And that's 130,000 people who won't buy Wintel PCs when they decide to upgrade. New hardware, even pricey PowerMacs, are nothing compared to the cost of retraining people who make a lot of money.
In short, all but the most fiscally-strapped will stick with the software platform, and not care so much about the hardware platform.
The iPod's 1.8"(the vast mjority of laptop HDs are 2.5") hard drive is already quite well shock-proofed, with enough room to accomodate the Toshiba 20GB drive without compromising the "buffer" around the drive.
Parrot is the virtual machine runtime, so technically, it won't be compiling anything(though it will alow for JIT compiling of Parrot bytecode).
Rather, the languages will implement compilers that generate Parrot Assembly language, and then the Parrot assembler will take it from there. This approach really does have a number of advantages. It means that the Parrot community can work on optimizing the heck out of the assembler and runtime, without worrying too much about the concerns of each individual lanuage.
It also means that, for embedded use, Perl/Ruby/Python/Tcl/Scheme/etc. programs can be compiled and loaded onto a machine that only has to have the Parrot runtime installed.
Python behaves similarly. Upon importing a module into another program, a ".pyc" file is created containing the compiled bytecode. Subsequently, Python uses the compiled module rather than the source file.
Yes, that darn proprietary Apple! Not like the standards-compliant folks at Real or Microsoft. And their Quicktime Streaming Server is so expensive.
I mean, why should I be forced to stream out high-quality content for free when I can pay for something inferior? This is America and we're capitalists, damn it!. We don't do things that way.
Actually... the people who do pay the $29 are paying for the features they and others want and need. Software development is expensive. Pay the $29 and Apple will be able to make QT7 even better.
Otherwise, use one of the incredibly simple hacks, or just chill out, realize how minor the single ad is, and enjoy watching high-quality video on your computer for free.
One would think clicking "later" was the end of the world.
And having paid nothing for this high-quality software, you're certainly entitled to no annoyances, especially the well-known ones.
If you don't like the ads, only use Real or Windows Media documents. I guarantee those players' annoyances won't be seen as prominently. I'll leave it up to you to figure out whether or not that's a good thing...
It would be cool, but it would be a useability nightmare. I don't know about anyone else, but on the wrong color backgrounds, I find Dock icon title text "disappearing" into the background. (I don't keep any icons on my desktop, save for the beautiful Halime icon)
I can't imagine that wouldn't be happening all the time if my background were constantly changing.
I don't discount your experiences, but mine(and the experiences of many other people) have been quite the opposite.
Bring the Mac in, plug it in, enter the supplied IP/DHCP information, go. There's no step four.;-)
Bring the Dell/Gateway/HP/Compaq in, plug it in, enter the supplied information, then spend the next hour dealing with tech support, and finally get connected, but with an unreliable connection.
While the WSJ author made a point of criticizing Mac interaction with corporate VPNs, he failed to mention that Macs are quite often easier to integrate into Windows networks than PCs running Windows are.
If for network interface card configuration issues alone, the Mac shines in this area, and it deserves praise for this.
It should alo be pointed out that with Mac OS X you get the development tools for free, which is a terrific thing for the younger, more cash-strapped generation of developers just coming into the market.
Thgen wait a few months for the new iBook. Jaguar is due out in August(which knowing the way they do things means the last day of August). You've obviously waited this long, so it won't kill you to wait a bit longer to get a (better) iBook with 10.2 loaded.
The other alternative is to look at it this way... The upgrade fee won't likely be in excess of $30(I paid $19.95 for the 10.1 upgrade CD which included the Dev Tools and 9.2.2 also, when I originally only ha the 10.0.3 CD). What would you pay for a point upgrade on the Windows side? Well, let's see, Win2k was essentially NT 5.0, and WinXP is basically NT 5.1, so you'd have paid $99 for that single point.
In comparison Apple's offering you a deal. Or you could just borrow the upgrade CD from someone who's already shelled out the cash for it, if you don't mind such unethical practices.;-)
I know plenty of scientists in the biotech business who use some flavor of Unix every single day, be it Solaris or IRIX in the lab or Mac OS X at home. They are not technically inclined people. They know that they can hit certain keys and certain pretty graphics that apparently mean something(the reasearch is *way* over my head) pop onto the screen.
These are not the type of users who go to bed with a print out of the emacs manpages. They're the type of users who are so used to a system that just works the way they need it to, that they don't even appreciate how well it does that.
Unix operating systems are beasts to setup. Some do more of that setup for you than others, but in the end, when all is configured, you can lock it down and it's an absolute rock. Dependable and predictable. And that is why, IMHO, most Unix users use the system they do.
Not because they're power users, but so they don't have to cringe every time the machine starts up, or they log in, hoping a registry file or some other inane thing didn't get corrupted and wipe out everything they did.
