problem is that he has his viewer turned on and the problem is with a flaw in I.E.
Obviously I can't confirm that he didn't open some attachment, howerver, I will say that out of all of our Groupwise users and Mac users I had ZERO problems.
First off, to call this a war is an insult to all the people that have fought and died in a real war; but I will humor the analogy.
Microsoft is starting to loose a lot of key battles. The can't compete with Linux simply because of the price. People are cheap and if they can get something for free and it works ok, they will live with it. I honestly believe that this is part of the reason that the Macintosh isn't nearly as competitive as WinTel.
First will be governments switching over to it, then schools,charitable organizations and point of sale type businesses. After that is done then you will see surrounding businesses that work with those HUGE clients being forced to switch. Once that is done and Linux/Open Source has a 25-30% desktop market share the war is over. No development company will want to exclude 25-30% of the market and then ROME falls quickly.
Some of the key battles that I see now that Microsoft isn't winning. 1. Handhelds 2. Phones 3. Java v.s..Net 4. Getting current user base to upgrade past NT 4.0 5. PS2 vs Xbox. 6. Databases, Oracle, IBM, SQL Server, MySQL, PostGreSQL
In my opinion Microsoft seems a lot like IBM of the early 80's. The are doing a lot of things, and flat out own one key marketplace, but they don't do anything well.
Now there are some things that could dramatically slow this down. 1. Death of Linus. 2. IBM to offer it's own Linux and try and seize control of the kernel. 3. For some reason Java flounders.
Anyway, the way I see it the next 10 years will actually be fun!
Please understand that by choosing open source they didn not say Linux. All they said was CHOOSE something that is open source. So all they did was eliminate Microsoft and Apple from the desktop choices...
Once the definition is formed for open source in writing for them, then lets see what happens. I will believe this when they actually replace windows software with open source software.
Ahhh yes... their quote... This appears to be a NEW version of the virus. This hit a brand new WinXP fully updated system (well updated to at least last week). After a Microsofty told me that exact same thing, and that it wouldn't/couldn't effect this type of system, I showed him. He is looking in to it. After we updated Norton it detected it as a type of bugbear.
You may be correct, I may be an idiot, but for this instance I have an explanation:-)
This was a variant of the Bugbear virus. We update our Norton DAT files every night. Our handfull of users that DEMANDED to use Outlook Express have their viewer turned on. Well this virus found a flaw (still unpatched by Microsoft) in I.E. to let this code run. Norton didn't have new DAT files until around noon that day.
So am I an idiot? Possibly, but not for this reason. The only thing I see I should have done is RIP THAT FUCKING OUTLOOK EXPRESS OFF OF THEIR MACHINES. I could also look at stopping HTML mail, but I have been told NOT to do that. The real issue is that Microsoft doesn't engineer security up front with their products. In a way
I guess I should thank all the people writing viruses for Windows. Some day it is going to actually do something very bad, and that will just give me the ammunition I need to replace these with Linux, or Macs.
You are correct, that I don't understand your industry. However, my experience is that with all systems there comes a time when you have to upgrade. Generally the longer you put that off the longer you keep things working, but at the cost of a MAJOR upgrade later. In your situation, like some medical equipment, it makes sense to wait as long as possible, then test the crap out of the new one. I would imagine that if you went with Windows that you wouldn't even apply the steady stream of service packs, because that could break things.
That wasn't my point, my point is that it doesn't take more work to support Macs than PC's. In fact, in my experience, if you have a large number of Macs and PC's it takes less effort than if you just have all PC's. I am not saying that if you have two macs and 500 PC's it is easier.
I have been working in I.T. for around 15 years now, and have found that most I.T. people just don't like any technology that isn't the most common. It use to be IBM, and now it is Intel/Microsoft. They then make up ridiculous statements like "It takes far more effort to support XXX", but at the end of the day, after they "STANDARDIZE" their staff is generally bigger and cost more than before.
If I ever get a job with a Press company though, I will heed your advice in not to ever fuck with the pre-press workflow...:-)
I can't comment on how hard it is to upgrade a graphics application, but I use to do desktop support for both Mac's and PC's and I still help out some with support.
Your I.T. people are idiots! I was personally responsible for supporting over 700 macs and had little to no problem doing it. Now the Microsoft people will say that they can do that, but I try to remind them that if you have an SMS person, NT/Active Directory Admin person AND a desktop support person, that counts as THREE PEOPLE. Don't even get me started on viruses and other security issues. I just spent part of this week fixing that @$%@# bugbear virus. (Didn't touch our GroupWise users or Macs though...) Supporting windows is a pain. The ONLY thing that makes it "easy" is that you know that most companies have drivers and software for it. But guess what... they may not have one for XP, or whatever new Microsoft OS is out. So when you order your "new" machine from Dell you might have to DOWNGRADE the OS just to run your apps. Then you usually find that they don't have an older OS driver for your hardware.
99% of the world isn't windows. Granted I type this from a Win2k box:-)
Yes RedHat came out with the Advanced line of their products to make more money.
