MS has just been through the biggest development project failure ever in the private sector. Their current management is on the way out before the shareholders lynch them. Think the new guy is going to commit to another six-year train wreck?
It's only a train wreck if it doesn't sell, which we all know it will. Desktop Linux has yet to materialize in any meaningful way.
MS has two choices: cut a deal with SJ, or try to turn Solaris into a viable desktop system. The first option would cost more but ship sooner. What they really can't afford, is another Longhorn.
Why? Windows still dominates the desktop and has been making increasing gains in the server space. If Vista is at least an incremental improvement as XP to 98 was then it'll be a huge success. Don't be naieve and think that every programmer at Microsoft is completely cluess. They do have some bright people working there.
And you don't get to decide the choices for Microsoft.
Quake 3 was probably the apex of what Id is really good at - the run and gun, arcade-type action. I've even got my wife playing Quake 3 on our home lan and on the internet. But I think after some honest reflection, Id probably wouldn't have done Doom 3. It was in development for a long time and times had changed.
The funny thing is that Carmack and Romero were big D&D fans and they could've come out with a MMOG (could've been a really cool Planetside with Carmack's engine) or even a MMORPG. It was said in the book that Kevin Cloud and Adrian Carmack (the two artist/owners) said doing another Doom was like aging rockstars going on tour with their old music. I don't know what Doom3 did in sales, but it went into the bargain bin ($10) where I live really quickly.
Disabled users? Blind users? Screw 'em. If they want to be cripples, that is their business. Why should everyone else suffer?
Ever think that it's not always someone's *choice* whether they can use JavaScript enhancements?
They have the choice of not going to the web site. But I guess fascist, nanny-staters would try and outlaw anything that doesn't conform to some lowest common denominator.
In other words, if you want to make sure your site "just works", GWT isn't a good technology to use. If your management team is paying attention, that should pretty much stick a fork in this technology.
If it's an inhouse app, then there should be no problem. If it's an "app" that's for the public then there should be no problem. If it's a "web site" where the desired goal is to try and be compatible with every possible browser, then the answer is no or serve up different pages upon client detection.
The bottom line is that we live in our browsers so much, that it's very appealing to try and expand the functionality of what can be done on a web page. We'll only see "richer" web pages in the future.
If you have even a small amount of experience, it's faster than using a mouse. Sit an experienced vim / emacs hacker next to someone using Visual Studio, Code Warrior, Smalltalk whatever, Ecclipse, etc. and I'll give you ten to one odds I can predict who is going to be working more efficiently and spending lest time copying pasting and navingating four tier deep menus.
Yeah, the guy with the Vi plugin for Eclipse or VS;) But seriously, if you're using Vim or Emacs for a language like Java then, no, you're not going to be more efficient at your work. You're going to be way less efficient. In fact, we almost fired a guy (who otherwise was a very talented developer), but who refused to stop using Vim for Java development. He was lagging behind the rest of the team. Eventually we bought him a Vi plugin for Eclipse and all was good.
But please tell Smalltalk programmers that they should give up the environments that they have had for a couple decades now, and watch them laugh in your face. I've been using Vi/Vim for the better part of a decade now and I know the power of the keybindings. But the key here is the keybindings themselves, and not the actual editors themselves, which are pretty antiquated. It's good to know Vim/Vi because it's going to be on just about every Unix box in the world, and I use it all the time for quick file reading and quick edits, but as far as a good development environment for a large code base, it's severely lacking.
Honestly, I've never liked IDEs, or any tool so specific to a given language / environment, that the experience won't generalize to my next project. I'd rather climb a steeper learning curve and learn a piece of software that I can be reasonably sure I will still be using for whatever language and system I'm working in in 2030.
No, we mean modern development environments that aren't stuck in some 1980s barley-above-console world. And "honestly", your personal preferences are irrelevant to other people's development tools preferences. Nobody is going to take away your precious vim if a kick-ass Smalltalk-like environment was developed for Ruby.
Oh come on. Settting up a Rails environment isn't that hard. And that is all you need to start developing "serious" (web) apps in Ruby. Get a Mac and run Textmate and you are set.
