Have you ever considered that it might be the other way around ? Try applying your darwinistic logic not to the user, but to the OS ! Then linux, albeit a better OS, is at the edge of being wiped away by Windows, which happens to be safe in numbers...
I don't agree. You are talking about 95% of 5% of the possible switchers. the other 95% of possible switchers will occasionaly ponder 'hum, maybe I should give this linux thing a try', and then bail out when they can't find the start menu->control panel->display properties. Or start->programs->accesoires->calculator.
I know quite a lot of users that I would like to convince switching to linux, but I won't bother because I know they will give up frustrated becaus ethey don't feel at home and don't have the time/will to learn.
XPde could be the stepping stone for a lot of users. I really think that this could be a milestone for linux !
I'm currently on a not-so-big-project that has gotten totally out of hand. It's a 12 table informix database containing a philosophical bibliography of approx 75K records.This bugger has to be exported to something readable by a printing company to create books out of it. So far so good.
however, this is a academic project and those f#*n academics decided they needed SGML. So they export the sucker to SGML. Now you gotta know that the DB itself (which costed 100K to make by a specialised fucked up DB company X1) runs on a sparc10 with only 64MB Ram. So generating the SGML equals a 20hour trip in swapland since the thing is stuffed up to the neck with crossreferences.
But that's not all. Once in SGML, it needs to be reconverted to another XML format, because after 2 years they decided to drop the book and go for a CD only. The company X2 that makes the CD only accepts a very specific XML format (you can kill me if I know why !) they hired a 3rd company X3 to do this conversion. Turns out this 3rd company is just a lonesome cowboy with a perl tumor. He writes totally unreadable perl scripts that the IOCCC peeps would be proud of. Now hell breaks lose :
company X2 goes bankrupt. No CD company anymore. So they hire me (my dad is an academic at the same univ) to make the CD from the XML since they managed to get hold of the sourcecode for the XML-to-CD-runtime. So just recreateing the XML should be enough to update the CD (big mistake !)
Company X3 (the cowboy) stops delevopment, gets addicted to some dope and moves to africa for a 3 year safari. So no SGML-XML conversion anymore
Company X1 who generates the SGML is so fed up with the trouble they refuse to work any further on the project.
Anyway. I figured out how to do DBexport from the informix. I rewrote the SGML - XML shit to do straight conversion to the internal CD-runtime format, which converts the whole shebang in less than 2 minutes. But now I'm stuck with a runtime that's buggy and I face the task of rewriting that sucker too...
never thought I'd have the ocasion to tell this story... (note : actual numbers may vary a factor of 100 or some more. the story got from mouth to mouth and everyone added a margin...) anyway...
British Petrol one day did a huge investigation of the operating cost of their computer park in europe. According to the survey, they had a loss of about 50mil Euro on the current systsem because it was outdated, monolith and required way to much maintenance. So they hired JDEwards to create a complete new system from scratch. For everything. And your mum. And her kitchen sink. And the kitty litter filling bags cords factory keymaker's kitchen sink. U get the point.
They start with spending about a milion on a whole building made of cargocontainers that they pull out of thin air in less than 2 weeks. Then they fly over 150 indian programmers and stuff'em in the cargo containers to create the new software. Could have been 450 too (I can never remember a face, let alone an indy face !)
They work like madmen and create a HUGE system. I mean huge. I never counter the number of tables, but just PGDOWN scrolling thru them on AS400 terminal took a few minutes. NOBODY (and I mean aboslutely nodbody) had any grasp on this beast whatshowever. Except for the indy dudes offcourse. They walk thru it as if it were a minesweeper readme file. Amazing guys. Really.
Then they leave because the contract is done...
[insert deafening silence here]
Doh.
Big Fucking Doh
A $75.000.000 system and noone who can even crate a user account.
Anyway. I was hired as a local to create very stupid simple Access interface on top of it to monitor incoming-outging fuel-truck traffic. I was hired 3 ays before the indy blokes left the building (which was taken down 6 days later)
Try to imagine my HUGE BIG FUCKING DOH here, mkay ?
1. RunRev is bugge (last I heard anyway)
2. Supercard is payware
3. Pythoncard is Uuuuugly
Hypercard was unique in a way that it was free, super-stable and totaly intuitive.
But most of all, it never ever pretended to be a GUI builder for any app and the kitchen sink. It was a fun tool. An application to just play around with and by miracle pump out insanely great applications. The screenshots of pythoncard & supercard for instance make it look like it is yet another tool to make adressbooks & morsecode converters and shit like that. Hypercard never pretended any intended usage. It was just.. you know.. just "there when you needed it"...
a non argument with the current PCs : speed is the last obstacle to tackle, since it easily done by postponing the release until the CPU catches up with your requirements
If you're taking a cheap shot at his speech, at least do it with proper arguments please.