Yes they have customers like IBM, Oracle and Dell who want upgrades to major components done much more slowly than every 6 month. They want it every 18 months at the earliest.
Yes some customers want the latest stuff, and don't care about big dog changes to their systems.
Yes companies like Oracle, and IBM will only support the "advanced" server line.
I am in the exact same boat you are in. However, because we use Oracle on Redhat we HAVE to use the "Advanced" product line. The good news is that you can get this product without support for around $350.00. That isn't horrible. Now pay around $60/year for their RHN stuff and you should be set.
What I don't know is if you can load that exact version on every server you have. I believe that you can, and then just pay the $60/year for the RHN per server.
What I would like to see RedHat do is offer a per incident suppport pack. Similar to Microsoft and Novell, you could purchase a 10 pack of calls for say a grand, and then call on ANY of your servers.
Profs are usually the last people on earth to try new technology. Unless they invented it:-) They also don't have to worry about a ton of meetings with different people. Students also don't meet with a ton of different people, and until a PDA can smoke a gameboy, you won't see much growth with students.:-) Not to mention that most students are poor.
Your dads company of engineers is similar to Profs, most engineers (that I know, and I know a lot) think that they are Gods gift to the techno world and to ask for help with anything would be a sign of weakness. They also don't meet with a lot of people.
Go ask your dad how many of his sales and marketing people have them. If none do, then I would take that as an opportunity to show them some of the new cell-phone and or PDA's.
The basic premis of a PDA was to replace a day-timer. It does that well for most people. Being able to read your email off line is also great. It is not a replacement for a laptop or desktop. Since a Prof and an Engineer are just a few feet away from a computer at most times, it makes a PDA kinda worthless to them, but not to everyone.
I think the real issue is making syn-ing easy for you to use. Specifically if it could be automated to sync every time it found it's source. I.E. 802.11x or bluetooth, and your computer was turned on (max 1 time a day) Obviously, that would have to be an option. That way every time you came in to range of your computer at home (and it was on) it would automatically sync.
I somewhat trust T-mobile, but the temptation to sell user data is great. The company I use to work for could sell it's user database for around 50 cents a user. We had millions users. Because they are a monopoly, they don't need to, but I am sure if times got tough for them they would sell off stuff like name, address salary range, number of kids etc... (not SSN or credit card info)
It was a tough enough for the coders not to do a dump and sell it:-)
Oh yeah, if you or anyone you know has a household income over 75k a year and lived in the U.S.A. and liked to vacation, there is a good chance that their name is in that database...
Wow!!! By no means did I say anthing about socialism being good! In the environment that I mentioned, there would be all kinds of capatalism. The core difference is that the client (YOU) would be in control of the software.
I am still not saying that this fits for everything. Some people don't care about that control and are fine with what a vendor provides. Proprietary code works great for them. Heck that type of thinking is probably is what keeps Apple in business; people who trust Apple and it gives them what they want. They don't have to worry about what hardware works with what software. Most of their computing decisions are made for them. The same argument could be made somewhat for IBM and Sun.
My experience is that with large custom software packages, vendors tend to srew their clients over time. Now those clients have a choice with future software packages. It may not be the best choice for them, but they do have a choice.
Lastly, Socialism doesn't look good on paper either. Once you look at it, and debate it, you see where it falls apart. I am more than willing to debate the merits of open source vs proprietary code... I don't think it will fall apart, and unlike a government you don't have to choose just one.
Issue: I have a software package that doesn't due what our company needs it to do and I need some modifications to it. The developers/company doesn't want to do it.
Closed Source/Proprietary: - You beg the vendor to do it, and threaten to switch if they don't. This is generally a limited threat, because of the fact that it will cost your company a huge amount of time and effort to switch to another vendor (who will have other issues). You could offer to pay the vendor for the development, but unless they are a small shop this probably won't do the trick either, or you will be paying HUGE $$$$ to them. You could have your own developers, provide some type of workaround, but this will break when the vendors upgrade/fix their code. Basically you have no good option, except to pray that the vendor will address your issue. Also when the vendor does release the upgrade, it will probably contain code enhansements that you don't care about, but will probably cause you other errors... I have lived in this world for a long time... and still do with Oracle and Microsoft.
Option 2, use Open Source: You quickly determine that nobody is going to work on the "patch/enhansement" that you want. You will need to now hire a coder that knows the language of the system (probably C). That coder will have to take some time getting up to speed on the program, and then fix it. The coder can then release that code back to the open source community, and it will "probably" make it in future releases. Now if you find yourself making significant changes to the code on a regular basis, then I would hire/contract development to give you what you want, and you wouldn't have to pay for time needed to get the developer use to the code. They can still release their code back to the open-source community, and it probably will get put in the main codebase, so you will be protected with future upgrades.
Both options cost time and money, development isn't cheap, and some companies hate giving stuff they paid for away for free. However, at the end of the day THEY ARE IN CONTROL!!!, not some outside vendor.
