Those machines that you found useful for learning the basics of computing are still around, and if you can't lay hands on the hardware there's a good chance there's an emulator. I wrote one myself largely as a tool that people could learn fundamentals on, and secured permission to reprint Tom Pittman's old Short Course in Programming as part of the app's help system (and yes, that's the same Tom Pittman that co-authored The Art of Compiler Design with James Peters). Okay, 1802 machine language isn't what you'd call real useful these days --- but it's a very simple instruction set that can be fully understood without much effort.
Emulators may not be as educational as soldering together your own system and troubleshooting it with a 'scope or even a logic probe, but the software principals from these simple computers can still be taught with such tools.
One of the problems, I think, is that today's systems offer too many distractions. Back in 1976, programming was about the most interesting thing you could do with a personal computer... sure, you could load a game, but let's face it, Pong only holds one's attention for so long. Now immersion in a 3D digital world is just a mouse-click away. How can you expect kids to fire up LOGO when so many shiny toys are lying around?
We can use today's hardware and software to deliver quality computer instruction to children, but perhaps to be successful the lessons must become more interactive and game-like.
Hey, it's almost Halloween; don't leave out Bobby Pickett's Monster Slash, a rework of his 1962 Monster Mash that sings the praises of Bush's environmental policy. You'll need flash to see the movie. Enjoy!
Of course this question is highly subjective, but with Windows 2.0 and eventually Windows 3.1, Microsoft became the name of desktop operating systems. This wasn't through "extremely aggressive" business tactics as it was truly a superior system.
Windows 2.0? I don't think so. Windows versions prior to 3.1 were useless, except for Reversi. Oh, sure, you could tile half a dozen clocks on your EGA display, but mostly the early versions of Windows were just experimental GUIs riding on top of DOS. Nobody would've compared those Windows versions against a Mac or an Amiga and viewed Microsoft as superior.
In my view, Microsoft got in the door because of the IBM PC and a healthy crop of third party DOS applications, Lotus 1-2-3 in particular. My own employer was building DOS apps when we picked up our first copy of Windows, version 1.03. We laughed at each subsequent attempt, up until around 3.1, when we finally decided maybe it was worth building an app for, just to test the waters.
But did we end up becoming a Windows shop because Microsoft was superior? No. We ended up becoming a Windows shop because our customers already had PC compatible machines, largely because of a legacy portfolio of DOS products. We built software to meet customer demand, and in our industry, it was a gradual platform migration from DOS to Windows 3.1 and onward. Microsoft is entrenched largely because of the hardware.
(That said, Linux also runs on that same hardware. And just as with the shift to Windows development, we'll build whatever customers want. If you're in a position to do so, make sure your software vendors --- particularly their sales reps --- know that your company has an interest in Linux products. That kind of feedback causes more of a stir and will yield more results than a hundred cost of ownership studies or technology articles.)
I disagree that Microsoft got where they are because people loved their products. It has far more to do with simple inertia, followed by aggressive marketing tactics that date back to the days of Windows versus OS/2.
I read through the first edition about a year ago, and found it to be an excellent hands-on tutorial, gradually walking the reader through the construction of increasingly complex apps. I came at the book from a strong C++ background and various Microsoft technologies, and zero experience with Mac software development, and left with a reasonable beginners knowledge of Objective-C and Cocoa. Supplement this tutorial with resources like Apple's reference material and the mindshare at the Cocoa developer list archives, and you'll be well on your way to developing your first Mac app.
I'm glad to see that the second edition added AppleScripting and material on implementing Undo, even if at the expense of the Java chapter. (No surprise, there: in the beginning of the first edition's Java chapter, Hillegass basically says this about programming Cocoa using Java: "DON'T.")
There are some songs on allofmp3.com that aren't available on iTunes, so it's very tempting... but...