Oh come on, Edlin is all you need to start developing serious web apps in Ruby. Get a DOS machine and you are set. For the sarcasm-impaired the parent is typical of the "We haven't implemented it, so you don't need it" crowd.
I am very skeptical whenever I hear 'you don't need a GUI'. This seems to me to be an argument along the lines of 'if we don't implement it, you don't need it'.
Actually, it's "You don't need it until we actually implement it". That's pretty typical of the linux-type crowd though that have always screamed that Vi and Emacs are the epitomy of advanced development environments.
He's talking about a Smalltalk-like development environment. Freeride and Mondrian don't even come close. Of course that begs the question of whether it would have been a good idea to have Ruby be image-based. Smalltalk is defined by its powerful development environments and it certainly wouldn't hurt Ruby to have one too.
I'm not a psychologist, but surely 18 years in a single organization is going to brainwash you to some limited extent. You will either be (a) the corporate lovebug, touting everythign you do as infalliable, or (b) the corporate naysayer, whose sole response to anythign the company puts out is "it isn't read" or "this won't work". ...or 5 minutes working at the FSF
...of being at the arcade on a Friday night when I was 11 or 12, and lining up tokens 3 rows deep on the Donkey Kong machine. Do you young whipper-snappers remember arcades? We had something called Magic Castle (basically a Chucky-Cheese type place), and you had to be 18 (or was it 16) to come in by yourself. It was always fun sneaking past those "guards".
If it wasn't Gnome/Gtk+, then it would have been another desktop/toolkit that got off the ground. There was no way that anybody was going to let Trolltech control the desktop with the licensing scheme they have.
So, it doesn't seem as marvelous as it first sounded. We are - what 4 or 5 years? - down the road with.NET and we still don't see that promise being fulfilled. Can I use SML with Mono? Do we have a Scheme? Python, even? ("Note that this package does not implement Python as a first-class CLR language - it does not produce managed code (IL) from Python code." from: URL:http://www.zope.org/Members/Brian/PythonNet/)
SML on Mono - We've got F# (Ocaml) and SML.NET Python - IronPython Scheme - no idea
I suppose you do realise that one of the most important deployment platforms for J2EE is Windows Server? You are confusing 'server operating systems' with 'software deployed on those operating systems'.
Well, duh. Because Windows is the most prevalent operating system in the world. But "important" means nothing. Of course the "most important" stack for Windows Server is.NET.
Where Swing has a bigger presence than Webforms.
That statement just shows how clueless you really are. They don't call it TheServerSide.com for no reason. Java failed on the desktop years and years ago because Sun thinks Metal is a "good thing". Not to mention that Swing (although affords flexibility), is a cumbersome API. That's why the Swing guys are developing a new "framework" on top of Swing. Too little, too late.
Wrong. Java has substantial use for internal desktop development.
"internal"...that's nice. What, because Swing is such shit that it's an embarrassment to release anything outside of the office. Or most likely, the server side guys occassionaly get sick of generating HTML.
What a set of delusions! Mono simply doesn't exist as a server solution, and RoR, for all its hype, is hardly used at all for serious commercial development.
But just because of the.NET, Mono is important and can only grow. On the open source desktop, Mono is already way more popular. Maybe Sun should've stopped trying to push that Swing crap and actually make a couple Java-gtk+ apps years ago. After all, Gnome is Sun's desktop. Too little, too late.
RoR is still new tech, but nobody is really questioning it's approach. That's why we have all the spinoffs based on Rails idioms. Oh, and just goto Jroller.com on any random day and see all the java developers blogging about it. You need to take off your blinders and see reality.
And as the AC pointed out, you totally neglected to mention LAMP which is absolutely chewing up Java on the low end.
You need to take your Microsoft blinkers of and take a look at the real world. Java use is still growing - check any technology analysis or job market survey.
Oh, because Dice.com told you so? Java has peaked and most developers recognize it's shortcomings (way too verbose). C# suffers from the same problem too, but there's just more language options on the.NET stack out of the box. Sun keeps on thinking that Java (the language) is what counts, when in reality its the JVM and class libraries.