This flys in the face of "nobody ever got fired for buying xxx".:-) Those types of people are probably NEVER going to try open-source code and they will just live with whatever product the market leader produces for their needs. I have worked with many people like that, and thankfully most are no longer in positions of power. The rest are praying that nothing ever happens to Microsoft, or if it does it happens slow enough for them to move to another position.
Not trying to start a war here, but why is it a good thing that they mirror all the data on your device with their server? I would prefer the ability to back up that data via bluetooth/80x.11x/FireWire/USB etc to a machine of my choosing. I am not a big fan of anyone having that information.
What will happen is that some idiot project manager and sales person will say that their coders DO speak and write English, they will then say that "THEY" will be gathering the requirements. They will then bid the project at an unreasonably low rate and they will win. This is what is happening now with projects done in India. I predict that India will be devistated when the flood of work moves to China in the next 10 years. Now with that human rights will start to leak in to China (stuff like not killing baby girls and such), and their price will start to go up. Also I believe that I.T. unions and taxes will be put up in the U.S. to help stop the flood of work going to China. This will probably not happen in a Republican office though... I do have to say that I have seen a small revolt of customers here in the U.S. that are starting to demand coders "sit" at their location, and they actually interview them. This tends to weed out most of the Indian programmers over here.
How said anything about one bad Java App taking down the rest of them? By no means did I say that someone could do something like: System.exit(1) and take down every running application...
Also understand that this is being developed by multiple people/vendors NOT SUN. It is in their community process and I hope that Apple is helping with this. I would say that most of the work being done on Java is not from Sun, but IBM. (Just my observation). However, Sun has final say (kinda like some kernel guy...)
You say that VB uses a smaller runtime engine than Java.... SHOCKER!!! How much of it is built in to Windows that it doesn't need to load??? How well does that VB app port to any other platform?
You mention that Sun's server developers complain about Java. You are correct, but not for the reason you mention. They complained about the speed of their JVM to that of the Windows JVM. Sun in it's wisdom decided that to make Java more successful, it needed to make sure that the JVM for Windows ran great. They focused so much attention to it that the one for Solaris suffered. That isn't the case anymore. Now does that mean that every developer in Sun loves Java????? NOPE! Every large company has sharp people who disagree on stuff. I bet you will find people in Microsoft who think Linux rocks and WindowsXp isn't that great.
Another point you made is you want Sun to give the developers what they promised six years ago. I for the life of me can't think of anything they promised except a write once run anywhere thing. I would say that they have 'mostly' achieved that goal. I run Java stuff on NetWare, Windows, Linux, Solaris, AIX and various phones and palm/pocket pc systems. Other than the small devices, no modifications of code have been necessary!
If you give me a great IDE in Java and it runs 10% slower because of Java, I generally don't care. i.e. Oracle Jdeveloper 9i, is the example. I now have an IDE that runs acceptable on most platforms!
The only real problem with Java is that so many kids are taking it today (I have heard it is being taught in more colleges than English), and those kids are being put in to positions they are not ready for (Bad economy, that wants cheaper labor). That coupled with the fact that it is a relatively new language screams for performance issues. This isn't the languages fault.
If you remember when C was first around, just to write a very simple program almost always took 5k (we laugh at that now), but I remember developers (myself included) who thought "What a piece of crap!! I can do that in Assembler in 300 bites and it's startup time is way faster! What percentage of code is done in Assembler nowdays? Heck the same could be said about COBOl.
Do you mean doing a video game in SWING? That would be weird, I would look at something like Java3d or even the 2d stuff, but SWING is mostly used for client side form stuff (buttons, textfields, tables ect).
Also realize that we are not talking about unaccaptable levels of performance to a screaming eagle here.
Ok it was kinda a joke but I will address it more seriously this time.
1. Java is slow. This was true in 1.0 release of Java, but with todays JIT's the speed difference is small. I can point you to numerous sites, but at the end of the day it comes down to good coders. Your experience must be with some bad coders.
2. SWING is slow. This again use to be true with 1.18 + SWING and 1.2x JVM's the 1.3 and 1.4 have increased SWINGS speed considerably.
3. JAVA takes up too much memory. Yes it is true that the base JVM can take around 5-16MB of RAM per JVM instance. But with todays systems, on a lot of applications that isn't too bad. Now the core issue is that it takes up that amount for EVERY JVM that is used. So to your point: If I launch a Java calculator program, and then launch a Java notepad, I will have lost around 10-32MB of RAM in just JVM's. This is currently true, however it is being addressed and should be solved with the 1.5 release. Once this is done, then it would be possible to have ONE JVM running on the system for all Java applications. The JVM could launch at startup and then even the inital load times would be greatly reduced. I believe that this is the way Apple is handling Java (Can't confirm it though).
So, when this issue is resolved, running Java on a machine could mean only giving up a maximum amount of 16MB of RAM for the JVM and the rest for the application. To be honest that is what most Java programs are doing today. Most run as an application server and run Servlets and JSP's all day long.