Is there any reason I should think that Museekster.com has any credibility? IP law is a convoluted mess right now, and this guy doesn't exactly sound like a lawyer. I also couldn't help but notice the disclaimer on the site:
"...The author reserves the right not to be responsible for the topicality, correctness, completeness or quality of the information provided. Liability claims regarding damage caused by the use of any information provided, including any kind of information which is incomplete or incorrect,will therefore be rejected..."
Pretty standard fare given our lawsuit-crazed society, I suppose, but still...
That allofmp3.com offers Beatles and Metallica albums seems troublesome, too, and I'm not sure that the explanation put forth by Museekster.com holds water:
"...The Beatles and Metallica have not authorized their music to be sold online for anyone. Yet Allofmp3 offers about any Beatles and Metallica album ever released.
There are two reasons:
Foreign works released before 1973 are not protected in Russia. Russia signed the Berne Convention without the retrospective protection.
The second reason is that under Russian law a collecting society like ROMS automatically has the right to license ANY intellectual property to Russian distributors, even if the author is not subject to Russian law.
This explains why Allofmp3 can offer music that is not licensed for downloading in the US and Europe, like music by The Beatles or Metallica..."
Uh... okaaay...
I'd like to believe this is all nice and legal, but the cynic in me can't make the leap. (Damn!)
I'm not sure with that high of a price (about $670-$810 US) and the additional size (3X as thick, twice as long!) that this thing qualifies as an "iPod killer" in any real sense; they're playing for an entirely different market segment. It seems like a very small niche to me.
Give 'em a couple of versions, maybe they'll get it right and the market will materialize. I wouldn't bet on it though. "More TV, more often" isn't a big hole in my life, anyway...
"I might hate microsoft as much as the next guy, but ordering a company to bundle software from their competitiors is just ridicioulous! What happened to the concept of a free market?"
When you have a company that holds a monopoly market share for a product, then bundles something with that product, it isn't really a free market. Windows Media Player didn't rise to prominence because it was a product preferred and chosen by consumers, it was just along for the ride.
This doesn't appear to be some anti-American "let's hurt Microsoft" reasoning by the EU; their concerns seem very legitimate to me.
Ah, but one of the best selling points of the new iPod is its smaller form factor. When buying an ultra-portable device such as a PDA or a music player, the size can make or break a product.
At one time I owned a Zaurus 5500, but finally gave it up in favor of a Palm m505. Looking at those two PDAs side-by-side, the size difference didn't look like much, but in day-to-day use the Palm did a MUCH better job of fitting in a pocket. I traded the far superior capability of the Zaurus for the Palm, mostly because the Palm was smaller.
It's all about tradeoffs. Forget the price for a moment; what matters more to you, a smaller form factor, or a larger storage capacity? No matter which you choose, there are others who would choose differently.
I didn't see anything about collaboration with Microsoft, either. If you go to sendmail.com, though, there's a story about Sendmail working with Yahoo's scheme.
"...Can you immagin what the responce would be if a government announced that it was going to ignore international copyright law and sell low cost computers with unlicensed copies of XP?"
This question of "reverse resentment" has an interesting implication. It asks if Indian engineers resented America, apparently suggesting that American engineers harbor resentment of India.
If so, I believe resentment of India or its people is misplaced. I'm a U.S. programmer; I'm fortunate in that I haven't lost my job to outsourcing, at least not yet. If I did, however, the "blame" would reside perhaps with myself, perhaps with my employer, or perhaps with the stockholders that my employer answers to. Pretty much an all-U.S. list, I'd expect.
It's not the fault of someone in India, or China, or Russia, if they happen to choose the same occupation that I did, and can make a good living at it. They're just trying to feed their families, same as everyone else.
I'm not making light of the difficulties facing U.S. engineers. I have friends who've been displaced and are looking for work, and others who've moved on to work outside of engineering altogether. I may very well join their ranks. But I think it's important that, regardless of what comes next, we don't let it turn into a resentment of countries and people who, really, are just trying to do the best they can.
It only seems like everyone is having iBook problems, because "iBook Still Working Two Years Later!" doesn't do much to grab headlines. It's the exceptions to the rule that attract attention, and it's the problems that make people vocal.