And back on topic, Open Sourcing Java will not change a damn thing either way.
Those who care not for Freedom have already adopted Java and those who care are either using another language or are now firmly in the GCJ camp and...
No, those that care about freedom are worrying about real freedom and not joining some religious software cult invented by Jim Jones...err, I mean Richard Stallman.
They would have to use something more like the LGPL or the apache license model so that commerical appication can leverage off it and still have their own licensing.
You can forget about LGPL too. There are huge numbers of corporate lawyers who immediately axe using any software that has any kind of GPL license.
If you had any idea about the state of Java in the IT industry, you would realise that Sun really, really don't have to work to get Java 'out there' - Java has become the dominant server-side development language, and.NET isn't even coming close to nipping at Java's heels. Compared to Java use, C# barely registers.
In the alternative universe that you live in that all might be true. The fact is that Microsoft's server software now outsells all of proprietary Unix combined and keeps on climbing in market share. And of course we don't need to discuss the desktop. Java was never even a blip on the desktop radar screen...even in the open source world. But it's not just.NET/Mono that is intruding on Java's server space. You've got LAMP and RoR. And those solutions are chipping away at Java on the low-end. By the time Java only has the very high-end server space left, it'll be all over.
Sun still hasn't realized that Java (the platform), and not Java (the language), is what's important.
Maybe you're being a little nostalgic, because I don't know how anybody could have a fun time playing with a one second ping. I used to play with a 300 ping back in '97 or so, and that was fine.
Slashdot Mirror
I had just gotten hit with MS's WGA nagware in the past week.
At that point I realized I had to make a decision, either send money to MS and stick with Windows. Or start getting serious about Linux.
So let's get this straight. You are pirating windows, but you have the money to go out and buy Xandros?
MS has just been through the biggest development project failure ever in the private sector. Their current management is on the way out before the shareholders lynch them. Think the new guy is going to commit to another six-year train wreck?
It's only a train wreck if it doesn't sell, which we all know it will. Desktop Linux has yet to materialize in any meaningful way.
MS has two choices: cut a deal with SJ, or try to turn Solaris into a viable desktop system. The first option would cost more but ship sooner. What they really can't afford, is another Longhorn.
Why? Windows still dominates the desktop and has been making increasing gains in the server space. If Vista is at least an incremental improvement as XP to 98 was then it'll be a huge success. Don't be naieve and think that every programmer at Microsoft is completely cluess. They do have some bright people working there.
And you don't get to decide the choices for Microsoft.
Quake 3 was probably the apex of what Id is really good at - the run and gun, arcade-type action. I've even got my wife playing Quake 3 on our home lan and on the internet. But I think after some honest reflection, Id probably wouldn't have done Doom 3. It was in development for a long time and times had changed.
The funny thing is that Carmack and Romero were big D&D fans and they could've come out with a MMOG (could've been a really cool Planetside with Carmack's engine) or even a MMORPG. It was said in the book that Kevin Cloud and Adrian Carmack (the two artist/owners) said doing another Doom was like aging rockstars going on tour with their old music. I don't know what Doom3 did in sales, but it went into the bargain bin ($10) where I live really quickly.
Agree, that's why I like languages like Boo that uses type inference most of the time, but you also have the option of using duck typing.
Disabled users? Blind users? Screw 'em. If they want to be cripples, that is their business. Why should everyone else suffer?
Ever think that it's not always someone's *choice* whether they can use JavaScript enhancements?
They have the choice of not going to the web site. But I guess fascist, nanny-staters would try and outlaw anything that doesn't conform to some lowest common denominator.
In other words, if you want to make sure your site "just works", GWT isn't a good technology to use. If your management team is paying attention, that should pretty much stick a fork in this technology.
If it's an inhouse app, then there should be no problem. If it's an "app" that's for the public then there should be no problem. If it's a "web site" where the desired goal is to try and be compatible with every possible browser, then the answer is no or serve up different pages upon client detection.
The bottom line is that we live in our browsers so much, that it's very appealing to try and expand the functionality of what can be done on a web page. We'll only see "richer" web pages in the future.