Another poster mentioned that you use the correct tool for the job. I agree, but I will add that the issues for not using Java for speed has and is going away. The reasons for not using it for memory are going away on most computers.
We do agree on one point. Most people do have computer processors far greater than they need.
Lastly, if you are having so many issues running Java apps on your system you should look at newer JVM's. They make a huge difference.
Ok grandpa it might be time to upgrade your 386sx to some more modern processor. You will be shocked at how much faster late 90's technology is, and if you want to live on the edge you might even try some system built in the last few years. You will find that any of those run Mozilla and or Java great. Oh yeah, while you are at it you will find that 16MB of RAM won't cut it anymore, you should probably get around 512MB. The good news is that you can get a system like that for under a grand. I do realize that living on social security makes it tough to buy a new system every 20 or so years, but just stop buying so much crap from those late night tv ads, and you should have enough saved up in no time.
I agree with what you said, but the only way to make liberals understand that someone who doesn't pay taxes is not going to get back more money than someone who pays >40,000 in taxes is to propose a flat tax. In my opinion that is the ONLY way that EVERYONE will understand the tax system, AND it would make it VERY difficult for the liberals to try and raise taxes. This would of course have to be passed with a balanced budget amendment to the constitution.
I don't think that this will happen, but it would be great. I would propose a national sales tax. However, you would have to grandfather in a lot of senior citizens, with some type of tax break. That way the "richer" who buy more expensive stuff would in a sense be paying more taxes.
Ah but if they did that then they couldn't try and force Americans to do what the governemnt wants (i.e. gas taxes and such).
Most cars don't have the ability to record the audio, they can play a tape, but not record one from the FM signal. Now you could set up your home system to record the show to tape and listen to it. I personally would love something like this, if you have the ability to say "quickly" skip commercials.
The above post is by no means off topic! You bring up a great point. I believe in EJB session beans you can still write your own SQL. Not sure if that is what you meant by DAO objects...
In my experience every one of these "Java Architects" seem to spew the same old crap. 1. With this you don't care what DB you use. 2. Speed won't be an issue because of cacheing.
Yeah right... These are the same people that haven't written more than a 1,000 lines of code in their life.
Do I think JBO deserves a look? Yep. Do I think that I may use it for some apps? Maybe, but I have the same huge concern that you have. If I have a SQL tuning problem, I can go to about a million different resources and get help with it. With another query language I am on my own.
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I hear about people with RedHat and ATI that actually have no problems. I and a bunch of other people can't get the things to work. As of the last version of Wine 3.x nothing works. Wine 2.x worked somewhat but SLOW. Their solution was to use a "generic" kernel and change the video driver. Well RedHat doesn't like it when you make your own kernel, and upgrading the video driver was a nightmare. After the "upgrade" I found out that now Wine won't run at all. After some more checking I found that WINE has a problem with the new ATI driver...
If you read their message boards you will notice that a ton of people have major issues with the software. Some even with Nvidia cards! Having said that the coders do seem to be working hard on issues and creating what will become a great product. The issue is that this thing is equivilant to "beta" code. Perhaps even alpha code.
People seem to fall in to three catagories with WINE.
1. Everything works great, and they love it. They are just waiting for more game support.
2. It works but with some issues. Those issues are bad enough that they still use a Windows partiion.
3. It doesn't work at all.
My experience is that most Linux people that are trying to switch over from Windows fall in to category 2 and 3. This generally frustrates them enough and they bag Linux and go back to Windows.
Most new Linux users tend to pick a "standard" distro. RedHat seems to be the largest choice. I believe that they own something like 75% of the market, and I would bet it is far larger for Linux newbees. WINE should work hard to support SUSE and RedHat. They should work hard to support ATI AND Nvidia. Again I am a huge fan of these guys and believe that their product is going to be great. I just don't want any other new person to Linux to think that running games on Linux is as easy as Windows or the Mac.
As far as native games go the issues I have seen is something like the following.
1. Xwindows version 4.x
2. GCC library
3. Video driver blows
4. Kernel needs to be recompiled
I have yet to even get a "good" native game to run on RedHat linux 9.x. I don't want to give the impression that I have tried 20 games like you, but I have tried Unreal demo , Quake III and a few others and have had no luck. Most lock at startup. Now the EXACT same system on windows I have had little problem. (One exception was Never Winter Nights, the game was buggy). This is with RedHat 7.x-9.x
I realize that the issue could be all RedHats fault, but my GOD if you have a native port of your game shouldn't you test it on RedHat?
Ok, I am a transgaming member, and love the idea of the software, but I feel that anyone who thinks that this software will solve the issue of not being able to play most "new" games on Linux is not solved at all.
First be warned that you should have a Nvidia video card. If you have anything else (like a faster ATI card) you could be in for some issues. It could turn in to a real science project. If you plan on running RedHat and still getting support from them then you will also have issues.
In short this is great software; BUT in my opinion if you are a hard core gamer then you will be better suited with a Windows partition or separate hard drive. Removeable hard drive bays are around $20 and a separate small hard drive for Windows isn't that much.