My 700MHz iBook was purchased in October 2002 and hasn't had any problems at all. It's a great laptop that I prefer in almost every way to the Dell and HP laptops I've been issued at work. With Panther, it feels snappier than my 1.8GHz Dell running Windows XP, and is the first laptop I've used that actually wakes from sleep mode reliably, every time, without crashing. In short, it's my first Apple product, and hands-down the finest computer I've ever owned. (I've owned more than a few since my first machine in 1979.)
In any event, I'm glad to hear that Apple is doing the Right Thing and addressing this problem. I suspect the next machine I purchase will also come from Apple. My wife, poor dear, is running Windows Me on her laptop, and I really should try to be a better husband than that...;)
The porn site wouldn't know what the catchup was supposed to be, but the email signup page would, and if the wrong response was provided, it'd return a page saying so. The porn site could parse that page and reject the user's answer. No valid response, no naughty bits.
Without any facts to back the story up, I don't know if this is really happening, but it sounds plausible. I wonder if anyone's filed a patent on the method?;)
I've got to hand it to McBride, he's finally pushed my buttons. Up until I read his letter, I'd been watching this SCO fiasco from the sidelines. I hadn't been too worried, because I'd been convinced that IBM would prevail in court.
I have a bit less faith in the average politician's grasp of these issues, though, particularly with McBride going out of his way to spout about "national security" and suchlike. Like any good showman, he knows his audience.
I'll need to spend a day or two getting the tone and wording just right (polite, reasoned, and respectful), but my Senators and Representatives will be receiving an alternative viewpoint by next week.
If he'd waited until Apple released the fix, he wouldn't have generated any publicity for himself. Apple had already made it clear they were fixing the problem, it seems like nothing more than self-promotion to release an advisory right now. Add to that the fact that this is publicized just before a holiday (U.S. Thanksgiving) --- when sysadmins and Apple programmers might be taking some time off, but script kiddies have time to play --- and you've got the potential for some mischief. Ending the advisory with "Happy Holidays" suggests that this wasn't altogether coincidental, either.
Yeah, that was quick. Most importantly, I think, this Expose clone has arrived before Microsoft built it into Windows. Maybe it's time for Linux to get in the passing lane.
...that with all the advanced technology lying around the Star Wars universe, nobody figured out how to solder a cheap little speech synthesis chip into a droid.
"...The next step in anti-spam evolution will be spam-scanning software that automatically follows links back to webpages and looks for "spammy" content and tags the message as spam in the email system..."
Unfortunately, this technique would encourage the "click this link" sort of spam, where the spammer gets paid as an affiliate of some website. Anyway, if I was a spammer running a site meant to fool your filters, all I'd need to do would be to throw my real message text into images, and maybe put some phony content text on the page to sidestep a "lameness" filter.
I like Bayesion filtering as well, though it needs to be smarter about the insertion of HTML comments in the middle of words (Vi<!-- foo -->agra), punctuation (V'i'a'g'r'a), additional spacing (V i a g r a), etc. to get around the latest bag of tricks.
"...this may force FSF's hand and cause them to enter into a lawsuit with SCO as representation for all of the developers that contributed to anything SCO is relicensing. I really think this is what SCO wants, although I cannot fathom what they expect to gain from it..."
Well, let's see, they could get RMS in the courtroom and let him start ranting. If they want to portray the open source community as a bunch of crazies, a circus like that could be helpful to them.;)
"... I suspect that.NET will also have major Win32-only parts. If a goal of mono is just to be a development platform, fine. If anyone thinks that apps written for MS.NET will be cross-platform, then they haven't been reading their recent history..."
So, apps written for Microsoft's.NET engine become incompatible with Mono at some point. As long as the Mono runtime is available cross-platform, applications written for Mono will also run cross-platform.