If you have even a small amount of experience, it's faster than using a mouse. Sit an experienced vim / emacs hacker next to someone using Visual Studio, Code Warrior, Smalltalk whatever, Ecclipse, etc. and I'll give you ten to one odds I can predict who is going to be working more efficiently and spending lest time copying pasting and navingating four tier deep menus.
Yeah, the guy with the Vi plugin for Eclipse or VS;) But seriously, if you're using Vim or Emacs for a language like Java then, no, you're not going to be more efficient at your work. You're going to be way less efficient. In fact, we almost fired a guy (who otherwise was a very talented developer), but who refused to stop using Vim for Java development. He was lagging behind the rest of the team. Eventually we bought him a Vi plugin for Eclipse and all was good.
But please tell Smalltalk programmers that they should give up the environments that they have had for a couple decades now, and watch them laugh in your face. I've been using Vi/Vim for the better part of a decade now and I know the power of the keybindings. But the key here is the keybindings themselves, and not the actual editors themselves, which are pretty antiquated. It's good to know Vim/Vi because it's going to be on just about every Unix box in the world, and I use it all the time for quick file reading and quick edits, but as far as a good development environment for a large code base, it's severely lacking.
IDE? You mean like vim and an xterm?
Honestly, I've never liked IDEs, or any tool so specific to a given language / environment, that the experience won't generalize to my next project. I'd rather climb a steeper learning curve and learn a piece of software that I can be reasonably sure I will still be using for whatever language and system I'm working in in 2030.
No, we mean modern development environments that aren't stuck in some 1980s barley-above-console world. And "honestly", your personal preferences are irrelevant to other people's development tools preferences. Nobody is going to take away your precious vim if a kick-ass Smalltalk-like environment was developed for Ruby.
Oh come on. Settting up a Rails environment isn't that hard. And that is all you need to start developing "serious" (web) apps in Ruby. Get a Mac and run Textmate and you are set.
Oh come on, Edlin is all you need to start developing serious web apps in Ruby. Get a DOS machine and you are set. For the sarcasm-impaired the parent is typical of the "We haven't implemented it, so you don't need it" crowd.
I am very skeptical whenever I hear 'you don't need a GUI'. This seems to me to be an argument along the lines of 'if we don't implement it, you don't need it'.
Actually, it's "You don't need it until we actually implement it". That's pretty typical of the linux-type crowd though that have always screamed that Vi and Emacs are the epitomy of advanced development environments.
He's talking about a Smalltalk-like development environment. Freeride and Mondrian don't even come close. Of course that begs the question of whether it would have been a good idea to have Ruby be image-based. Smalltalk is defined by its powerful development environments and it certainly wouldn't hurt Ruby to have one too.
I'm not a psychologist, but surely 18 years in a single organization is going to brainwash you to some limited extent. You will either be (a) the corporate lovebug, touting everythign you do as infalliable, or (b) the corporate naysayer, whose sole response to anythign the company puts out is "it isn't read" or "this won't work". ...or 5 minutes working at the FSF
I second.
Timothy sounds like a Michael Simms lite. What an asshat.
...of being at the arcade on a Friday night when I was 11 or 12, and lining up tokens 3 rows deep on the Donkey Kong machine. Do you young whipper-snappers remember arcades? We had something called Magic Castle (basically a Chucky-Cheese type place), and you had to be 18 (or was it 16) to come in by yourself. It was always fun sneaking past those "guards".
Since you haven't bothered to see if it's open source (it is), you don't even know if F# is Ocaml or not, and then there's SML.NET (which you forgot).
Microsoft actually hired the IronPython guy and development is going strong.
Well, if buggy cold wasn't sold or distributed then we wouldn't have any software.
If it wasn't Gnome/Gtk+, then it would have been another desktop/toolkit that got off the ground. There was no way that anybody was going to let Trolltech control the desktop with the licensing scheme they have.