To be honest even Linux ported games still seem to have major issues. It appears that you can get most to work, but I have found that there is almost always a "catch-22" with software, something you will need that breaks something else.
Now I need to say that my experience has been with only RedHat. It is possible that RedHat is the main source of the problems with games, but you would think that developers would focus a little bit of effort on that Distro.
First. The PDA market is about dead, Palm was fortunate enough to get in it at the right time. They still own a lions share of that market. The loss to Microsoft was the HUGE investment in that market that is all but dead now, and the fact that their set top box failed AND nobody appears interested in their phone OS. Understand that Palm + Sony + Handspring still sells over 50% of the PDA's in the world. Also understand that sales today are no where near what they were two years ago.
.Net... The ONLY places that I see doing .Net development is Microsoft shops. Granted in todays market I don't see the development that was going on 2-5 years ago, but .Net appears to be winning little converts other than the typical Microsoft followers. Now there were a LOT of VB and ASP shops that were would NEVER switch to another platform, but wanted to do Java, they appear to be the ones doing a lot of .Net stuff.
:-) And speaking of being paid to use a product, a few governments have mandated the use of open source code. Now how long do you think it will be before they "mandate" that their colleges teach development on that platform?
SQL server IS growing fast, it isn't hard to grow from nothing to something, BUT that growth appears to be mostly in all Microsoft shops. DB2 and Oracle still hold the lions share of the market. The problem here is that Microsoft can't compete with Oracle and IBM on the high end, so that leaves them with the mid market. Ahhh but the mid market is STARTING to look at other systems like MySQL and PostGreSQL. Again, all Microsoft shops will choose it, and some people will be forced to use it because their "needed" app will only run on it, BUT those "Needed" apps are starting to show up on other platforms. At the end of the day, most people would have thought that Microsoft would have crushed out Oracle and IBM the way they did Novell and others. They have not done so, nor does it look like they are going to. In fact the closer they get to doing that the closer open source databases come to replacing them.
Java v.s.
All in all your arguments are somewhat valid, but they are the exact same that people used with IBM in the early 80's. By the mid 90's IBM was almost dead. If it wasn't for an awesome former CEO they would be dead.
Good point on file server and Web servers, but that battle is all but over. I also didn't mention Tivo.
My overall point is that people are cheap, if they can get something for free they will put up with a lot. It is impossible to compete with free, unless they want to pay us to use their product
Well, after looking through the machine I can't find the script. Norton deleted everyting and the guy has tons of messages.
It is possible that he opened the attachment, but I believe that the problem is that he has his viewer turned on and the problem is with a flaw in I.E.
Obviously I can't confirm that he didn't open some attachment, howerver, I will say that out of all of our Groupwise users and Mac users I had ZERO problems.
First off, to call this a war is an insult to all the people that have fought and died in a real war; but I will humor the analogy.
.Net
Microsoft is starting to loose a lot of key battles. The can't compete with Linux simply because of the price. People are cheap and if they can get something for free and it works ok, they will live with it. I honestly believe that this is part of the reason that the Macintosh isn't nearly as competitive as WinTel.
First will be governments switching over to it, then schools,charitable organizations and point of sale type businesses. After that is done then you will see surrounding businesses that work with those HUGE clients being forced to switch. Once that is done and Linux/Open Source has a 25-30% desktop market share the war is over. No development company will want to exclude 25-30% of the market and then ROME falls quickly.
Some of the key battles that I see now that Microsoft isn't winning.
1. Handhelds
2. Phones
3. Java v.s.
4. Getting current user base to upgrade past NT 4.0
5. PS2 vs Xbox.
6. Databases, Oracle, IBM, SQL Server, MySQL, PostGreSQL
In my opinion Microsoft seems a lot like IBM of the early 80's. The are doing a lot of things, and flat out own one key marketplace, but they don't do anything well.
Now there are some things that could dramatically slow this down.
1. Death of Linus.
2. IBM to offer it's own Linux and try and seize control of the kernel.
3. For some reason Java flounders.
Anyway, the way I see it the next 10 years will actually be fun!
Please understand that by choosing open source they didn not say Linux. All they said was CHOOSE something that is open source. So all they did was eliminate Microsoft and Apple from the desktop choices...
Once the definition is formed for open source in writing for them, then lets see what happens. I will believe this when they actually replace windows software with open source software.
I wish I could mod you up. You are exacly right, but they would probably change that in the re-dubbing(mis-spelled).
Ahhh yes... their quote... This appears to be a NEW version of the virus. This hit a brand new WinXP fully updated system (well updated to at least last week). After a Microsofty told me that exact same thing, and that it wouldn't/couldn't effect this type of system, I showed him. He is looking in to it. After we updated Norton it detected it as a type of bugbear.
You may be correct, I may be an idiot, but for this instance I have an explanation :-)
This was a variant of the Bugbear virus. We update our Norton DAT files every night. Our handfull of users that DEMANDED to use Outlook Express have their viewer turned on. Well this virus found a flaw (still unpatched by Microsoft) in I.E. to let this code run. Norton didn't have new DAT files until around noon that day.