I suspect there will be trouble at some point in getting Mono programs to run atop Microsoft's.NET runtime, but that's okay with me. I'd prefer to see Mono take a page from Microsoft's playbook: embrace and extend. Make Mono a better.NET, and give programmers a cross-platform development tool they'd be crazy not to use.
For me, the big question is whether Microsoft's legal traps have been avoided (and it'd be hard to believe that no such traps have been planned). That might make me worry about switching development to Mono, but cross-platform issues I wouldn't lose sleep over.
"... I can't really see why I should switch to C#."
It's a pretty decent language, really. And why shouldn't it be? It built upon solid ideas from many other languages, particularly Java. It depends upon what you're programming, of course, because different tools suit different jobs. But compared to, say, C++/MFC, C#/.NET is a dream. Use what works.:)
If someone can give me an example of a side drawer that really makes sense and is more useful than a floating pop-up window, please let me know.
How about viewing a document's properties? The information in the drawer is specific to the document, so having a display that's "locked" onto the document window makes perfect, intuitive sense. If the property information was in a floating window, it wouldn't be visually linked with one particular document window. It's the same idea as a sheet, only modeless, since the contents of the document aren't obscured and may still be modified.
I think sheets and drawers make one heck of a lot of sense if used where appropriate. That said, UI decisions are rather subjective, and if a developer doesn't like sheets and drawers, there's nothing in particular forcing their use.
If Campbell's autobiography "If Chins Could Kill" is any indication, Bruce is very, very far from being a typical Hollywood actor. He comes off as honest, self-deprecating, and funny, and the tales he spins of his acting career make me glad I went into engineering.
I watched "Army of Darkness" a few weeks ago with the commentary track turned on, listening Campbell and Sam Raimi rake it over. Even if "Bubba" bombs in the theaters, a DVD release backed by Campbell's commentary will be something to look forward to.
Slashdot Mirror
Those machines that you found useful for learning the basics of computing are still around, and if you can't lay hands on the hardware there's a good chance there's an emulator. I wrote one myself largely as a tool that people could learn fundamentals on, and secured permission to reprint Tom Pittman's old Short Course in Programming as part of the app's help system (and yes, that's the same Tom Pittman that co-authored The Art of Compiler Design with James Peters). Okay, 1802 machine language isn't what you'd call real useful these days --- but it's a very simple instruction set that can be fully understood without much effort.
Emulators may not be as educational as soldering together your own system and troubleshooting it with a 'scope or even a logic probe, but the software principals from these simple computers can still be taught with such tools.
One of the problems, I think, is that today's systems offer too many distractions. Back in 1976, programming was about the most interesting thing you could do with a personal computer... sure, you could load a game, but let's face it, Pong only holds one's attention for so long. Now immersion in a 3D digital world is just a mouse-click away. How can you expect kids to fire up LOGO when so many shiny toys are lying around?
We can use today's hardware and software to deliver quality computer instruction to children, but perhaps to be successful the lessons must become more interactive and game-like.
Hey, it's almost Halloween; don't leave out Bobby Pickett's Monster Slash , a rework of his 1962 Monster Mash that sings the praises of Bush's environmental policy. You'll need flash to see the movie. Enjoy!
In my view, Microsoft got in the door because of the IBM PC and a healthy crop of third party DOS applications, Lotus 1-2-3 in particular. My own employer was building DOS apps when we picked up our first copy of Windows, version 1.03. We laughed at each subsequent attempt, up until around 3.1, when we finally decided maybe it was worth building an app for, just to test the waters.
But did we end up becoming a Windows shop because Microsoft was superior? No. We ended up becoming a Windows shop because our customers already had PC compatible machines, largely because of a legacy portfolio of DOS products. We built software to meet customer demand, and in our industry, it was a gradual platform migration from DOS to Windows 3.1 and onward. Microsoft is entrenched largely because of the hardware.
(That said, Linux also runs on that same hardware. And just as with the shift to Windows development, we'll build whatever customers want. If you're in a position to do so, make sure your software vendors --- particularly their sales reps --- know that your company has an interest in Linux products. That kind of feedback causes more of a stir and will yield more results than a hundred cost of ownership studies or technology articles.)