So, it doesn't seem as marvelous as it first sounded. We are - what 4 or 5 years? - down the road with .NET and we still don't see that promise being fulfilled. Can I use SML with Mono? Do we have a Scheme? Python, even? ("Note that this package does not implement Python as a first-class CLR language - it does not produce managed code (IL) from Python code." from: URL:http://www.zope.org/Members/Brian/PythonNet/)
SML on Mono - We've got F# (Ocaml) and SML.NET
Python - IronPython
Scheme - no idea
What were you saying again?
I suppose you do realise that one of the most important deployment platforms for J2EE is Windows Server? You are confusing 'server operating systems' with 'software deployed on those operating systems'.
.NET.
.NET, Mono is important and can only grow. On the open source desktop, Mono is already way more popular. Maybe Sun should've stopped trying to push that Swing crap and actually make a couple Java-gtk+ apps years ago. After all, Gnome is Sun's desktop. Too little, too late.
.NET stack out of the box. Sun keeps on thinking that Java (the language) is what counts, when in reality its the JVM and class libraries.
Well, duh. Because Windows is the most prevalent operating system in the world. But "important" means nothing. Of course the "most important" stack for Windows Server is
Where Swing has a bigger presence than Webforms.
That statement just shows how clueless you really are. They don't call it TheServerSide.com for no reason. Java failed on the desktop years and years ago because Sun thinks Metal is a "good thing". Not to mention that Swing (although affords flexibility), is a cumbersome API. That's why the Swing guys are developing a new "framework" on top of Swing. Too little, too late.
Wrong. Java has substantial use for internal desktop development.
"internal"...that's nice. What, because Swing is such shit that it's an embarrassment to release anything outside of the office. Or most likely, the server side guys occassionaly get sick of generating HTML.
What a set of delusions! Mono simply doesn't exist as a server solution, and RoR, for all its hype, is hardly used at all for serious commercial development.
But just because of the
RoR is still new tech, but nobody is really questioning it's approach. That's why we have all the spinoffs based on Rails idioms. Oh, and just goto Jroller.com on any random day and see all the java developers blogging about it. You need to take off your blinders and see reality.
And as the AC pointed out, you totally neglected to mention LAMP which is absolutely chewing up Java on the low end.
You need to take your Microsoft blinkers of and take a look at the real world. Java use is still growing - check any technology analysis or job market survey.
Oh, because Dice.com told you so? Java has peaked and most developers recognize it's shortcomings (way too verbose). C# suffers from the same problem too, but there's just more language options on the
And back on topic, Open Sourcing Java will not change a damn thing either way.
Eclipse is OK, but SWT is now a largely discredited waste of time.
That would be true if Swing didn't look like shit. And no, Mustang isn't out yet.
Those who care not for Freedom have already adopted Java and those who care are either using another language or are now firmly in the GCJ camp and...
No, those that care about freedom are worrying about real freedom and not joining some religious software cult invented by Jim Jones...err, I mean Richard Stallman.
They would have to use something more like the LGPL or the apache license model so that commerical appication can leverage off it and still have their own licensing.
You can forget about LGPL too. There are huge numbers of corporate lawyers who immediately axe using any software that has any kind of GPL license.
If you had any idea about the state of Java in the IT industry, you would realise that Sun really, really don't have to work to get Java 'out there' - Java has become the dominant server-side development language, and .NET isn't even coming close to nipping at Java's heels. Compared to Java use, C# barely registers.
.NET/Mono that is intruding on Java's server space. You've got LAMP and RoR. And those solutions are chipping away at Java on the low-end. By the time Java only has the very high-end server space left, it'll be all over.
In the alternative universe that you live in that all might be true. The fact is that Microsoft's server software now outsells all of proprietary Unix combined and keeps on climbing in market share. And of course we don't need to discuss the desktop. Java was never even a blip on the desktop radar screen...even in the open source world. But it's not just
Sun still hasn't realized that Java (the platform), and not Java (the language), is what's important.
One game I'd love to see is Hexen III.
My wife still laughs when she remembers turning me into a chicken.
Maybe you're being a little nostalgic, because I don't know how anybody could have a fun time playing with a one second ping. I used to play with a 300 ping back in '97 or so, and that was fine.