So am I an idiot? Possibly, but not for this reason. The only thing I see I should have done is RIP THAT FUCKING OUTLOOK EXPRESS OFF OF THEIR MACHINES. I could also look at stopping HTML mail, but I have been told NOT to do that. The real issue is that Microsoft doesn't engineer security up front with their products. In a way
I guess I should thank all the people writing viruses for Windows. Some day it is going to actually do something very bad, and that will just give me the ammunition I need to replace these with Linux, or Macs.
You are correct, that I don't understand your industry. However, my experience is that with all systems there comes a time when you have to upgrade. Generally the longer you put that off the longer you keep things working, but at the cost of a MAJOR upgrade later. In your situation, like some medical equipment, it makes sense to wait as long as possible, then test the crap out of the new one. I would imagine that if you went with Windows that you wouldn't even apply the steady stream of service packs, because that could break things.
:-)
That wasn't my point, my point is that it doesn't take more work to support Macs than PC's. In fact, in my experience, if you have a large number of Macs and PC's it takes less effort than if you just have all PC's. I am not saying that if you have two macs and 500 PC's it is easier.
I have been working in I.T. for around 15 years now, and have found that most I.T. people just don't like any technology that isn't the most common. It use to be IBM, and now it is Intel/Microsoft. They then make up ridiculous statements like "It takes far more effort to support XXX", but at the end of the day, after they "STANDARDIZE" their staff is generally bigger and cost more than before.
If I ever get a job with a Press company though, I will heed your advice in not to ever fuck with the pre-press workflow...
I can't comment on how hard it is to upgrade a graphics application, but I use to do desktop support for both Mac's and PC's and I still help out some with support.
:-)
Your I.T. people are idiots! I was personally responsible for supporting over 700 macs and had little to no problem doing it. Now the Microsoft people will say that they can do that, but I try to remind them that if you have an SMS person, NT/Active Directory Admin person AND a desktop support person, that counts as THREE PEOPLE.
Don't even get me started on viruses and other security issues. I just spent part of this week fixing that @$%@# bugbear virus. (Didn't touch our GroupWise users or Macs though...) Supporting windows is a pain. The ONLY thing that makes it "easy" is that you know that most companies have drivers and software for it. But guess what... they may not have one for XP, or whatever new Microsoft OS is out. So when you order your "new" machine from Dell you might have to DOWNGRADE the OS just to run your apps. Then you usually find that they don't have an older OS driver for your hardware.
99% of the world isn't windows.
Granted I type this from a Win2k box
Yes RedHat came out with the Advanced line of their products to make more money.
/year for their RHN stuff and you should be set.
Yes they have customers like IBM, Oracle and Dell who want upgrades to major components done much more slowly than every 6 month. They want it every 18 months at the earliest.
Yes some customers want the latest stuff, and don't care about big dog changes to their systems.
Yes companies like Oracle, and IBM will only support the "advanced" server line.
I am in the exact same boat you are in. However, because we use Oracle on Redhat we HAVE to use the "Advanced" product line. The good news is that you can get this product without support for around $350.00. That isn't horrible. Now pay around $60
What I don't know is if you can load that exact version on every server you have. I believe that you can, and then just pay the $60/year for the RHN per server.
What I would like to see RedHat do is offer a per incident suppport pack. Similar to Microsoft and Novell, you could purchase a 10 pack of calls for say a grand, and then call on ANY of your servers.
Profs are usually the last people on earth to try new technology. Unless they invented it :-) They also don't have to worry about a ton of meetings with different people. Students also don't meet with a ton of different people, and until a PDA can smoke a gameboy, you won't see much growth with students. :-) Not to mention that most students are poor.
Your dads company of engineers is similar to Profs, most engineers (that I know, and I know a lot) think that they are Gods gift to the techno world and to ask for help with anything would be a sign of weakness. They also don't meet with a lot of people.
Go ask your dad how many of his sales and marketing people have them. If none do, then I would take that as an opportunity to show them some of the new cell-phone and or PDA's.
The basic premis of a PDA was to replace a day-timer. It does that well for most people. Being able to read your email off line is also great. It is not a replacement for a laptop or desktop. Since a Prof and an Engineer are just a few feet away from a computer at most times, it makes a PDA kinda worthless to them, but not to everyone.
I think the real issue is making syn-ing easy for you to use. Specifically if it could be automated to sync every time it found it's source. I.E. 802.11x or bluetooth, and your computer was turned on (max 1 time a day) Obviously, that would have to be an option. That way every time you came in to range of your computer at home (and it was on) it would automatically sync.
:-)
I somewhat trust T-mobile, but the temptation to sell user data is great. The company I use to work for could sell it's user database for around 50 cents a user. We had millions users. Because they are a monopoly, they don't need to, but I am sure if times got tough for them they would sell off stuff like name, address salary range, number of kids etc... (not SSN or credit card info)
It was a tough enough for the coders not to do a dump and sell it
Oh yeah, if you or anyone you know has a household income over 75k a year and lived in the U.S.A. and liked to vacation, there is a good chance that their name is in that database...