Also, consider Eiffel, which allows for all of those things, plus makes it possible to very tightly control which classes have access to which features(procedures, functions, attributes) of any given class. Eiffel also has rather nice pre and post-condition syntax, allowing, in theory, for all bug-causing conditions to be discovered before a function or procedure actually does anything. (throw an exception if someone tries to create a BANK_ACCOUNT object with an initial balance that's less than 0, for instance)
I suppose the fact that It draws a strict line between functions and procedures could also be seen as a good thing, though that one does feel like it's gets in the way.
Much less time with a point of sale PC (not necessarily Linux though) than on a Mac. You could probably go to a nearby store and get most of the software to do this stuff and install it all taking a couple of hours.
Which saves time over the Mac way of doing things... wait 45 seconds - maybe a minute - for it to boot, tack on the horrendous time-consuming task of logging in(there's another 30 seconds of your life that's GONE), double-click on the application icon(by now you've undoubtedly gone gray and had your teeth replaced) and there it is.
Of course, then you might be asked to change a few preference fields. At this point you should just give up, concede defeat to Father Time, and wait for the cold, clammy hands of death to take you into their embrace.
I find it ironic that the Mac is still derided as a toy, when the only thing PCs still remain even remotely better at, and the only Windows advocates can brag about, is playing more video games.
You get OS X itself, which would otherwise be $129. Granted, you get an OS with the Wal-mart machines, but that same OS, separately wouldn't cost nearly as much.
Plus you get the ability to run things like Office, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, etc. natively. Even though these aren't included, and would cost extra(sometimes considerably more), the possibility of doing so is worth something to a lot of people.
And you get a machine with a solid name behind it. The Wal-mart machines might just be no-name boxes that Wal-mart simply acts as a sales front-end for, but provides almost no guarantees itself.
In the end, I think it's a good deal for those who really can't afford anything better. And I don't mean to belittle such people. There are lots of good reasons to be behind, and I know what it's like to be struggling. I just think that if you can afford something more, it ought to at least be considered.
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And that's 130,000 people who won't buy Wintel PCs when they decide to upgrade. New hardware, even pricey PowerMacs, are nothing compared to the cost of retraining people who make a lot of money.
In short, all but the most fiscally-strapped will stick with the software platform, and not care so much about the hardware platform.
Free software that actually works? But where do you get the $100,000 a month service contract for when it breaks? Wait... it doesn't break?
I can't take this. I'm going to go stare at a nice relaxing blue screen and then take a nap. NT should have rebooted by then.
The iPod's 1.8"(the vast mjority of laptop HDs are 2.5") hard drive is already quite well shock-proofed, with enough room to accomodate the Toshiba 20GB drive without compromising the "buffer" around the drive.
Actually... Steve never said it wouldn't be made to work with Windows. He just said that Apple doesn't care about Windows...
Parrot is the virtual machine runtime, so technically, it won't be compiling anything(though it will alow for JIT compiling of Parrot bytecode).
Rather, the languages will implement compilers that generate Parrot Assembly language, and then the Parrot assembler will take it from there. This approach really does have a number of advantages. It means that the Parrot community can work on optimizing the heck out of the assembler and runtime, without worrying too much about the concerns of each individual lanuage.
It also means that, for embedded use, Perl/Ruby/Python/Tcl/Scheme/etc. programs can be compiled and loaded onto a machine that only has to have the Parrot runtime installed.
Python behaves similarly. Upon importing a module into another program, a ".pyc" file is created containing the compiled bytecode. Subsequently, Python uses the compiled module rather than the source file.
Yes, that darn proprietary Apple! Not like the standards-compliant folks at Real or Microsoft. And their Quicktime Streaming Server is so expensive.
I mean, why should I be forced to stream out high-quality content for free when I can pay for something inferior? This is America and we're capitalists, damn it!. We don't do things that way.
Otherwise, use one of the incredibly simple hacks, or just chill out, realize how minor the single ad is, and enjoy watching high-quality video on your computer for free.
One would think clicking "later" was the end of the world.
And having paid nothing for this high-quality software, you're certainly entitled to no annoyances, especially the well-known ones.
If you don't like the ads, only use Real or Windows Media documents. I guarantee those players' annoyances won't be seen as prominently. I'll leave it up to you to figure out whether or not that's a good thing...
You can actually do that yourself. Just pay the $29 for Quicktime Pro and it goes away. ;-)
Python actually has some really cool functional stuff, if you look past the syntax. Speaking of which...
Ruby's syntax is actually more reminiscent of Pascal than Python's, though I believe the inspiration for Ruby's "look" came from Eiffel and Ada.
Actually, Darwin incorporates aspects of all three BSDs, not just FreeBSD.