I wish the Belgian government would regulate similar principles (we have a cable monopoly too here). There are about 10 dutch speaking channels available, only 1 of which is worth watching. But the only way to get that one is by taking the whole shebang of crap with it. And since we don't want our kids to grow up with commercials, we decided to dump the TV and rent a movie every other day.
Does anyone else consider it a bit weird that they're using Windows Media Player as bait ? That's a division where there's at least some competition from Quicktime and Realplayer. The browser war was a far more dirty one IMO, and microsoft is STILL making it practically impossible for competitors to integrate their browser properly over IE.
And what about the java fuckups ? The Samba debacle ? The OEM backmailing ?
which I suppose is once again a warning of money != happiness
Wrong conclusion : perhaps the money is making them less frustrated. If they earned less, they'd be even more unhappy with their job.
Which proves that money is not like the speed of light : you can keep on adding (ad infinitum) money-happiness to unhappy people untill they get happy:-)
And additionally, there are a few windoze crappies of that kind : google
The example of flippin CD cases is the exact proof why this tech sucks : I'm moving away from pgysical cases towards a hierarchical, multi-layered view of my mp3s with iTunes.
Sun, read my lips : I don't want to handle physical objects on a computer screen here's another google for ya.
eum, I don't want to disapoint you, but none of these is currently RAM bound. Current connectionst models require far more CPU power than memory to keep all nodes updated. Real-time is a distant future. Even non-realtime AI is currently more stupid then my 3 month old daugther.
It's a common misconception that you need a ton of API's. up to a few years back, I also fell for the DEVStudio GUI builder, the MFC framework, and the libraries that orbit it. After 5 years of trying to get a hold on the beast, I met someone who had stepped back from all frameworks, and went back to ordinary console C and C++. I walked his footsteps, and my apps got reduced to 15% of their original size. Okay, the dummy users needed a few days more to learn the app, but with solid documentation, this was not an issue. And after 2 months, some RealBasic nutcase wrote a GUI wrapper on top of it in 1 week. Perfect !
I wish someone would release such a sheet for firefox :/. itself still doen't render correctly on FFox 0.8 under XPpro. As shown here, the left column tends to dribble into the article summary...
Windows still require a lot of rebooting for tasks which can be done very easily in linux, just by reloading kernel modules. What more, I hear 2.6.4 even supports hot swapping of CPUs.
Aaah, but windows supports hot swapping of users ! My neighbour's wife swapped to OSX, and damd is she hot !
what never ceases to amaze me is that my 400Mhz iMac can pull files faster from my AMD 1800xp than my P4@3GHz can...
Both PCs run XP pro, the iMac runs panther. Go figure.
As far as those 15 minutes concern, I got one solution for ya : rende-vous/zeroconf. Since iTunes/win can find macs using this protocol, a win port is allready done, so we can only hope MS sees the light and uses it for network scanning one day.
[ldab:~] selderrr% help alias help: Command not found. [ldab:~] selderrr% help help help: Command not found. [ldab:~] selderrr% help me help: Command not found. [ldab:~] selderrr% help me asshole ! help: Command not found. [ldab:~] jeroen% can you help me ? can: No match. [ldab:~] jeroen% where can i get help ? [ldab:~] jeroen% [ldab:~] jeroen% find help help: help: No such file or directory [ldab:~] jeroen% locate help
Re:The Internet becomes more like the real world..
on
ICQ Universe
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
If someone really wants to dig up dirt they will always find something, so you might as well speak freely.
totally. In these, an AIM social network is no different from your local darts club. The point I'm trying to make is that I'm stunned by the FUDders that want to make us believe that AIM is a jungle with a IDthief behind every tree. I can't and won't let them say such nonsense. AIM is a free speech network wheer you can say dumb things that can blow up in your face. Just like real life. But that's no excuse to label it as dangerous.
Re:The Internet becomes more like the real world..
on
ICQ Universe
·
· Score: 1
I totally agree, but such tragedies are no argument to condemn AIM and other messenger services as a complete and utter danger. Just like you, I hope someone comes up with a decent security for AIM (just like I hope someone comes up with secure versions of everything else)
Just don't throw away the baby with the bathwater.