Wow!!! By no means did I say anthing about socialism being good! In the environment that I mentioned, there would be all kinds of capatalism. The core difference is that the client (YOU) would be in control of the software.
I am still not saying that this fits for everything. Some people don't care about that control and are fine with what a vendor provides. Proprietary code works great for them. Heck that type of thinking is probably is what keeps Apple in business; people who trust Apple and it gives them what they want. They don't have to worry about what hardware works with what software. Most of their computing decisions are made for them. The same argument could be made somewhat for IBM and Sun.
My experience is that with large custom software packages, vendors tend to srew their clients over time. Now those clients have a choice with future software packages. It may not be the best choice for them, but they do have a choice.
Lastly, Socialism doesn't look good on paper either. Once you look at it, and debate it, you see where it falls apart. I am more than willing to debate the merits of open source vs proprietary code... I don't think it will fall apart, and unlike a government you don't have to choose just one.
Let's compare the two types of devleopment.
:-) Those types of people are probably NEVER going to try open-source code and they will just live with whatever product the market leader produces for their needs. I have worked with many people like that, and thankfully most are no longer in positions of power. The rest are praying that nothing ever happens to Microsoft, or if it does it happens slow enough for them to move to another position.
Issue: I have a software package that doesn't due what our company needs it to do and I need some modifications to it. The developers/company doesn't want to do it.
Closed Source/Proprietary: - You beg the vendor to do it, and threaten to switch if they don't. This is generally a limited threat, because of the fact that it will cost your company a huge amount of time and effort to switch to another vendor (who will have other issues). You could offer to pay the vendor for the development, but unless they are a small shop this probably won't do the trick either, or you will be paying HUGE $$$$ to them. You could have your own developers, provide some type of workaround, but this will break when the vendors upgrade/fix their code. Basically you have no good option, except to pray that the vendor will address your issue. Also when the vendor does release the upgrade, it will probably contain code enhansements that you don't care about, but will probably cause you other errors... I have lived in this world for a long time... and still do with Oracle and Microsoft.
Option 2, use Open Source: You quickly determine that nobody is going to work on the "patch/enhansement" that you want. You will need to now hire a coder that knows the language of the system (probably C). That coder will have to take some time getting up to speed on the program, and then fix it. The coder can then release that code back to the open source community, and it will "probably" make it in future releases. Now if you find yourself making significant changes to the code on a regular basis, then I would hire/contract development to give you what you want, and you wouldn't have to pay for time needed to get the developer use to the code. They can still release their code back to the open-source community, and it probably will get put in the main codebase, so you will be protected with future upgrades.
Both options cost time and money, development isn't cheap, and some companies hate giving stuff they paid for away for free. However, at the end of the day THEY ARE IN CONTROL!!!, not some outside vendor.
This flys in the face of "nobody ever got fired for buying xxx".
Not trying to start a war here, but why is it a good thing that they mirror all the data on your device with their server? I would prefer the ability to back up that data via bluetooth/80x.11x/FireWire/USB etc to a machine of my choosing. I am not a big fan of anyone having that information.
What will happen is that some idiot project manager and sales person will say that their coders DO speak and write English, they will then say that "THEY" will be gathering the requirements. They will then bid the project at an unreasonably low rate and they will win. This is what is happening now with projects done in India. I predict that India will be devistated when the flood of work moves to China in the next 10 years. Now with that human rights will start to leak in to China (stuff like not killing baby girls and such), and their price will start to go up. Also I believe that I.T. unions and taxes will be put up in the U.S. to help stop the flood of work going to China. This will probably not happen in a Republican office though...
I do have to say that I have seen a small revolt of customers here in the U.S. that are starting to demand coders "sit" at their location, and they actually interview them. This tends to weed out most of the Indian programmers over here.
How said anything about one bad Java App taking down the rest of them? By no means did I say that someone could do something like:
System.exit(1) and take down every running application...
Also understand that this is being developed by multiple people/vendors NOT SUN. It is in their community process and I hope that Apple is helping with this. I would say that most of the work being done on Java is not from Sun, but IBM. (Just my observation). However, Sun has final say (kinda like some kernel guy...)
You say that VB uses a smaller runtime engine than Java.... SHOCKER!!! How much of it is built in to Windows that it doesn't need to load??? How well does that VB app port to any other platform?
You mention that Sun's server developers complain about Java. You are correct, but not for the reason you mention. They complained about the speed of their JVM to that of the Windows JVM. Sun in it's wisdom decided that to make Java more successful, it needed to make sure that the JVM for Windows ran great. They focused so much attention to it that the one for Solaris suffered. That isn't the case anymore. Now does that mean that every developer in Sun loves Java????? NOPE! Every large company has sharp people who disagree on stuff. I bet you will find people in Microsoft who think Linux rocks and WindowsXp isn't that great.