It would be cool, but it would be a useability nightmare. I don't know about anyone else, but on the wrong color backgrounds, I find Dock icon title text "disappearing" into the background. (I don't keep any icons on my desktop, save for the beautiful Halime icon)
I can't imagine that wouldn't be happening all the time if my background were constantly changing.
I don't discount your experiences, but mine(and the experiences of many other people) have been quite the opposite.
;-)
Bring the Mac in, plug it in, enter the supplied IP/DHCP information, go. There's no step four.
Bring the Dell/Gateway/HP/Compaq in, plug it in, enter the supplied information, then spend the next hour dealing with tech support, and finally get connected, but with an unreliable connection.
As I mentioned on MacSlash.
While the WSJ author made a point of criticizing Mac interaction with corporate VPNs, he failed to mention that Macs are quite often easier to integrate into Windows networks than PCs running Windows are.
If for network interface card configuration issues alone, the Mac shines in this area, and it deserves praise for this.
It should alo be pointed out that with Mac OS X you get the development tools for free, which is a terrific thing for the younger, more cash-strapped generation of developers just coming into the market.
Thgen wait a few months for the new iBook. Jaguar is due out in August(which knowing the way they do things means the last day of August). You've obviously waited this long, so it won't kill you to wait a bit longer to get a (better) iBook with 10.2 loaded.
;-)
The other alternative is to look at it this way... The upgrade fee won't likely be in excess of $30(I paid $19.95 for the 10.1 upgrade CD which included the Dev Tools and 9.2.2 also, when I originally only ha the 10.0.3 CD). What would you pay for a point upgrade on the Windows side? Well, let's see, Win2k was essentially NT 5.0, and WinXP is basically NT 5.1, so you'd have paid $99 for that single point.
In comparison Apple's offering you a deal. Or you could just borrow the upgrade CD from someone who's already shelled out the cash for it, if you don't mind such unethical practices.
Well, if you're already a Mac user, then what Apple has coming is evolutionary. But for the PC folks who test the waters, it's a revolution.
I know plenty of scientists in the biotech business who use some flavor of Unix every single day, be it Solaris or IRIX in the lab or Mac OS X at home. They are not technically inclined people. They know that they can hit certain keys and certain pretty graphics that apparently mean something(the reasearch is *way* over my head) pop onto the screen.
These are not the type of users who go to bed with a print out of the emacs manpages. They're the type of users who are so used to a system that just works the way they need it to, that they don't even appreciate how well it does that.
Unix operating systems are beasts to setup. Some do more of that setup for you than others, but in the end, when all is configured, you can lock it down and it's an absolute rock. Dependable and predictable. And that is why, IMHO, most Unix users use the system they do.
Not because they're power users, but so they don't have to cringe every time the machine starts up, or they log in, hoping a registry file or some other inane thing didn't get corrupted and wipe out everything they did.
It should also be noted that every Mac now sold ships standard with Perl(5.6.x), which has a pretty strong track record as a scripting language.
Also, consider Eiffel, which allows for all of those things, plus makes it possible to very tightly control which classes have access to which features(procedures, functions, attributes) of any given class. Eiffel also has rather nice pre and post-condition syntax, allowing, in theory, for all bug-causing conditions to be discovered before a function or procedure actually does anything. (throw an exception if someone tries to create a BANK_ACCOUNT object with an initial balance that's less than 0, for instance)
I suppose the fact that It draws a strict line between functions and procedures could also be seen as a good thing, though that one does feel like it's gets in the way.
Forgive me if I'm naive and this already exists, but an NSHTMLView class would be rather nice for developers.
Which saves time over the Mac way of doing things... wait 45 seconds - maybe a minute - for it to boot, tack on the horrendous time-consuming task of logging in(there's another 30 seconds of your life that's GONE), double-click on the application icon(by now you've undoubtedly gone gray and had your teeth replaced) and there it is.
Of course, then you might be asked to change a few preference fields. At this point you should just give up, concede defeat to Father Time, and wait for the cold, clammy hands of death to take you into their embrace.
I find it ironic that the Mac is still derided as a toy, when the only thing PCs still remain even remotely better at, and the only Windows advocates can brag about, is playing more video games.
Well, think of it this way...
You get OS X itself, which would otherwise be $129. Granted, you get an OS with the Wal-mart machines, but that same OS, separately wouldn't cost nearly as much.
Plus you get the ability to run things like Office, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, etc. natively. Even though these aren't included, and would cost extra(sometimes considerably more), the possibility of doing so is worth something to a lot of people.
And you get a machine with a solid name behind it. The Wal-mart machines might just be no-name boxes that Wal-mart simply acts as a sales front-end for, but provides almost no guarantees itself.
In the end, I think it's a good deal for those who really can't afford anything better. And I don't mean to belittle such people. There are lots of good reasons to be behind, and I know what it's like to be struggling. I just think that if you can afford something more, it ought to at least be considered.