Re:what a nonsense...
on
ICQ Universe
·
· Score: 1
Slashdot Mirror
Have you ever considered that it might be the other way around ? Try applying your darwinistic logic not to the user, but to the OS ! Then linux, albeit a better OS, is at the edge of being wiped away by Windows, which happens to be safe in numbers...
I don't agree. You are talking about 95% of 5% of the possible switchers. the other 95% of possible switchers will occasionaly ponder 'hum, maybe I should give this linux thing a try', and then bail out when they can't find the start menu->control panel->display properties. Or start->programs->accesoires->calculator.
I know quite a lot of users that I would like to convince switching to linux, but I won't bother because I know they will give up frustrated becaus ethey don't feel at home and don't have the time/will to learn.
XPde could be the stepping stone for a lot of users. I really think that this could be a milestone for linux !
they pay me per bugfix + per new feature + one global price to get the system simply where the others left it
Well, there's worse : converting databases !
I'm currently on a not-so-big-project that has gotten totally out of hand. It's a 12 table informix database containing a philosophical bibliography of approx 75K records.This bugger has to be exported to something readable by a printing company to create books out of it. So far so good.
however, this is a academic project and those f#*n academics decided they needed SGML. So they export the sucker to SGML. Now you gotta know that the DB itself (which costed 100K to make by a specialised fucked up DB company X1) runs on a sparc10 with only 64MB Ram. So generating the SGML equals a 20hour trip in swapland since the thing is stuffed up to the neck with crossreferences.
But that's not all. Once in SGML, it needs to be reconverted to another XML format, because after 2 years they decided to drop the book and go for a CD only. The company X2 that makes the CD only accepts a very specific XML format (you can kill me if I know why !) they hired a 3rd company X3 to do this conversion. Turns out this 3rd company is just a lonesome cowboy with a perl tumor. He writes totally unreadable perl scripts that the IOCCC peeps would be proud of. Now hell breaks lose :
company X2 goes bankrupt. No CD company anymore. So they hire me (my dad is an academic at the same univ) to make the CD from the XML since they managed to get hold of the sourcecode for the XML-to-CD-runtime. So just recreateing the XML should be enough to update the CD (big mistake !)
Company X3 (the cowboy) stops delevopment, gets addicted to some dope and moves to africa for a 3 year safari. So no SGML-XML conversion anymore
Company X1 who generates the SGML is so fed up with the trouble they refuse to work any further on the project.
Anyway. I figured out how to do DBexport from the informix. I rewrote the SGML - XML shit to do straight conversion to the internal CD-runtime format, which converts the whole shebang in less than 2 minutes. But now I'm stuck with a runtime that's buggy and I face the task of rewriting that sucker too...
sigh
never thought I'd have the ocasion to tell this story... (note : actual numbers may vary a factor of 100 or some more. the story got from mouth to mouth and everyone added a margin...) anyway...
British Petrol one day did a huge investigation of the operating cost of their computer park in europe. According to the survey, they had a loss of about 50mil Euro on the current systsem because it was outdated, monolith and required way to much maintenance. So they hired JDEwards to create a complete new system from scratch. For everything. And your mum. And her kitchen sink. And the kitty litter filling bags cords factory keymaker's kitchen sink. U get the point.
They start with spending about a milion on a whole building made of cargocontainers that they pull out of thin air in less than 2 weeks. Then they fly over 150 indian programmers and stuff'em in the cargo containers to create the new software. Could have been 450 too (I can never remember a face, let alone an indy face !)
They work like madmen and create a HUGE system. I mean huge. I never counter the number of tables, but just PGDOWN scrolling thru them on AS400 terminal took a few minutes. NOBODY (and I mean aboslutely nodbody) had any grasp on this beast whatshowever. Except for the indy dudes offcourse. They walk thru it as if it were a minesweeper readme file. Amazing guys. Really.
Then they leave because the contract is done...
[insert deafening silence here]
Doh.
Big Fucking Doh
A $75.000.000 system and noone who can even crate a user account.
Anyway. I was hired as a local to create very stupid simple Access interface on top of it to monitor incoming-outging fuel-truck traffic. I was hired 3 ays before the indy blokes left the building (which was taken down 6 days later)
Try to imagine my HUGE BIG FUCKING DOH here, mkay ?
I remember replacing the bubble sort with a shell sort to get the sort time down to something like 15 seconds
ehm.. ever heard of quicksort ?
1. RunRev is bugge (last I heard anyway)
2. Supercard is payware
3. Pythoncard is Uuuuugly
Hypercard was unique in a way that it was free, super-stable and totaly intuitive.