Another point you made is you want Sun to give the developers what they promised six years ago. I for the life of me can't think of anything they promised except a write once run anywhere thing. I would say that they have 'mostly' achieved that goal. I run Java stuff on NetWare, Windows, Linux, Solaris, AIX and various phones and palm/pocket pc systems. Other than the small devices, no modifications of code have been necessary!
If you give me a great IDE in Java and it runs 10% slower because of Java, I generally don't care. i.e. Oracle Jdeveloper 9i, is the example. I now have an IDE that runs acceptable on most platforms!
The only real problem with Java is that so many kids are taking it today (I have heard it is being taught in more colleges than English), and those kids are being put in to positions they are not ready for (Bad economy, that wants cheaper labor). That coupled with the fact that it is a relatively new language screams for performance issues. This isn't the languages fault.
If you remember when C was first around, just to write a very simple program almost always took 5k (we laugh at that now), but I remember developers (myself included) who thought "What a piece of crap!! I can do that in Assembler in 300 bites and it's startup time is way faster!
What percentage of code is done in Assembler nowdays? Heck the same could be said about COBOl.
By what do you mean "High Performance"?
Do you mean doing a video game in SWING? That would be weird, I would look at something like Java3d or even the 2d stuff, but SWING is mostly used for client side form stuff (buttons, textfields, tables ect).
Also realize that we are not talking about unaccaptable levels of performance to a screaming eagle here.
Ok it was kinda a joke but I will address it more seriously this time.
1. Java is slow. This was true in 1.0 release of Java, but with todays JIT's the speed difference is small. I can point you to numerous sites, but at the end of the day it comes down to good coders. Your experience must be with some bad coders.
2. SWING is slow. This again use to be true with 1.18 + SWING and 1.2x JVM's the 1.3 and 1.4 have increased SWINGS speed considerably.
3. JAVA takes up too much memory. Yes it is true that the base JVM can take around 5-16MB of RAM per JVM instance. But with todays systems, on a lot of applications that isn't too bad. Now the core issue is that it takes up that amount for EVERY JVM that is used. So to your point: If I launch a Java calculator program, and then launch a Java notepad, I will have lost around 10-32MB of RAM in just JVM's. This is currently true, however it is being addressed and should be solved with the 1.5 release. Once this is done, then it would be possible to have ONE JVM running on the system for all Java applications. The JVM could launch at startup and then even the inital load times would be greatly reduced. I believe that this is the way Apple is handling Java (Can't confirm it though).
So, when this issue is resolved, running Java on a machine could mean only giving up a maximum amount of 16MB of RAM for the JVM and the rest for the application. To be honest that is what most Java programs are doing today. Most run as an application server and run Servlets and JSP's all day long.
Another poster mentioned that you use the correct tool for the job. I agree, but I will add that the issues for not using Java for speed has and is going away. The reasons for not using it for memory are going away on most computers.
We do agree on one point. Most people do have computer processors far greater than they need.
Lastly, if you are having so many issues running Java apps on your system you should look at newer JVM's. They make a huge difference.
Ok grandpa it might be time to upgrade your 386sx to some more modern processor. You will be shocked at how much faster late 90's technology is, and if you want to live on the edge you might even try some system built in the last few years. You will find that any of those run Mozilla and or Java great. Oh yeah, while you are at it you will find that 16MB of RAM won't cut it anymore, you should probably get around 512MB. The good news is that you can get a system like that for under a grand. I do realize that living on social security makes it tough to buy a new system every 20 or so years, but just stop buying so much crap from those late night tv ads, and you should have enough saved up in no time.
I agree with what you said, but the only way to make liberals understand that someone who doesn't pay taxes is not going to get back more money than someone who pays >40,000 in taxes is to propose a flat tax. In my opinion that is the ONLY way that EVERYONE will understand the tax system, AND it would make it VERY difficult for the liberals to try and raise taxes. This would of course have to be passed with a balanced budget amendment to the constitution.
I don't think that this will happen, but it would be great. I would propose a national sales tax.
However, you would have to grandfather in a lot of senior citizens, with some type of tax break. That way the "richer" who buy more expensive stuff would in a sense be paying more taxes.
Ah but if they did that then they couldn't try and force Americans to do what the governemnt wants (i.e. gas taxes and such).
Most cars don't have the ability to record the audio, they can play a tape, but not record one from the FM signal. Now you could set up your home system to record the show to tape and listen to it. I personally would love something like this, if you have the ability to say "quickly" skip commercials.
The above post is by no means off topic! You bring up a great point. I believe in EJB session beans you can still write your own SQL. Not sure if that is what you meant by DAO objects...
In my experience every one of these "Java Architects" seem to spew the same old crap.
1. With this you don't care what DB you use.
2. Speed won't be an issue because of cacheing.
Yeah right... These are the same people that haven't written more than a 1,000 lines of code in their life.
Do I think JBO deserves a look? Yep. Do I think that I may use it for some apps? Maybe, but I have the same huge concern that you have. If I have a SQL tuning problem, I can go to about a million different resources and get help with it. With another query language I am on my own.