I disagree that Microsoft got where they are because people loved their products. It has far more to do with simple inertia, followed by aggressive marketing tactics that date back to the days of Windows versus OS/2.
I read through the first edition about a year ago, and found it to be an excellent hands-on tutorial, gradually walking the reader through the construction of increasingly complex apps. I came at the book from a strong C++ background and various Microsoft technologies, and zero experience with Mac software development, and left with a reasonable beginners knowledge of Objective-C and Cocoa. Supplement this tutorial with resources like Apple's reference material and the mindshare at the Cocoa developer list archives, and you'll be well on your way to developing your first Mac app.
I'm glad to see that the second edition added AppleScripting and material on implementing Undo, even if at the expense of the Java chapter. (No surprise, there: in the beginning of the first edition's Java chapter, Hillegass basically says this about programming Cocoa using Java: "DON'T.")
There are some songs on allofmp3.com that aren't available on iTunes, so it's very tempting... but...
Is there any reason I should think that Museekster.com has any credibility? IP law is a convoluted mess right now, and this guy doesn't exactly sound like a lawyer. I also couldn't help but notice the disclaimer on the site:
Pretty standard fare given our lawsuit-crazed society, I suppose, but still...
That allofmp3.com offers Beatles and Metallica albums seems troublesome, too, and I'm not sure that the explanation put forth by Museekster.com holds water:
Uh... okaaay...
I'd like to believe this is all nice and legal, but the cynic in me can't make the leap. (Damn!)
Oh well, Happy April Darl's Day anyway!
I'm not sure with that high of a price (about $670-$810 US) and the additional size (3X as thick, twice as long!) that this thing qualifies as an "iPod killer" in any real sense; they're playing for an entirely different market segment. It seems like a very small niche to me.
Give 'em a couple of versions, maybe they'll get it right and the market will materialize. I wouldn't bet on it though. "More TV, more often" isn't a big hole in my life, anyway...
Yeah, I think that would suppress my appetite...
This doesn't appear to be some anti-American "let's hurt Microsoft" reasoning by the EU; their concerns seem very legitimate to me.
Ah, but one of the best selling points of the new iPod is its smaller form factor. When buying an ultra-portable device such as a PDA or a music player, the size can make or break a product.
At one time I owned a Zaurus 5500, but finally gave it up in favor of a Palm m505. Looking at those two PDAs side-by-side, the size difference didn't look like much, but in day-to-day use the Palm did a MUCH better job of fitting in a pocket. I traded the far superior capability of the Zaurus for the Palm, mostly because the Palm was smaller.
It's all about tradeoffs. Forget the price for a moment; what matters more to you, a smaller form factor, or a larger storage capacity? No matter which you choose, there are others who would choose differently.
I didn't see anything about collaboration with Microsoft, either. If you go to sendmail.com, though, there's a story about Sendmail working with Yahoo's scheme.
Cheering and festivities on Slashdot?
This question of "reverse resentment" has an interesting implication. It asks if Indian engineers resented America, apparently suggesting that American engineers harbor resentment of India.
If so, I believe resentment of India or its people is misplaced. I'm a U.S. programmer; I'm fortunate in that I haven't lost my job to outsourcing, at least not yet. If I did, however, the "blame" would reside perhaps with myself, perhaps with my employer, or perhaps with the stockholders that my employer answers to. Pretty much an all-U.S. list, I'd expect.
It's not the fault of someone in India, or China, or Russia, if they happen to choose the same occupation that I did, and can make a good living at it. They're just trying to feed their families, same as everyone else.
I'm not making light of the difficulties facing U.S. engineers. I have friends who've been displaced and are looking for work, and others who've moved on to work outside of engineering altogether. I may very well join their ranks. But I think it's important that, regardless of what comes next, we don't let it turn into a resentment of countries and people who, really, are just trying to do the best they can.