But most of all, it never ever pretended to be a GUI builder for any app and the kitchen sink. It was a fun tool. An application to just play around with and by miracle pump out insanely great applications. The screenshots of pythoncard & supercard for instance make it look like it is yet another tool to make adressbooks & morsecode converters and shit like that. Hypercard never pretended any intended usage. It was just.. you know.. just "there when you needed it"...
No other RAD I ever used even came close.
a non argument with the current PCs : speed is the last obstacle to tackle, since it easily done by postponing the release until the CPU catches up with your requirements
If you're taking a cheap shot at his speech, at least do it with proper arguments please.
I wish the Belgian government would regulate similar principles (we have a cable monopoly too here). There are about 10 dutch speaking channels available, only 1 of which is worth watching. But the only way to get that one is by taking the whole shebang of crap with it. And since we don't want our kids to grow up with commercials, we decided to dump the TV and rent a movie every other day.
wether we like it or not ?
/. poll, do they ???
I mean, there hasn't been a slashdot poll about it yet !!
They don't expect us to decide without a
Does anyone else consider it a bit weird that they're using Windows Media Player as bait ? That's a division where there's at least some competition from Quicktime and Realplayer. The browser war was a far more dirty one IMO, and microsoft is STILL making it practically impossible for competitors to integrate their browser properly over IE.
And what about the java fuckups ? The Samba debacle ? The OEM backmailing ?
I don't get it....
which I suppose is once again a warning of money != happiness
:-)
Wrong conclusion : perhaps the money is making them less frustrated. If they earned less, they'd be even more unhappy with their job.
Which proves that money is not like the speed of light : you can keep on adding (ad infinitum) money-happiness to unhappy people untill they get happy
And additionally, there are a few windoze crappies of that kind : google
The example of flippin CD cases is the exact proof why this tech sucks : I'm moving away from pgysical cases towards a hierarchical, multi-layered view of my mp3s with iTunes.
Sun, read my lips : I don't want to handle physical objects on a computer screen
here's another google for ya.
eum, I don't want to disapoint you, but none of these is currently RAM bound. Current connectionst models require far more CPU power than memory to keep all nodes updated. Real-time is a distant future. Even non-realtime AI is currently more stupid then my 3 month old daugther.
It's a common misconception that you need a ton of API's. up to a few years back, I also fell for the DEVStudio GUI builder, the MFC framework, and the libraries that orbit it. After 5 years of trying to get a hold on the beast, I met someone who had stepped back from all frameworks, and went back to ordinary console C and C++. I walked his footsteps, and my apps got reduced to 15% of their original size. Okay, the dummy users needed a few days more to learn the app, but with solid documentation, this was not an issue. And after 2 months, some RealBasic nutcase wrote a GUI wrapper on top of it in 1 week. Perfect !
I have wasted an afternoon digging though this website...
:-)
yeee-ha ! free light for a month !
sorry. Couldn't resist
I wish someone would release such a sheet for firefox : /. itself still doen't render correctly on FFox 0.8 under XPpro. As shown here, the left column tends to dribble into the article summary...
Windows still require a lot of rebooting for tasks which can be done very easily in linux, just by reloading kernel modules. What more, I hear 2.6.4 even supports hot swapping of CPUs.
Aaah, but windows supports hot swapping of users ! My neighbour's wife swapped to OSX, and damd is she hot !
how are they supposed to update their virus definitions ? I find this a very narrow sighted policy.
what never ceases to amaze me is that my 400Mhz iMac can pull files faster from my AMD 1800xp than my P4@3GHz can...
Both PCs run XP pro, the iMac runs panther. Go figure.
As far as those 15 minutes concern, I got one solution for ya : rende-vous/zeroconf. Since iTunes/win can find macs using this protocol, a win port is allready done, so we can only hope MS sees the light and uses it for network scanning one day.
here's a metric conversion of 1 cup
If someone really wants to dig up dirt they will always find something, so you might as well speak freely.
totally. In these, an AIM social network is no different from your local darts club. The point I'm trying to make is that I'm stunned by the FUDders that want to make us believe that AIM is a jungle with a IDthief behind every tree. I can't and won't let them say such nonsense. AIM is a free speech network wheer you can say dumb things that can blow up in your face. Just like real life. But that's no excuse to label it as dangerous.
I totally agree, but such tragedies are no argument to condemn AIM and other messenger services as a complete and utter danger. Just like you, I hope someone comes up with a decent security for AIM (just like I hope someone comes up with secure versions of everything else)
Just don't throw away the baby with the bathwater.
you're welcome. Nice troll by the way