It only seems like everyone is having iBook problems, because "iBook Still Working Two Years Later!" doesn't do much to grab headlines. It's the exceptions to the rule that attract attention, and it's the problems that make people vocal.
;)
My 700MHz iBook was purchased in October 2002 and hasn't had any problems at all. It's a great laptop that I prefer in almost every way to the Dell and HP laptops I've been issued at work. With Panther, it feels snappier than my 1.8GHz Dell running Windows XP, and is the first laptop I've used that actually wakes from sleep mode reliably, every time, without crashing. In short, it's my first Apple product, and hands-down the finest computer I've ever owned. (I've owned more than a few since my first machine in 1979.)
In any event, I'm glad to hear that Apple is doing the Right Thing and addressing this problem. I suspect the next machine I purchase will also come from Apple. My wife, poor dear, is running Windows Me on her laptop, and I really should try to be a better husband than that...
The porn site wouldn't know what the catchup was supposed to be, but the email signup page would, and if the wrong response was provided, it'd return a page saying so. The porn site could parse that page and reject the user's answer. No valid response, no naughty bits.
;)
Without any facts to back the story up, I don't know if this is really happening, but it sounds plausible. I wonder if anyone's filed a patent on the method?
I've got to hand it to McBride, he's finally pushed my buttons. Up until I read his letter, I'd been watching this SCO fiasco from the sidelines. I hadn't been too worried, because I'd been convinced that IBM would prevail in court.
I have a bit less faith in the average politician's grasp of these issues, though, particularly with McBride going out of his way to spout about "national security" and suchlike. Like any good showman, he knows his audience.
I'll need to spend a day or two getting the tone and wording just right (polite, reasoned, and respectful), but my Senators and Representatives will be receiving an alternative viewpoint by next week.
Well, maybe more than one...
If he'd waited until Apple released the fix, he wouldn't have generated any publicity for himself. Apple had already made it clear they were fixing the problem, it seems like nothing more than self-promotion to release an advisory right now. Add to that the fact that this is publicized just before a holiday (U.S. Thanksgiving) --- when sysadmins and Apple programmers might be taking some time off, but script kiddies have time to play --- and you've got the potential for some mischief. Ending the advisory with "Happy Holidays" suggests that this wasn't altogether coincidental, either.
Yeah, that was quick. Most importantly, I think, this Expose clone has arrived before Microsoft built it into Windows. Maybe it's time for Linux to get in the passing lane.
...that with all the advanced technology lying around the Star Wars universe, nobody figured out how to solder a cheap little speech synthesis chip into a droid.
I like Bayesion filtering as well, though it needs to be smarter about the insertion of HTML comments in the middle of words (Vi<!-- foo -->agra), punctuation (V'i'a'g'r'a), additional spacing (V i a g r a), etc. to get around the latest bag of tricks.
I suspect there will be trouble at some point in getting Mono programs to run atop Microsoft's
For me, the big question is whether Microsoft's legal traps have been avoided (and it'd be hard to believe that no such traps have been planned). That might make me worry about switching development to Mono, but cross-platform issues I wouldn't lose sleep over.
It's a pretty decent language, really. And why shouldn't it be? It built upon solid ideas from many other languages, particularly Java. It depends upon what you're programming, of course, because different tools suit different jobs. But compared to, say, C++/MFC, C#/.NET is a dream. Use what works.
I think sheets and drawers make one heck of a lot of sense if used where appropriate. That said, UI decisions are rather subjective, and if a developer doesn't like sheets and drawers, there's nothing in particular forcing their use.
If Campbell's autobiography "If Chins Could Kill" is any indication, Bruce is very, very far from being a typical Hollywood actor. He comes off as honest, self-deprecating, and funny, and the tales he spins of his acting career make me glad I went into engineering.
I watched "Army of Darkness" a few weeks ago with the commentary track turned on, listening Campbell and Sam Raimi rake it over. Even if "Bubba" bombs in the theaters, a DVD release backed by Campbell's commentary will be something to look forward to.